The Selling of the American Economy by Micheline Maynard

Author:Micheline Maynard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

INVESTING IN AMERICA

Foreign investment has long been a lifeline not just to American workers but also to ailing American companies, making it a powerful force in the economy as a whole. America is the destination for more foreign investment than any other nation in the world, even China, despite the rush there during the recent years of its economic boom. While detractors say the profits from those companies only go back to places like Tokyo, Beijing, or Stuttgart, in reality, foreign companies reinvest 46 percent of the profits they earn in the United States in their American facilities, according to the Treasury Department.

At a time when many American companies cannot—or choose not to—invest in operations at home, foreign investment has become a critical, and necessary, source of capital. In 2007, foreign companies paid $42.4 billion in taxes to federal, state, and local governments, and spent even more—$43 billion—on research and development in the United States.

Among all the companies that have invested in the United States, one company has made an enormous impact on both our economy and our way of life: Toyota. In the past two decades, it has become a formidable example of what foreign investment can bring to the country. Since it opened its first American factory in Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1988, Toyota has invested nearly $20 billion in its facilities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico—or roughly $1 billion a year. It has created more than eighty thousand manufacturing-related jobs, and if the employees at its offices and its dealers are factored in, Toyota employs a quarter of a million people in North America.

But Toyota’s role in our economy reaches even beyond the money it has generated and the jobs it creates. Toyota has opened dealerships, built parks, donated to school systems, kept arts organizations afloat, and put its own stamp on a collection of communities from coast to coast. Since 1998, it has also donated $400 million to cities and states where its factories, research centers, and offices are located; for example, when Toyota opened one of its newest facilities, in York Township, Michigan, in October 2008, the ceremony included the presentation of four checks for $25,000 to two area school systems, the state’s economic development foundation, and to the township to maintain a 7.8-acre park that the company had previously donated. Toyota’s philanthropy approached $60 million in 2008 alone, fulfilling the charitable role that Detroit companies once played in their heyday. Even though Toyota lost $3.9 billion in 2008 and expected a bigger loss in 2009, executives vowed the company still saw opportunities in the United States and would continue to invest.

When companies such as Toyota invest in a community, they not only create countless jobs and pump money into the local economy, they also stimulate local commerce and create demands that attract even more businesses to the region. By employing staffs of American-trained, American-born engineers, designers, and manufacturing experts, foreign companies can boost a state’s profile—and its desirability to other companies and investors,

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