Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Auto jobs disappeared because foreign firms simply made better cars.
The unions and the automakers got lazy and built shit cars. People decided to buy foreign.
I don't recall my family buying a Volvo in the 80s because the American alternative was too expensive. They bought it because it was safer and ran longer.
I can buy cheap American cars all day long. I buy foreign because they last longer. I pay a premium for that. If American cars ran nearly as long as foreign cars, I'd pay that premium to American workers. But they do not, even now.
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Auto jobs died in the 70s. By the 80s it was catch up in Detroit. And people who bought Volvo’s were rich to begin with and at best happy to finally have an excuse to buy European- you should have seen Ford execs smiling when they bought Jaguar and could finally drive a fun car. But what killed the big 3 was Nissan and Datsun. And it included quality, sure, but even after the US tried to address quality, without the artificial bump from “US only” they could not sustain the wages. I was living in Detroit watching my family’s future disappear, working in the factories. I know what happened.
