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Gm moves to China

They won't. As recognized, they're building this in China to meet Chinese demand. It's a massive and emerging automotive market. If you think China is all bicycles and rickshaws these days, you can kill that noise. They're being very developed, very fast.

All this is doing is saving them shipping costs. It's independent of all else.
 
washunut said:
By the same token as GM builds cars in China there will be job growth there not here. Perhaps we should look at the bigger picture and say why is the US not adopting China's trade strategy. They have no problem putting in place policies that advantage product made in their country, yet when that is talked about here are we hear is the concern for a trade war.
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I think the issue would be how the policies are enacted and in what markets. The US under Reagan, and Bush 2 have enacted trade policies that restricted foreign trade in the US. The two most notible under Reagan would have been the tariff on foreign (read Japanese) pickups, and the quota on semiconductors. Bush 2 had policies restricting foreign steel imports, Under Obama (IIRC) a tariff on Chinese made tires has been put in place.

So the US does engage in some policies that do place an advantage on products made in the US, but it is not many.

Outside of corporate lobbying for free trade, the US also uses access to the US market for as a foreign polict tool. This of course will not help in the trade balance
 
sawyerloggingon said:
My first thought on this was if GM wanted lower labor cost why not move to a right to work state, your post reminds me why. Interesting how Obama is stopping Boeing from building a plant in a right to work state but turns a blind eye to GM building a plant in China. Maybe Boeing should just move to China too. Once again I ask, WTF?????
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Boeign already has moved some production to China
Boeing's newest China plant to launch production in 2013
Boeing purchases more than 200 million U.S. dollars worth of products and services every year from China, making it the country's largest buyer of aircraft subassemblies. The company is expected to purchase twice as much by 2015.
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http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/08/31/will-boeing-move-to-beijing/

The CEO of Boeing wants if the following article is true to move even more production and work to China

Boeing (BA) CEO Jim McNerney is eager to move the company to China. Whether moving Boeing to China means shifting its headquarters from Chicago to Beijing is up in the air. But Boeing already has $600 million in supplier partnerships with China -- such as a deal with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation to build an assembly for the 787's vertical fin. And Stan Sorscher, who spent 20 years at Boeing before taking a post at the Society of Professional Engineers in Aerospace (SPEEA) in 2000, told me that engineers he spoke with believe that McNerney is hooked on the idea of shifting more of Boeing's aircraft development to China.
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Airbus has a final assembly plant in China as well

The first A320 stamped “Made in China” has rolled out of the factory Airbus opened in Tianjin. It is the first time a major manufacturer has fully assembled an airliner in China, a major landmark for the country’s rapidly growing aviation industry.

Hoping to satiate China’s voracious appetite for passenger airplanes, production at the factory, pictured above and called the Final Assembly Line, will rise to four aircraft a month by the end of 2011, Airbus said.
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Boeing and its related businesses have created about 20,000 jobs in China to date, including 6,000 employees working directly for Boeing, its subsidiaries and joint ventures.
[/quote]
 
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jamesrage said:
I do not think any American can work 80 hours a week for a 75- 120 dollars a month and I imagine that any Chinese worker making that is living a **** hole shack and only feeding their family rice and ramen noodles.

washingtonpost.com: Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart's Low Prices
Most of the 2,100 workers here are poor migrants from the countryside who have come to this industrial hub in southern China for jobs that pay about $120 a month.

snip..

Qin helps make plastic toy trains for Wal-Mart, but says she cannot afford to buy toys for her 9-year-old son. "In four years, they haven't increased the salary," she said.

snip..

Li said these factories often require employees to work as many as 80 hours per week during the busy season for $75 to $110 per month
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Your article is somewhat old and the pay structure in parts of China have shifted dramatically. In the richer coastal regions pay is in the range of 3000 rmb per month for lower skilled workers. Which is around $500 USD. Still not a huge amount of money for most, but the costs for Chinese made goods from Chinese companies are not that high either. One reason manufacturing is leaving the coastal regions for the interior of China
 
1Perry said:
I think you are mistaken if you think GM isn't going to start shipping these cars over here. If they don't, good for them, but I'm betting they do.
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Gipper said:
They won't. As recognized, they're building this in China to meet Chinese demand. It's a massive and emerging automotive market. If you think China is all bicycles and rickshaws these days, you can kill that noise. They're being very developed, very fast.

