re: BMW "not budging" on Mexican plant

BMWs have kinda cheap looking interiors.
Audi and Infinity are so much nicer.

Man...what happened to you??

BMW is not stupid. They know that a 35% tariff is not going to happen.

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So, you're a smart guy.

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I don't think he is, but you're kidding yourself if you think you will elicit an earnest discussion outside of Twitter-friendly talking points.

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So, Trump is proposing we pay more for our BMWs if they build in Mexico (cuz you know who ends up paying that tax, right?).

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No. The idea is that BECAUSE it costs 35% more, you will buy an American alternative.

You can't have it both ways. You can't complain about paying more for things while also complaining about jobs going overseas.

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BMWs have kinda cheap looking interiors.
Audi and Infinity are so much nicer.

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Their interiors haven't changed in years. Mercedes and Audi both shite on BMW

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BMW is not stupid

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Their refusal to stop using run flat tires says otherwise.

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Have you ever seen a chart of American manufacturing workers as a share of the economy since the 1960's? You can't even tell where NAFTA, TTIP, et al started because technology is 20 times more responsible for the decline in American manufacturing labor (not output, where we now manufacture more than we ever have) than globalization ever was. Why pursue this vainglorious and futile attempt at getting some halcyon days of manufacturing back?

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The process is generally proving to be
1) American workers
2) Offshore workers
3) Robots/technology

We should have spent the last 30-40 years changing our educational and skills training/creation systems to recognize this. We should have put more money into higher education, and more money into shop class and vo-tech schools. We did not do so, and now we have an entire class of people with no skills for today's jobs.

The idea, I think, is if we can get some of these jobs back to the USA, we can get them working, while at the same time, knowing that they won't be here forever. But it will give us time to take advantage of the "reset" to allow us to make those changes we should have made.

Consider it a second chance. It's actually very brilliant and something that would come from someone who understands business and economics, as opposed to government hacks.

Now, can we pull it off? Or will we waste this second chance? I'm not at all confident.

If BMW is much more expensive than its competitors, will those consumers just not buy a car? No, they'll buy Mercedes instead. Or Lexus. Or Audi, etc.

BMW wants to build a plant in Mexico specifically so they can sell those cars in the USA. Trump is saying you aren't going to live next door for cheap and sell us cars. You either sell cars to Americans from the U.S. or pay a tax.