SpeedCouch.com The view from my couch Levelling the Field by Cheryl Lauer January 31, 2007
But what really bothers me is that that foreign car manufacturers who rely primarily on inexpensive labor in other countries are now claiming their cars are American. Brian France and NASCAR are even claiming they are American cars too, so race fans should joyously embrace their entry into NASCAR this year. What I see is that the foreign manufacturers have already started to dominate American car sales and now they want to totally crush the competition by using NASCAR to promote more truck and car sales. NASCAR would have us just conveniently forget the number of layoffs of American auto workers at Ford and GM recently. Last night, there was an excellent report by Dan Rather on a little-known satellite/cable network, HDNet. The show was called The Future of Ford and can be seen again tonight at 7pm eastern. I understand that HDNet is not available in very many households, but that network does have a transcript of the show on their website. I highly recommend every NASCAR fan read it and you'll find out more about the impact foreign manufacturers are already having on the American economy. Here's a link to the transcript which admittedly is a little hard to read as it flows without the benefit of the video to aid in differentiating who is speaking. The site also will offer the ability to download and view the video, hopefully within the next few days, and when it becomes available, we will post the link here for you to "see" the report. The show also mentioned a report on auto manufacturers by the Level Field Institute. If you don't have time to read the entire Dan Rather transcript, I encourage you to take a few minutes and check out this report and the organization's website - LevelFieldInstitute.org. You'll find that while the foreign manufacturers do employ many Americans in their U.S. plants, that employment has a very small impact on the American economy. It's a very interesting report that really puts all the "spin" by Toyota and by those involved in NASCAR in perspective. It's not about employing a few thousand Americans, but the overall impact on the American economy. Level the Field is a very apt title for this research group because race fans (and all Americans) really need to hear a slightly different view of this subject.
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