I actually like Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker. Have they lied, connived, and generally wiggled their way into office? Probably, but that is the game, unfortunately. Always has been, always will be. Always.
I work for a lot of cities/utility districts. A lot are really dumb. We had one inspector who just started, he had youtube on his phone and a code book out "inspecting" our line. I nearly went to jail.
There is a difference between doing what one feels is right, and abuse of power, though sometimes they look similar.
Which is why I led with hell. I get that it could matter but I hear infinitely less discussion of it here than I do In national debate other than the republicans that had to say it during the election cycle. But I don’t live on the border.
Gary Johnson posted this today. More and more, I am amazed at the foresight of the Founders. In 1780, John Adams wrote: "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."
And then his own VP went against him due to party, and ended up beating him in the next election. But we got the Louisiana purchase.
Mostly because legislation made to protect the domestic companies has forced them to build factories in America to diversify their offerings in the States(Trucks, and SUVs). Funny how that works.
Not really, the cars Toyota offers in the States are largely different than what they sell everywhere else. Not many Camrys and Avalons are getting sold outside of the US, and not many Tundras and 4runners are, either. It's because of US regulations and their massive US consumer base that they have so many factories here.
This is the stuff I can't understand. It's cheaper for them to make their cars here, but we need to manufacture over there. WTF?
Moving a car can be expensive. Shipping parts that go into a car is more affordable. So some components are made in mexico, China, Korea, etc. The chassis and assembly occurs in North America. Unless you add tariffs. Then it may become more affordable to just make them overseas entirely and pay the tariff once, rather than paying tariffs on every component while also having to pay for American standard of living for employees. There are 3 general paths: 1) absolute free trade, and accept that means that there will not be low skill jobs in the US or at least they won't be able to pay a living wage; 2) Heavy tariffs that increases prices for everyone as work is pushed into places where it isn't the most efficient; 3) some sort of compromise. We are used to the third while pretending like it was one. Now we are moving towards 2 while pretending like it's one.
Yes, but they wouldn't do that. Those cars exist solely because of the unique demands of the American market so it doesn't make any sense to build them in Aichi because of shipping, but more importantly, because of the massive tariffs. And then there is specific regulations that wouldn't allow their trucks in the US.
But then you have the inverse, where the regulation keeps a company from selling a vehicle here unless it is at the very least assembled here. This is why for so long transit vans were never seen here. Ford skirted the rule by having an assembly plant here, then Merc and Nissan followed. The American auto market hasn't been about free trade ever since the chicken tax. And has only gotten progressively more protectionist which has only served to make foreign cars more domestic, and weakened market share for the Big 3.
