Is this another case of moving production facilities where future markets will be and/or where production cost is lower?

BW...we are saying the same thing using different words. Ford and others have to and are moving with the market. With EU's and US's economy snail pacing or going down, so will demand for cars. Asia and South America may represent better future markets? Another reason is much lower production cost.

In the not too distant future, the flow of new cars will be from Asia-South America to EU-US unless we can become more competitive.

Or is it greediness from speculators, banks, the 3%, big unions, organized crime, widespread corruption, etc that have progressively priced USA and EU out of the world market?

Empires are not always defeated by outside forces but are most often undermined from within. Isn't that what is happening in USA and EU? $7+B elections may be indicative of how far we've gone?

Yes car manufacturing will get to be very interesting when 200 (*) to 400 miles (**) range affordable batteries become available.

Guess where the majority of batteries, e-motors, control units, wheels, brakes, chargers, cables, displays, EV computers, radio, speakers, steering wheels, tires, lighting units, suspension and steering units etc will come from?

(*) The Tesla S 85 kWh and the BYD e6 72 kWh can do much better than 200 miles already.

(**) Many e-cars with 100+ kWh batteries and 400 miles range will be around by 2017/2018.

(***) Technology evolution will make both the battery and car body 30% to 50% lighter be the end of the current decade.

frankr - you're just wrong. The US has had great economic success in the past with much higher taxes than it has today. Taxes are not what is holding things back, corporations and wealthy individuals are sitting on immense fortunes in cash.

What's holding the US back is the fact that the middle class doesn't have the money to spend it used to have. The rich are hording the money.

With people having little money for things other than the basics our markets are destroyed. Corporations don't want to produce good for a nonexistent market.

Business has forgotten what Henry Ford knew. You have to pay your employees enough to purchase your products if you want anyone around to buy what you produce.

The wealthy will only install a very limited number of car elevators.

Bob,
That's wishful thinking. If it were true communist countries would be the world leaders right now. Romney's right when he says the rich will be fine no matter how much you tax them, it's the poor who lose their jobs when the rich can't afford to pay them anymore.

You and I are both entitled to our opinions, but mine is backed by economics. No economist in the world will tell you that you can build an economy on government spending. It's like A.D's silly comments that we should put electrolizers in fuel cell cars, so that regen braking could produce the hydrogen to power the car; it would be wonderful if it were true, but it doesn't work.

@frankr,
Neither the GOP nor the DEM have the knowledge or the courage to do what it takes to improve the economy. Tax cut for the rich is no panacea, nor government spending to produce $1 trillion-a-year deficit can do it.

To have a healthy economy, the gov. must work together with industries and labor to promote PRIVATE investments into promising areas of new technologies, such as renewable energy, environmental preservation, electric vehicles and H2 economy etc. The PRIVATE dollars from the rich must go into the economy to create jobs. Job outsourcing must stop!

For the Europeans, deep gov. cutback will only create more injury, like the human body in septic shock and the blood vessels are clamping down...soon, gangrene will occurs to the hands and feet, and major organs will fail. Instead, the Europeans must develop solar energy from southern sun-rich regions to spur the economy there, and develop HVDC lines to carry energy to the richer Northern countries, whereby H2 can be produced and stored locally for use in the winters. These activities will create tens and hundreds millions of European jobs and will lift Greeks, Spain, etc out of the crises, just like the end of WWII. These jobs will continually be needed forever to clean the mirrors and the service the solar plants and the HVDC lines. High maintenance, yes or may be, but good for the economy!

Solar thermal plants will have thermal energy storage to keep producing electricity at night to feed their northern neighbors, so that they can really wean off fossil-fuel energy and no longer dependent on Russia's supply of NG, nor the Middle East for oil...

frankr - can you not see the logical problem with this statement you made?

"Romney's right when he says the rich will be fine no matter how much you tax them, it's the poor who lose their jobs when the rich can't afford to pay them anymore."

