This blog contains posts and comments written by students in Dr. Tufte's economics classes at Southern Utah University.
2/28/2007
I read an article recently in Business Week entitled, "Why Toyota is Afraid of Being #1." This link http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_10/b4024071.htm?chan=globalbiz_asia_more+of+today's+top+stories takes you to the article. In the article, Toyota expresses the concern that becoming the number one car company in America may cause some Americans to become upset over the fact that they are not an American company. In my opinion, Toyota makes a quality car at a relatively inexpensive price. I do not see anything wrong with a foreign car company becoming the #1 car manufacturer in America. The article reports that the American born GM is upset over the possibility that Toyota is on its way to being #1. Well what are you going to do about it GM? What do you all think? Should we be concerned that more and more Americans are beginning to prefer foreign made cars to American made cars? Should be concerned that a foreign car company is on its way to being #1 in America?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Perhaps it's the labeling that is the problem.
In what sense is Toyota a "foreign" company if it is the largest producer in this country?
It's even more bizarre when you think about profit rates. Toyota is probably paying out 95% of its revenue on American sales to American vendors, and repatriating 5% of those revenues back to Japan as profit. It's a real stretch to call that a Japanese operation.
-1 on Jacob for no title.
Dr. Tufte,
It seems to me that Americans should have no problem that Toyota is number one. As you mentioned they are the largest car manufacturer in the US and they help to pay a hefty amount of revenue to American sales. This seems to be a win-win situation for us.
Secondly, it isn't Toyota's fault that they are able to make a quality car that is affordable. You don't see GM or Ford trying to compete at this level. Toyota should not be punished for their innovative tactics.
I think people have a problem with this because name calling works.
Post a Comment