The Money Goes to Japan with Every Sale of a Toyota

As long as my money doesn't go to Texas I'm happy

 

A global market situation? Is that free trade?
How about government subsidies in the form of:
-free export transportation
-free or reduced rate energy
-free or reduced rate capital
-government sponsored or co-op r&d
-government funded health care and pensions
-cash cow closed home market
-government sponsored commercial espionage and spying
-govenment funded "cultural" programs in market countries

to name a few.

Free trade does not exist. We can only hope for and work towards semi-fair-trade.

 

On the face of this tread it sounds like a little racism at work . We are a corporate society. Those really nice Big 3 automakers who purged their plants from Michigan and devastated whole cities and everyone blames the Japanese. The japanese build quality Toyotas in Kentucky. Aren't the americans building quality cars there? Does it make americans feel better that americans become wealthy even if the public drives poorly built cars? Wouldn't a car buyer appreciate the japanese dong well if the quality of the cars are excellent? America today is owned by foreign investors. It is economically disadvantageous for America to be in this position but its the reality. Our politicians that rant about big government now have us up to or eyeballs in the national debt. Is it trillons now? Nothing like policing the world to keep us in our place. Who is watching the store anyway?
I think in time corporations will just buy countries legally, just like a global Monopoly game. We went from having wars to procuring a country to corporations impacting the national economy to such a degree that foreign investment takes precedent to our own country. Why not have corporations buying countries? At least its straightforward.

 

You said it all right there. Much of our debt is owned by foreign countries, you read about it everyday, banks etc getting funds from foreign countries to sustain their borrowing. It is really a great plan first implemented by the Japanese and now being copied on a much grander scale by the Chinese and Indians. Start with small scale items and do whatever it takes to bankrupt entire industries, gradually moving up both the scope and value of the industries involved and eventually tackling the largest value-producing industries.
Junky toys....textiles......small electronics......furnitures........large electronics.......automobiles...........aerospace?...........homes?

Eventually the wealth has been completely transferred.

Someday we will find out how much our mainstream media has been unknowingly duped into this whole mess.

The US trade Deficit will be nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in 2008.

 

Rather than saying something bad about somebody, I'll go with the most reliable (altho in the links they tell the full story). Consumer Reports is a good start, like this report:

"Reliability remains a forte for most Japanese brands. Twenty-three of the 33 models in our “most reliable†list are from Japanese automakers. Moreover, we’ve predicted average reliability or better for all Honda and Subaru models based on our most recent survey.

This year’s forecast shows that domestic models, led by Ford, continue to improve and that there are small improvements in European makes as well."
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Or gizmag article for the UK listing top ten cars for reliability says "... congratulations to the Japanese automotive industry which supplied every car in the Top 10, and an amazing 16 of the Top 20."

And you gotta love this article about J.D.Powers research of problems in 3-year-old cars. It has Lexus as #1 (for 14 years straight), but surprisingly Mercury #2, Cadillac #3, Toyota #4, Acura #5. (rating all problems equally, including complaints about wind noise and window fogging).

The Toyota Prius was first in reliability in the Compact Car segment, with 141 PP100 (problems per 100 vehicles) in the most recent J.D. Power survey. That makes it one of the most reliable cars on the road, which is even more remarkable given the number of tech toys in the Prius.
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Yes, if a domestic auto maker made a car, any car, that was reliable, practical and got at least 40 mpg I probably would have bought that instead of the Prius. But they don't, so the question is moot. Until that day, I'd rather send money to Japan than to OPEC, even if the ratio is ten to one. We have a LTR with Japan, OPEC just wants to rape us and then leave us for dead when peak oil really hits. (And I'm not buying the POS South Korean Chevy Aveo by Daewoo, which is an embarrassment to all small cars. Sorry, but you can't consider that a domestic car even with the Chevy nameplate. But I did think about the Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe, which is reliable and built in the U.S.)

