






Honda Fit





Honda CR-Z Hybrid





Source: Automotive News

Comments     Threshold


RE: If not for
By DukeN on 6/12/2012 3:32:00 PM , Rating: 1
How the fuck are you subsidizing Canadian manufacturing?

It's a treaty that goes both ways, there are no duties for Canadians importing US made cars and parts, and there are no duties for Americans importing Canadian made cars and parts.

And how exactly is the American taxpayer propping up Canadians?

You might want to stop watching Fox and Friends for a few minutes and think, for once.

RE: If not for
By foolsgambit11 on 6/12/2012 4:26:23 PM , Rating: 2
Thank you! I can't understand how a free trade agreement could be considered a subsidy - especially by people who consider themselves "free market" capitalists! Tariffs are the very definition of protectionist, closed-market policies.

While, perhaps, some argument could be made that free-trade with Mexico is "unfair" because of the lax labor and environmental policies (and lax enforcement of the policies they do have), but the same cannot be said about free trade with Canada, where labor and environmental policies are at least as strict as in America, and taxes are generally higher. Of course, Canadian businesses aren't strapped with untenable health care costs, but that's our own damn fault.

RE: If not for
By Mint on 6/12/2012 6:22:43 PM , Rating: 2
He just doesn't want to accept the fact that a "socialist" country can possibly have any sort of manufacturing advantage over the US.

I remember when Toyota chose Ontario for a new plant around a decade ago, despite hundreds of millions in gov't subsidies from the southern states and little north of the border.

Quite odd how a company can value things like an educated workforce from good public education and free healthcare. Oh wait, it's f***ing obvious why...

RE: If not for
By Ringold on 6/12/2012 6:44:08 PM , Rating: 3
Labor is a diminishing part of the manufacturing equation, especially with newly built plants built with all the modern automation, so labor cost isn't as huge a factor as it once was.

I'd also be careful not to paint Canada with a wide socialist brush. It's just spent quite a while under Harper, a conservative that's drilling for oil and gas as quickly as he pleases. Some areas in Canada are better then others.. As you said, it built a plant in Ontario, not Quebec.

Finally, if the logic worked as well as you thought, Sweden of the 90s with its government spending as a % of GDP of over 70% wouldn't of faced near-collapse and had to practically restructure its approach to business and commerce from the ground up. France would be the most powerful, vibrant economy of the Western world. Spain would be lecturing us all on how to craft effective 'macroprudential' regulation.

Oh, and "free" healthcare? Thanks for showing your "I'm a liberal" card. Nothing is free, fool.

RE: If not for
By foolsgambit11 on 6/12/2012 7:36:31 PM , Rating: 1
Total labor costs may not be as high as they would be without automation, but the skill of the labor needed to maintain a sophisticated automated assembly line is greater - which turns the advantage to areas with an educated workforce.

I don't think anyone would argue that, "the more socialism the better", any more than they should argue, "the more capitalism the better". The ideal would balance the two. Thanks for showing your "I don't understand English" card, by the way. Health care in Canada is free, in the same way public education is free. Nobody objects to the phrase "free public education", because everybody knows that the phrase is shorthand for "not paid for by the consumer, but by the community". Welcome to English, where words have more than one meaning.

RE: If not for
By Reclaimer77 on 6/12/2012 7:07:28 PM , Rating: 1

You have to be a Liberal of the highest order to believe they picked Ontario for it's education and "free" healthcare. First off, the "education" required to put bolts in place and lugnuts on tires...yeah I think the US has that covered. Secondly if you don't think Canadian businesses pay out the ass for that "free" healthcare, jokes on you.

It's pretty obvious whey they built in Canada, just wiki it. Hmmm non-union workforce. Convenience. Their deal with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc which no doubt entitles them to writeoffs and other perks.

Toyota's first manufacturing facility in North America was Georgetown, Kentucky by the way. So umm..take that Socialism!!??? :P

