Agreed. GM is not going to be in talks with someone that is insignificant.
Iron Indian, show me where someone has called you a racist. Show me that and I will deal with that. You said it yourself "I don appreciate is you guys referring to me as a racist", if that has been done either here or in a PM, I want to see it, otherwise please do not make stuff up.
Here's how I see this:
We have one person that argues GM, Ford, etc are domestic no matter what. States its a fact yet offers no real argument to prove that. That tells me that its just his opinion, which he has a right to. But when you state something as fact, or call something a fact that implies you have some sort of proof to demonstrate that information is indeed a fact. Stating something as fact has a legal connotation to it. That is to say, being factual can be defined by law.
So while one person here, among all those that have posted, can only contribute "this is fact, this is fact, this is fact, this is fact" while claiming everyone else is just repeating the same thing over and over whilst ignoring his on repeated statements with no substance, I'll offer some proof to the statement that myself and others have made here.
The American Automobile Labeling Act
For the purposes of Federal regulations, such as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and the American Automobile Labeling Act of 1992 (AALA), vehicles produced in the United States,
regardless of brand, are considered "domestic", while vehicles produced outside the United States are considered "imported".
Thats a legal definition of what is considered domestic or import.
Here's some more. This is an article on the AALA from MSN
Defining an American Car - MSN Autos
Notice:
"She said consumers don't care about content anymore because they have seen in recent years
how the auto industry has become global.
People are buying international cars now, Blumenthal said, adding "they want to buy the best."
Notice what it says about vehicles like the Saturn Vue, the PT Cruiser, the Volkswagon Beetle and so on.
Here is a report on the AALA National Highway Transportation Safety Administration:
American Automobile Labeling Act
Notice:
"The introduction of AALA labels in model year 1995 was not followed by a resurgence of U.S./Canadian parts content in the overall new-vehicle fleet, but rather a modest decline from an average of 70 percent in model year 1995 to 67.6 percent in model year 1998. The net effect, however, conceals two trends working in opposite directions.
Transplant vehicles (assembled in North America by foreign-based manufacturers)
increased their proportion of U.S./Canadian parts from 47 to 59 percent and reduced their content of overseas parts. At first glance, that could be a response to the labels. But the strong, explicit terms of the 1995 U.S.-Japan Agreement and the current dearth of consumer interest in AALA's numerical parts-content scores intuitively suggest that the Agreement and earlier actions have had more influence than the AALA labels. (However, the parts-content scores on the AALA labels have helped Federal agencies monitor progress under the U.S.-Japan Agreement.)
The Big 3
reduced U.S./Canadian parts content from 89 to 84 percent in 1995-98, apparently by sourcing or
purchasing more parts in Mexico. The net shift, in essence, is largely from overseas countries to Mexico, a plausible development given the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA)."
To continue along, did you know that the Dodge Stealth (it was referred to as the Chrysler Stealth in some cases for some odd reason) was imported from Japan? The Cadallac was or maybe still is assembled in Europe by the Opel subsidiary? How about Honda and the fact that it produces most of its top selling Accord in Ohio, or the BMW Z3 Convertible is or was made in South Carolina.
Here are a few more
facts to consider:
The U.S. federal government uses several approaches to determine the domestic content of vehicles sold in the United States. All of them define "domestic" as a geographic concept,
rather than strictly by nation of ownership.
For regulating fuel-efficiency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers a vehicle to be domestic if at least 75% of its content is
produced in North America, including Canada and Mexico.
For setting import tariffs, the U.S. Department of Treasury, Customs Service
considers a vehicle to be domestic if it has at least 50% U.S. or Canadian content.
For informing consumers, the American Automobile Labeling Act of 1992 (AAIA)
considers a vehicle to be domestic if at least 85% of its parts originate in the U.S. or Canada; a part is counted as domestic if at least 70% of its content comes from the U.S. or Canada.
Those are the legal facts, not just hearsay or what I want to believe or what I personally determine to be fact, those are the legal definitions.
