system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:What percentage of my money goes to the Japanese economy when buying a Japanese brand car in America?
gpt
So, there's a couple of parts to this:  
**1) Wages:** there's people working for the Japanese car firm in America, and people working for the Japanese car firm in Japan. The Americans' wages go to the American economy. The Japanese's wages go to the Japanese economy. 

 
**2) Operating costs:** The overhead for the factories (wherever they're located) such as electricity, buildings, water, heat, etc. is all outflow to other companies--those companies benefit the economies where they are located. Let's include the cost of externally-sourced raw materials in this one: e.g. buy some steel from China?--benefit to the Chinese economy.  


**3): Profit:** Although these Japanese car companies are located in Japan, they're not *owned* by all Japanese people. They're large, public, global Fortune 500 companies. People, other corporations, schools, pension funds, hedge funds, et al. own varying stakes in such a firm. If a public Japanese firm is making profits and is either paying them out in dividends or reinvesting and increasing the market cap of the company, whomever owns shares, is getting money.