Tax the wealthy 100% of income and capital gains and they won't be fine.

But tax the wealthy 90% of income and capital gains and they will work a lot harder to create jobs in order to rebuild their spendable income.

Right now the wealthy are sitting on most of our wealth and doing nothing with it to help the country. They're buying bigger yachts from other countries and paying a hundred million dollars for paint on a piece of canvas.

The wealthy like Romney are not creating jobs, outside of a few construction jobs building car elevators. Once people reach a net worth of ten million or so they tend to quit trying to increase income and move into a capital protection mode.

Jobs are created by people who are far from wealthy. Calling people like Romney "job creators" is as big a lie as Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.

America needs a strong middle class. And a strong middle class means better conditions for those who haven't yet made it into the middle class. We can't have a strong middle class if <1% of the population is hoarding the country's wealth.

If we don't build our infrastructure and our educational systems but allow the very wealthy to keep grabbing everything of value we will become like an old burned out country ruled by the aristocracy who are hidden away in their castles enjoying lavish feasts while the rest of us struggle for a crust of bread.

That is not the American our forefathers set out to create.

Agree with TT regarding America's bulging entitlement payroll. This is the downfall of a democratic type of government that allows equal voting weight of each citizen. The law should change to allow the weight of each vote to be proportional to the yearly income tax payment.

ToppaTom also posted:
>>>>"Activities like Fisker, Solyndra, A123 and other green industries could have created tens and hundreds of millions of jobs (they did not, but they could have) and may never be able to lift Greek, Spain, etc out of the crises, but they could have – maybe a WW can."

Look at Germany and the US MidWest for jobs created by solar and wind energy deployment.

Fisker is creating jobs. Solyndra and A123 created jobs when they were in business, and the reason that they went bankrupt is because they can't compete with low prices from China.

In order for US Green Mfg's to stay in business, the Gov will need to participate, NOT by spending more TAXPAYERS' money, but by instituting gradually increasing TARIFFs on imports from countries with lower environmental standards and labor standards than the US. Likewise, instituting the same gradually-increasing tax on fossil-fuel energy will spur PRIVATE-MONEY investments on Green Energy. The EU could do the same carbon tax, and under the leadership of Germany, create massive Renewable Energy projects with solar plants in the Sunbelt having thermal enery storage for 24/7 energy production, and HVDC lines to transport the electricity to Northern Europe. H2 storage system will store the excess energy produced in the fall and spring for use in winter, at very high efficiency due to Fuel Cell Combined Heat and Power generation. (FC-CHP)

We see youth unemployment in Spain and Greek and Italy hitting 50%, and yet, there are works to be done to free Europe from the NG and oil dependency that they are paying through the nose. A few years ago, Russia shut off their NG pipeline to Europe, and people were shivering...

What is your solution, TT, pther than the sarcasm?

>>>"There are things to do and people to do them, but the government is broke, no one wants to pay taxes and it is not profitable enough for the private sector."

That's pretty much sums up the status of the USA, economic and employment wise, just before WWII. And then, suddenly, factories opened up everywhere. Men went to war and women went to work in weapon factories by the millions, building tanks and airplanes by the hundreds of thousands. Even before that, FDR New Deal program put millions to work buiding infrastructures. The gov. was even more broke back then, during the Great Depression. We need another FDR and Churchill... we need another crisis. The threat of runaway global warming not bad enough? The threat of drug lords and gansters taking over like what happening south of the US border not bad enough?

No one wants to pay taxes because they are demoralized by poor leadership and corruption in government. Cronyism is running rampant. Gov. grants and guaranteed loans are not going to those who most deserve them, but going to major campaign contributors...etc...We need strong leaders who can and will gain the trust of the people, rich and poor, young and old, etc. so that they are willing to pay taxes again...for a new beginning...for the salvation of the earth and the future of humankind.

@TT,
Agree with you that free enterprise and level-field competition is best for the economy. The gov. should stay out of business and health care etc.

