Well, he is correct. What do you want him to say? When American automakers build cars Americans want to buy, then they will buy them simple as that.

Fair trade policies for all those Accords and Camrys built in the US?

I believe the context was all profits from competing manufacturers, most speficially Japan, going back to those countries.

specifically, wow, excuse my spelling!

Your automakers??? arent they his automakers too??? (american cars)jeez This is such a joke.

It goes a liitle deeper than “it was built here”. First the dollars that you give them go back to Japan to be invested in their economy. Second, the American manufacturers have taken care of millions of AMERICAN employees providing them with excellent pensions, retirement plans, and medical benefits for a hundred years. The Japanese have set up shell games across our country and have suckered you in. “Built in America, is American” NOT! How soon till we start purchasing vehicles from the Al Quida? This is Pearl Harbor 2006 only they didn’t fire a single shot or drop a single bomb.

I can see global economics is not a strong point of the Leftlane readership.

Considering George Bush’s history of mediocrity as a businessman, I think he meant *he* couldn’t make the automakers profitable. And as president he apparently can’t do anything about countries with socialist systems that absorb many of the costs US companies have to bear, or that manipulate their currency value below what the market would set based on their trade surplus with the US.

BCM, Chinese vehicles aside (coming soon), where does any of that come into play with the current hardships of US automakers?

Basically what he is saying is that he cannot make the girls sell. Theyre ugly and that’s it. If the cars were nice they would sell. So… MAKE NICE LOOKING CARS

Chinese cars + Wal-mart. A match made in heaven.

Bush cannot make American car companies proifitable, this is basically true, except, as BCM said, many Japanese companies are subsidized byr thier government based on profits made here, and trader inequities, especially with thier closed market, which is government controlled to created a yen-dollar advantage for thier exports. Once japan truly opens its markets, American cars will sell very well there, as well as China, for that matter. In fact, China’s most respected brand (one of them) is Buick. Furthermore, GM made all of its positive profits in China. American companies build great products these days, just go drive a 300C, or Charger. They are continually imprioving and closing the quality gap, on a consistent basis they actually have outperformed the Japanese makers, yet the perception reigns that they are junk, Why? YEARS of history the Japanese brands just dont build here. Plus, it is always more cachet to own something from another country, in fact, many Japanese and Europeans actually find American cars more interesting, why? Because there theya re imports. Opinion makers in the automotive press, like to drive all these foreign cars for free, and tout thier greatness, meanwhile, they don’t ever make the payments required to own these cars, or pay the maintenance bills, which get very expensive…. Fix the closed markets, and you will see American companies return to profitability on a more consistent basis.

i am a canadian currently live in japan, and have many japanese friends. talking to them about cars, i have to go against what mr. anderson is saying.

the japanese people know the japanese cars are reliable, so they buy them. they know the german cars are well engineered and attractive, so they buy them. they know the french cars are cheap and reliable enough, so they buy them.

however, they see the american cars as low quality and prone to breaking down while being unattractive [touching on mike's comment, they are unsophisticated ugly girls with a trick-knee and a lisp, yet drink the pricey whisky by the gallon and run-off on the wrong side of the road].

like a mid-western girl gmc and fords are seen as cheap in all the wrong ways here, and that is why they are not getting dates. the german girls are classy, tight and pretty; the french are cute and easy; and the local girls shut up and do their job til they’re 87 without a whimper.

the american cars are here, and cheap, but not selling. it has been said that the quality of american cars are improving, but it is too little too late for a market that has no domestic commitment to them.

you can fiddle with trade policies and tax foreign cars up the ass and you will still see americans buying imports. why? detroit makes utter crap. once in a while there is an exception (300C? i dont know), but face it theres no desire, no focus, no value in owning or driving an american car. even in foreign countries where Ford and GM sell well, they are losing ground. in the UK, the Ford mondeo was overtaken as the most popular car by the BMW 3 series.

i suppose if you banned the sale of all import cars you will see a rise in Ford and GM sales…

I don’t see how ‘W’ could actually do anything to help, unless he has a magic wand that gets of the UAW.

Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/

At least he could have said, “I cant make OUR auto manufacturers profitable”.

GSH- Interesting comment, can you define “utter crap” for me in this context? If we look at Ford alone, what about these examples: Mustang, Explorer, any F Series (which is the only vehicle in the world to sell over 900000 units per year) Fusion, Escape, Escape Hybrid, etc. Obviously you have been misinformed or have had a bad experience with one of these vehicles, otherwise you couldn’t intelligently refer to any of these-much less generalize all of detroit products as crap. Please respond.

is jay saying the mustang is a good car? it is the poster car for “utter crap.” a disposable car like the rest from the area.

towlie- are we talking about the same car? I dont mean a 78 Mustang II, I’m talking about the Mustang from 2005 to present. Again, please define: “utter crap” and “disposable car”. There is no way we can be talking about the same car, if you know anything about them at all.

For decades americans auto-makers made easy money building those lausy SUVs and big pick-up trucks.They are easy to build and don’t require much investment in technology.
And for decades when they needed technology to build small cars,they just borrowed it from the japanese (Ford and Dodge)or from the europeans (GM).
Now the tide is turning and people is buying fewer trucks.It is simple like that.I wouldn’t like to be making decisions for those companies;Rough times ahead.

hey jay, here we go with jeremy clarkson’s take on the current mustang:

“this car is rubbish. Its engine has wasteful, unused capacity that turns fuel into nothing, it couldn’t get from one end of a country lane to the other without running out of brakes and it handles like a newborn donkey.

There’s more, too. It’s got a gruff engine note, its interior has the panache of an Afghan’s cave and … and … and I can’t go on.”

throw in the detail of it having a solid rear axle from a pick-up truck and you have what sounds like crap to me.

These comments came from a guy who also in the same breath mentioned Alfa, Rover, Lotus and BMW. Oh, and then goes on to drop further names in cluding Ferari, Aston, and Maserati. This car is not meant to compete with any of these. This car has a succint mission: go fast, look good, invigorate an AMERICAN pardigm and be financially accessible to the general population. This car is as American as it gets, perhaps thats why its appeal escapes him. He can trapse about the English countryside in his little Triumph til his heart is content, and if that is his idea of a sportscar than it is sufficient to say we will have to leave that part of it to philosophical differnce. Even he admitted to “LIKING ALOT the fact that he was in San Francisco, in a Mustang on a glorious September afternoon. ” That is what the Mustang is about and it got to him too. The fact that BMW gets almost 200 hsp more out of a similar sized engine is irrelevant. Who said Ford was going to compete with BMW or try to make this engine super efficient, its not supposed to have “double stage turbos or swirl chambers.”And as for his comments about the interior, panache of a cave- compared to what- the Cayman S I just ordered? Well sure, but again thats not what this car is for. As for the gruff note of the V8- if you can listen to that car, from the inside or the outside and not appreciate the sound at 5000 rpm, then you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD be driving a Golf. As for the live rear end, maybe he would have preferred active suspenion management or at least independant suspenion? Sure they could have easily added that, but would you have been able to buy the car for 25,000$. Before I go any further I have two questions for you: Is this your opinion or are you just happy to quote someone else? Have you driven this car?