bad news bad news

O..kay? What happened to smart?

NOS2006 if you mean Smart the brand, it is a joint venture between Mercedes and Swatch, and, though Chrysler has access to the platform, they are not part of the collaboration. If you mean smart as in intelligent, well….

Inevitable. Also is anyone watching the other maneuvering?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7B7D0E7092%2DC1E9%2D49B3%2D8A97%2DBAF012651AB2%7D&dist=rss

Just another excuse to export middle class jobs because of a lack of product planning, stockholder greed and attempts to union bust

bye bye chrysler, i can buy eroupean no problem ,but will never ever buy a chineese car. i dont care if they surpass lexus in quality, the chineese are our enemies building weapons to be used against us and us only, and we are stupid enough to know what they are doing and keep funding them. the only reason they did the satellite test was to have the tech to destroy our military gps, everybody needs to open their eyes and realize we are funding a war machine that is arming against us as we speak.

Yes buenos, but as of right now Mercedes IS chrysler and access to Smart platforms should not be difficult at all. I think Mercedes would rather see their dollars being spent on their own solid platform than the crappy ass chinese one.

Except that the events of the last two weeks seem to suggest that Mercedes is trying to distance itself from Chrysler.

Plus Smart is already being sold in North America as Smart, and fairly successfully. The fortwo is on sale in Canada, and will be in the United States next year. I would fully expect to see an expansion of the Smart lineup (i.e. roadster and forfour) before I would expect to see any kind of rebadging.

Chery needs an “in,” and Chrysler needs some product.

A perfect thread for the LLN children to demonstrate their lack of knowledge with regard to global economics and politics. I see the show has already started…

Better toss out your computer China haters, your aiding our enemy by using it!

CTS DRIVER:
it looks like you are at least aware of your environment;

Random JERK:

You are apparently foolish and lacking critical thinking skills. You and those like you who may be unrealistic dreamweaver thinkers should delve deeper into the politics and take a much closer look and re-evaluate the potential dangers here.
Just wait until they demand payment of our debt (they own most of it) and finish military modernizing…..where will we be able to find you then?

As far as ‘busting unions’ goes, they brought it on themselves. And a little as I like exporting certain jobs, well, UAW deserves every single exportation of a job that it can lose.
UAW patriotic? right.

Sigh…no, Chrysler, no…

global economics are on a good track rite now, millionaires are popping up in countries everywhere. more people have food on their plates globally than ever, more people have a choice in their cars than ever before. more people have jobs to go to than ever before, america is disarming faster than ever before, and the chineese and russians are arming faster than ever. im just saying who do they need to arm against if its not us, the russians just came out with a stealth nuke and the chineese now have satellite destroying missiles, all in the name of peace? with taiwan being a hot spot and the chineese economy sliding the way it is today, and their claim that the 21st century is theirs all i see is the next cold war slowly creeping in. russia has found money and slid straight back to the old iron fisted ways, lets just hope the chineese who have embraced capitalism dont follow the russians. anybody that really sees china and russia as long time friends dont realize the american economy has been sold to china yeares ago and they hold us by the balls, look how far our stock market has slid today due to a small hickup in the chineese economy.russia is strong arming its neighbors with energy threats. my opinion may be flawed or just completely wrong, but i see china as the same behind the scenes backstabbers they have always been. i would rather send my money to europe if the american auto industry fails completely, at least they have told us straight out what they think, they hate us but are honest. i would buy german (vw) before i would ever buy chineese (cherry).

What car-a-holic has pointed out:
.
“Just wait until they demand payment of our debt (they own most of it)…”
.
This is very true.

thanks car-a-holic, you are damn rite, what happens when we can not pay up.

Perhaps Chrysler is looking for a way to get into the largest growing automobile market on the planet.

Paging Dr. Strangelove, Paging Dr. Strangelove….

I may live in heart shaped world, but thinking China will soon get hostile, sounds silly.

Actually the US owes more of its debt to the Japanese than the Chinese.

‘At the end of 2004, foreign holdings of Treasury debt were $1.886 trillion, which was 44% of the total debt held by the public. Foreign central banks owned 64% of the Federal debt held by foreign residents; private investors owned nearly all the rest (figures are from the Analytical Perspectives of the 2006 U.S. Budget, page 257).