But, you should realize that some level of policing and regulation from the gov. is necessary to keep the complex wheel of the economy turning. Without sufficient gov. regulation, the US economy will come to a screeching halt. It did in the Great Depression and in the 2008 Great Recession.

Back in the 20's and 30's, Robber Barrons exploited labor to the bone, paid workers dirt cheap, and lots of stuffs were produced in sweat shop factories using nearly-slave labor, but few can afford them because they were paid so little and have to work such long hours hence no time to consume. Predictably, investments went bust, and the economic bubble bursted. The gov. had to go in to regulate these things, with labor laws such as 8 hours work-week so that other people will have a chance of finding jobs and workers have enough time to be consumers to buy goods, worker's rights, workers' injury compensation...

And then, early industries polluted the air and the rivers and the soil real bad, people started getting sick...there were cancers, lung diseases, birth defects, autism...then the gov. had to step in to regulate...forming the EPA etc...

Then, the more recent Robber Barrons realized that these regulations made production cost in the USA too high, so they have to open factories outside of the US borders. They hired people to write the WTO rules to force the US to open our market to a flood of imported goods from job-outsourced destination. Of course, our politicians are also under their secret payrolls. The essence is a short-sighted destruction of USA's industry and manufacturing sector and the destruction of the Middle Class.

Do you know why so many Hondas and Toyotas are made here in the USA? It was because the US gov. threatened the Japanese with tarif when the US car MFG's were in trouble in the early 80's. Of course, these are Japanese-owned industry and not outsourced factories owned by the Robber Barrons, and not enough of our congressmen were under the Japanese's payrolls, so they were forced to open factories here in the USA. Millions of Americans are now benefiting from these "transplanted" factories with jobs and wages that will trickle down into the economy.

Do you know what would happen if we and the world would convert to a 100% Renewable Energy economy? More jobs for the people!
Would we have to pay higher for energy? Nope! Right now, RE is at near cost parity with fossil fuel. With massive deployment and mass production, we will pay even much lower for the cost of energy. How can we pay less for energy and still have more energy-related jobs? Because the energy is FREE! With oil, a substantial portion of the cost of oil go into the pocket of oil tycoons and oil well owners etc... With RE, most of the cost of RE go into labor cost of the people employed to maintain solar and wind collectors and HVDC lines etc.

You blame the 50%-youth unemployment to the gov's of respective countries? You're right...because the gov's are in bed with the Robber Barrons...outsourcing jobs to third-world countries to bypass labor laws and environmental laws designed to protect the people.

Let's face it. USA's economy is imploding for 101 reasons and another WBSon will not change the trend much.

The main reason may be the 12% to 30% legal. mostly untaxed 'pizzo' (called justified profits) that the 3% is taking out of the economy year after year. This average 'pizzo' of 21% is too high and not sustainable. USA's economy will keep imploding at a higher rate if this is not changed/modified.

The world's top organized crime organisations normally limit their 'pizzo' at about 3% to 5%, not to over-tax the economy. Our top class (3%) should know that they cannot continue to take a 21% 'pizzo' out of the economy much longer. They (the 3%) should return the majority of the 21% 'pizzo' to the people by paying full regular taxes on ALL incomes including capital gains and dividends.

Warren Buffet was right. There are no acceptable reasons why the 3% should pay only 13% income taxes while the middle (poorer) class often pay 36%.

D....both extremes...right or left....may be due for failure if not checked or if allowed to occupy too much political, economic, environmental, scientific space etc.

We had many perfect examples lately. Hi-tech, financial, real estates, national/personal debts bubbles and many others greedy free enterprise actions are perfect examples of what can go drastically wrong and ruin the world's greatest economy within a few years.

Bad management and human greed can also do similar damage in State's run economies.

Most so called perfect systems do no last for very long time. They all get corrupted after a few years or decades unless they are properly and timely renewed and/or updated.

USA and EU may be overdue for a major overhaul?