NAFTA negotiations are obviously toast (until next week when Le Grand Orange changes his mind again.) Might be good idea if Canada and Mexico "opened discussions" to EU membership...
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There's a very good article in last weekend's Globe and Mail about Sergio Marchionne turning Chrysler and Fiat around. It's subscriber content, so a bit of legerdemain might be needed to get to it.Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...ca-to-success/Comment
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He's a very smart guyComment
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This surprised me, from that article. I didn't realize Jeep's relative strength against Ram in the US. Ram far exceeds Jeep up here.
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Fiat should seriously think about packing up its (brand) tent and going home. Ain't nobody buying that shit.Comment
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That would mean that Marchionne would have to move to Switzerland permanently. The domestic market is still important for the firm as a whole, and as the Jeep/Ram thing indicates, part of the strategy is to build on brands' appeal in individual markets.Comment
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I don't think anybody apart from maybe the people in Alabama making the cars knows that, judging by the shitshow election. All cars used to be made in "Detroit", until Bill and Hillary Clinton concocted "trade deals" and now they're all made in low wage economies.Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
In sticking tariffs on Canada and the EU, Trump is just "fulfilling a campaign promise" to hit back at low wage economies who've stolen your job.Comment
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I don't think fiat sell all that many cars here either. People seemed to quite like the Fiat Tipo a bit further back, but Even I can remember the holes that used to appear in the floorpan of a fiat 127, and even yesterday my neighbour was talking about his mam's fiat 600, and how his uncle had to weld a new floor to the car. It takes a long time to get rid of that kind of folk memory.Comment
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by low wage economies, you mean Tennessee, alabama, south carolina....Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View PostLast edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 31-05-2018, 16:18.Comment
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The other people who know about that are the local legislators who gave the auto companies massive subsidies for building plants there.Comment
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Fiat still has very high market share in Italy (25% for the group as a whole and I doubt there are many Rams in that).Comment
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Yeah, sorry, I meant in the US. Fiat has no business there. How do you maintain a brand structure on 12K units a year?Originally posted by ursus arctos View PostComment
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Indeed. Alabama gave mercedes 1000 acres of land to build their factory and test tracks. I think this factory kind of highlights the problem. That factory makes about 300,000 large, expensive cars every year, and exports about 60% of them, but it only employs about 4000 people. For all this talk of industrial decline, Absolutely massive amounts of physical stuff are still manufactured in the US, but they don't employ very many people to do it, particularly if they are going to be interested in exporting anything.Comment
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Have I ever said state aid should be a bigger issue in America?
Have I said it since last week?Comment
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Have Amazon decided which municipality they're going to suck dry?Comment
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Nah, there's more to it than that. Saturn started building cars in Spring Hill, Tenn. in 1990. Which means that the planning started in the early '80s. The non-union / lower wage play was so that 'Detroit' could compete with Japanese brands which, if you look at the timeline, started making major inroads in the early '80s. Before that, Japanese cars were a bit of a freak play based on gas prices and oil shortages. But nobody was buying boatloads of Accords and Camrys back then.Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View PostComment
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Fucking Blagojevich now?Comment
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And Martha Stewart
Gotta play the hits.
Amazon is still stringing cities alongComment
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Lots of 500s in this neck of the woods, (they've kicked Smart Cars into the ditch I think) but obviously that doesn't constitute a viable national market.Originally posted by WOM View PostComment
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I don't know if my sarcasm was clear enough, but interesting to hear about this. Japanese cars were big here much earlier.Originally posted by WOM View PostComment
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My mother was consider iconoclastic when she bought a Datsun (now Nissan) in 1974. There were only a couple of dealerships in the entire tri-state area.
Amor, the same thing has happened with Fiat 500s and Smarts here (and to a lesser extent with Minis). Though I think that a casual observer over-estimates their influence as one of their primary selling points is that they are easy to park on the street. The garages here are full of SUVs that are used for outings to second homes.Last edited by ursus arctos; 31-05-2018, 16:41.Comment
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Is Trump thinking of someone else?
Kaitlan Collins
Verified account @kaitlancollins
38m38 minutes ago
Trump said Blagojevich said something “stupid" but that his sentence “unfair.” "Plenty of other politicians could have said a lot worse," he said. The former gov. was convicted of wire fraud, soliciting bribes, attempted extortion and conspiracy to solicit and accept bribes.Comment
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blagojevich was on the celebrity apprentice, post impeachment, pre prison. It's odd that Trump is seeking to pardon someone prosecuted for pay to play. He's only got another six years left. I am impressed to see that he is the fourth Illinois Governor to serve time in a federal prison. Does that mean that the American judicial system works, or does it mean that some people are so stupid they have to be put in jail in spite of everything?Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 31-05-2018, 16:45.Comment
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Actually, he's definitely pardoning the right guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ap..._9)#CandidatesComment
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Game recognise game.Comment
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