The country holding by far the most U.S. debt is Japan which held $644.2 billion at the end of August 2006. In recent years the People’s Republic of China…..of which about $339 billion are U.S. Treasury securities.’

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._public_debt

This is a good move becausse on small cars to make a profit the car has to be produced cheaply. From what I remember the Honda Jazz is also made in China so don’t be surprised when more companies go out there to make cars.

their actions have already spoken meanpants555.
if we were best friends the p3 orion instance would never have happened they held those crewmembers and the plane hostage. i dont think tomorrow they will straight out attack us, but they are hostile. no country in this whole world needs to be in an arms race at all. the only thing this world should be worried about is a few thousand insane fundamentalists and their minions. china does confuse the hell out of me with those actions, they want to do business with us on one side and get into our huge auto buying market which is understandable, then at the same time say for every one missile we build for a shield theyll build 100 nukes. That doesnt exactly sound like best friends, mabey i turned into dale gribble (aka:rusty shakleford) when i wasnt paying attention.

xuimod:

I should have spoken more conservative and more acurate about the debt numbers. Your right but dont forget the point still remains that if the Chinese divest themselves from US debt and currency the results would be very significant.

Well, I’d never buy a Chrysler anyway, but now I hope the whole company goes under.

And to Random_Jerk:
There’s a difference between a $1,000 laptop and a $13,000 car.

And to Fatstrat:
What’s with all the hate towards the UAW? I don’t get it.

My pen says made in China. If my car says that too, what’s the big deal?

maximus china is a double edged sword, they have all but destroyed their enviornment it wont be very long before they have to look outside of their borders for a food and clean water supply. they will start east ask tibet, then focus on their little islands ask taiwan. 25% of their population lives well below the poverty line and the other 75% have tasted a better life with their embracement of capitalism. what do you think will happed when their country has a major economic collapse and cant even grow edible food. i dont think they will sit back and ask for handouts, they will overrun their region. i am not looking at tomorrow i am looking at the history of the far east. sorry to ramble on and on and on but i do not trust the chineese govt and their huge military buildup, chrysler can shove it until the chineese start acting like they are not a threat. when and if china and russia start joining the world we live in i will look at their products differently. it would be nice to have a world that only squabbles in trade and didnt have to build more nukes to feel safe from each other.
p.s. my pen says made in the u.s.a. on it. i would also accept made in japan,germany,mexico,brittain and even made in france.

I understand the criticism against Random Jerk, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s completely valid.

And the main difference between a $1000 laptop and a $13000 car is that the profit margin on the laptop is probably significantly higher. So, in a sense, buying a Chinese computer (or computer parts) is actually worse than purchasing a car from a Chinese manufacturer. And I’m willing to bet that the profit margin on maximus’ pen is even higher than on this laptop. So, when any of you drive by a Wal-Mart and see a parking lot of American-made SUVs being packed as full as possible with stuff, just think of how many dollars are going into the Chinese economy.

This is a situation that the US (government/public/businesses) has been actively participating in for years. Somebody should have taken stand when clothing or housewares or electronics or pretty much anything else that can be named began being manufactured primarily overseas (something like 95% of clothing in North America is manufactured outside of North America). Refusing to buy Chinese cars is just too little, too late.

You may not like it now….but you will.

Unfortunately, I am not given a choice as to where my computer is made, so that really isn’t a legitimate discussion. I do have a choice where my car is made, mostly, even though I’m sure a good share of the computer electronics are out-sourced to Chinese by the suppliers.
CTS, good points, talk about a time-bomb waiting to explode! The most populous country in the world but with third-world living standards. What do you expect, the west pushed all the unwanted jobs, all the dirty little secrets onto contries that didn’t have the labor and environmental standards that have been in place for nearly the last 70 years here in our country. Chromium…Lead…Mercury…just the tip of the iceberg.
I think a saw an article published last week about how China is on the verge of environmental disaster and the economic tailspin that it will set the country into will be breathtaking.
Here, too, again, not the fault of the citizens of that country, but rather the oppression of a communist government and the privileged few that have ruled with an ominous, iron fist.
We, as a nation, have not cared as long as we have everything we need. Lulled by our consumerism. The same will go for cars…America has sold it’s soul to the east.

