Posted on 11/27/2018 3:32:57 PM PST by TBP
President Donald Trump threatened on Twitter to end government subsidies for General Motors in retaliation for layoffs the company announced Monday.
What layoffs? General Motors announced that it would be laying off 14,700 workers, including 6,000 factory workers, and closing down four plants in the United States and one in Canada.
While GM, and other car companies, have spoken out against rising production costs caused by the Trump administration’s protectionist tariffs, a spokeswoman for the company told TheBlaze that the layoffs and plant closures “are being made as part of our ongoing transformation and are not related to recent trade or tariff decisions.”
On a conference call, GM CEO Mary Barra said that the company is “taking this action now while the company and the economy are strong to keep ahead of changing market conditions.”
Barra said that the goal was to make the company more efficient. GM’s stock rose 5.5 percent after this announcement.
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
If we fund them, we get to say
Same as when we give foreign aide or domestic welfare we get to talk about how it is used. And put conditions on it
The whole point of Trump’s tariff fight is that most other foreign companies are exercising unfair competition...that is, their governments are either subsidizing or actually own those companies.
Obama tried to implement that model here with his massive GM bailout, which was essentially a government takeover of GM. They still make a lousy product, guided by ideology rather than consumer demand or quality expectations, and even with a billion dollars of our money, they’re still going down. I read someplace that they are going to be building in China now, but I’m not sure this is true.
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I don’t like it either, but other countries subsidize their businesses too, or so I understand.
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The U.S. isn’t, nor SHOULD it, be like ‘other countries’. We’ve got a ‘controlling doc’ that specifically dictates otherwise (course, that was when it WAS followed).
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I’m torn anyway. I’m as mad as anyone else here about the bailouts and especially about screwing the bond holders, but I don’t want to see GM go under either.
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Why? What makes GM so “special”? I’m sure Honda, Toyota, Kia, hell, even Tesla, would enjoy buying up the tech, machinery and know-how should they go under.
Yeah, why isn’t the entire subsidy program being dismantled for all manufacturers in the first place? That’s the real problem.
“We never should have been subsidizing GM or any other company.”
We sure as hell shouldn’t be subsidizing any of these “green” moist dreams like electric cars, windmills, solar etc.
If GM wants to be a private business, they just needs to get they mouth off the government nipple. Then they don’t have to listen to government no mo.
“I don’t like the government telling businesses what facilities they must operate, or whether they may lay off their employees. But we shouldn’t be subsidizing GM or any other business.”
Agreed. The country is in bad shape when you have a company the size of GM getting subsidies and then the President telling them how to operate. It’s a load of crap all around.
They're an American company. We're down to two major auto manufacturers, three if you want to count Tesla. Given a choice, I'd rather GM survive.
GM needs to offer more cars people want.
They have a few popular models, to be sure.
But, they still (even after much consolidation and streamlining) make lots of vehicles that are not genuinely popular (pushing many of same into taxi and governmental and rental fleets— this works, but only to an extent...).
And certain GM models that previously had a good reputation for quality, no longer do. Something to think about....
That GM bailout rescued its overseas operations.
GM is dirt.
Well this shit all started with Obama bailing out GM. The bond holders took up the wazoo while the suppliers and unions kept their jobs. Should have let them gone in bankruptcy as an object lessons of how not to run a company.
Replaced by the all electric Bolt. The f*ckers would still get some of my tax money
This is great news! More, please.
JoMa
It’s called creative destruction. If GM and the others go under, someone will fill the market void by starting a new American car company, free of the burdens the unions have imposed on GM, Ford, and Chrysler. More efficient, better product, lower cost.
Trump aint playin’
If they are going to quit making the volt how can they get a subsidy for that electric vehicle?
Either that, or the foreign makes will pack up and build at home, leaving us without an auto industry and without any leverage because we won't have any choice but to buy from them.
Fortunately, neither extreme will happen.
The Chinese car market is 20-30 million cars per year, larger than the US market. China requires mostly Chinese production. Of course globalist GM will build there instead of the chaotic USA.
Companies should have only loyalty to their stockholders. Government should not subsidize companies. If such were the case the present problem would be mute as GM would have gone bankrupt years ago without the government bailout.
Let the “true” marketplace prevail. Oddly end the end, all benefit from true market forces. When the oilfield crashed and burned in 1983 the government did not bail us out. I went back to school and became a pharmacist. There were a few other guys from the oilfield in school with me due to the crash.
They are keeping the Bolt, which would still get the subsidy.
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