China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

[runningman]

This can't be a part of the Obama plan for GM. How is this going to help Americans?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30802161/

[Shpira]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

I cant believe this shit...the government gave them 15 billion so that they could file for bankruptcy and outsource or even sell out to China...thats fucked up.

[chunky]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

Didn't GM shut down its plant in Flint, Michigan in the 1980's because they outsourced costing 30,000 US people their jobs and economically devastating the city in a year when GM made record profits?

[runningman]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

this is Obama's plan remember he fired Wagoner. I want to hear the explanation for this.

[Jenks]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

wether the chinese or americans are making the cars, one thing is for certain, GM sucks.

[|Thrax|]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

we need a little eco-mobile that is cheap to make and runs on biofuels..
unfortunately, we can't do that..

we're not an Iron detroit city anymore... GM makes and engineers stuff pretty shitty.
think of it as what IBM did with Lenovo...

[runningman]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

^^you don't have the slightest idea of what you are talking about.. China is dying to buy the GM technology.

[floridaorange]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

According to reports from both the New York Times and Politico, the Obama Administration plans to announce new CAFE regulations tomorrow that will finally reconcile both federal and state standards. The plan is expected to combine California's strict emission rules with the federal rule, raising the national fleet mileage to around 42 mpg for cars and approximately 26 mpg for light trucks by 2016 – an increase over the current standards of 27.5 mpg for cars and 24 mpg for trucks.

The administration set a self-imposed deadline of June 30 to grant California's request to impose the state's standard to the federal CAFE regulations, and according to the NYT, the auto industry isn't expected to challenge the new rules as they finally set both a definitive time table and a national standard. Politico is reporting that the Obama Administration sat down with several states and a number of domestic and foreign automakers to discuss the standard, including Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, BMW and others. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to attend the announcement on Tuesday, at which point all the hard details will be released.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/18/report-obama-to-announce-new-cafe-standards-tomorrow/

(I think the move to China is smart btw, GM is a brand, regardless of where the car is made, what no marketing guru's on MS? Big surprise there...)

[Shpira]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

its not Japan its China mate...and IMO its not about GM and the brand its about the US economy. How many people will lose jobs on account of this? and whats gonna happen to the other car manufacturers in the US?

[ddr]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

this is Obama's plan remember he fired Wagoner. I want to hear the explanation for this.

Did you even read that article you pasted?

I dont see Obama's name mentioned at all in that article... why are you assuming this is 100% Obama's plan like you are alleging? To me, this is business, GM is suffering immensely and see's China as an opportunity to gain sales or possibly sell brands that they are losing money on.

This is business 101 here. In case you didnt know, companies are everywhere, its a global economy. Businesses cant strive staying in 1 country if they want to compete with the big dogs.

[runningman]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

did you read what I posted?? Obama fired Wagoner the former ceo of GM because Wagoner wouldn't go a long with the Obama Plan.

If this is business 101 then I guess America is way behind since we pay our workers a wage that goes with the American Dream. Poor Wi and Li are getting .25 cents a day to work.

Are you pro Slavery ddr? You sound it with your "this is business 101" comment.

[ddr]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

did you read what I posted?? Obama fired Wagoner the former ceo of GM because Wagoner wouldn't go a long with the Obama Plan.

If this is business 101 then I guess America is way behind since we pay our workers a wage that goes with the American Dream. Poor Wi and Li are getting .25 cents a day to work.

Are you pro Slavery ddr? You sound it with your "this is business 101" comment.

So you are saying paying someone to stand all day and make sure a machine does the job right $50 an hour is fair to other hard workers in America that make a quarter of that for harder work? Im not saying the Chinese are fair, of course their wages are whack but paying Joe Detroit $100K for doing work anyone can do is ludacris. Its the Union's fault for strangling our auto industry but GM and Ford agreed to it ultimately. It is because of the Union's that GM is looking overseas for opportunities, blame them not Obama.

And for the record, I am not pro-slavery... and I honestly have no idea where you get that insinuation from my comments above.

If you think GM are pro-slavery for going overseas, then you might as well blame 80% of the other companies out there.

[chunky]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

So you are saying paying someone to stand all day and make sure a machine does the job right $50 an hour is fair to other hard workers in America that make a quarter of that for harder work?.

I don't know what car factory you have been to but I've never seen anyone standarding around all day making sure the machine does its job right. Most people in the Car Manufacturing industry working line side are given a process with a cycle time of 80 seconds and they don't have anytime to stand around. If they do they have extra work added to their process. The work is very labour intensive and soul destroying. Yeah in the last 20 years more machinery has been added but not to make the worker's job easy but to eliminate the worker. Pay in the Car Manufacturing Industry had been high in the past as historically because no one wanted to do it similar to working on Oil Rigs. Last year it was claimed that Associates (Line side workers) at Honda America where being paid overblown amounts of money in the media. When I looked into this it turned out to be complete nonsense and actually less than half of of what was actually claimed.

[Miroslav]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

If you think GM are pro-slavery for going overseas, then you might as well blame 80% of the other companies out there.

Yes, you might as well blame them, because the trend of outsourcing all manufacturing jobs overseas has been going on for some time now.

I have to say, guys, that runningman and Shpira have a point on this one: this outsourcing trend is not good for America, and it does not help Obama's plan to get the US out of the economic rut that it is in.

It may be business 101, but business can have winners and it can have losers. Maybe the auto worker has been overpaid, but there is an inescapable broader trend going on:

It used to be the case that the US blue collar worker could make a living in industry; now, those jobs are all gone and the living standard of the blue collar worker has been on a steady decline ever since. That means that US workers have lower real comparative wages, less discretionary spending power, and less consumption. And by contrast, Chinese and others will start to experience comparative wage growth, more spending power, and more consumption. Hell, they already pretty much own our entire debt. It's a natural equilibrium adjustment in a global economy, and it probably can't be stopped at this point.

But we should consider that it does not make the US necessarily better off. What is that entire blue collar segment of America going to do for a living now? Green jobs? Please. Wal Mart employee is more like it...for one fifth the wage (not a living wage) and no benefits.

[chunky]

Re: China Made GM cars Sold to US in 2 Years

My employer Honda UK Manufacturing recently stated in on local news that the average Associate at Honda UK was earning 30% more than I actually earn and I earn more than the average employee.