AHHG! So sorry, didn’t proof, excuse the spelling.

nowei has nailed it… besides many U.S. companies have already begun exporting or outsourcing parts outside of our country for eons. GM and Ford have had strong European presences since the Model T, Ford of Europe didn’t just spring up out of mid-air, neither did GM’s purchase of Holden, Opel, and Vauxhall. That’s not counting GM’s and Ford’s presence in Brazil, Mexico, China, Canada, et al that have happened en masse recently. If you’re going to turn it into a job market issue… there’s your culprits as much as anyone. Japan is as much an ally with their creation of domestic market jobs for us as they are an enemy to the Big Three who in reality, have demonized themselves more and more into an UnAmerican mess. Yet if it keeps them going and people are genuinely smart/ignorant to not care (for the right or wrong reasons)… more power to them. It’s the American way… (freedom to do as they want/need)

So as far as having a choice as to where you buy your car… to some extent you do, to some extent you don’t. You went from having 100% choice in U.S. parts and labor to fractions of a fraction in some cases, and it’s apt to get more and more significant as time goes on. It’s largely a global economy anymore and what you’re poised to witness is one side hurts the other and vice-versa when things aren’t going smooth. It behooves China for us to do well so that maybe we can repay that debt rather than go through another “Depression” down the road and basically everything have to be written off to kickstart everything all over again. The healthier we all are as nations… the better off we all are together.

The only thing this “Rah-rah” militant anti-semitist notions spewed by the ignorant proves is that you’re short-sighted more than those you give poor credit too. People fear the unknown, they want to point out how they’re the villains (without having even talked to them much less gained their perspective) but it’s ironic how a few years ago China and many European/Asian countries were holding talks of a global environmental summit and Bush denied U.S. a presence there (showing how much precedence the environment holds with him). It’s always peachy-keen on our end and we the people who elect these imbeciles can never do any wrong. Our own Pres. has proven on more than one occasion he’s a general SNAFU of knee-jerk poor choices that aren’t properly thought through and yet… it’s everyone ’s fault but our own (amongst the American public) because we can’t see it any other way. Heaven help us being in the wrong for a change and actually owning up to our own failures?!? I swear it is laughable how much as a country we truly can live in denial of our own failed diplomacy and ignorant actions, how sheltered much of the American people live with regards to World News simply because “Them foreigners…” don’t deserve your time.

BTW we did have a choice to buy U.S. made electronics goods… it’s just that none of the U.S. goods were any good to speak of at that time, hence companies like Magnavox and Zenith and other prominent names disappeared as time went on or became foreign owned due to mismanagement on the U.S. side and the reality that we were getting trounced on equally reliable and more feature-rich products that could sell for a lot less than we could provide. Even there… some of it wasn’t on our workers or unions shoulders… it was the execs making poor decisions and choices and it leading them to a situation where they buried themselves. Pens and other supplies are another whole story, there’s bound to be some concessions as a country rises up with cheap labor… we did it for awhile as well if you look to your U.S. history and realize the exploitation of child labor that went on here as well. Let’s face it… I’m sure the British weren’t too happy with us when we rose up during the Industrial Revolution and crippled them on job production as we skyrocketed. Reality is though… it was inevitable. China is the same fate, just doesn’t look as cool when we’re not on the receiving end of new prosperity.

We could’ve done what? Nothing. We tariff the heck out of Chinese products they’d do the same to us. It’d not bare fruit for us in the end anymore than it’d draw an even bigger line in the sand and be grounds for an even larger Anti-American backlash. If there’s one decision we’ve made… this is genuinely the right one. Sooner or later in the ebb and flow and balancing act of life… things will hopefully come back to our favor. Whether you or I are around to see it remains to be seen and that’s largely up to keeping people with a level enough head on their shoulders to make sure we remain (or is that become?) a civilization long enough to see the light shine on us once again.

The idea that China is arming themselves to attack the US is a strange one. Why would China use military force when they are already achieving such success through commerce?
China are arming themselves to defend against attack from a fading super power that is running out of options. As the US struggles to maintain its influence it has had to turn to force to keep hold of what it used to secure through commercial might (control over the worlds oil markets). China needs to be sure that it can continue to grow without unfair interference from the US. The rest of the world can be reassured at the development of another super power, which will hopefully bring some balance and cause the US to move more cautiously in future.

Great another topic filled with paranoid “patriots”… The Chinese are so commercially minded like the Japanese, they’d rather pamper a client than to draw a gun. But feel free to think like a union worker.

