The Ignorant Investor

I've been looking at new cars for service as the family truckster. Nothing fancy, just a mid-sized front-wheel drive sedan in the range of $19,000-20,000 dollar. The car of the middle class from the section of the auto market in which sales are measured in the hundreds of thousands every year.

I own a 9-year old Toyota with 130,000 miles on it now (yes, I admit it- I'm a tightwad- so what? You wanna fight about it?), and I'm thinking of driving down to the Toyota dealer to buy another one. But given the state of our economy, I want to be open to buying an American vehicle. So I read up today on Chevy's new Impala sedan. Solid reviews, decent price. And made in Canada. Meanwhile, the new Toyota Camry I've been looking at is made in a Toyota factory here in the United States.

So which of these is the American car? The one made by the corporation headquartered in Michigan but built by foreigners, or the one designed by the Japanese corporation but built by the American auto workers? Good luck figuring out that question. It's one of those "if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?" questions (by the way, the answer to the latter question is 'yes' despite what a lot of nerdy philosophy majors would have you believe)