Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!umich!vela!sycom!rkushner From: rkushner@sycom.UUCP (Ronald Kushner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Who cares if its made in USA? Message-ID: Date: 24 Jun 91 02:01:45 GMT References: <1991Jun23.203549.24627@wehi.dn.mu.oz> Organization: Michigan Information eXchange Lines: 100 baxter_a@wehi.dn.mu.oz writes: >There has recently been a number of postings decrying the use of >foreign parts and the sale of foreign electronic goods in the USA. If we loose the electronics market, we're done...Finished...BK will even close..We'll all be moving to Canada in droves to get jobs!! I have considered it myself... >I'm a little surprised this is necessary, but I'll do it anyway... > >This is an international forum. Many of these comments have been >racist, bigotted and inflammatory. It is quite inappropriate to post >the sorts of nationalistic mindless drivel that we have been >innundated with. Humm, and the Japanese not allowing US companies to sell US grown RICE in Japan doesn't come from mindless protectionist drivel? If anyone is racist, its the Japanese. The Japanese automakers have about 8 assembly plants in America, and employ 97% whites. Less than 3% blacks and hispanics. And in the United States blacks make up 13% of the population. Sounds racist to me...and Mazda must have all the blacks, because they are the only union plant and the only plant near urban America. It's just that you just don't know, you don't know that you don't know, and you don't want to know... >There are very good reasons _not_ to buy USA made goods. They are >often more expensive, poorer quality, less advanced, worse designed, >worse supported, and less well distributed. "Buy American" campaigns >just help to support badly functioning companies which cannot >compete in the open market. Well, lets see Japan open up thier markets to US rice, autos, and other products that they keep out. We'll see who wins in an open market. Chrysler next year will start up production of RIGHT HAND DRIVE Jeep's that will be built in Toledo, Ohio, with exporting to Japan in mind...We'll see what happens... Everyone throw out their GE LightBulbs, they are trash...they are worse designed, less advanced, and less distributed than Japanese lightbulbs. Time to trash US Robotics modems, the are poorer quality than Koren ones..Better stop buying Hayes...Stop buying Honda Civics, they are American Built...See how silly a blanket statements like that look? Interesting that you say US products aren't as good. My friend owns a research company that basically does quality studies and customer surveys and I remember the WORST BUILT AMERICAN FORD was the Mustang, built in Dearborn, Michigan. It scored miles ahead in quality than the Australian designed and built Mercury Capri, which is based on a Mazda 323 platform...The Ford Escort which was engineered in the US, and is built in Wayne, Michigan, is also based on a Mazda 232 platform. The Ford Escort scored very high in quality surveys, in comparison to the Mustang. If you take the same original platform and company X(Ford Australia) builds shit from it, and company Y(Ford North America) does a world class job with it, who's more advanced? (Ford owns 20% of Mazda, and trades platforms with them). I use Ford as an example, because they try to build plants, R&D centers, and headquarters in the countries that they do business in, and try to produce a majority of products they sell in a certain market in that market...(Plus I have alot of data here) Japanese companies dump products in America. Take the Toyota Previa, it sells in Japan for US$22,300. It gets unloaded in Long Beach, California, and the price now becomes US$15,200...Doesn't the boat ride cost anything??? It should be subject to 25% duty as well, since its a truck, but because Japanese spend $100 million a year lobbying the government, so it only pays the duty of that of a car(2.5%). How can a functioning company compete against this!??!?!?(Nonfunctioning companies would be out of business by then) Let me put it this way, if a Japanese company reverse engineered the Amiga 500, built it, and sold it in Japan for $1500, and then shipped it to the United States and sold it for $250, how would you feel then? Its just unfair...And they learned from MSX that the only way to crack the US computer market is to build what Americans are allready buying cheaper... When a company sells a product for less than it costs to make, or less than consumers in the home market pay for it, it is dumping, and very illegal... If the computer industry doesn't watch out, the same thing will happen to them, or it allready hasn't. All the low cost clones are now "Samsung", "Daewoo", "Goldstar". I do not know if they are dumped here though, I have no figures avaiable on computers...But it starts with low cost products, and then next you know they are taking on the most expensive of products where the real money is made(Apple Macintosh type computers). Hatachi has shown a great interest in keeping the Motorolla 68030 out of the US computer market... I would suspect a Japanese Macintosh clone shortly, since I was told by a guy from Apple they do alot of business there, and after checking out his claim, it is 100% correct. The Japanese grease more hands than Apple does, so I wouldn't expect anything to be done about it legally either...While they are trying to grab the whole Apple Macintosh market in the US, they will raise the price of RAM chips, video chips, etc, that Apple buys from Japanese companies, since most Japanese companies work together without the restrictions of anti-trust, and can do this. And when these prices go up, EVERYONE around the world will be hurt, because the only place you can get RAM from is from Japan now... -- C-UseNet V0.42e Ronald Kushner Life in Hell BBS +1 (313) 939-6666 P.O. Box 353 14400 USR HST V.42 & V.42bis Sterling Heights, MI 48311-0353 Complete Amiga Support UUCP: uunet!umich!vela!sycom!rkushner (We are not satanic, just NUTS!) No blood for oil! Raising C.A.F.E. to 40MPG is just that!