90130:
Yes, Toyota and Honda have been building assembly plants in the US, and they are providing jobs that are somewhat compensating the massive layoffs occurring in the big 3 US auto makers. This is partly a strategy to head off any possibility of the US congress passing any protective tariff legislation. Have you noticed the recent Toyota ads touting how many US jobs they created? However, like I mentioned previously, where do you think the high value design and engineering work takes place? Japan. Is the US going to concede that all they are good for is the hourly wage assembly work while the Japanese do all the highly paid work that require university degrees? - you know what? In that case in the long term, Americans on average will only be able to afford the economy Japanese compacts, not the Acuras and Lexus. Is the US moving forward towards being a knowledge based society that outsources low-skilled assembly work to less developed countries? Or is it moving backwards towards a cheap labor, uneducated, menial work society? Well isn't the high tech Silicon Valley a good example of American progress? A friend of mine with an electrical engineering degree just moved to California for a job with a semi-conductor company. He said all of the engineers there are from Russia, Canada, and Europe.
When a US company does design a superior product, foreign countries are very unreceptive, and let nationalism influence their purchases. Microsoft for example, designed a very good product in the XBox360, and in some aspects is superior to Sony's PS3. For one thing, MS has a far superior online and multiplayer service. However, it was an unmitigated failure in Japan, even though it was released long before the PS3. The Japanese likely recognize that even though the PS3 is assembled in China, the high paying engineering jobs at Sony are being threatened in this case, and it would be unpatriotic to support a foreign competitor.