Is Toyota's Success Really Good For The US Economy?
Agent009 submitted on 5/11/2007 Official Bell & Ross Timestamp: 10:44:25 AM
32 user comments | Category: Spy Shots | Source: | SOURCE: www.ohio.com
The report that Toyota Motor Corp.
surpassed No. 1 General Motors Corp. in worldwide sales in the first quarter shouldn't be viewed as evidence of U.S. industrial decline.
Automaking in the United States might never have been stronger. That's not to say General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Corp. aren't struggling, and they won't soon, if ever, dominate the industry as they once did.
For long-term owners of the stocks and bonds of the U.S. automakers, not to mention for their workers and for their communities, the relative loss of dominance has been immense.
Detroit and Michigan are ground zero in terms of fallout from the decline of the U.S. automakers. The tax base is decreasing, municipal deficits are soaring and the United Auto Workers union is looking terminally ill.
But for the U.S. economy, the rise of non-U.S. automakers -- especially the new No. 1 -- has been, on balance, a positive. From 1986 to 2006, vehicle production in the United States beyond the Big Three domestic companies grew to 3.37 million from 426,000, while imports by those automakers to the United States have fallen to 2.55 million from 3.47 million, according to the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group. U.S. production by Detroit makers shrank by 3.7 million in the same period.
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