All this is doing is saving them shipping costs. It's independent of all else.
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There is a chance GM might export cars made in China to the US in the future. The future being 10 years at least down the road. But exporting cars using a joing venture company does not allow GM to make as much profit as it would if it was a fully owned subsidary(sp). Combined with rising incomes and costs in China, buy the time the quality of Chinese autos would be high enough to export to the US, Mexico could very well be a better alternative
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Boeign already has moved some production to China
Boeing's newest China plant to launch production in 2013



Will Boeing move to Beijing? - DailyFinance

The CEO of Boeing wants if the following article is true to move even more production and work to China



Airbus has a final assembly plant in China as well


Boeing and its related businesses have created about 20,000 jobs in China to date, including 6,000 employees working directly for Boeing, its subsidiaries and joint ventures.
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[/QUOTE]

Interesting links but the main point of my OP was did we save GM so they could go to China? This seems to be lost in the debate, oh well.
 

Interesting links but the main point of my OP was did we save GM so they could go to China? This seems to be lost in the debate, oh well.[/QUOTE]

What do you mean go to China?

GM has and had significant operations in China to serve the Chinese market before the government bailout, GM is basically expanding its operations in China. Should GM shut down all its operations outside the US except for sales? Should it close down Opel, Vauxhal, Holden, SAIC-GM, its manufacturing plants in Mexico?

I could see people being upset if this was being down to shut down some US operations and open them in China to sell back in the US, but given that is not the case I do not understand why some many are upset
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Interesting links but the main point of my OP was did we save GM so they could go to China? This seems to be lost in the debate, oh well.
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What do you mean go to China?

GM has and had significant operations in China to serve the Chinese market before the government bailout, GM is basically expanding its operations in China. Should GM shut down all its operations outside the US except for sales? Should it close down Opel, Vauxhal, Holden, SAIC-GM, its manufacturing plants in Mexico?

I could see people being upset if this was being down to shut down some US operations and open them in China to sell back in the US, but given that is not the case I do not understand why some many are upset[/QUOTE]

I guess it’s the fact that the first news we hear from GM after we rescue them is they are opening a plant in China, seems like a slap in the face to me. It may be good business but its bad PR which in the long run is bad business; I predict GM goes belly up again. I know I won’t be buying GM.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Your article is somewhat old and the pay structure in parts of China have shifted dramatically. In the richer coastal regions pay is in the range of 3000 rmb per month for lower skilled workers. Which is around $500 USD.
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Do you have a link to prove this and is this where most of the outsourced factories are?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I guess it’s the fact that the first news we hear from GM after we rescue them is they are opening a plant in China...
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This might be the first thing you've heard from GM after them being bailed out, but there has been a plethora of news from GM since the bailout.

Hell, one really important story you must have missed was this one:

General Motors Repays $8.1 Billion in Government Loans - ABC News

Why did you assume that this was the first news we heard from GM after we rescued them? Not everyone is ill-informed.
 
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Tucker Case said:
This might be the first thing you've heard from GM after them being bailed out, but there has been a plethora of news from GM since the bailout.

