If GM is hurting so badly, how can they be doing all this?

[raccoon]

The List: Globalized Motors
By Joshua Keating
Posted April 2009

As sagging demand in the United States and Western Europe has pushed General Motors close to bankruptcy, the auto behemoth has actually been expanding in emerging markets and building new factories.

...In September 2008, GM launched the construction of a $250 million corporate campus in Shanghai. In two years, GM plans to introduce its new electric model, the Chevy Volt, to the Chinese market…

...In April 2008, GM announced a plan to build a $200 million engine plant in Joinville, Brazil. The plant is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2009 and will manufacture flex-fuel engines for the ethanol-dependent Brazilian car market…

...GM opened a second plant in India in September 2008, bringing its production capacity there to 225,000 vehicles per year. It also announced plans to double the number of dealerships and service centers throughout the country…

...On March 26 of this year, UZ-Daewoo, a venture partly owned by GM through its Korean subsidiary Daewoo, announced a plan to open a new car plant in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, to produce 15,000 Chevrolets per year and create 1,200 jobs…

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4789&print=1


And I'm sure it isn't just GM that's crying the blues that they need the US government's help, but are starting up all these other factories in other countries.

[notesdev]

1. General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations -- Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x55340

[Romulox]

8. That's been debunked on these boards dozens of times. Try SEARCH next time!

:hi:

[notesdev]

14. Show me

I don't see any 'debunking' of the article.

[Romulox]

15. Search yourself. Your unsourced article is wrong, and has been debunked dozens of times right here

on DU.

[notesdev]

25. If you claim authority show your source -nt

[Statistical]

2. Same way Americans kept spending up for last couple years....

spending money they didn't have = debt financing.

[OhioChick]

3. Why does GM hate American workers, but love those bailout funds? n/t

[Occam Bandage]

4. They absolutely need to be doing that. BRIC is where the money is. nt

[raccoon]

7. That makes sense, but OTOH, why are they asking the US government for money?

It's like if I ask you for a big loan to help me maintain my large old mansion in Podunk, USA. At the same time, I'm buying a beachfront lot at Hilton Head and a mountain cabin in western NC.

[Occam Bandage]

9. Consider it more like this:

You own three businesses. One makes you ten million a year, one makes you twenty million a year, and one loses you fifty million a year. And you're about to go bankrupt. Wouldn't you ask for a loan? And wouldn't you then invest some of that in making your profitable businesses more profitable, as well as making your unprofitable business less unprofitable?

[raccoon]

10. Makes sense, but I'd feel better if GM went whining to BRIC governments for money. nt

[Occam Bandage]

11. If GM fails, it ain't their Brazilian, Indian, or Chinese plants that are going down.

Those would all survive, maybe under a different name, maybe not. It's their unprofitable division that would get the axe--the American one. China wouldn't lose one job if GM went under. America would lose quite a few.

[raccoon]

13. I think their American plants will be gone before too much longer.

I bet if I were a fly on the wall in some of those big shot's offices, I'd hear them say that was the plan. To eventually phase out (read: close down) all American plants. It's just something they can't do overnight.

Not to just point the finger at GM. Undoubtedly other companies are doing the same thing.

[JuniperLea]

20. That's the slippery slope I see

We won't be manufacturing anything for much longer. And we won't be able to afford to buy those items from other countries either. I don't see the point in breaking us.

[JuniperLea]

16. You have a business with factories all over the world

And the US gives you money as part of their stimulus package which is expected to save American jobs, and instead you pump up your offshore factories.

You don't see a problem with this?

[Occam Bandage]

22. That isn't an "instead."

If GM doesn't invest overseas, GM does not have a viable business period.

[JuniperLea]

24. How does upping the production overseas

Help with jobs at home? This is what the stimulus is about.

[DainBramaged]

5. You invest where the profits are. I have a question for you (and everyone else here)

If GM ONLY built cars in the US and contracted it's manufacturing worldwide and ONLY became a Domestic builder and not a multi-national, would you buy only their cars for the rest of your life?

[Taitertots]

12. Of course no one would

Because they would have to cost $100,000 per car, at least.

[JuniperLea]

18. Got link to that figure?

For decades American cars were actually made in America.

[Taitertots]

23. Facetious number but the point is real

A more fair statement to make would be, decades ago American cars were made in America.

No one can deny that a car with all its components manufactured in America would be drastically more expensive. So much so that it has pushed American manufacturing almost to the point of bankrupting our "domestic" companies. The companies that are rushing to invest anywhere but America.

[JuniperLea]

17. Yes... eom

[TexasObserver]

6. money for nothing

No bailout money should go to any interests outside the USA.

[JuniperLea]

19. Agreed

Why is it other countries can adhere to such rules, but we are called names (protectionist) if we try to help ourselves?

We need to fix ourself before we can help anyone else. The rest of the world would be wise to think about that. If we fall, we all fall.

[raccoon]

21. "Falls Rome, falls the world." nt