Anybody hear a giant sucking sound?

[Monsoon]

GM to invest extra $540 million in Mexico to build motors
(AFP) – 58 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY — US giant General Motors will invest $540 million to produce two low-emission motors in central Mexico, the company announced here Thursday, accompanied by President Felipe Calderon.
The latest project for GM in Mexico would create 500 direct and another 500 indirect jobs in its plant in Toluca, Calderon said.
GM has four plants in Mexico, and has invested some $5 billion here since 2006, Calderon said.
GM was left reeling by an industry slump when the global economic crisis hit. It received 49.5 billion dollars from the US Treasury and emerged from a bankruptcy restructuring in 2009.
It successfully returned to public trading last November by raising 23.1 billion dollars in an initial stock offering -- the largest in history.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

I guess we don't have any qualified, available workers in Detroit.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g_0cTcnagBIEmLNmXfTdYyjyy0rg?docId=CNG.368dd86b8036db4006b87e3438898d63.3e1

[mistertrickster]

1. Perot was right . . . Gore was wrong. nt

[Uncle Joe]

Perot was wrong and self serving, he had his own private NAFTA monopoly, Gore was right but not

allowed to Presidential power and thus not able to influence a soft landing over the past decade.

[mistertrickster]

13. I agree with your assessment of Perot, but how do you figure Gore was right about NAFTA?

He was Clinton's point man on selling it.

He DID say in his famous debate on Larry King Live, "if it doesn't work, we give six month's notice and we're out of it."

THAT sounds like a good idea.

[Uncle Joe]

14. Gore was right about the irresistible dynamics of change and if we; that being North America

didn't adapt to what was happening in the rest of the developed world, then we; that being the U.S. would lose even more ground either to the EU and/or nations like China.

The US has dominated the planet because there was so much devastation after WWII and we were left relatively unscathed but that was changing and there is no going back, so we needed to team up and form a trading block; which had already included Canada, but Mexico needed to be brought in and up.

I believe the results of NAFTA are mixed but it would be far better if Gore had officially become President.

[Motown_Johnny]

15. Richard Gephardt was right, and NAFTA is why he got my vote in the primary

back in 2000



You don't need to go out of our party to find people who were against NAFTA.



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_richardgephardt.html

^snip^

INTERVIEWER: On NAFTA in particular, were you right?

RICHARD GEPHARDT: I think I am right. There has been very little progress on those concerns, and I think there will continue to be very little progress until we put effective provisions in the treaty. The natural inclination is always to go for the cheapest labor where the environmental regulation is the most lax or non-existent. Because it costs money, and everybody in business is trying to meet a bottom line, I understand that's a good thing. It's a case where society's good, the country's good, the world's good has to come into play. It's a place where capitalism has to be adjusted so that the things we're concerned about are not just profit, not just money, but other values that are as important and need to be recognized.

[KansDem]

2. Wow, US taxpayers bail out a failing US corporation so it can send jobs to Mexico!

Is this a great country or what??!!! :woohoo:

[RufusTFirefly]

3. OK. So they're offshoring jobs. But at least they pay taxes

"General Motors paid no taxes at all in three of the last five years, despite $12.5 billion in reported U.S. profits. GM’s tax rate for the past three years was negative 1.3 percent. Its corporate tax welfare totaled $3.6 billion over the past five years."

Source: CTJ.

Oops. Never mind.

[Laelth]

4. k&r for the truth, however depressing. n/t

-Laelth

[Vinca]

5. Your tax dollars at work.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. This is how we're fixing illegal immigration. Send the jobs there to reduce their commute.n/t

[badtoworse]

7. Just brilliant.

I thought we were a majority shareholder, at least for a while. Couldn't we have taken board action to scuttle this at some point?

There's an expression we sometimes used in the independent power business - dumb equity. I guess that's us.

[felix_numinous]

8. What would it take for companies to invest in America?

I say if they do not pay taxes or employ Americans, they should not be called an American company. What are we chopped liver?

[Fuddnik]

9. Back in the '90s I went to the auto show.

I was in the market for a new pick-up. I was leaning towards an S-10, and figured I could compare all the trucks at one place.

About everything on the S-10 was made in Brazil or Mexico. Fuck 'em. I bought a Ford.

[badtoworse]

10. I have always thought Ford made the best American cars - I've owned four over the years.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Reducing carbon footprint by reducing commute. Who can argue bout that?

:woohoo: USA USA USA .......:woohoo:

[damntexdem]

11. No, the vacuum that has been around so long makes it impossible to hear anything.

Outsourcing to Mexico seems almost quaint, compared to what has been outsourced to Asia.

[Enthusiast]

16. But the American consumer benefits

from low priced foreign made goods. Or so the Republicans and free traders keep saying. And they (Obama) is pushing for a Korean trade deal. But Obama said he will renegotiate NAFTA so don't worry.