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Ford is involved in a court battle with the government over
allegations that it was unfairly skirting the so-called chicken tax.
The Ford Transit Connect was built as a passenger vehicle
and then converted into a cargo van, stateside.
Flat Rock will make EVs, while AV production
moves elsewhere in southeast Michigan.
The anti-consumer 25% ‘chicken tax’ on truck imports
has insulated Big 3 from foreign competition for 50+ years
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploa.../graph01-2.png
Approach 2020 , time to put an end to 50+ years
of anti-consumer protectionism
for what has become two-thirds of the US vehicle market.
Remember the Subaru Brat , that was why it had
seats and carpet in the truck bed so it qualified as a car.
Time to level the playing field - and let the consumer get a WIN.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.00a34d68eee7
https://www.autonews.com/automakers-...mean-trade-war
Everyone like paying a FAT monthly sum to drive a truck, okay.
I want to see Ford do well, but I hope they lose this one. Adding rear seats to a van before they import, just so they can to call it a "Passenger" van and then removing the seats when they get it here is an obvious skirting of the rules. The only question is whether or not our government can/will finally do something about it.
Gov'ts love tariffs. Great opportunities to tax your citizens -- and they thank you!Quote:
Originally Posted by O3H
Tariffs increase the cost of goods to Americans. First, by the tax we pay. Second, by allowing the domestic producers to be dumb, fat, and lazy.
And that's how the Big 3 got kicked in the butt. We were protected by the gov't. Got fat and lazy. And in the end nearly killed our own auto industry.
Down with tariffs -- even if this trade war was started by the Europeans if I recall correctly, by taxing our cheaper and more efficiently grown chickens. [[Arguments about quality are irrelevant. I assume all chickens and cars here are reasonably safe. Even if not, these laws are not safety laws, but domestic protection laws.)
I don't thank anyone for being tarred and feathered by the Big 3.
We should really covet competition and the free market.
May the best product win, ALL around the world, since we have only Earth
An argument could be made that Indians who traded Manhattan for beads were savvy consumers when they paid a premium for the best bead strings in America. History, though, generally regards them as fools. Europeans brought in competition and the free market and were rewarded for doing so.Quote:
Originally Posted by O3H
Wesley is right that governments love taxes raised by tariffs. Of course, government love all taxes. Woodrow Wilson was the corporatist genius who transferred taxation from the owners of import companies onto the backs of middle class income tax payers. That was before many of those former middle class taxpayers lost their jobs to importers who profited from cheaper foreign labor.
When Korea became a Japanese colony, Japan introduced Japanese machine made cotton which was cheaper than Korean hand made cotton. All manufacturing of Korean cloth came to a halt. After enough years had passed that Koreans no longer knew how to make cloth, Japan drastically increased the cost of its imported cloth. I watch in amazement as Americans go down the same road as Indians and Koreans pleased at themselves for being such savvy consumers.
Pretty damn bizarre :
Brand-new Ford Transit Connect vans, made in Spain,
are dropped off at U.S. ports several times a month.
First, they pass through customs — and then workers
hired by the automaker start to rip the vehicles apart.
The rear seats are plucked out.
The seat belts in back go, too.
Sometimes, the rear side windows are covered with painted plates.
Any holes left in the floor are patched over.
This is how Ford Motor Co. tries to get around the half-century-old “chicken tax.”