"Now, is that an American Car?" My brother's father-in-law asked me that question just 2 hours ago when I announced I was buying a Prius. I recalled a similar feeling I had in the 70's when buying a Honda Civic. Both times, my answer of "No" stopped the conversation dead, and I picked up an olive (or carrot as it was in 1978) and ate it.
[font=Comic Sans MS:0361710dd5]You are doing your part to reduce green-house gasses to clean America's air and to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Ask your brother's father-in-law where his car is made. Lots of "American" cars have almost all their components made elsewhere and some assembly here completes them. If an American car manufacturer (what's that? Toyota building Camry's in Kentucky?) were to produce a comparable car, I know I certainly wouldn't reject it out of hand due to country of origin.[/font:0361710dd5]
If you want to instigate a lively debate.... "It would have been, had the Big 3 spent more time building better cars than lobbying Washington to maintain the status quo." Or something of that ilk. Someone here said it best...if an American car company had built a car I wanted with the same quality, I would have bought it. They didn't. So I bought the car I wanted from the company that did build it. The Big 3 have only themselves to blame. They can't *make* us buy their cars.
The irony is these same American car companies, like other American companies and companies all over, are sending jobs elsewhere to take advantage of cheap labor. That they would have the gall to make it a patriotic issue is sickening.
Which then begs the questions....what is an American Company? Is it a company that employes foreign workers so that only the CEOs and stockholders make money? Or is it a company that employees American workers, playing them a salary that they spend in America thus supporting the American economy? Who supports the American economy more? A lot of American workers or a few CEOs?
Heya, I ABSOLUTELY beleive in buying American first. Here's the problem - American companies must create an equavalent product. I wouldn't buy an American Black-and-White TV over a foreign color one for the same price simply because America doesn't make color TV's. Buying American should NOT mean settling for inferior technology. When an American auto maker makes a car that is Prius equil, I will buy one. So far, I'm not seeing it. Yoda
Not very long ago, I bought American first - and second. I had a Plymouth and an Oldsmobile. They became a Honda and a Toyota (through trade-ins), respectively. The Avalon was made and designed in the USA. The Prius benefits all countries.
It's patriotic to save gas. That's the general American opinion, as stated by some survey on 40mpg.org somewhere. That works for me. Why go to war and spend billions in taxes? Let's all go hybrid!