 

The one I bold-faced bothers me. Our government set up the PNGV (partnership for next generation vehicle) with the Big-3 for the express purpose of combining funds and R&D to make a commercially viable family sedan that got 80 mpg. Toyota wasn't allowed to join this group, so they went their own way and made the Prius. Meanwhile, the Big-3 paid lip service to this project and promptly forgot all about when Bush came into office (and GM went wacko on the fuel cell research, spending over a billion dollars on that, money I bet they wish they still had). Each manufacturer should have had a high-mpg vehicle to respond with to answer to the Prius, but somehow none of their prototypes were made production worthy in the intervening years and now they're starting from scratch again.

So you can say what you want about Japan's government sponsoring R&D. Our government tried that with our Big-3 and it did no good. You can lead a horse to water...

 

Malorn, are you trying to tell us the total mark-up on a new Toyota from dock to final purchaser is only $4000? That being split between the distributor and dealer including all land transport!

We can also assume that an American car is 100% American, right? There are no imported parts, patents or technology in an American car?

Either way, I don't care, Toyota are now as Australian as Ford and Holden. I also know if I buy anything other than a big 6 or V8 from any but Toyota the car is an import anyway. Only Toyota actually build a 4 cylinder car in Australia.

 

My word for the day; Hummerski.

"Deripaska" will simplify googling

 

Lets play with some numbers here.
I buy a Prius worth $22,000 or a good old US of A truck like an F series for the same sort of money, after all I have a budget.
I travel 15,000 miles a year. A car has a life of say 20 years, not just for the purchaser but the entire life of the vehicle. So over the life of the vehicle will travel about 300,000 miles for arguments sake.

Prius gets 55 miles to the gallon and the ef series manages say 18mpg so over the life of a Prius we will use 5454.54 gallons of gas while a F series will use 16,666 gallons of gas or a little over 10,000 gallons of gas more than a Prius.

Over the life of the cars, 300,000 miles, and at todays gas prices the ef series gulps down about $40,000 worth of petroleum more than the Prius. So what portion of the petroleum is imported? How much money is the flag waving pig headed patriot sending to the middle east over the life of his American truck? How many car bombs and how much suicide training will that money buy?

 

Remember of the $40,000 only about 58% of the cost of gasoline is actually from the crude oil itself =$23,200
Of the $23,200 about 57% is imported=$13,456 is from non US sources.
Of the imported oil about 21.5% of the imported oil comes form the Persian Gulf region=$2,893.

So of the $40,000 difference about $2,893 will go to the middle east.

 

Of course Malorn, you're ignoring the fact that the 58% number was generated back when crude oil was $70 per barrel... now that it's $120, how does that number compare?

You're also forgetting the amount of money that stays in America for every car Toyota sells... Sales commissions, dealer fees, transportation costs, new title and registration, taxes, etc... In the end, i'd say a lot of that initial $22,000 stays in America. Heck, Toyota's even manufacturing a bunch of cars here! What if i bought one of those cars... would you still be screaming about the money flowing over seas for that?

 

So if the % was say 70% the final number would be $3,431.

On your second point, on an $22,000 imported vehicle I would say about $18,000 goes back to Japan. Lets say I'm 50% off in your favor, then its $16,000.

 

Care to provide sources and citations? I went to the State Department and Census dot gov.

See, that's the problem. The folks who skimped, saved, busted their humps, that entire ideal is now scoffed at. You're supposed to rush out and get everything RIGHT NOW on easy credit.

That ingenuity, risk, and hard work has degraded into decadance, laziness, and whiny cry babies who refuse to lift a finger. Nobody has a "birthright" you have to work for everything in the Real World.

Once you sit on your past accomplishments, you're done. Nobody even cares what you do right now, what are you planning on doing tomorrow, next year, five years from now?

