Which is more American: a Hasbro toy made in China, or a Toyota made in Kentucky?

Answer 1

Depends on how you feel about the product. Export regulations are so meticulous today, that you can tell how much of a product (in percentage) is American, or foreign. So, to answer the question, it depends how many of those Toyota components are made in the US, and what is the total weight (in percentage) of these components. So, for example, we would have products that are 30% American, 5% Indian, 16% Spanish, etcetera...

On the other hand, you might have certain feeling about the "outsource" of jobs been "shipped" to China. In this case, you might have a tendency to think that the Hasbro toy isn't American, simply because a foreign country is sucking national jobs, leaving industrial districts empty and creating ghost towns which were previously manufacturing hubs...

It's all about your perception, and your understanding of globalisation.

Answer 2

Toyota. Toyota is paying the going rate for American employees here. Hasbro AVOIDED the going rate. An American car company can compete with Toyota on our soil evenly. Hasbro went outside the lines by outsourcing. If a competitor won't do the same, it's at a loss already. Profit? Many corps pay little or no tax [Enron, for example?]. And the scare talk about 'exhorbitant prices' if manufacturing paid living wages? 1-No, do the math; 2-The economy is GREAT, right? So paying more should be EASY[Ha!] 3- Why are exhorbitant CEO wages NEVER considered into product price--only WORKER wages?! 4-So who pays for all those lawsuits when corporations are found guilty? Maybe if they played fair, the millions on settlements and attorneys could be, ah, 'redistributed?' [or prices lowered!]. [Justin's answer is dead-on].

Answer 3

The Hasbro made in China is likely made by a US wholly owned company that is based in China because of lower labor costs etc
A toyota is a Japanese brand, a Japanese product even though it may be built by American workers in Kentucky.

The Hasbro, therefore 'is more American'

Answer 4

The Hasbro Toy some distance and away. The Toyota vehicle has more beneficial internet effect for the jap than the employees in Kentucky do for the U. S.. the position because the Hasbro toy no longer in trouble-free terms will enhance percentage holder wealth(do you personal a 401k? then you quite are a percentage holder of many businesses...its no longer in trouble-free terms the "wealthy" that are shareholders) it also helps the organization to make investments more beneficial into promoting and marketing, learn, layout, and it helps them to take more beneficial negative aspects. those jobs are unskilled exertions jobs... they don't pay a lot in the U. S. and their exportation makes anybody's high quality of existence more beneficial advantageous. the internet effect of exporting low paying unskilled exertions jobs is a upward push in higher paying admin, learn and administration jobs in the U. S.. from time to time its the in trouble-free terms way for a organization to stay in organization and considering that money comes again to the U. S. it make the monetary equipment and for this reason the country more beneficial.

Answer 5

A Toyota made in Kentucky....If it's made in America, It's American...(who cares whose technology it is)

Toyota has the courage to make something in America & pay the high wages of American workers without complaining or threatening to make it somewhere else cheaper. Instead they are building more plants here in America (San Antonio) & building things Americans want (quality autos). Can you say that for Ford or GM?

(Chevy owner)

Answer 6

As this question seems to be getting at outsourcing, I'll deal with that.

It depends on whichever brings you, as an American, personally more benefit. In other words, it's dumb to buy a Buick over a Honda if you prefer the Honda, just under the mistaken impression that you're doing a good thing for the U.S. economy.

People presume that somehow "buying American" is good for our economy when this is not necessarily true.

If we only bought American, we'd have astronomical prices, and as we'd have to make all our own toys, t-shirts, etc, get much less done. If we focus on what we in America are good at, providing services and skilled labor, while outsourcing to other countries with a comparative advantage in producing other goods--what's the harm? Ultimately, a free flow of goods, services, and even labor, across borders improves production, and makes the collective of society better off.

Protectionists like Lou Dobbs see the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs as bad for Americans, when in reality, it is only a problem for those few in the American manufacturing industry which is no longer economically viable in most industries. ((Cars require more skilled labor and shipping costs are more exorbitant, so that is probably why Toyota can justify a plant in the U.S.)) When our manufacturing industry gets smaller---more people will choose to become educated to compete, and as a result get better jobs. With cheaper goods, domestic companies can make more money which will be spent in the U.S.

