"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"N2EY" wrote:

In the case of cars, this has already happened in some cases.
Many Japanese companies (Honda, Subaru, Toyota, to name
just a few) make cars in the USA because it's cheaper!

VW started that trend way back in the '70s by buying the
Westmoreland, PA facility from Chrysler, and building Rabbits,
Golfs and Jettas here instead of Germany. VW later sold that
plant to Sony, who uses it to make CRTs (because it's cheaper
to make them here!)


Wasn't that much more the result of our own import tariffs,
significantly
increased in the 80's to "protect" companies like Chrysler from foreign
competition?


Nope. It was a result of two things. One, the US automakers buckled down
and reduced their production costs to be competitive. Secondly in the case
of Japanese automobiles, the Japanese government quit subsidizing car
production when their automakers succeeded in obtaining a significant
percentage of the US market (their government then put the money into
subsidizing other industries they wanted to get off the ground). Once that
happened the prices of Japanese cars rose. The net result was that US and
Japanese automakers were now on a "level playing field" and the customers
could once again pick a car from a US auto company without a major
difference in cost.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE