Sebastian Mallaby at WaPo says India and other formerly-third world countries are ready to jump into the automobile market. Can our car makers continue to pay factory workers $30 an hour and executives tens of millions?
In short, Chennai's car industry is reaching critical mass, and its output is good enough to compensate for dodgy (though improving) infrastructure. The same story is playing itself out in India's two other automotive hubs, around Delhi and Mumbai, and to an even larger extent in Mexico, Thailand and (yes) China. The McKinsey consultancy projects that the outsourcing of car parts, relatively limited until now, will sextuple from $65 billion in 2002 to $375 billion in 2015, with India's share soaring from around $1 billion to $25 billion. If you think Detroit is ailing now, wait until you see what's coming.
I have a great strategy for GM, Ford, and Chrysler. India absolutely prohibits gay marriage and, in fact, makes homosexual actions punishable by a lifetime in prison. That's a human rights violation, no? Okay, then push for economic sanctions against India, and demand that the sanctions continue until India at least recognizes the intimate value of same-sex relationships and allows such couples to adopt children.
That'll put the country into a quandary that will take years to sort out.
