Chinese poised to buy GM and Chrysler

[kaygore]

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/11/19/02867.html

Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire GM and Chrysler, China’s 21st Century Business Herald reports.... It is one of China's leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over three million].

-snip-

A take-over of a large overseas auto maker would fit perfectly into China’s plans. As reported before, China has realized that its export chances are slim without unfettered access to foreign technology. The brand cachet of Chinese cars abroad is, shall we say, challenged. The Chinese could easily export Made-in-China VWs, Toyotas, Buicks. If their joint venture partner would let them. The solution: Buy the joint venture partner. Especially, when he’s in deep trouble.

At current market valuations (GM is worth less than Mattel) the Chinese government can afford to buy GM with petty cash. Even a hundred billion $ would barely dent China’s more than $2t in currency reserves. For nobody in the world would buying GM and (while they are at it) Chrysler make more sense than for the Chinese. Overlap? What overlap? They would gain instant access to the world’s markets with accepted brands, and proven technology.

-snip-

[ClarkUSA]

1. Sounds unlikely. Don't believe everything you read.

[Winterblues]

4. Actually it sound extremely likely

It is the Major "in" the Chinese have longed for. They have plenty of cash and are just acheing to spend some of it in America. There are Chinese elements roaming america right now looking for property to buy up at bargain prices and a Major business or two would suit them to a tee.

[blue_onyx]

25. I think the purchase of Chrysler is more likely

I'm not sure I see this happening but it wouldn't shock me if it did.

[ClarkUSA]

42. Um, no. There have been no indication this is happening on this side of the Pacific.

[Bluebear]

39. Based on what?

[ClarkUSA]

44. See reply no. 42.

I monitor business rumblings daily and I've never heard any rumors about this, at least in English.
Usually, when there's prospective takeover discussions, the principals leak like sieves to the business
section dailies. I'm not going to take the word of an obscure source, I also never thought BushCo
was planning on invading Iran based on unnamed sources.

[Fumesucker]

2. Oh Jeebus..

:popcorn:

[Stevenmarc]

3. New option list, 1 from column A and 2 from column B

[bunnies]

5. Lets just change our name to Chinamerica...

and get it the fuck over with already. :banghead:

[valerief]

7. I prefer Chimerica. It has a nice ring to it. nt

[bunnies]

11. lol. True. Sounds like a tasty tea.

:hi:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

15. Yeah, because we *never* buy foreign companies.

It's only the scary Chinaman that does that.

[bunnies]

18. What a dumb thing to say.

China has a MUCH bigger stake in the US than a couple of companies. I hope you know that. :eyes:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. I understand that.

And we have an equally large stake in many other countries. Care to count the number of foreign companies owned or controlled by US corporations?

[bunnies]

23. apples & oranges.

Since China owns more than 20% of US debt - I really dont see how comparing foreign owned companies means squat. Seriously. Can you name one other country in which we have as much of a stake as China has in us? :shrug: I certainly dont know of one.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

24. Jesus Christ.

Do you count all of those countries with massive debt to the IMF, the US, and US-backed entities and corporations? Countries who implemented US-recommended finance practices allowing US based companies to buy up their industries? The US and its proxies are some of the largest owners of foreign debt in the world, and some of the worst when it comes to extracting every nickel and dime out of debtor nations.

[SammyWinstonJack]

36. Awesome!

x( :banghead: :argh:

[UndertheOcean]

38. Good idea , one less nation state in the world

[Kalyke]

6. So, basically, the only car I can buy is a Ford.

Which is fine since they're heads and shoulders above everything else - including the Japanese - on the market today.

This really sucks, if true.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Usually there's a World War before this kind of dislocation occurs...

but it looks like our ruling classes short circuited all that mess with never-before-seen levels of corruption.

Hooray for them.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. The Chinese are smart shoppers and bargain hunters. And, they have a lot of money to spend.

They have a lot of "strong" American dollars and they're spending them on all sorts of things. Oil contracts, mineral rights, manufacturing entities, all over the world.

When the dust settles and the prices start going up due to inflation all the things they are buying now are going to shoot up in value and the Chinese are going to be very, very, wealthy.

Which answers the question, "Why are the Chinese still loaning us money to prop up the dollar?"

[rockymountaindem]

10. If we blocked the Dubai ports deal we can probably scrap this n/t

[Blue_Tires]

12. not gonna happen

has to be misinformation or something...the GM/Chrysler CEOs would have a "Henry Ford on his deathbed" moment if this were true...

[Kansas Wyatt]

13. So when the replacement to the combustible engine is invented....

Here in the USA, with government help, the Chinese will get patent rights to produce the modern vehicles in China too.

Well, there goes that plan to rebuild America on technology.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. If it's invented with government assistance it shouldn't be patentable...

...in the first place. If my tax dollars are going to pay for the development, no corporation should get exclusive rights to it.

[raccoon]

14. That site is something like the ONION, right? nt

[kaygore]

16. No, here is more of the introduction

Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire GM and Chrysler, China’s 21st Century Business Herald reports. <http://www.21cbh.com/> A National Enquirer the paper is not. It is one of China's leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over three million.

The Canadian is "Canada's socially progressive voice on news and current affairs."