The only thing this “Rah-rah” militant anti-semitist notions
Comment by IVIIVI4ck3y27

Wait, what? Do you even know what anti-semitist means?

most of the problems we have in this country rite now are our own fault there is no paranoia, iran is a great example of “blowback” we set up death squads for the shaw and now look at the mess. the problems with south america are our fault for the mess we made with the sandinistas/contras. cuba is our fault castro reached out and we squashed him. america originally set up the chineese communist party in northern china, china is our fault. oh yeah we caused every single one of our own problems and have spent the last 20 years backtracking, ask noriega the cia operative. grenada anyone? how about saddam himself? lets not even get started with our former ally in afghanistan, bin laden.our companies and polititions that own them sold this country years ago. but do i thing the descions were evil…no, were they rite….no. i understand that the politions did what they did to make this country rich and great, but they were blind to potentiol blowback.and we are paying that price in blood rite now all over the world. i do not think america can or will ever be able to attack china, history has told us to stay out of a land war in asia, the chineese know this, we couldnt fight them off in vietnam we surley cant do it now. my point is that this world is in another scary useless arms race, we will never attack china (unless forced to by international law regarding taiwan, but we WILL let them have the island)and they know it, so them arming to protect against us is a silly thought. we will never have the manpower to take china, so lets stop the arms race its going nowhere. after that mabey i will think of them as i do the japaneese…..great business men with genious ideas and razor sharp execution of good business plans.

I’ll hold judgment until I see something come from this. With how shaky Chinese overall business practices and since of “fair-play” seem to be. I doubt this will get very far.

By Chrysler has some good engineers that can put together better machines themselves if only they’d stop relying on others and just build the damn things. I mean where DID all the money go from the sales of the 300, Charger, and their trucks?

I would think Chrysler would be very solid on its own by now… even if they did own Daimler-Benz for the parts. Get some new execs with a vision and goals for the company and stop signing on to everyone with some loose change.

good question blakkar i see more 300`s as a whole than probably any other car out there. theyre everywhere.

Stadt…
IMHO, the UAW is largly responsible for decreasing product quality. The outrageous costs to keep the union fat and happy hurts the US automakers ability to ‘wage war’ on the foreign competition.

Also, I do not like our current position with China one bit, but, depending on how you look at the situation, the Chi-coms get mostly measly low wage manufacturing jobs from us and we control a vast amount of their export business. That is not a particularly perfect situation from their perspective either.
If we were to pull out, costs of some of our goods, many which are not of critical importance, would rise, but the Chi-coms would be awash in unemployment with huge factories going silent virtually over night.
Just a little different way to look at it.

IVIIVI
Wasnt the quality of electronics that sent US buyers east, it was price. That is a historical fact.
Knee jerk?
Please.

well this just proves how greedy business owners don’t give a damn about the us. they need slave labor to produce a car for 500 bucks and sell it for 14k. I won’t ever buy a crysler pos now thats for sure. maybe one day when you liberals wake up and realize they are taking americans jobs. only reason crysler did this is because they are greedy and need to profit more than they already do. maybe if they got rid of the unions everything would be better. all i know is china is not our friend so believe they are its only your own throat thats getting cut by buying one of these peices of garbage. If they want to play these games then we can too and i say charge tariffs on the cars and other foreign garbage that is getting thrown on our beaches. teach them a lesson. I mean its only fair since they charge us tariff taxs on what little stuff we send them…

Faststang94,

IT wasn’t the liberals who shipped a majority of America’s Manufacturing overseas, it was the conservative elites who want everyone to believe that everyone else is the enemy that did. Who has the money? who wants more? Who does not care if American becomes a semi or pseudo feudal state like Mexico or most of South America?

It isn’t the Liberals. I can say that because they are the one’s who got American to be America and not an Apartheid nation like it was or South Africa was. Got us Social services. Gave anyone not white and male the right to vote as well. The list goes on forever.

Anything that has gone wrong isn’t because of Liberals, but Conservative wanting their way and to hell with the rest of us.

That said…

I would be happier if we left that kind of politicking out of a car forum. It’s almost as ugly as swearing and cursing for no good reason.

fastang and blakkarr, you are both equally wrong on your points.
However, since this is not a blog for history lessons, I will just point out that you should pick up a history book or two and perhaps investigate getting something other than a public school education that seems to have served you and scores like you so poorly.