Dear Mr. Buchanan,
While I normally enjoy and appreciate your insightful commentary I noticed that in this particular piece you have made a rather glaring logical error. Early in your piece you relate the reasons why foreign car manufacturers have built plants in the U.S.; which reasons I assume to be correct based on my experience with your writing. Later in the piece you castigate republicans for not helping out GM etc. and you conflate that choice with their choices to 'let' companies move their manufacturing off-shore. Not bailing out GM may be a poor choice as may be the efforts of various Republicans at globalization BUT the two issues cannot be conflated since GM is still manufacturing here for the same reasons the foreign manufacturers built plants here. The difference is that the foreign manufacturers have profitable businesses based on their U.S. domestic manufacturing while GM loses something like $4000 per vehicle produced mostly due to legacy costs and poor management. I understand your point about the loss of Rust Belt jobs leading to political issues for the Republicans but I think that argument can be made better without mistakenly conflating two similar but necessarily different issues.

Best regards,

Daniel F.

Mr. Buchanan, I agree completely with your article and thank you for saying that what our government and corporate decisions have done to our auto industry is deplorable. I understand your article is about Republicans, however, I feel so strongly about preserving our auto industry I must comment. Due to the political actions and the greed of so many with power and money in our country, they've misled the American people and the auto industry. (I acknowledge the industry itself has made some poor decisions, but you don't throw the baby out w/the bath water.) But due to our politicians bad decisions, bad trade agreements. and corrupt people in power , they've shot the industry in both knees and it seems they are now going in for the kill. Our country doesn't deserve this, our auto manufacturer's don't deserve this, and the people, the families, who have worked for generations within this American industry don't deserve this. The American automobile industry supports so many families and is connected to so many other auto related jobs that if we allow them to die, there will be a toxic domino effect throughout our country that is horrifying to imagine. And I don't know about anyone else, but I think anyone who votes against a bailout for the auto industry is a self-serving traitor. Especially when you consider these same "politicians" approved >$700 billion for the financial industry with no strings, no executives fired or giving up their $10,000 hrly salary, and no one telling them what to do or how to spend the bailout money. I'm sure it wasn't meant to pay for executives R&R or to be held and used to buy/gobble up smaller banks. Something is rotten, not in Denmark, but right here in the good 'ol USA.

Sir;... The only reason I have for loving this moment is the many republicans in the Auto Industry, or living second hand off the auto industry who never seem to know which side of their bread is buttered, and who stood against their union to elect people like Nixon and Reagan and Bush... Let the republicans cut their throats... Let the republicans stab them in the back... Is it no less than their own employers have done for years in replacing them with robbots by the mile, and by shipping their jobs abroad to be done in places without legacy costs??? Give those people help, and you would find it exported as capital... What America has done across the board is to ruin itself as a market... A race to the bottom is a good way to put it. But Robbots don't buy cars... They are a fixed cost that can be weighed against profits, but they do not take wages and they don't buy cars... Drive down the cost of labor, drive down the price of wages, hold down the minimum wage; and deny the whole country health insurance; and what do you get???. Profits are maximized and the working class is squeezed until the few people with good jobs can no longer support the service economy we are left with.... High profits and low wages are the reason for this depression... The higher the profits the deeper the depression... So, hooray for the republicans.... Only one question is left to answer...How many republicans will the GOP destroy to kill the union???The union is the only thing standing between this land and revolution... Let it die so we can live... Thanks...Sweeney

Pat, we are pretty much on the same page regarding "Toyota Republicans". What type of mentality promotes the building of FOREIGN auto manufacturers yet looks to destroy the U.S. industrial base ? These politicians are EXTREMELY unaware of the fact that they are seeking to destroy the working middle class as well. Reagan placed a 50% tariff on foreign goods in HIS administration. We need to bump it up to 100%.
What really puzzles me is how the American consumer figures he/she is doing themselves a favor buying cars from automakers of foreign origin. Even if Honda and Toyota make cars in Ohio the PROFITS still go to Japan and Korea. Although most adults claim to have been college educated they are lacking in knowledge of basic economics and common sense. The result of the last election demonstrates that clearly.
Between the "new Dems" and "the 21st century GOP" mainstream Americans are in big trouble.