Posted on 04/20/2017 8:17:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This news broke overnight and it undoubtedly comes as a shock to anyone who hasn’t been paying to socialism in general and the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in particular. The government of Venezuela came in and seized control of the General Motors plant in the city of Valencia, taking over the property, assets and accounts. The automotive giant responded by saying that they were immediately halting operations. (CNN)
General Motors says it will immediately halt operations in Venezuela after its plant in the country was unexpectedly seized by authorities.
GM (GM) described the takeover as an “illegal judicial seizure of its assets.”
The automaker said the seizure showed a “total disregard” of its legal rights. It said that authorities had removed assets including cars from company facilities.
“[GM] strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights,” it said in a statement.
GM’s Venezuelan operation was already pretty much at the point of stagnation. Productivity was approaching zero because their currency had collapsed and they couldn’t order parts to keep the lines running. Also, the domestic market for cars wasn’t exactly booming because their potential customers have money which is basically worthless and they’re mostly too busy looking for scraps of food to worry about a new set of wheels.
If nothing else, this incident will provide an enlightening, educational moment for the rest of the world. It’s a given that this is bad news for General Motors, for the workers there… let’s just say it. This is bad news for everyone except Maduro and his cronies. But it also serves to further pull away the mask, allowing the rest of the world to see what’s actually going on. So gather around, kids, because we’re not only seeing how socialism ends (and it always ends this way) but also how the socialist machinery operates through the various phases of its life cycle.
Originally, the government tolerates the presence of foreign manufacturing entities such as General Motors to fill needs they have which can’t be handled domestically. (GM has been there for roughly seven decades.) It’s not that the Venezuelan people are incapable of innovation or creation… there’s simply no motivation for them to strive for success. Anything they create simply becomes the property of the state anyway, so the hard working, innovative person doesn’t realize much more success than the guy who can barely keep his eyes open to show up for his job sweeping the sidewalk. There’s no point to being particularly innovative.
So companies such as GM are allowed to go to work. But once the system inevitably begins to implode, the tyrant in charge begins looking for new resources to grab. In the name of the socialist concept wherein everything “belongs to the people” he seizes the GM plant. They take the cars which are there to hand out to high ranking party officials and divide up the assets while demanding that the workers get back to producing automobiles. This is, of course, impossible because they don’t have the parts to do it and the people who actually know how to run things are fleeing.
These are the fruits of socialism. It’s a humanitarian disaster to be sure, but it’s also a teachable moment. Watch and learn.
“It’s a real shame about those explosive charges that are the icky things we left at the plant. Oh, didn’t you know all auto plants have explosives as part of their normal operations?”
GM can build its cars in the USA, and Venezuela can be left alone to learn what happens when you vote in a socialist gubmint. Only socialism could parley worlds biggest oil reserves into mass starvation of its people, and complete chaos.
We've joked, I know, about AS losing its fictional status, but this stuff is a little scary. We learn here that the Venezuelan government has seized GM's "assets" in that country, but it really hasn't, it's only seized anything that might remotely yield a fast buck. The assets consisted of a production line and skilled workers capable of using it and generating wealth in the form of (gasp!) profit. Which not only fed those people but fed the government as well in the form of tax revenue. Now both are starving. This is "end-point" socialism.
Cuba, and now this. And still the idiots on college campuses and editorial desks clamor for our own version. They should be careful what they wish for.
Rearden Steel is nationalized as the property of a deserter. People from the Boyle faction and Meigs faction fail to get the plant to produce, so they settle for looting the company and shipping its physical plant to friends in Europe and Latin America.
If they are, at least they’ll be killing each other.
Birds of a feather...
In other news: In honor of Aaron Hernandez, I cooked and smoked meth today. Then got into a fight with some guy who spilled a drink on me.
This would have been Chile’s fate had Pinochet not rid his country of Allende’s socialist thugs. He made the hard decisions to save his country and was vilified by western hypocrites who didn’t lift a finger to prevent a socialist catastrophe. He’ll always be in my pantheon of great leaders.
Aaaaaaand....that’s what happens when companies go outside the country to manufacture goods. They lost some major profits today!
Exactly!
Ayn Rand was SO ahead of her time.
Of course, she’d already seen what socialism did to her country.
Excellent point Sweetest Luv W.
The "Cheaper Labor Costs" and all that Jazz sure doesn't turn out a profit when everything is seized and you don't have the Legal Protections like you do here in The States.
They haven’t a clue about business models. They think those cars just make themselves. So they’ll wonder why they aren’t still doing it for them. Libs of all sorts are just a special kind of stupid.
Well, it is Government Motors isn’t it? It’s just a matter of which government.
An Venezuela didn’t even have the common courtesy of giving them a bailout at taxpayers expense.
Some dude tried to sell me heroin yesterday, he said he “wanted to do business” with me and asked if “do blows”. He looked more like a drug dealer than a gay prostitute and sure enough I googled “blows” (plural) and it’s “Chicago slang” for H. Gas station/convenience store parking lot, 2/3 blocks from a grade school. I told the cashier, I hope he called the police.
Interesting. Sounds like a “Huggy Bear” situation. http://rebelcat4.tripod.com/id209.html
You handled yourself very well.
Side note: I’ve started using both cocaine and meth and I’m very happy.
Soooo...
Now they have a car factory. What are they going to do with it?
Sell it for scrap?
I am pretty sure they don’t know how to run it, and that they can’t supply it.
Yeah well my heart bleeds for GM.
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