If I bit my tongue any longer I'm going to sever it, so here goes.
I get annoyed when I see how effective the Toyota PR spin has been, with the "everyone knows" facts that only tell a small part of the story. While you're being impressed by US cars being sold in Japan, how about quoting the total figure of auto export/import?
Missouri, not too long ago, was the second largest car producing state after Michigan. Lots of people around here lived comfortably, had good houses, nice cars, and sent their kids to college.
The manufacturing plants are only the tip of the iceberg. I wish I had it at hand, but the amount of money generated by the support plants used to be a huge number. We used to have Lear-Siegler seat plants, weatherstrip plants, PPG and Libby glass plants. Across the country, there were thousands of places ranging from the small machine or tool and die shops all the way up to Delco, Prestolite, Goodyear, etc.
When the Asians come in, they bring their own support plants which most often are actually somewhat hidden subsidiaries of the main company. So the profits from those go back to the East, also. I should mention that the governments, especially the Japanese, have heavily subsidized the expansions. They know that more profits rolling back in make for a stronger country.
So that's why you see the big numbers for the "US Content" in these cars.
An interesting site is
The Level Field Institute They look at how many actual jobs are maintained by all of the manufacturers along with a lot of other details that don't carry the Toyota spin.
For instance: MODEL YEAR DOMESTIC CONTENT - 2009
GM - 69
Ford - 67
Chrysler - 60
Hyundai & Kia - 13
Honda - 54
Toyota - 44
Nissan - 30
US JOBS PER 2500 AUTOS PRODUCED
Ford - 89
GM - 78
Chrysler - 92
Honda - 54
Toyota - 51
Nissan - 38
Hyundai/Kia - 26
Apologists will say that just shows the bloat in US car makers. Nope, that's the R&D facilities, finance arms, and everything that goes into running a huge corporation. Remember those jobs represent people who are spending money at whatever it is your company does. The more there are, the more taxes they pay, the more goods they buy, the houses they buy or built, etc.
As I remember, the term is "kaizen". It's the concept that businesses should be intricately dependent on each other.
You don't even have to open a hood or crawl under a car to see this in action. The next time you see a new Asian car, check out the tire manufacturer. 99% of the time, they will be Bridgestones. That's a Japanese company and the government's designated supplier.
Don't tell me about the cost of shipping tires when I see the Korean cars which are built here - they often have Hankooks or other Korean brands.
Note that I'm not being racist. Taking care of your own is an admirable thing which our government seems to have lost track of.
