Buy American Mention of the Week
5-7-05
 In Defense of General Motors

Defense, defense, defense. That's all that General Motors, and Detroit in
general, can play these days. Many American car and truck buyers, and many
of those in the media who write about their buying habits, should know
better than to spew their venom at GM for their recent financial troubles.
It might be different if the reasons that GM continues to lose market share
weren't largely beyond their control, but they are. As an increasing number
of Americans spend their money on and drive around in Toyotas and Hondas,
the answer to the question "Why doesn't GM have the money to build a car
more to my liking?" seems to evade them.


As if the impending health care crisis in America was no clue at all, some
even bring up the fact that GM spends over $1,500 per automobile just to
provide health care to their employees, retirees and their dependents. By
comparison, Toyota and Honda spend only a few hundred dollars per
automobile, mainly because GM has been operating in the United States since
the invention of the automobile and Toyota, for instance, only built their
first plant here in 1987. Yet they still accuse that GM is "living in the
past" even though Cadillac now outsells Mercedes, The Chevy Impala beat the
Toyota Camry in initial quality and Consumer Reports detailed how Buick now
beats BMW in reliability.



But in these times where low-wage Wal-Mart has now replaced high-wage
General Motors as the number one employer in the U.S., most Americans get a
pass for not having the time to dig deeply enough to understand what is
really going on since a large portion of America is working longer hours for
lower wages and is just trying to put in enough time at work to make ends
meet.



It may seem that your car-buying decision would have no effect on your
personal prosperity or that of your country, but it does. It really does
matter if you buy an American-made Chevrolet instead of an American-made
Toyota.

When you buy an American-made Chevy, you not only support more American
workers, but also American investors, owners and stockholders. When you buy
an American-made Toyota, you may help your Uncle Bob if he's on Toyota's
payroll, but you're hurting Uncle Sam since American companies pay about
three times as many taxes to the U.S. Treasury compared to foreign-owned
companies. That's something to think about the next time you hear we have to
cut benefits or raise the retirement age simply because the U.S. Treasury
doesn't have enough funds to meet its obligations to Social Security or
other benefit programs.

General Motors doesn't have enough money to meet its obligations either. And
it's for the very honorable reason that they have promised adequate health
care and pensions to their workers who gave their lives to a company that
has in turn supported so many American livelihoods for so long. If we stop
buying GM products, we de-fund American retirees and prevent them from
contributing to the American economy. Sure, you have a choice in buying a
foreign car over an American one, but if you buy the foreign car, you will
likely cause a retiree to make a choice between food and medicine. That very
choice is a daily one for many senior citizens in this country right now.



Think it's not possible? Think again. The Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation (PBGC) has already taken over several pensions from failed
American companies in the steel and airline industries and beyond. When
these companies declare bankruptcy and a failure to meet their obligations,
this government-funded agency - which is also running in the red - takes
over and gives seniors roughly half of what they were promised by the now
bankrupt company.


This results in a hidden cost to taxpayers since any shortfall in government
revenue must be made up eventually in higher taxes or benefit cuts or both.
So there you have it. Failure to find a GM (or other American) automobile
you can stand will negatively affect your standard of living in one way or
another. And you thought that since you didn't work in the car industry it
didn't affect you. Think again.



The Detroit News recently published the facts, daring to go against the
deceiving "foreign cars are built there and American cars are built there"
rhetoric that implies it makes no difference if you buy an American-made
Honda instead of an American-made Pontiac. The newspaper reported that
American and foreign automakers alike were playing the "Made in USA Card" to
attract buyers. And you thought consumers didn't care. Poll after poll has
shown Americans are even willing to pay more to buy American, let alone when
quality and price are similar or equal. Most Americans advocate fair play
and equality but eventually they will find out - possibly the hard way -
that neither of these attributes apply in the automobile marketplace unless
those Americans that should know better start buying American cars again.
I'm not asking or expecting the die-hard import buyer crowd to stop their
silly griping and buy American. GM's future doesn't depend on them. It
depends on those Americans that really should know better.


As the Detroit News article boldly pointed out, GM has 82 major plants in
the United States, while Toyota, Honda and Nissan combined have only 24. GM
has more American salaried workers than Toyota has total American workers.
With 194,000 employees in America, even after hard times, General Motors
still employs six times as many Americans as Toyota, seven times as many as
Honda, and 12 times as many as Nissan. As Business Week pointed out in 2002
(the last data I have seen on the subject), each auto-assembly job created
by an American company also creates 6.9 other American jobs, where each
auto-assembly job created by a foreign company creates only 5.5 other
American jobs. This is true simply because American automobile companies get
more of their parts from America.



And what about those foreign transplant factories? A 1995 United Auto
Workers study concluded that these foreign automobile companies operating in
the United States caused at least 500,000 Americans to lose their jobs. I
would hate to think of what that total is today.