Hell, one really important story you must have missed was this one:

General Motors Repays $8.1 Billion in Government Loans - ABC News

Why did you assume that this was the first news we heard from GM after we rescued them? Not everyone is ill-informed.
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The way I heard it that was smoke and mirrors, the basically used one lump of gov money to pay off another gov debt. Like if you paid of Master Card with your Visa. I have not researched this myself though so if you can prove me wrong feel free to do so. I am usually 100% sure of what I say before I say it, this is a rare exception. Its Saturday morning damnit, who has time. LOL
 
sawyerloggingon said:
The way I heard it that was smoke and mirrors, the basically used one lump of gov money to pay off another gov debt. Like if you paid of Master Card with your Visa. I have not researched this myself though so if you can prove me wrong feel free to do so. I am usually 100% sure of what I say before I say it, this is a rare exception. Its Saturday morning damnit, who has time. LOL
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Ah, so you had heard that news from GM prior to the news that they are expanding into an emerging market. So you at least understand that the story we are talking about now was not the first we've heard from GM since they were bailed out.

Nor is it the second, third or even twentieth thing we've heard from GM since that time, either.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
This was bugging me so I took a minute and found this, I was right again, damn I'm good! :lol:
GM Pays Back TARP Loans With...TARP Loans! - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
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That story leaves out an important detail about the way that the debt was repayed. Not all of the Tarp money came in the form of loans. In fact, the government bought a controlling share in the company.

Obama ****ed up (IMO) by selling off a large portion of those shares at a loss, but we (through the government) still retain about 33% of the total shares.

The only way that we (through the government) can possibly recoup that which was invested into GM would be if the GM stocks rise to something like $55 a share. that doesn't seem all that likely, given that GM is trading at under $30 at the moment.

But, one big way that we can mitigate our losses (or even pull off the upset by breaking even) is if GM becomes a successful business, thus driving up the stocks' worth.

I think tapping into an emerging market such as China and cutting the costs of domestic employees are both positive steps toward that goal.

While I disagree with how GM's bailout went down, I understand that it is in our best interest that this company succeeds now. People who choose to not buy GM in protest of the government's decision are contradicting themselves. If they really care about the money that was invested, then they should be hoping for GM to succeed so that we do not lose that money.

It certainly doesn't help that the administration made a stupid business decision with that money, but I believe that this stupid business decision was in part fueled by the shortsighted political rhetoric surrounding the bailout (people who don't want to buy from "government motors" because they'd rather shoot themselves in the foot than just suck it up and deal with the reality of the situation). That shortsighted political nonsense is actually harming the country as much as the initial bailout did, if not more.

We had a chance to recoup our investment if, instead of playing political games, our leaders asked us to rally behind the decision to help an American company. We could have helped GM become successful without them having the need to go into China. We didn't do that, though, for various reasons. For some people, it was a distaste for GM product which pre-existed the bailout. There's no fault in that. But for many, it is mostly due to political views, and I do find fault in that.
 
Tucker Case said:
That story leaves out an important detail about the way that the debt was repayed. Not all of the Tarp money came in the form of loans. In fact, the government bought a controlling share in the company.

Obama ****ed up (IMO) by selling off a large portion of those shares at a loss, but we (through the government) still retain about 33% of the total shares.

The only way that we (through the government) can possibly recoup that which was invested into GM would be if the GM stocks rise to something like $55 a share. that doesn't seem all that likely, given that GM is trading at under $30 at the moment.

But, one big way that we can mitigate our losses (or even pull off the upset by breaking even) is if GM becomes a successful business, thus driving up the stocks' worth.

I think tapping into an emerging market such as China and cutting the costs of domestic employees are both positive steps toward that goal.

While I disagree with how GM's bailout went down, I understand that it is in our best interest that this company succeeds now. People who choose to not buy GM in protest of the government's decision are contradicting themselves. If they really care about the money that was invested, then they should be hoping for GM to succeed so that we do not lose that money.

It certainly doesn't help that the administration made a stupid business decision with that money, but I believe that this stupid business decision was in part fueled by the shortsighted political rhetoric surrounding the bailout (people who don't want to buy from "government motors" because they'd rather shoot themselves in the foot than just suck it up and deal with the reality of the situation). That shortsighted political nonsense is actually harming the country as much as the initial bailout did, if not more.

