This is the sort of double standard that pisses me off.

Johnny, that was really funny. But I think I have your answer. The car dealers close at night, and don’t open until the next morning. I think they are planning this as if the dealer was open 12 hours at a time, which 72 ÷ 12 = 6, so you would get…

6 days? Dammit! I thought I had it figured out. Oh, well, Johnny, I don’t have an answer for you.

Even if you have a car that’s assembled in America built out of parts assembled in America, it’s going to be made out of raw material and subcomponents that came from all over the globe. Anything rubber-based is likely to come out of South America, hot-rolled carbon steel likely came from Japan or Russia, the plastic components were probably built as subcomponents in China (from oil shipped from the MidEast) then shipped to an assembler in the US, Aluminum from Indonesia or South America, rarer metals like Chromium aren’t mined here at all and are sourced from Africa or Russia or Nickel from Canada.

And, as I said, even if you DID get all of your components from within the United States, their prices are dictated by the international market. The steel guy down the street isn’t going to sell you his steel for $500/ton when the market price is $1200/ton and someone in Europe is willing to pay it. You pay whatever the International market says the price is (excluding contracts, hedges, so forth).

Can you not read? Sigma just gave an excellent explanation. Steel and oil are traded on the global market. If the commdities get more expensive, it doesn’t matter where they’re mined, refined, etc. Texas oil goes up. So does Pennsylvania steel. Not to mention the fact that, as you well know, not 100% of American-badged cars get their parts or the natural resources used to make them, from the US. We aren’t home to every natural resource.

So what, exactly, is your closed-minded, ignorant problem?

Steel and Oil (which makes plastic), two of the largest components that go into a car, are traded on the international markets and both have seen exponential price growth. The price goes in the direction the market says it goes, whether you’re buying from the guy in Pennsylvania or the guy in Turkey. Many of the raw materials that go into your car don’t come the US at all The parts might be made here, the car might be assembled here, but the US isn’t home to every single raw material on the planet. And when the price of all your metals and your rubbers and your oil and every single other thing that goes into a car goes up, but your dollar buys less, it effectively costs you even more.

It’s amazing it only went up 3.5%. They must have some pretty good hedges out there, but those only buy you time. Eventually, if the price doesn’t come down, the price catches up to you.

This isn’t a GM problem. Everyone else might not be making news out of it. And there are certainly more profitable companies that can absorb the increase for a while. But the root problem affects the industry, and our entire economy, in huge ways.

For GM, who is struggling to sell cars in the first place, raising prices seems counterintuitive, unless they are counting on making discounts seem bigger, which is what I suspect.

The competition is looking 3.5% better.

Love,
Ray