You're looking at what's there NOW, as a result of their ability dump their stuff here.

Right, because back in the days of the CVCC engine, Americans were being forced at gunpoint to buy Japanese cars.

Oh, wait...

Do a little research, on those companies and the quality of their stuff, early on. A very different picture emerges.

Let's add Subaru to that list. (PDF)
These people put the W in Kwality, huh?

(Aside, I actually remembered this article from when it was originally printed. I'm amazed I found it online.)

absent their ability to dump their stuff on our shores,

Your right, of course. Have you ever met anyone who actually WANTS to drive a piece of junk like a Toyota or a Honda? Of course not...

Yes. A car company cannot function well with government involved. Just look at Japan. Government regulation has resulted in an inferior product and unprofitable companies.

Which, absent their ability to dump their stuff on our shores, they would still be... or hadn't that idea occurred to you?

my attentions are diverted to the various protests around the country.

Well, I am trying to imagine something more pathetic than this, but the mind just wont stretch that far...

What they apparently have less of than we have in the states is laws and regulations

Yes. A car company cannot function well with government involved. Just look at Japan. Government regulation has resulted in an inferior product and unprofitable companies.

Oh, wait...

Are you suggesting that Fiat doesn't have the same Union problems that Chrysler has? That maybe a car company with unionized labor can be successful in the free market?

The answers to that question are far longer than I want to get into today; my attentions are diverted to the various protests around the country.

That said, a few thughts off the top:

Yes, of course Fiat has had issues with Unions in the past. What they apparently have less of than we have in the states is laws and regulations (Government) supporting only the union end of that relationship.

Their having dealt with unions both in the east and the west, Fiat seems to me less likely to NOT play hardball with the unions... and in many ways, because of that vaired experience, they're left in a more powerful position to do so in Europe, and the former Soviet Bloc. (Their plants in Poland, versus their plants in Italy, for example)

Then too, the unions involved with Fiat also have their problems with some of their own members... the Strike at Melfi where the Marxist dominated local refused to deal with the CISL's back to work call, back in 2004 roars to mind.

Part of the problem of measuring that is how the Marxist movements to this day are tied to the unionist movements, even in the land of Lech Walesa. Clearly, they're not all of a mind.

This whole negotiate from a position of weakness, I guess there is lots of hope that after several millennia of it not working out that the strategy's outcome is bound to change.

Interestingly, Fiat, of the two is the one acting as an agent of the free market. That they're now in a position to play as they are, suggests that the free market was also the more successful path.

Are you suggesting that Fiat doesn't have the same Union problems that Chrysler has? That maybe a car company with unionized labor can be successful in the free market?

Interestingly, Fiat, of the two is the one acting as an agent of the free market. That they're now in a position to play as they are, suggests that the free market was also the more successful path.

What this has always been about was saving the UAW... which was never sustainable, absent huge import duties on foreign cars. Gas prices going up didn't help matters, either, nor did the ever increasing scope of governmental regulation on the auto industry, which is in the end failing for the same reasons trains did... Governmental over-regulation.

Irony abounds. the UAW suffers from the worldview of the party they work so hard to keep re-electing.

In the end, the unions have to fall for the business to survive. Fiat's smart enough to see that, and outside politics enough to be able to say it without causing themselves governmental backlash issues.

Cheers to them, I say.