Quick Drive: 2016 Toyota 4Runner Trail Premium

Id like to add:  Because it seems NOBODY wants to talk about the REALITY OF WHY manufacturing will NEVER come back to North America no matter WHAT kind of monies we throw at it to try to bring it back. And FYI, NOBODY is REALLY investing in ACTUALLY bringing back manufacturing to North America...  PRELUDE Nixon opened up the door to do trade with China. (not a bad thing) Reagan allowed Wallstreet and corporate America to move manufacturing from the US to China.  (In hindsight, a very bad thing for what it was to be)  CHAPTER 1 The industrial revolution arrived. It supercharged the British Empire and it helped to introduce a young country into being a very powerful nation in the decades to come.  We are here to talk about the young nation and not about the British Empire. CHAPTER 2 Ultimately, the industrial revolution brought many innovations on how to produce and manufacture even more efficiently and faster.  It helped win a world war or two and the last man standing so to speak allowed this young nation become almost the sole superpower on the planet. CHAPTER 3  Many many many products were produced.  Many many new technologies came to be that introduced a new modern society. And those new modern products also brought with them NEW MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES. CHAPTER 4 Remember when I said that this new nation rose up to the challenge to help win a world war or two?  Well, it was the industrial revolution ace up the sleeve that the USA had and the sheer amount of war machines produced efficiently and with speed was the key to these victories.  Especially that last world war.  When the war was over, the USA enjoyed the technology of mass production that was the envy of the world. (remember the bolded part.) CHAPTER 5  Eventually, manufacturing left the USA to go to China. The world followed suit.  China produces the world's gadgets. CHAPTER 6   (THIS IS THE IMPORTANT CHAPTER THAT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT) China has invested TRILLIONS of dollars in manufacturing. Why? THE WORLD depends on it. China holds itself PROUD to be the world's producer of goods. China wants to CONTINUE TO BE the world's producer of goods. So...China has upgraded their manufacturing plants to be very very state of the art. They will CONTINUE to INVEST not only in monies to ALWAYS RENOVATE their manufacturing plants, but they TEACH their populace to go to ENGINEERING schools so they could ALWAYS have STATE OF THE ART MANUFACTURING.  CHAPTER 7    (ALSO IMPORTANT THAT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT) The USA actually stopped renovating in manufacturing looong before the manufacturing plants left for China. But that is not the issue. The issue is, there are NO monies invested RIGHT now to bring back manufacturing. There are NO plants being built.  LOL tariffs...   And where are those monies from the tariffs?   No American company has invested in manufacturing plants to be built. No American company has worked with AMERICAN engineering schools to teach graduating students to manufacture goods in the USA to actually be with techniques of the early 2000s let alone 2025.  Loooooong gone are those 1930s/1940s/1950s techniques...  We are in 2025 let us not forget.   The USA doesnt even have the TOOLING of those 1930s/1940s/1950s plants. Those were sold to China and elsewhere in the world, but those metal tooling dies right now, have probably been recycled. NEW technologies to manufacture...   CHAPTER 8  (A TRUTH THAT WILL PROBABLY HURT BUT DEFINITELY NOT TALKED ABOUT) A certain American does not favour education.  This certain American favours ignorance.   MOST Americans do NOT want to work in a factory.  But ALL Americans do NOT realize MODERN factory work is NOT how it used to be.  To be fair, Apple iPhone workers in China committing suicide because of shytty work hours is also loooong gone. But then again, American media does not allow for  American peoples to know what a modern manufacturing plant consists of.  Also, engineering is too hard for those subset of Americans to actually learn how to manufacture goods in a modern state of the art way to not only compete with China, but to surpass their prowess in manufacturing to BRING BACK manufacturing from China to the USA.    CHAPTER 9 (ALSO IGNORED) And even if, some manufacturing plants came back to the USA.   There is something that we learned DURING the industrial revolution that says the USA will NEVER get ANY manufacturing plants back.  Sheer volume.  The WORLD has China to produce its goods.  China will ALWAYS remain CHEAPER to produce there just BECAUSE of economies of scale.   The skilled labour is in China.  The raw materials are shipped to China to produce whatever you want to produce. ALL the plants of whatever you have thought of producing whatever you want are ALL in China.  All kinds of different ports exist in China to accept ALL kinds of RAW materials.  ALL the ports are huuuuuge in China. ALL the ports are state of the art.  The BOATS to ship ANYTHING ALL OVER THE WORLD are ALL in China.  The boats are huuuuge and the ports could accept them.  And ALL that coordination is done by STATE OF THE ART communication, education and logistics.   PS:  China and the Chinese government subsidize world ports. The USA once did that...  The USA declares the  Panama Canal as their own.  Past history is past history in subsidizing the canal, but China actually finances it PRESENTLY to open up a bigger canal.  The USA whines abut the name of Gulf of Mexico....      In 2025, CHINA is the envy of the world in manufacturing techniques.     No...manufacturing is NEVER coming back to the USA.   Forget about tariffs, ICE agents, DOGE, assassinations, school shootings and everything wrong (or right) about right wing politics  and left wing lunacy.  THOSE are  just ADDED reasons NOT to do business in the USofA. 

IIRC the other founder of Turning Point died of Covid after denying safety steps for covid or something. You can argue morality and logic, but the impacts/results/effects of what you do are objective and real.  A bit of non political fun, this is gorgeous.  If I wasn't turning 60 years old today, I would drive that damn thing. 

100% spot on analysis of Kirk. Yes, the way he died was horrible, no matter what side of the political spectrum on which you stand. However, let us not ignore the man's ACTUAL words and actions that helped fuel the "radicalization" of certain factions in this country and create this exact scenario where someone decided to take matters into their own armed hands. Ten years of pure madness fueled by one giant narcissistic A-Hole in D.C.

This guy gets the toxic state of America right on so many levels. it's pretty much cooked.  Drew feel free to delete this if need be. 

I like a lot of this guys analysis, he explains well why American manufacturing is declining at a greater and greater pace and why jobs are moving away from the United States.