The new May 9, 2005 issue of Business Week details how GM contributes to the
pockets of their assembly workers to the tune of $8.7 billion a year and
either directly or indirectly supports the employment of 900,000 Americans.
Business Week also claims it is "undeniable" that what is bad for GM is bad
for America, pointing to a 54-day strike in 1998 that cut that quarter's
economic growth for the entire country a whole percentage point.



Many point to bad management decisions in the past to justify their
reasoning for not supporting GM, claiming it is it "widely known" that they
made horrible cars in the 1970's. Its amazing people who weren't even
driving age in the 1970's (this author wasn't) want to penalize GM for
mismanagement as they overlook any mismanagement by other car companies they
anxiously spend their money with instead. I have never heard anyone
vehemently refuse to buy a Nissan since they almost went bankrupt in the
late 1990's. Nor do I hear people planning to penalize Japanese car makers
for the (widely known) junk they imported in the 1960's.



In 1999, the Wall Street Journal reported Nissan lost millions of dollars in
five of the last six years. Nissan's debt stood between $22 billion and $30
billion, which dwarfed that of any other auto maker. The Wall Street
Journal, which is no huge supporter of GM, claimed Nissan would be bankrupt
if it happened to be American company.



The claim that GM made inferior cars in the 1970's is suspect to me anyway,
not because of my patriotic motivation, but because of my personal
experience. The 1976 Riviera I owned was outstanding as far as quality and
longevity was concerned, and 1976 is right in the middle of the supposed
quality-challenged decade for American cars. An Auto Week magazine article
even call it a "boat with no tail" in a piece they did about the history of
the Riviera.



Shortly after the car passed 200,000 miles, I drove it from Florida to
Illinois and back to demonstrate to some skeptical friends that the car
would make it up, down and through the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee just
fine, as I was getting my own share of comments about how terrible American
cars supposedly were. The car had over 250,000 miles before I had it hauled
off to the junkyard, but not before a co-worker bought the engine for his
airboat. The engine was so quiet no one knew (by listening) that I warmed it
up for 5-10 minutes before I drove home from work as my co-workers walked
past it in the parking lot to get in their own cars to drive home. People
would walk by my '76 Riviera, stop for a second, and ask me "Is that car
running?" The body had rusted out by the late 1990s, but the car never had
the advantage of a garage to protect it from the Florida sun and Atlantic
Ocean's salty air.



General Motors spent $5.2 billion on health care for their workers and
retirees in 2004. The 2005 figure will be higher. The figure for Toyota, for
instance, is certainly less since they didn't build their first American
factory until 1987. The Georgetown, KY factory, which assembles the Toyota
Camry, was built with Japanese steel by a Japanese steel company. Toyota was
given 1,500 of free land. To attract this Japanese company to America, we
even established a "special trade zone" so they could import parts duty-free
from Japan. Financing was handled by Mitsui Bank of Japan. Total federal,
state and local tax incentives (read giveaways) reached $100 million -
courtesy of your tax dollars and mine.



These are some of the hidden costs few think about when selecting their next
car. Before the first Toyota in American was ever assembled, the American
steel industry, parts industry and finance industry took it on the chin.
American tax obligations were also raised to boot. Today's Camry has a 55%
domestic parts content, which is down from 75% just a few years earlier.
American alternatives like the Chevy Impala has a 98% domestic parts content
and the aging Ford Taurus, which used to be the number one selling car in
America before the Camry took the top spot, has a 95% domestic parts
content.



In the end, it doesn't matter how you slice it. General Motors pays more
taxes, employs more workers, has more domestic plants, supports more
families, retirees and their dependents, and has a higher overall domestic
parts content than the foreign competition - hands down. American quality is
on the rise. Efficiency has increased. GM kept America rolling by donating
millions of dollars in cash and vehicles in the aftermath of September 11,
2001. Where was the foreign competition in America's time of need? They were
busy reaping in record profits and sending them home to reward foreign
owners at the expense of an American company that built the foundation of
prosperity that America as a whole enjoys.



Profits are the lifeblood of any successful company or economy. General
Motors makes only a few hundred dollars of profit per vehicle compared to
over a thousand dollars for their foreign rivals because GM supports such a
wide and diverse number of Americans. They've shown their loyalty to America
by extending 0% financing for several years, and through their history
they've done more good for America than any foreign car company ever dreamed
of doing. It's time for America to show their loyalty to an American company
whose own increased prosperity will result in greater American prosperity as
well.

So if you want General Motors to get more aggressive and on the offensive in
terms of marketing, bolder car designs, etc., stop spewing your venom at
them, which makes them constantly play defense instead. It's unfair,
unwarranted, and unproductive. GM wants to keep America rolling - as we all
should - so let's let it and make it happen.

 Roger Simmermaker, Author

How Americans Can Buy American

<http://www.howtobuyamerican.com/> www.howtobuyamerican.com