Once established companies started thinking no further ahead than the next quarter, they had already committed suicide

 

According to this source

Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries

and this source

U.S. Product Supplied for Crude Oil and Petroleum Products

Depending on historical averaging, upwards of 65% of total American petroleum demand is satisfied by imported sources

I'm still on the fence thinking about T Boone Pickens, however, his claim of 700 billion leaving the country for oil is pretty dramatic

PickensPlan

He also claims the US now imports 70% of its oil. Again, depending on historical averaging, that isn't too far removed from reality. I still think Pickens is an opportunist, but that is the American Way after all

Energy is a very serious concern. For some reason, you appear fixated on Toyota as the root cause of all Evil. There are a lot of very serious issues going on in the US, those issues resulted in my decision to move to Canada.

Whether republican or democrat, both are evil, money hungry jerks who have sold America out, and not even to the highest bidder. It doesn't matter who gets elected this fall, the end result is the same

 

Oh gee-zus, and who do you blame for that? Toyota? Japan Inc, or China Inc??

The Japanese have plenty of their own economic trouble. Our trouble is caused by the fact we are a bunch of selfish, greedy, spoiled whiny brats living in the autumn of our former glory. A cold, harsh, nasty winter is just around the corner

We demanded decades of easy credit, recently much easier - the mortgage meltdown being one result. Nobody wants to work and save anymore, everybody wants everything new, RIGHT NOW, and they want to pay for it later

If you passed a law prohibiting foreign investment, watch the economy shrivle to a small fraction of what it now is. You would have to depend on domestic saving/investment to fund things, and we know how well the average American or Canadian saves today

We can also thank decades of incompatent, borderline criminal political parties - of all flavors - running us onto the rocks. Thanks to television, our attention spans are so microscopic we have forgotten the historical lessons. Anybody remember the S&L crisis?

You are correct in that foreign powers now "own" the US and Canada. Remember the 90's, when both the US and Canada suddenly had magical budget "surpluses?" How was that possible?

If you apply creative financing and refi the debt to much lower interest rates, as Finance Minister Paul Martin did here in Canada, you have a surplus. Somebody else then has a chance to hold the note, in this case China

So in the end, we have ourselves to blame for our selfish, greedy, arrogant lifestyle choices. We might as well suck up and face it

 

I agree, it is time to suck it up and face it. I just don't see a leader emerging in the US(I admit my knowwledge of Canada's leaders is limited.)with a plan that will solve our crisis of leadership and resulting debt. Who do you see? How bad will it have to get before that happens?

 

Pat, I won't quibble over your figures, but I am surprised at your conclusion!
Who imports oil to the US? Oil companies. They take the biggest cut, and they don't fund anything except themselves (except maybe buying up the occassional battery patent). Yeah, the oil producers make a lot of money too, but they either spend it on private planes and jets for the family or building the occasional island or big piece of concrete with someone's name on it. The huge gap between the rich and poor might indirectly produce a car bomber or two, but direct funding for one? Nah.

Oh yeah, Malorn, political "leaders" in the us are chosen by financial interests. Anyone who would rock the boat too much doesn't actually get very far. So yes, you guys are pretty much hosed. Which is bad news for the rest of us 'cause just like Afghanistan was a breeding ground for the export of terrorism, the US has become a breeding ground for heartless capitalists exporting mindless consumption and environmental havoc. So we're pretty much all screwed ;-)

 

My figures as always are just approximates and always simple maths any clown even an uneducated bird brained Aussie can replicate. That's how dumb you have to be to ignore the facts of these simple numbers.

Another point I should make is people with an education, myself excluded are more likely to buy a Prius than a dumb bunny high school dropout like me. The dropout if he can raise the finance will be down getting an ef series cos he/she is into lots of steel for his borrowed dollar. So what harm is it doing that these people who can least afford it are spending an extra $40,000 on fuel for their toy truck over 20 years? That's a nice deposit on a house right there. What harm is that doing to the American economy?

Oh, and someone is sponsoring terrorists, I don't think it is the Japanese.

 

Japanese Red Army - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aum Shinrikyo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Must be that college education of mine at work.