Posted on 09/22/2011 12:19:51 PM PDT by AfricanChristian
(CBS/AP) Two years after it was saved by a bailout from Washington, General Motors is trumpeting its latest investments in China. As CBS News business and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis reported from Shanghai, American cars are more popular than ever in China, and U.S. automakers sell more cars there than anywhere else in the world. And while that's good news for American car companies, it makes many question what it will mean for American jobs.
If you were to visit General Motors in Shanghai, you'd find a lot of what you would in Detroit
The plant, says David Gibbons, executive director of manufacturing for GM in Shanghai, is "very similar. The processes are the same, the systems are the same, the quality systems are the same. Really, the only difference is the employees."
With its Chinese partner, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp., GM manufactures Buicks, Chevys and Cadillacs in China -- for the Chinese market -- and employs more than 13,000 people throughout the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
It’s funny, the decreasing dollar value is bringing manufacturing into the states where we have right-to-work.
Companies condemned to forever play sugar daddy to the UAW are moving operations out of the USA as fast as possible.
If GM had went into a real bankrupcty (ie., no protection for the unions), they could have cut the UAW loose. They squandered a chance at a new beginning.
I can get them at less money than a nice pick up truck, which I was looking at when I found my most recent purchase -- the Silver Bullet, Luxury III (April).
The Chinese have already built a mirror image plant right next to the GM Plant, copying all of the technology that GM invested on their Facility! The Chinese Facility will be producing the “CHERY”, which they are now readying for export to the “GOOD OLDE U.S.A.!” Psst! You guessed it, it is an exact replica of the Chevy Line and will be much, much Cheaper! Rumor is that SOROS has bought up marketing rights for the “CHERY” for the entire U.S.A........ and Obama is running Government Motors!!! Sure stinks the High Heavens!
AMEN!!!!!!
What’s new. We have been exporting our factory seed corn for years and we wonder why we can’t recover. Corporations are citizens of the world. But not at election time when they become American and provide their choice of job-exporting candidates with plenty of $free-speech$.
The Chinese Worker gets paid $30-40 Dollars PER MONTH!! and will ride a bicycle 2 hours each way per day to work and they work a 12 hour day and only 6 hours on Saturdays, thats six days a week! I am not sure if they are even allowed a vacation week once a year! Breaks were unheard of, and not one worker ever complained! at least and survived! Oh! and the employees are thrilled just to have these jobs! No wonder Obama and his puppeteer, William Ayers, LOVE CHAIRMAN MAO so Deeply and Reverently!!
The Chinese minimum wage is $125 per month. Most Chinese workers live pretty close to where they work. If they can't afford local accommodations, dormitories are typically provided for them on top of their minimum wage. Chinese workers work an 8 hour day (8 to 6, with a 2 hour lunch break so they can go home to prepare and eat lunch) 6 days a week, and are eligible for straight overtime for any hours in excess of the standard 48 hour week. (The national standard is allegedly 40 hours, but this standard is loosely enforced, and the Chinese labor market has more or less settled on 48 hours). Workers in China occasionally complain, but more frequently, they simply switch to employers with better work conditions, benefits and/or salaries.
For some perspective, Chinese wages have gone up 16x in dollar terms since the regime embraced capitalism in 1979. In relative terms, Chinese wages went from 2% of US wages in 1979 to 10% of US wages today, and from dead last in the world rankings (out of 180 countries) to around the middle of the pack today. Obama - like Mao Zedong, who had a million capitalist summarily executed after his victory in 1949 - has no real affection for the current Chinese economic model of unbridled capitalism, combined with tariff barriers for strategic industries. What he likes, like Thomas Friedman, is the way in which the Chinese oligarchy can do whatever it wants without having to deal with opposition. He assumes, debatably, that if we had the Chinese form of government, that leftists like him would be in power. In reality, it's just as likely that any Chinese-style oligarchy stateside would be composed of economic conservatives.
Thanks for Your Communist Propaganda Talking Points! Do You think I am stupid? Don’t do it! I just might be an expert on your Communist Hades!
Actually, I think you're just misinformed. The place is no paradise, but it's certainly not hell on earth. And it's much improved from the way it was before its economic liberalization in 1979. Would China be better off if the Communists had been defeated in 1949? Without a doubt. But the reality is that the Communists won and the benchmark for most Chinese born after the tragedy of the Communist victory isn't the good old days before the Communists took power, but the bad old days of famine that the Communists rationalized as natural disasters. In both absolute and relative terms, there is no doubt that the Chinese are better off than they were 30 years ago.
Thanks for Your Communist Propaganda Talking Points! Do You think I am stupid? Don’t do it! I just might be an expert on your Communist Hades!
My apologies sincerely! and I ncertainly appreciate your insights and information today! :-)! I LOVE China! and invested years there with some of the best friends in my life! Please check your mail! Mei Wenti!
The crap from China is such rotten quality, it will make the junk from Detroit look like a gleaming gem!
It would be better for US car companies to make friends with and import some cars from India. THEY are going to outnumber China soon, and India is not threatening us militarily or financially.
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Pretty good move on GM’s part since they’ve been done here for awhile now.
Plus, any company that builds a plant in China quickly finds out their trade secrets are all stolen, and a factory down the block is exporting the SAME ITEM at one tenth the cost.
I look at such 50 year projections with more than a pinch of salt. India's growth rate slowed as per its last census
The US should not be importing cars from anyone imho, and more specifically the Indian and Chinese cars are both geared for their home markets -- smaller cars and less creature comforts than we are used to getting.
well, technically Toyota etc. manufacture in the US as well.
fiats are better now...
Hit the nail on the head right there!
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