I'd been wondering about that. For comparison purposes, it might also be interesting to see how wage and benefit packages impact the price of foreign cars manufactured in the United States.

Instapundit has had some related traffic lately on similar topics.

Here's one link:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/027212/

And here's another:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/027197/

"I was for the McCain healthcare plan -- to untie health care from the workplace. It's an excellent idea, and Obama should adopt it."

Ha. Ha Ha. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

*wipes tear from eye*

Sorry, it's just that the thought of our socialist President-elect going for an economic policy that actually makes sense really tickles my funny bone!

Because Amy, you ignorant serf, you just don't know your place relative to your betters in Washington.

Of course the sheep must be sheared, because Hogs do not have wool.

And sheep don't like bacon.

Amy:

Health and pension benefits alone add to $1500.

Job bank costs (laid off workers get 90% of their salary while furloughed) and restrictive work rules (remember installing network wiring for an entire building vs. using wireless routers?) account for the other $500.

Big-3 management has done a pretty credible job, considering the millstone they are saddled with.

I see the whole mess as a cluster-failure by everybody implicated on it.

The Government is ready to do anything to not see the Big-3 Fail.

The Big-3 had chosen to lobby the government for "Anti-foreign Cars" policies instead of facing the music with added R&D efforts.

The UAW are acting more like suicidal leeches than business partners.

Do this industry really need to be saved? Let's let her go under bankruptcy laws and operate on it. Pouring money in a diseased body right now is futile.

About Obama; I think I will have a moralistic orgasm the day I will hear him says "No, you can't." and that day is getting sooner that we think.

Anyone notice how Romney pooh-pooh's the UAW and doesn't even bring up the issue with steel?

The UAW is at least 50% complicit (just a guess) in the failure of these companies, and yet Romney says so little about it. My reaction is that he's trying to sound like a legit 'conservative' while not pissing on the UAW and Steel Worker unions. This at least makes me think he's contemplated a 2012 run and doesn't want this to come back and hurt him. Pick a side already!

I think he's missing the bigger points here. It's easy enough to be an observational writer, simply writing what you see. But to connect the dots and explain WHY these things have failed is a message he has not (and probably will not) convey.

Romney presumes that so long as the government isn't involved, there's a chance the companies remain viable in the future. This is like saying a corpse could be brought back to life if the murderer would just stay away. The deeds have been done, and a dead horse is a dead horse, whether or not one continues to kick it. Romney's remarks could 'maybe' save the American car manufacturers if they were carried out, but that is like offering a cure for cancer to a person who not only refuses to take it, but who also think asprin will suffice. And I say this because the car company managers flew to DC in hopes that they could get thier er...poison pills.

To go off on a tangent, yet tersely so, I think the root of the problems the auto managers now face is the same root that has spawned problems for the GOP.

I've seen it stated by some of the car magazines that Toyota makes an average profit of $2000 per car, Ford averages $100 profit per car, and GM loses money on every car it sells.

rpm daddy, the Avalon is an apt comparison since it's pretty much an American product. It was designed by Toyota USA and is manufacturered here.

It was designed by Toyota USA and is manufacturered here.

Not only that, but unless something has changed with Toyota, more of it is actually manufactured here than most "domestic" cars. All that "buy American" bullshit was just that, bullshit. Granted, when it was most popular, the Japanese automakers weren't making as much here as they do now, but they were certainly planning on it. And even then, a lot of the components of "domestic" cars were made over seas and south of the border.

Chrysler's PT Cruiser (at least the 02 model year) was built in Mexico.

Honda, Nissan, and Toyota have had US design studios for years. Hyundai just recently opened one.

The cost of shipping a completed car (between shipping and tariffs) got to the point where it was cheaper to make them here.

Pat Buchanan got his wish - Americans are buying cars built in America. But he didn't get his wish - because they are being built by Japanese companies. Which frosts his little racist balls to no end.

Which makes me giggle.

Just throwing this out there, but has anyone realized yet that all the other car companies who manufacture authombiles in the United States are silent? Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, etc....

...correct me here if I'm wrong, but are the silent companies non-union???