{"id":5210,"date":"2016-08-21T17:38:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T23:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=5210"},"modified":"2016-08-21T17:38:51","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T23:38:51","slug":"help-wanted-cars-and-you-can-take-the-girl-out-of-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/08\/help-wanted-cars-and-you-can-take-the-girl-out-of-michigan.html","title":{"rendered":"Help wanted: Cars! (and: you can take the girl out of Michigan . . .)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"from<\/p>\n

So my youngest son turned 9 last May, which means that our two cars also had their ninth \u201cbirthday,\u201d and we\u2019re in the market for replacing them \u2014 or at least one of them.<\/p>\n

Vehicle #1 is a Chevy Impala, to be replaced by a full-size sedan. \u00a0Remember: \u00a0the boys are 9, 13, and 16, and we intend to keep the car long enough that it\u2019ll need to fit three teen boys\/young adults.<\/p>\n

Vehicle #2 is a Grand Caravan. \u00a0I\u2019d love to go back to driving a car, especially as the gas mileage is terrible, but I don\u2019t see that happening for a while. \u00a0Sure, we don\u2019t need to fit a stroller in whenever we go anywhere, but we want a car that can carry bikes, camping gear, etc.<\/p>\n

The catch: \u00a0yeah, I know it\u2019s not the same situation as in the 1980s, and the \u201cJaps taking our jobs\u201d issue is balanced by the fact that you have to feel a certain sympathy for the Japanese right now, with a birth rate in the toilet, and the sort of culture that, well, I sure as heck wouldn\u2019t want to be living in. \u00a0(Remember Shutting Out the Sun<\/a><\/em>?), but, well, I\u2019m still a Detroit girl. \u00a0OK, make that a suburban Detroit girl. \u00a0Dad was a 30-year employee of General Motors<\/a>. \u00a0I remember Mom and Dad sitting at the kitchen table, sometime in the 80s, worrying that the current round of job cuts would impact them. \u00a0And the newspaper, full of reports of job losses and plant closing. \u00a0To buy a foreign-made car was practically a traitorous act.<\/p>\n

Now, in the meantime, non-American companies have begun to build cars in the U.S. \u00a0(I\u2019ve never been entirely clear on the extent to which it was good PR\/business sense and how much it was influenced by tariffs.) \u00a0But, as Dad\u2019ll tell you, the assembly jobs may be in the U.S., but the engineering work, and the corporate profits, are elsewhere.<\/p>\n

At the same time, well, I may be<\/em> persuaded to welcome a German car into the driveway. \u00a0After all, my husband is German, and it\u2019s not as if, when they produce price-competitive cars, it\u2019s because they underpay their workers relative to the U.S. \u00a0Germany faces the same challenges of producing cars with high worker pay demands as the U.S.<\/p>\n

So, two questions for readers:<\/p>\n

What cars would you recommend?<\/p>\n

And are you like me, with car-buying that one last remaining \u201cbuy American\u201d purchase long after you\u2019ve abandoned that effort elsewhere?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

from pixabay.com; https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/car-automotive-cars-trade-dealer-718781\/ ; public domain<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So my youngest son turned 9 last May, which means that our two cars also had their ninth \u201cbirthday,\u201d and we\u2019re in the market for replacing them \u2014 or at least one of them. Vehicle #1 is a Chevy Impala, to be replaced by a full-size sedan. \u00a0Remember: \u00a0the boys are 9, 13, and 16, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":5211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[455,9],"class_list":["post-5210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cars","tag-detroit"],"yoast_head":"\nHelp wanted: Cars! 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