MattyG

So a massive taxpayer funded loan isn't a form of welfare? What is welfare? It's the government coming to your aid when you are in imminent danger of becoming indigent. Extend that out to what GM said it was facing and voila. Corporate welfare/bail-in. Don't think for a minute that the leadership wasn't looking out for its own interests here.

GM used the threat of massive chaos and layoffs to ask the government for the bail-in, much as Wall Street asked for help to protect investors. The workers were used as pawns to bolster the case for help. Don't forget it was the Bush Republicans and subsequently the Obama Democrats who extended the lifelines. You make it sound like this is something other than the taxpayer propping up a company that was "too big to fail".

Yes jobs needed to be saved but that's due to the fact that the workers vastly outnumbered the executive class. Of course there was an interest on the part of the unions, politicians and executives. Where did that get the unions who helped GM... and the communities that helped boost the bottom line?

Let's turn your question around to what it should be: what loyalty do you think GM owes to these workers and the towns and cities where it derived profits? Because if you think there is nothing that can or should be done, then maybe your next Lexus should be built in China or [fill in the blank] country and exported back to you at the cheapest possible price and profit margin.

Toys4RJill

MattyG

It is true that the USMCA which now supercedes NAFTA will enable more movement in terms of manufacturing, or at least continue the existing trade to continue. Really, this is about how GM decided this and how it plans to implement it. There is a huge disparity between Mexico wages and US/Canada wages. How do we then explain the retail pricing of GM products built in Mexico, Canada and the US?

It's a question of why the corporate sector has normalized the idea that there is no real obligation to act ethically and responsibly once the profits have all been mined out. GM is not in any real trouble is it? It is posting profits, yet it now wants to still keep shutting down and outsourcing? It was doing that before it received the bailouts. What's going to happen if it decides that pickups can be made in, say Bangladesh, by child laborers, assisted by robotic manufacturing? Outrageous, obviously but not too far fetched given the behavior of lobbyists, and interests that can never get enough money to pad the bottom line.

One thing about the bailouts and the present situation. CEOs and the executive class compensation is closely tied to profit and shareholder results. Whose interests are these people looking after? Their multimillion dollar pay packages or the interests of the communities the company manufactures the products in?

SW17LS

Of course the leadership was looking out for their own interests, my point was that the purpose of the bailout was to save the jobs, not to save GM.

And just because you loan people money doesn't mean you own them, and certainly not once the money has been repaid with interest as it has been in this case.

What loyalty do they have? They don't have a level of loyalty where they should continue to operate plants they don't need simply to employ workers. The world just doesn't work that way. We need to help people prepare for the jobs of the future, nit artificially prop up jobs of the past when they just don't make sense anymore. Manufacturing in the US is dead and dying, thats just a fact.

As for "my next Lexus should be made in China". Quiet frankly...I don't care where its made. Every Lexus I have ever had has been made in Japan, so I'm not sure where your argument is going. In fact, I specifically urged my friend who just bought an ES to chose the one he did because it was built in Japan and not in America.

Toys4RJill

Toys4RJill

MattyG

Correct. Except, we're not talking about some sort of mafia deal here. We're talking about how a multi-billion dollar corporation could not raise enough private capital to save itself from a market meltdown.

That's not the fault of the unions or their workers. It's the fault of the management who then went hat in hand to the taxpayer. If the labor was overpriced then that management had years and years to act earlier.

Except that some areas of the US cannot support the so called "new" sectors. The alternative is to have these workers move, retrain or remove themselves from the labor market. But that doesn't mean that a gigantic corporation makes promises, signs on the dotted line, and when it's convenient... leaves.

If you missed it, the argument is going to something called, race to the bottom. If it's ok with you, then maybe child laborers will build your next car, Lexus or otherwise. As for the "made in Japan" bit; did you not get the irony in your statement? Japan doesn't lay off its auto workers and reassigns its surplus labor. Japan also provides health care as well. So you're supporting a different capitalist market yet you want their product while praising the virtues of this market that you obviously benefit from.

Sulu

Oh, I am sure that few would notice if a major automaker moved production of some vehicle popular in North America to Bangladesh and hired under-aged (i.e. child) labourers; that news would be buried "beneath the fold" in the "middle of the business pages" of the newspaper (used as metaphors).

It would only become big news when that plant collapses and pictures filter out to North America of poor, distraught mothers weeping at the edge of the disaster pit awaiting news of their lost sons or daughters. Then, there would be a lot of handwringing here in North America as we have a great, collective "uh-oh" moment, and start screaming to demand audits of, and explanations from, the guilty automaker. There will be the usual "oh, we are so sorry, but we are not guilty" pleas from senior management.

How soon we forget the Joe Fresh-Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh.

SW17LS

What I want is the best built product, regardless of where it's made. The reason I prefer a Japanese built product is that for me it feels better built.

What you're saying is great in a perfect world, but the world is not perfect. We don't do anybody any good in the long term by trying to pretend manufacturing most things in the US still makes sense.

mmarshall

The Koreans, in some ways, are out doing the Japanese now when it comes to building a solid vehicle. The G70 I just reviewed, for example, felt and drove like it was carved out of solid granite.

Well, the more jobs and plants we move out of the U.S., certainly the less-perfect we make our own country. Just imagine if we had done this before we had to fight World War II. Much of the credit for winning that conflict goes to the fact that so much of our manufacturing for war-goods (and for supplying our allies) was done here at home, from the steel plants in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, to rubber tires in Akron, to shipbuilding on both coasts, to tank and Jeep manufacture in auto plants (Ford also built large B-24 bombers), to aircraft manufacturing all over the country, and to what we developed here at home, top-secret, for the Manhattan Project. Where is it now? Because of a number of factors, among them corporate greed and an obsession with low wages, most of it has simply gone....and we may also be gone if we ever have to depend on it again in a national emergency. Trump has brought a little of it back (not much) but there is still a lot to be done.

SW17LS

I don't disagree.

WWII was a different time, that was 75 years ago. You are living in the past, we need to live in 2019 not 1944.

mmarshall

History often repeats itself, though, and if we have a national emergency and are dependent on the rest of the world for our necessities, we could be up **** creek. Look how quickly 9-11 came up, for instance.

Toys4RJill

SW17LS

mmarshall

Thank You, but I am well-versed in Aviation history. Ever been to the National Air and Space Museum? I was once a tour-guide there. This is probably not the best thread to discuss that, though......we may be getting off-topic with plant-closures.