where are cars manufactured

Geoff,

I apologize, I was playing devil's advocate with the logic and grammar of your statement.

After your statement "...profits are still going someplace," my post was to get you to clarify your position in the case of a company that did not have any profits.

I suspect that you meant "revenue" instead of "profits" and if "revenue" is substituted where you said "profits, then FWIW, I agree with you.

See above re: "revenue." Sorry, it's the parochial school English classes and logic classes coming back to haunt me ;-)

Wearing my devil's advocate hat (horns) again...

Based on the final destination of the revenue, Are Saab and Volvo Swedish or or American cars?

Are Rolls Royce, Bentley, and Mini British or German cars?

Aahhh. That makes sense, that the lying troll "Mike Hunt" would be playing games like that...

If you are going to insist on that, then you would have to agree that the LOSSes incurred by GM go to the USA (in other words, Americans are somehow losing money because of GM's losses).

Actually, profits usually go to the stockholders, who may reside anywhere in the world. Losses are covered by the stockholders as well, in the form of loss of value of their holdings.

But as I pointed out, profits are only a small portion of the economic pie. Most of the money generated by the manufacturer usually goes to labor, so you should look to where the highest value of labor resides to see which country benefits.

Merritt

So what? The question was, who benefits from the economic activity of the Toyota company?

If you define a product's nationality by where in the world its headquarters are located, you will find that many of the "American" products you use every day are actually foreign products, even if they are made in the USA.

The problem with that is that while people have nationalities, products do not.

Well, then provide the international distribution of Toyota shareholders and we will see how that holds up.

Merritt

And, of course, Jaquar becomes an American car.

You make an excellent point and it just proves that machines do not have a "nationality."

Merritt

You are just being pedantic.

Merritt

Yeh...his pedanticism is showing...

When I fall off a cliff face or climbing tower and hang from a rope, I guess I'm pendantic. When I nit-pick people's opinions on where cars are from I guess I'm pedantic ;-)

Yup, we're on the same page!

: Allow me to cut this Gordian knot. Toyota is a Japanese company, : and that means a Toyota, wherever it's built, is a Japanese car. : There is is.

Fair enough.

The final destinations are, of course, the U.S. and Germany, respectively. But is that really the proper criterion? It isn't as though the revenue passes through Sweden and the UK intact, ending up the U.S. and Germany in its entirety. It's more like the parent companies taking their cut (kind of like tribute), with the bulk of the revenue going to the manufac- turers. How could Saab, Volvo, etc., remain operational otherwise?

Geoff

: [...] pendanticism [...]

Point taken.

I almost wrote "pedanticitude," but figured that would've been overdoing it...

Geoff

The apologies are mine. I should've chosen my words more carefully.

Geoff

Ah, but think of the funciousness we could've had with _that_.

I don't have a definitive answer. Playing devil's advocate, I'm just taking pedantic pot shots at any argument that may have grammatical, logical, or factual flaws or errors.

After spending some time working for a fairly well know automaker, my opinion is that the definition of a vehicle's origin or nationality is going to be agreed upon by the SAE or other internationally recognized body.