Question to everyone, Japanese cars and the global economy... Options

[1900WattCelica]

I have a general question to everyone on the boards who has a celica or any other japanese car (that narrows it down huh!!!)

I was talking to my friend yesterday who has owned fords all his life and he wants to get a commuter car instead of his not-so-gas-friendly ranger. He was asking me about toyotas and hondas and what I could recommend for under 2000. I told him you could get a decent corolla or geo prizm for that much money. And he said yea thats what I figured and he said he was just starting to look into getting the 2nd car and wanted my input. My girlfriend and I said we prefer the japanese cars because of the high standards for reliablilty and their much more easy to maintain for the home mechanic. He then went on to say he may look into some american cars like a monte carlo or a stratus and said he was hoping to get one of those over a typical japanese car because..... here comes the all too common objection: He would rather have his money stay in our economy than a foreign economy.

How do you guys usually respond to people who say those kind of things? It just seems like a really close minded argument to say.

[Supersprynt]

Most american cars have foreign parts to begin with, and there are a few factories for japanese, the Germans really keep their stuff domesticated tho. I think the Z series Bimmers are North Carolina assembled but parts are flown in from Germany. Everything else is made & assempled over there, most likely the same with Mercedes. Toyota I think has a plant in Ohio?

Its just a crappy argument nowadays since there are so many Americans involved with foreign cars anyways. Even if they are assembled in japan they have to be transported to the dealer, the dealer probably is american and they have american workers. THe price is divided up so many ways that you cant say oh it goes straight to japan.