Well, at least we didn't stray from the subject! <G>
How I interpreted OBX's post was "how much of our Raptors is purely American made?" By the whole great big melting pot of 'mericans. Like "In THIS country" ... to see if Ford is keeping Americans working or not. I would offer that Ford is smart... they simply aren't going to let inferior components into their products... and especially a SVT product like the Raptor.
The whole issue of the pedigree of a group of Americans is pointless, IMHO. Americans are Americans... period. Now, if you want to talk about immigration policy, and the enforcement of said policy... THAT is a different discussion. One that we have a place for... the Speakeasy. The only holds that are barred there is the one of respectful, adult discourse. The open forum... where we are at, isn't the place for these discussions, In My Humble Opinion. This is a Ford RAPTOR discussion group, not a political discussion group. Not that there aren't things that we need to discuss and kick around... such as Immigration and the enforcement of our borders... there most certainly are. But I suggest that we keep to the topic of the Raptor in the open forum. My 2 cents worth.
As far as the Percent of American components... I believe that Ford is a huge supporter of the American worker. Any component that is not American made are first or second tier manufacturing products... things like light bulbs and such. The higher levels of manufacturing are what America is good at... as far as light bulb technology we've 'been there done that'. We build motors and integrated systems at our point in industrial development. The components, to a large degree, are comparative childs play... if the material is up to spec, and the tolerances are within acceptable bounds, who cares where the parts come from? If minimum wasn't good enough... they wouldn't call it minimum.
If some other country can make a component that meets spec cheaper than we can, we NEED to buy it there. The Capitalistic model requires competition to work... if someone can make that a component that meets all the specifications cheaper than you can... perhaps you need to streamline your production processes. In the mean time, people are going to buy the competitions product... in a Capitalist system, the loss of business is motivation.
As I said, there are issues that I would love to discuss along these lines... but in a different place. People don't come here to listen to me blather about immigration policy. I will however blather in the Speakeasy <G>.
Falcon