[Junkdrawer]

21. Marketplace (Public Radio) covered the story...

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/09/chinese_automakers/

[blue_onyx]

27. This article seems to say they want to buy brands

not the entire companies. Selling a brand and selling the company are two completely different things. If GM is going to shut down Saab and cut jobs, maybe selling the brand to a Chinese company is a good option. They get money to help the company stay afloat and the Saab brand stays alive (saving jobs).

[akwapez]

17. Oh good...Then they can start selling cars at Walmart n/t

[Blackhatjack]

19. Don't think for a minute that the Chinese aren't making up their US shopping list....

They have a pile of US dollars and they need the US market to remain intact so they can continue to ship their exports.

Nothing would surprise me about the Chinese ....

[suede1]

26. If we let this happen we... What the hell is wrong with us that this would even be considered?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

29. I'm assuming you think GM should immediately sell Opel/Vauxhall and Holden, then.

Right?

[suede1]

30. Well, you assumed wrong. Way off, really.

Hate those false choices. It's bullshit. How about we bail out the car companies here and start protecting our companies the way China and the rest of the world protects theirs? Taking over like a bankruptcy judge would do and making them conform to today's realities.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

31. Lol@"protecting our companies the way the rest of the world protects theirs."

Oh, spare me this "waah, the rest of the world does it" excuse about protectionism. It's total bullshit, especially considering that the US has been going around for thirty years demanding that developing countries remove all economic protections in exchange for IMF aid. But I get your point: US buying up other countries' industry = good. Other countries buying up our industries = bad.

[blue_onyx]

32. It's not a bullshit excuse

South Korea limits the number of vehicles US companies can sell there. Japan refuses to allow our companies to build plants in their country and then charges a high import tax. We are the only country stupid enough to completely place our economic future in the hands of the "free market", even as our jobs continue leave. You may have bought into the Republican Reaganomics crap but the argument that we should protect our companies is a valid argument.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

33. The US has plenty of its own trade restrictions.

Even while it demands that other countries remove them for IMF funding, then buys up their recently privatized industries. The victim mentality of some people on this board is absolutely astonishing considering the reality in the rest of the world.

[blue_onyx]

35. Victim mentality ?

Oh please. The people you speak of are simply making it known that they are sick of our country sitting idly by while jobs continue to go overseas and being told it's good for us. Yeah, it's a good thing that people have had their $20/hour manufacturing job sent to china and now have to work for $7/hour at Walmart. The mentality of the "progressives" on DU who spew Republican economic policies while ignoring reality of what these economic policies had done to our country is astonishing.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

37. I didn't say it was good.

All I said was that it was bullshit for the US to complain about overseas companies owning its automakers when its own automakers are some of the largest owners of overseas auto companies.

[suede1]

40. It's bullshit for you to pretend that I, or anyone else said what we do to third world

countries is okay. It's not.

It's also not what I was talking about. Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Or you really can't help it? In which case, I typed this slowly for you.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

41. You said "protecting our companies the way other countries protect theirs."

I was simply pointing out that the US has been going around for years convincing countries to remove those protections (so that we might buy their companies.) So no, we're not doing it "the way other countries protect theirs."

[Urban Prairie]

28. I hope the Chinese will buy GM and Chrysler

With all of the hatred and vitriol that has been targeted at my hometown over the years, despite the fact that since the Japanese and Korean auto manufacturers were permitted to sell vehicles in the US with no legacy costs, no employee medical/dental insurance burdens, and very generous government support of their manufacturing and R&D, there was never a level playing field here to begin with.

Apparently the non-union US autoworkers income must be the base when it come to wages and benefits, with members of Congress demanding that the domestics must fall in line in order to get loans. If there is no longer a "lazy and spoiled" UAW to criticize and point fingers at for their allegedly very excessive income and benefits, the foreign auto manufacturers here will no longer have to fear that their right to work states' labor might have union organizers from the UAW to assist them, if they drastically cut wages and benefits.

If the Chinese buy GM and perhaps Chrysler, the Japanese and Korean auto manufacturers will have the perfect excuse to cut the pay of their labor here in the US, if they don't pull up stakes and leave the US completely to remain competitive. Ford will also have the tools and means necessary to castrate their UAW employees' bargaining power as well

Hopefully my state's government would be smart enough to welcome the Chinese with open arms, and permit them to take over GM and Chrysler w/o a peep from the soon to be completely impotent UAW. We need industry and manufacturing here, no matter who owns it. Michigan, and especially the Detroit/Flint area is rapidly becoming the equivalent of a third world country anyway, with 25% or more unemployment, no matter what the "official" figures are. Might as well face the music and realize that the "free market" global corporate capitalist influenced economy will eventually result in a permanent drop to the inevitable lowest common denominator of peasant wages, regardless of employment, thanks to our corrupt and paid-off leadership in DC over the past 50 years.

Nothing would please me more than to see the trade-protective Japanese suffer the same fate as the domestics, and their "all American" patriotic commercials, as if they are US based companies, is false and deceptive advertising, IMO.

[Deja Q]

34. From 40x to 400x and above, methinks more than the workers are getting lazy and spoiled from wages

:shrug:

Where do gm and chrysler buy their parts from anyway? One can put together parts anywhere, but who builds the core parts?

[Waiting For Everyman]

43. Then I won't buy another one of their cars - ever.

I'll keep my old Malibu going instead. No way.