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Originally Posted by Robbie Barry it's not happening like that in the cities with new auto manufacturing plants around the Southeastern United States. Instead it's creating tons of new high paying jobs and lifting the economy up.

Well, that is at the expense of the State of SC and the Counties that offer the tax abatements.

Maybe, for reason of my livelihood being in excess of 70% derived from non US customers for over 10 years now -- this has made me somewhat indifferent to the local economy. I get nothing out of it except a place to buy services and some products.

So, as long as there are reasonable services around here I stay but a vibrant local economy means little to me really. But I am empathetic to the common man's plight, been there at one time, believe it or not -- but the reality of the matter is what it is.

The German auto manufactures built those plants where they did for reasons of market access, anti-union attitudes, and reasonable (really low) wage rates. But maybe, those wages are more realistic in the global market.

Ford used to pay $3/hour with no benefits in their Mexican factories. 40% of the cars assembled had to have a defect repaired before being shipped out too ... In the end maybe it cost $7/hour with the price of fixing the fuckups. The auto assembly line defect rates in China and Korea are low, in Japan and Germany super low.

So, how committed are the German manufactures to their southern US workers? Given the higher cost, status (and markups) of their autos they can probably afford to stay in the US. The automobile industry has indeed changed -- lots of bail outs, new government tax incentives, lowered worker wage rates, while retail prices skyrocket ...