I wrote the economics thing. Yeah, I have a 99 Ford Ranger and I have also had some expensive engine problems recently. I just think the long term trends I see are worrisome for North American society and our future generations. I think the real problem is not the American consumer purchasing the best products available to them , it is that the corporate culture in the USA ends up creating an inferior product to the Japanese. The culture within large public companies in the U.S. is one of short sighted self interest. The most important thing on the minds of top management is networking in order to get promotions and how to manipulate the boards into giving them hundreds of millions in unjustifiable bonuses, instead of figuring out how to create an organization capable of producing a superior product. They are only accountable to the shareholder, and the shareholders are the passive and anonymous masses. This attitude trickles down throughout the entire organization. Everybody is looking out for themselves, and they don't care about the final product. The produced goods are only an means to the ends of personal gain. Ostensibly, the culture within Japanese organizations hold the creation of a superior product as the most important goal. Personal gain is secondary. They take more pride in the corporation's success than their own success. I think the public company copncept with it's Board of Directors oversight is flawed, and the government badly needs to start reforms for corporate America, and they need to start with the corporate governance issue.