We had a chance to recoup our investment if, instead of playing political games, our leaders asked us to rally behind the decision to help an American company. We could have helped GM become successful without them having the need to go into China. We didn't do that, though, for various reasons. For some people, it was a distaste for GM product which pre-existed the bailout. There's no fault in that. But for many, it is mostly due to political views, and I do find fault in that.
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I disagreed with bailing out GM in the first place and think it was more about keeping the union strong. GM has been making crap cars for years and their contracts with unions were and are not viable. They needed to go bankrupt, renegotiate contracts with unions and get a fresh start as a leaner more efficient company, In short they needed to fail and propping them up with tax payer dollars was a monumental waste of money. We will never get it back, it’s more money down the toilet and the sooner they fail the better. I want those union jobs gone and those blood sucking so called workers that drink beer and smoke pot during their breaks gone too. The only chance America has is to get rid of unions both public and private, they are parasites on the economy.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
The way I heard it that was smoke and mirrors, the basically used one lump of gov money to pay off another gov debt. Like if you paid of Master Card with your Visa. I have not researched this myself though so if you can prove me wrong feel free to do so. I am usually 100% sure of what I say before I say it, this is a rare exception. Its Saturday morning damnit, who has time. LOL
Click to expand...

This is what happened.
 
Tucker Case said:
That story leaves out an important detail about the way that the debt was repayed. Not all of the Tarp money came in the form of loans. In fact, the government bought a controlling share in the company.

Obama ****ed up (IMO) by selling off a large portion of those shares at a loss, but we (through the government) still retain about 33% of the total shares.
Click to expand...

Of which we will end up losing even more on.

The only way that we (through the government) can possibly recoup that which was invested into GM would be if the GM stocks rise to something like $55 a share. that doesn't seem all that likely, given that GM is trading at under $30 at the moment.

But, one big way that we can mitigate our losses (or even pull off the upset by breaking even) is if GM becomes a successful business, thus driving up the stocks' worth.

I think tapping into an emerging market such as China and cutting the costs of domestic employees are both positive steps toward that goal.

While I disagree with how GM's bailout went down, I understand that it is in our best interest that this company succeeds now. People who choose to not buy GM in protest of the government's decision are contradicting themselves. If they really care about the money that was invested, then they should be hoping for GM to succeed so that we do not lose that money.
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I thought about buying a new Chevy truck. I then see the Union negotiated with themselves and gave many of these cuts right back to the employee's starting right back with the very actions that helped get them in the mess in the first place.

It certainly doesn't help that the administration made a stupid business decision with that money, but I believe that this stupid business decision was in part fueled by the shortsighted political rhetoric surrounding the bailout (people who don't want to buy from "government motors" because they'd rather shoot themselves in the foot than just suck it up and deal with the reality of the situation). That shortsighted political nonsense is actually harming the country as much as the initial bailout did, if not more.

We had a chance to recoup our investment if, instead of playing political games, our leaders asked us to rally behind the decision to help an American company. We could have helped GM become successful without them having the need to go into China. We didn't do that, though, for various reasons. For some people, it was a distaste for GM product which pre-existed the bailout. There's no fault in that. But for many, it is mostly due to political views, and I do find fault in that.
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GM's long term outlook has been set once the union was gave the keys to the henhouse.

No, if the government had insisted on GM going through a proper bankruptcy with the undertanding that it would stand behind the company I might have understood. A proper bankruptcy though would not have been a positive for the unions and Obama could have none of that so he turned our accepted laws on their heads. Yes it is my political view that this is NEVER a proper role of the government and all they did was cost the taxpayers, who knows how much in reality to simply put the problem off into the future.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I disagreed with bailing out GM in the first place and think it was more about keeping the union strong. GM has been making crap cars for years and their contracts with unions were and are not viable.
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GM had been making some great cars.

