Yuku free message boards

Eitzel18 wrote:

---

That's a tough one and a critical issue for higher regulations on American companies. More than our share of manufacturing in America is foreign owned. When you talk with the Senior Management coming over from Japan, Korea, France, Germany, etc. the first comment they will make is that the plants over here are in such terrible shape. That could be for a number of legitimate reasons, for example we bombed the crap out of Germany and then rebuilt their industrial sites. Therefore, they are 50 years younger than many of our competing plants. Asian countries use degreed engineers in many roles where we would use operators with a high schools education. That's not a knock on our guys, but in most cases that would lend itself toward more recognition of preventive measures as opposed to chasing problems reactively.

When we start to push older industries (paper and old steel come to mind) to comply with tougher emission standards, you could very well see costs escalate to the extent that they can no longer compete globally. Import tariffs may not be the burden they once were for customers, and the export business could dry up. Furthermore, it may make it less attractive for foreign companies to come in and buy American businesses because they will be stuck with the cleanup. But probably more than anything, it may impact the old giants that dominate certain markets and allow small business entrepreneurs to come in and push technologies in ways that they couldn't.

I still go back to the hybrid example in these cases. For years, the big three fought tooth and nail to push back on efforts to introduce lower emission vehicles into the market place. We heard every excuse under the sun - many are the same as the arguments against renewable energy. Then lo and behold, Honda says not only can they do it, but they already had an electric vehicle on the roads in California. They embraced it and thrived while the others stalled. Once it was proven in the market place, then the big three had every Suburban, Tahoe, and Compensator available with a hybrid engine that boosted (allegedly) gas economy.

When I hear the screams and cries - and they are very intense around this bill - my first reaction is that we are about to see a fundamental shift away from the old dinosaurs and toward the "new technology".