Allowing companies to outsource when they want to benefits the vast majority of Americans.

Answer 7

The Toyota made in Kentucky. Who cares who owns the company??? If American workers are making it, then they are bringing home a paycheck. Isn't that what counts??

Answer 8

What's truly American is having the freedom to buy what you want, regardless of where it was made, without some corrupt, bribe-taking government official stepping in and telling you which one you're allowed to buy.

Answer 9

As others have said it is a matter of perception. I lived in Ohio until recently, where well paying industrial jobs are mostly a thing of the past. My father and his siblings were part of the akward generation where you were expected to leave high school and get a job in a factory (which was once the american dream). As most 20-somethings' parents were expected to do. My father went through jobs that went out of business and others that went through lay-offs directly related to business "running for the border" for cheap labor. That might be anecdotal but that is the story for many americans today.

After many of the American corporations left my area of ohio there was one employer that became the dream job for many in my father's generation, that employer was Honda. Many people in my father's generation (had the debt involved with raising a family and due to that debt, income restrictions for federal education grants, and a perception that college was too hard for them) found themselves working at Honda, accepting much lower wages, relocating, or in unemployment lines. This was my motivation to get a college degree in healthcare.

So I have to believe that Honda products are more "American" than International Harvester (truck manufaturer and primary employer in my area of Ohio) products. I base this belief on the fact that, through Honda, many families are buying homes, paying taxes, sending children to college, powering local economies, and living the "American Dream," through Honda's money. While only the CEO, stock holders, and American office workers for International Harvester are making money in America for that company. International Harvester still operates a plant in my area of Ohio but they are constantly laying people off and their operations have been dramatically scaled back from their previous levels.

It is true that globalization has brought you lower prices on everyday items at China-mart, but to what effect? US companies cannot stay competetive with foreign works and said worker's lower wages. So ultimately you end up with towns filled with stores and service industries that feed money to one another. The workers all make poverty level incomes, ultimately leaving towns to becoming seedy places and ghost towns. No one has health care insurance b/c China-mart can't cut into their profit margins and then even the hospital goes bankrupt and leaves town as well. Families are ripped apart by relocation and poverty conditions. Melodramatic? Maybe. Unemployment figures may not reflect my argument but they don't really reflect overall wages and quality of life. The only real winners at the end of the day are the CEOs and stock holders, can you see them smiling all the way to the bank? The same CEOs that have enjoyed record salaries while their workers can't pay the bills. That is my slippery slope argument and I'm sticking with it.

The money that corporations make by hiring outiside of America rarely trickles down to you and me, as some would have you believe. Those profits fund luxury items and gain interest in bank accounts, oh and pay for the day to day operations of the corporations. Middle men that provide the luxury items make a little money too, but how many of us provide services to those ends? The middle men may trickle a little at China-mart, the gas station, and chain restraunts but these industries pay their workers marginal incomes. This middle man trickle of money amounts to a garden hose fighting a wild fire.

So what are the solutions? Caps on CEO salaries? Huge tariffs on foreign made goods (which in turn generate huge tariffs on our exports)? Monetary penalties for companies relocating to foreign countries? More tax incentives for staying in America (on top of all the incentives US corporations already receive)? Well none of these solutions would promote capitalism or good old fashion greed. Easy to say,"go to college," while college prices continue to climb and college debt does the same. The American economy will not just burst it will super-nova into a shell of what it was under the weight of imigration and globalization unless something happens to save it. If nothing else, we could try to slow the exodus of American jobs to other countries by making college more affordable for the middle class, which often falls in an akward place where our parents make too much for financial aide but not enough pay for our college, which generates huge college debt. Effectively forcing college graduates to start neck deep in debt.

So to answer your question......I believe that the Toyota made in Kentucy is way more American than a Hasbro toy made in China and I no I wasn't an english major but thanks for asking.

Answer 10

The Hasbo because it is an american product even tho it is outsourced.