Now, wait a minute. You keep mentioning the electronics industry, which I am in. The mass market CONSUMER electronics industry has indeed pretty well gone overseas: Bad for me - I am in one of the last vestiges & presently (still) job hunting! But, there is all kinds of high tech electronics industry still here - a good part of which is supplying modern weapons and components for such to the U.S. military.
At least in the consumer electronics areas I work(ed) in, there never was particularly significant Japanese production in the U.S. The U.S. companies simply shifted production to overseas plants or vendors, or were displaced by vendors who were foreign all the way. Well, maybe not always 100% “all the way”. Last time I checked, Pioneer Electronics, for example, was still doing some of their product development, engineering, and testing in the U.S., but not the production, of course. In fact, I was just over at their website and they are hiring engineers for locations in CA and OH - unfortunately not in my specialty. :-(
Whether or not the “transplant” auto companies stay here is not dependent on whether the “big three” declare bankruptcy. It is dependent on whether or not it is cost effective for the transplants, or anybody else, for that matter, to manufacture here. The auto market may decline, but it is not going to disappear.
Why is it assumed most of the suppliers can’t adjust? Any company over 100 employees that can’t shrink by 20%, or even 50%, and survive / adjust, probably does not deserve to survive.
I’d also challenge something from another post: I’ll bet Toyota would LOVE to build or buy a plant to manufacture military vehicles for the U.S., in the U.S. True, there might be some “technology transfer” issues (in both directions), but such could be handled. And, true, we theoretically could get in a confrontation with Japan, again, someday, but THEN you nationalize ‘em (Toyota’s U.S. operations.) Not NOW (GM, Ford, etc.)
That said, I am not TOTALLY opposed to loans to the big 3, IF those loans are made under similar conditions to those which a conservative / cautious bank would require. At the very least, the execs and the union heads need to convincingly show how they will get to the point of competitive costs. Of course, then gov’t financing might not be needed: Maybe Warren Buffet would “do the patriotic thing” (at the urging of Joe Biden?)
Of course, I want manufacturing to stay in the U.S. That’s what I was doing (until recently!!!) But, having the gov’t run / control it even more than it does now will make the situation worse, not better.
As an aside, I recently saw that Circuit City declared bankruptcy, and is closing 120 stores, but, the company is not going to disappear, nor will most of their suppliers. In fact, they are still running ads nationally, though locally, they are advertising the store here closing.
You are out of work? I would say the industry is not going that well. What plant did you work for? If you think it is ok to outsource our military equipment production to the Japanese...there is nothing left to say. I can only say you are dead wrong especially about national security. I checked out tv’s before buying mine. The closest I could come was Vizeo which manufactures in Asia but is an American owned company. What tv is built in this country. What computers? I keep hearing about how America is really still manufacturing, but I see something completely different.