10% hike on MSRP across all Ford models?

[PandaBear]

If the U.S. doesn't bring manufacturing back, along with exporting more than we import, history points out the U.S. will financially fail as a nation.

International royalties from music videos, software licensing, movies, and sporting events produced in the U.S. will not replace exporting of goods. Agriculture exports are beneficial, but not enough to offset manufacturing.

Your point of people not wanting to work in a factory is a very good and relevant point.

I "sort of" is in manufacturing, well, the designing of equipments to manufacture stuff.

The unskilled or low skilled assembly workers are no longer in the US because you don't get much paying $30/hr vs $5/hr elsewhere. The work to be done before you can hire $5/hr labor in 3rd world however, are still done in the US. You need to pay a lot of people $70-250/hr to design something, the process, the research, the marketing, the financing, the logistics, the legal, etc so that you can hire those $5/hr guys. You cannot just throw them an order and tell them to build it for $5/hr for you.

The opinion that US no longer can produce things is false. We actually come up with ways so that the rest of the world can produce things, and we make the profit out of it (we earned it) and pay those guys $5/hr. If you turn it around and look at how 3rd world countries complain about profits of running a factory you will see that those factories (the owners and their workers) aren't making decent living, and they complain that their customers (the US businesses and consumers) are keeping most of the profits, the high paying jobs, etc.

So I don't think we are on the losing end, we are actually doing very well transforming our workforce from just turning screw drivers into designing stuff, solving problems that low skill labors cannot solve, marketing products, researching solutions, and financing all these.

 

[PandaBear]

And his model was taught in business schools to a whole generation of American CEOs.

The problem with GE is not just outsourcing, but they advertised at least for a decade they made more money financing stuff than selling and manufacturing stuff.

I personally believe this is their main problem, not outsourcing or manufacturing in 3rd world. Most engineering companies go bankrupt because the board hired an MBA with no engineering background to run it like a wall street company. You are seeing that in Intel, in GE, in many other companies.

 

[loneryder]

And removal from DJIA, replaced with Walgreens.

People still think that if you have an 'index' fund, your money will grow with the index. Or if you hold a stock, it will come back.

What actually happens is that underperformers like GE get the boot, and you take the loss.

Then the market pretends like nothing ever happened and the climb continues.

FYI, Walgreens produces nothing of value.

Walgreens are closing stores all over the place!

 

[loneryder]

No idea.

There is a 1 minute video at the bottom of this link which shows how the BMW body shop has been automated compared to the late 90's.

I know BMW in South Carolina has 11,000. No one assembles a car by hand. People do use automated equipment to guide assembly - ie below from the video. They made 400,000 cars last year with 11,000 employees - 1500 a day. A lot of those employees are admin, material handling, and maintenance, but I don't know the break down.

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/money/2017/06/25/bmw-workforce/411746001/


View attachment 268000

Behind a paywall.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I tried my best to buy a 5.0 F-150 in 2019. Their prices at several Houston area dealers were so much higher than Chevy and RAM it was futile. It had nothing to do with tariffs 5 years ago. Price wise Ford > GM > RAM. I bought a RAM and its the best truck I ever owned.

True, the tariffs were not a factor then, but they will certainly be now. For all US vehicles.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Speaking of farming, Canada has very small dairy farms, less than a 10th of size as those in the USA. But for them it’s a way of life. They don’t compete at all with American corporate food producers. Yes, they are protected by tariffs but it’s so small it’s not worth worrying about.

 

[4WD]

Tesla’s Austin plant has 23,000 workers. What did they all do last week?

He asked them to email 5 things

 

[M56959]

Topic has run its course.