BYD may very well become a major GREEN diversified manufacturer.

Their electrified vehicles will certainly be very competitive.

"How will our car companies ever compete with a country whose people only earn the equivalent of $3.75 per hour?"

By corp officers paying each other millions a year while shifting plants overseas.

This year, I paid $700 a month for US medical insurance. If I worked for minimum wage, I would have cleared $800/month. $100/168hr a month = 60 cents per hour.

The US worker is really a bargain.

Lets not forget that USA was built with very low wage immigrant workers. For decades, nobody could compete with made in USA products.

SJC is getting close. Not only some union workers were/are overpaid but all the legal embezzlement by lobbies and friends, banks, insurances, traders, speculators, exaggerated legal and health care cost, management exorbitant pay, etc etc doubled the cost of goods produced in USA. That's also how banks and speculators raised the price of the average large home from $30,000 to $800,000+ before the bubble burst in 2007.

USA, with unregulated greed and corruption has priced itself out of the market. Over 15 million Americans are out of work. To many are going deeper in debt and can't no longer afford the high living standards that they got used to. Those oversize houses and cars are a burden that many cannot pay for.

Short term solutions, like printing more $$$, paying more unemployment benefits and health cares and Flower Parties reduced taxes will make matter much worse two or three years down the road. Giving people more $$$ to buy made in China goods is not the solution. That's what happened in Greece, Ireland, Island (and other countries soon). Germany tried to maintain the economy going with artificial ways and printing more money in the 1930's and it failed.

One possible solution is a major national infrastructures + electrification program to put 10 millions people back to work, Simultaneously, apply much tighter regulations to stop multiple embezzlements from draining/sinking the economy. Short term higher tariffs on all or selected imported goods, starting with $2+/gal on crude oil, could also be used without triggering an international trade war.

This will only be done when interested lobbies support it. It is definitely NOT in their interest to do so. Since they effectively run the government, specially during pre-election times when politicians need funds, it could stay on the wish list for decades.

What the current Fed Government can do is very limited. The next Government may not do any more or even less. USA is in a structural bind. We will go from one bubble to another until all resources are in the hands of very few. Just like the Monopoly game.

If the Tea Party can eliminate the corporate-owned candidates in the Republican primaries, maybe a Populist Revel can eliminate the same in the Democratic primaries. That would fix the Boss Tweed problem; it might be possible for one corporate candidate to win as an independent or write-in (e.g. Murkowski), but once it's obvious that that's what they all are, their votes would dry up.

BYD's biggest problem is trying to operate in a totalitarian, minority rule nation with a despicable Human Rights record. Why would Americans buy inferior technology from Human Rights abusers??

http://www.autotropolis.com/auto-news/chinese-automaker-byd-in-trouble.html

Reel$$...FACTS...BYD and many other firms make $$B under those hard conditions and we are buying the majority of what they produce. Like Japan, Korea etc China will quickly learn to make good vehicles at a very competitive price. They may lead the market with electrified vehicles by 2020.

Peace Hugger....Not so sure that the world is not reacting to our questionable behavior. Our trade deficit is growing fast.

If the Tea Party can eliminate the corporate-owned candidates in the Republican primaries,

That wont happen as long as the Tea Party is supported by the corporations; http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/24/4962235-koch-industries-funds-tea-party-really
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/11/01/TeaPartyTies/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18677
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

I was referring to the trade deficit from the previous post. Bush claimed the deficits were below $300 billion each year when they were actually $600 billion. Do the math, if you run $300 billion deficits each year for 8 years you end up with $2.4 trillion in debt. They ended up with $6 trillion in debt.

Reel$$. That's one personal point of view from your (our) side of the fence. We all have the inherited habit to see what others do wrong but rarely see what wrongs we are doing. We are very far from being perfect and are a long way from the ideal example. Our costly disastrous oil wars and our man made technology-financial-real estates bubbles are something we don't want to talk about. We're making the whole world suffer. You have to go back to the last years of the Roman Empire to see worse. We have lost our angel wings decades ago.

Of course the USA is far from perfect but I get a bit tired of such sentiments as the following, from the coddled:

" We are very far from being perfect and are a long way from the ideal example. You have to go back to the last years of the Roman Empire to see worse."

Really? Or go to most any other country than the US.

If all the others are so much better, and we are so malicious and evil, you should tell all the immigrants.

And since nationalism (at least in excess ) and blind loyalty to country is divisive, you should stand up for what you believe in, and while you are up, vote with your feet.

Harvey, your myopic view of the nation and the world is self-fulfilling, but only in your view. In other sectors and communities, there is prosperity and abundance. We have now the greatest opportunity to balance growth and energy use with preservation of natural environment and terrestrial elements. It begins not with pessimism and whining despair - but with the application of belief and action to correct the things that are wrong.

That means looking internally AND externally. If you think the western economies are any MORE corrupt than than those in Mexico, Irak, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Philippines, Africa, South America, etc. - you're in deep denial. And it means accepting, perhaps for the first time, the criticism of those you deem "lesser than." Get used to it. There's more where that comes from.

JJ: In a free wheeling economy, patents that could reduce energy consumption and/or reduce the cost of energy can be bought and buried for decades.

Fortunately, China and a few other countries may take a different view and use those patents to produce lower cost more efficient products for their population. We may not like it but it is good for humanity.

Patents rights have often been used to block mass production and marketing of excellent products because it would hurt somebodies current business and profit margin.