Buy American (I Forgot Why)

Technorati ProfileLast year was the first time that non-unionized workers at a foreign-owned assembly plant made more than members of the United Auto Workers union make on average in a year. The Detroit Free Press reveals in a very interesting article that Toyota paid out bonuses of $6,000 to $8,000 last year at its largest U.S. plant in Georgetown, KY. Combined with the base pay made by a non-union worker at the plant, that equates to $30/hour or $60,000/year based on a 2,000-hour work year. That is more than the $27/hour or $54,000 a UAW member made on average last year. Union workers, or course, hardly received any profit sharing bonuses last year due to the poor overall performance of the domestic automakers.

This says a lot. So just to be sure we're hearing this right we're talking about American made cars - made by Toyota. And why are American car companies not making as much as they used to? Unions! They're paying their retired workers their pension still. Why did they get a pension? Because they didn't make enough when they worked in the factory to save for retirement. What's this all add up to? That the American car companies screwed their work force and now it's coming back to haunt them. A screwed work force was angry and bitter and made shitty cars. At it's peak in 1981 Detroit built cars had a defect ratio of 8:1 over Japanese cars. Not good. So why buy American? To help GM and Ford screw their workers? Buy American and buy a Toyota. Be sure not to buy America's best selling truck, the Ford F150 though. They're made in Canada.