This is an important story, no doubt, but what does it have to do with cars?

I think this is getting swept under the rug too much. Domestic labor absolutely needs a raise, and is deftly exercising their right to strike for it, but the entire industry is underpinned by jobs and companies that are NOT protected during a  prolonged strike. I think Ford stands out from the other Big 3 as a…

I don’t know what they’re talking about. The ship looks fine to me!

Wow, Jalopnik. Punch down much? Heaven forbid this growing company from the global south succeeds in the lands of the people who once colonized and devastated Vietnam. How dare they pull themselves out of poverty by selling cars to the West like Japan and South Korea once did. Apparently they will get racist…

Because things will be cheaper to buy?

And having fewer people capable of doing a given job.

Unions drive up wages as they are now. I’m not disputing that. My point is that one of the main reasons that happens is because membership is limited. If anyone who wanted to join a union could, we would have no skilled labor shortage, but skilled labor wages would be lower.

It’s a fact that there is a shortage of skilled laborers today in the US (which drives up wages) and it’s also a fact that the list of people waiting to join certain unions is very long. If it were just about how much work there was, everyone who wants to get into a union could. Obviously it’s regional and not the…

That would only be true if they knew unions would be open to anyone who wanted to join to become a skilled laborer. They know that it’s very difficult to get into certain unions, so from the company’s perspective unions mean more collective bargaining and higher wages.

Many unions engage in a lot of what guilds did historically. For example, some help train members and match up apprentices with journeymen. The unions run the apprenticeship programs for many trades.

There is an extreme shortage of skilled laborers in the US right now that makes skilled labor worth a lot more than if that weren’t the case. This is pretty straightforward. If the goal was to meet this demand, unions would have their doors to new membership wide open. They don’t.

Part of what unions do is train people to do a specific job. The more people who can do said job compared to the amount of that work there is to do, the lower the wages for doing that job will become. The reason certain jobs are paid well has a lot to do with how difficult it is to get into them.

Your argument falls apart if you think about supply and demand. It theoretically benefits current union workers to have a president against unionization on the basic premise of supply and demand. If there are more unionized laborers in your sector, then your wages go down with the costs of your specialized labor. This…

If they can achieve those specs, it only because it’s a death trap that would never pass any safety standards.

Exactly. There are usually one or two Supras at Cars and Coffee. And I drove passed a wicked looking new Supra just the other day. But I’ve never seen a Z car in the wild. Back in the day you saw 350s and 370s all the time. Still see them every now and again.

Agreed. A friend of mine just got one last month and it required a 16hr round trip drive from Virginia to get it. To be completely fair, it was the one he wanted - manual, base - at MSRP. There was a dealership down the street from his house that had one but it was auto/Performance with an ADM of $10K or so.

I visited Nissan’s headquarters back in July and the employee parking lot was truly packed with them and Ariyas. Seems the ones that do get made and shipped to the US get snatched up by employees LOL.

That’s how parliamentary democracy works. He was first elected to parliament and then his party selected him to be PM. So, again, claiming he’s unelected is just ignorance.

I live near SFBay and I think I’ve seen a new Z *once*. People drive tons of actual cars around here, and could easily afford these with the markups. I see Ferraris, Lamborghinis and McLarens more often then the new Z.

I’m in coastal OC and it’s the same here. I still haven’t seen one and this place is crawling with exotics.