They needed to go bankrupt, renegotiate contracts with unions and get a fresh start as a leaner more efficient company, In short they needed to fail and propping them up with tax payer dollars was a monumental waste of money. We will never get it back, it’s more money down the toilet and the sooner they fail the better. I want those union jobs gone and those blood sucking so called workers that drink beer and smoke pot during their breaks gone too. The only chance America has is to get rid of unions both public and private, they are parasites on the economy.
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This is what should have happened. The sooner we have a leader willing to give what was stolen from investors back to them, the better off we will be.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
My wife had an 89 Chevy Blazer that literally fell apart at 100K, it was almost like it was designed to do so, that’s why I am so down on them when it comes to quality.
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Understood. That was over 20 years ago though.
 
lpast said:
Nope wrong...GM was union forever and was Number 1 forever, until they started making crap cars that fell apart rusted away and broke daily.
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It doesn't really matter how long a union has lasted or when it came to be. What matters is what they did since they were founded trying to increase their wages past the point of reason. To the point where they had to ignore the balance sheets they were given by the company to see what they could afford. The fact is they got to the point where they merely were only interested in what they could get out of the company and paid no attention to how the company was doing to see if they could actually afford it. With the government behind them in the process GM had no recourse but to agree to unreasonable demands. With the quality of their product already low to begin with this condition only served to make it worse.


GM is in the shape its in...because they would not make cars americans wanted they kept right on relying on SUVs and P/Us...now they are scrambling to make what americans want.....Gm did it to themselves...not the unions...your using unions to excuse corporate miscues...and the engineering of crap vehicles
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I don't know where you were in the last decade but I would bet 70% of cars on the road were and are SUV's and trucks.


These companies are killing their country out of greed....thats what I know, open your eyes and you will see it too. Lets not forget one fact please...there would be no competition if our corporations didnt create it themselves.... so let them go shop for the lowest cost and pay more taxs here to run the country that they are gutting..
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The world is their market. Trying to tell me they are about greed does not change the fact that they are merely using the market in front of them.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I disagreed with bailing out GM in the first place and think it was more about keeping the union strong. GM has been making crap cars for years and their contracts with unions were and are not viable. They needed to go bankrupt, renegotiate contracts with unions and get a fresh start as a leaner more efficient company, In short they needed to fail and propping them up with tax payer dollars was a monumental waste of money. We will never get it back, it’s more money down the toilet and the sooner they fail the better. I want those union jobs gone and those blood sucking so called workers that drink beer and smoke pot during their breaks gone too. The only chance America has is to get rid of unions both public and private, they are parasites on the economy.
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If you want to see the union jobs gone, why would you be bothered by the idea of jobs moving to China? Nothing will kill a union more effectively than outsourcing.
 
1Perry said:
Of which we will end up losing even more on.
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That's not guaranteed. We can recoup if the stock rises, but that wont happen unless they tap into an emerging market like China.



I thought about buying a new Chevy truck. I then see the Union negotiated with themselves and gave many of these cuts right back to the employee's starting right back with the very actions that helped get them in the mess in the first place.
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According to the article, the union was the group that urged higher paid employees to retire early so that cheaper employees could be hired. The unions certainly deserves to be criticizd, but at the same time those aren't the very actions that got us here. They are quite different from those actions, actually.


GM's long term outlook has been set once the union was gave the keys to the henhouse.
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Tapping into an emerging market with a billion people definitely changes the long term outlook.

No, if the government had insisted on GM going through a proper bankruptcy with the undertanding that it would stand behind the company I might have understood. A proper bankruptcy though would not have been a positive for the unions and Obama could have none of that so he turned our accepted laws on their heads. Yes it is my political view that this is NEVER a proper role of the government and all they did was cost the taxpayers, who knows how much in reality to simply put the problem off into the future.
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My stance is that we can't change the mistakes of the past. They'll remain mistakes regardless of what we do.

But we can help mitigate the mistakes of the past by making the right decisions that deal with the reality of the situation, as opposed to making ideological decisions that exacerbate those mistakes. We can't predict the future, but we can make educated guesses about the future using the knowledge that exists in reality. The reality of the situation is that we do have a chance to mitigate our losses over the mistake, but it requires us to give up the political nonsense in favor of practical decision making.
 
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