From what you read in the news, and hear from Southern GOP Senators, you'd think that this was a banner year for Japanese automakers operating in the US. Or at the very least that Toyota, Hyundai, and the other automaker "transplants," that is foreign auto firms producing in the US, are currently experiencing a bit of schadenfreude watching their long time nemesis GM on the ropes. But. It just isn't so. And here's why.

Foreign automakers producing in the US are perfectly aware that the destruction of the Detroit Three would only hasten a sharp decline in their own ability to operate, and profit, in the North American market. In order to understand precisely why it is that Sen. Shelby and his comrades have gone all quixotic seeking to kill off GM in the name of Japanese efficiency while their beaus running transplant factories in the South shake their heads, it helps to look at the work of Chalmers Johnson.