Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: oilboy123
Yes I don't know why we are such pansies when it comes to the trade imbalance between China/US/Japan?
GM has sold more cars in China this year than the US. What is wrong with that? I read ignorant posts all over the internet of why people won't even consider GM cars ranging from some 1974 Vega that was a rust bucket when they had it in 1984, to "Government Motors" to some stupid anti-union thing. It's sad what an ignorant sector of society a portion of this country has become.
The issue is our lax trade policies with China, whilst China levies strict trade policies with us that, as Nick noted, means that we basically sell them our souls (or in this case, GM sells them their souls) to sell vehicles there. They end up with Chinese-made cars with Chinese-made engines being manufactured by Chinese people and assembled by Chinese workers. And they get access to all the IP meaning that they will eventually be able to sever the partnership and undercut GM (and whomever else is operating in that market) with their own products.
The deck is heavily stacked against successful long-term sales in China. They don't want foreign companies operating in China, they want our knowledge. Once they have that, they will leverage their low-cost labour and government-backed manufacturing to undercut everybody in the automotive industry. Like with electronics, this will be a massive game-changer for the industry and few companies will survive. We are doing this to ourselves however, as a capital-driven system, money is our ultimate motivator, and at this time, China is a source of revenue for companies like GM. Until of course it isn't. But by then the damage will already be done and China will own yet another massive chunk of the manufacturing landscape. This is a road to ruin, because there is no way to force China to play fair. And we are too greedy as a society to avoid taking advantage of what they offer.
