Good Job ANN Arbor
When we object to A2-bashing, it has to be pretty bad. “Isn’t it ironic that Pfizer chose smug little Ann Arbor to be the first casualty of its downsizing?” And, more eloquently in the comments, “The sight of all those ‘preceived supereior imports’ In Ann Arbor just sickens me … Good job ANN Arbor. Now I hope your import breaks down.”
American cars sucked for a long time. People bought imports, when people drive a car they like (gas mileage and they don,t break) they keep buying them. That isnt the point of course since “BMW’s” was what the article said, well Germany didnt put MI autoworkers out of jobs Japan did.
posted by d on January 31st, 2007 at 10:23 pmSince when did we start pejoratively spelling Sweden “Swe-den”?
posted by heidi on January 31st, 2007 at 11:50 pmabout the same time we started the “freedom” fries campaign
posted by kena on February 1st, 2007 at 12:11 amActaully, I agree with the link between American auto industry and Pfizer’s downsizing. The Ameri-can auto industry provided the motivation for suburban sprawl, increasing social isolation and increasing vehicle use for travel that has led to Ameri-can’s poor health. It is less likely that a foreign manufacturer could have had the pull with the government to impact our transportation infrastructure the way that the big three did. Without such health problems, drugs like Lipitor may not have been such big money-makers. Of course this argument could be expanded to engulf a significant portion of the health care industry.
Clearly it is important for Ameri-cans to support the industries that sicken us, because the disease is what makes the cure available and financially successful.
posted by Scott on February 1st, 2007 at 1:44 amI don’t know, AAIO, I think you’re going soft. This just doesn’t fit the usual status quo of Ann Arbor-bashing coming from non-locals. And AA still f—ing sucks.
That said, that was a woefully ignorant train of thought. Pfizer’s downsizing has more to do with torceptrip (aka, the death pill) than any problems in the auto industry or US healthcare. Gigantic, expensive failures can cause any business to change course. Just look at the Pontiac Aztek.
I just read this commentary as more Michigan-centric bitterness. Grow up and smell 2007, folks.
posted by Nick on February 1st, 2007 at 2:56 amI think it’s difficult to take anyone seriously who uses Al Capp as a literary reference.
posted by Nitro on February 1st, 2007 at 8:05 amAnonymous Vampire: I’d heard you’d gone soft…like baby food.
Spike: Well then. Let’s give baby a taste. [commences extreme violence]
Okay, I’m not sure where I’m going with that.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 1st, 2007 at 12:03 pmI’m distracted by the unnecessary hyphenation: “Swe-den,” “Conneti-cut,” “Ameri-can.” What’s with that?
Also, where is the ‘American auto makers are shipping jobs to other countries’ argument. Simply because one purchases a Ford, for example, it does not mean that the car is made by employees in the United States. Are there not Toyota facilities in Michigan? I think that companies are more global now, so the belief that buying a traditionally American-brand name car is supporting American jobs is not as accurate as it once was.
posted by politicalpoet on February 1st, 2007 at 12:57 pmNot only are there Toyota autoworkers in the U.S., Toyota is also hiring American academic researchers at a time when most U.S. companies have moved away from that altogether.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 1st, 2007 at 1:37 pmYes, I’m a Michigan native, but I always found the attempt to turn the type of car one chooses to buy and/or drive into a moral issue to be retarded at best.
posted by Dave on February 1st, 2007 at 2:13 pmPoliticalpoet I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but the value in buying an American product (even if it’s built overseas) would be in keeping the US based company in business. If/When Ford & GM go under there are going to be a lot of retired and near retirement workers who are going to get hammered. Since toyota’s employees in the US have almost exclusively come on in the 401 K as opposed to the pension model of retirement benefits if they were to somehow go under the effect on the economy would be less.
I understand however that this distinction is becoming less of a concern with “foreign” auto companies doing more design work in the US, but the profits eventually head back overseas as opposed to staying here.
Should this be the basis for your car purchasing decisions…I don’t know. Personally I’ve had success with the two GM cars I’ve owned, and I know enough families that are depending on US car companies for their financial well being that I plan on my next purchase being American as well. But I certainly am less fanatical about it than I used to be.
posted by andy on February 1st, 2007 at 2:14 pmScott, we’re not in the business of curing disease anymore. Modern disease is “managed” with a long list of drugs over the period of a lifetime. If you refuse to get with the program the loss of more valuable American jobs will be on your hands.
posted by MrPfizer on February 1st, 2007 at 2:17 pmBut what does it mean for the profits to head here? The CEOs here getting rich seems to be the only thing that’s guaranteed.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 1st, 2007 at 2:39 pmThere are still a lot more well paid high level auto people from Ford, GM, and Chrysler than there are from Toyota or Hyundai in SE Michigan. Those companies will never have the same number of these type of well paid jobs or total net worth to the state as the big 3.
posted by andy on February 1st, 2007 at 2:56 pmYou folks harping on the hyphenation: I think it’s just a bad translation from the printed column to the web.
I see a lot of parallels between Pfizer and Buick City in Flint. When Buick City closed the plant had some of the best quality and efficiency ratings of any auto plant but that just doesn’t seem to be enough anymore to keep your job. Just as Pfizer’s been a good corporate citizen in Ann Arbor the old guard (Durant, Mott, Kettering, Sloan) who used to run GM were very generous in Flint with philanthropy. When that sort of local connection is broken, even for a mega corporation like Pfizer or GM, then a lot of quality of life things are going to suffer not to mention people just plain having jobs.
I don’t think it’s too crazy to lean towards buying locally/American if at all possible, all things being equal. If it’s good for fruit at the farmer’s market it’s probably not a bad idea when buying a car. But then local’s a relative thing - I love my Chevy Impala but the engine is from Mexico and the car was assembled in Ontario…
posted by Thomas Cook on February 1st, 2007 at 3:24 pmprofits?
posted by peter honeyman on February 1st, 2007 at 5:48 pm“You folks harping on the hyphenation: I think it’s just a bad translation from the printed column to the web.”
Well, then that’s completely lame, because someone is inputting hard hyphens by hand instead of letting the page layout software wrap the columns automatically. Or, they don’t have it set to remove soft hyphens before it’s converted to HTML, which is another flavor of lame. Either way, the hyphens don’t make Livingston County look more intelligent, though the writer did the most for that with his concise analysis.
posted by Chris on February 2nd, 2007 at 11:00 pmNot only are there Toyota facilities in the US–there are UNION Toyota facilities in the US, and plenty of non-union facilities run by US manufacturers outside the US. Here is the UAW’s own listing of union-made autos:
http://www.uaw.org/uawmade/auto/2007/index.cfm
Notice that many popular “American” models aren’t on it.
posted by Anonymous on February 3rd, 2007 at 10:47 am