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General Motors To Lay Off 2,000 Workers at Two US Plants (reuters.com)
General Motors plans to lay off 2,000 employees at two U.S. auto plants in early 2017, the automaker said on Wednesday. From a Reuters report:GM said it will furlough the employees when it cuts the third shift at its Lordstown, Ohio and Lansing, Michigan plants in mid-January. The Lordstown plant builds the compact Chevrolet Cruze, whose U.S. sales through October were down 20 percent. The Lansing Grand River plant builds the Cadillac ATS and CTS, whose sales were down 17 percent through October.An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a Washington Examiner report, "Trump has already criticized General Motors for reports that it would shift some production to Mexico, a plan that the company hasn't confirmed and didn't allude to Wednesday. The incoming Republican president also has said that he would impose a 35 percent tariff on the products of former U.S. subsidiaries that moved out of the country. When Ford announced the opening of a new factory in Mexico earlier this year, Trump called it an "absolute disgrace" and pledged to tax its imports to the U.S."
Frankly, I have no problem with the US giving breaks and incentives to stay in the US, employ US citizens...and penalize those that leave and ship jobs overseas.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why not? Trump blamed everything of the last 30 years on Hillary.
He's wanting to put tariffs on imported goods. Car manufacturers rely on imported goods. Detroit is about to get a whole lot poorer. Even if more parts were made domestically, retaliatory tariffs will make American made cars unattractive overseas. America could potentially lose most or all of its car industry. I suspect the design of cars will still be done by well trained engineers in the US, but the whole product will be assembled elsewhere to avoid extra retaliatory tariffs in the rest of the world.
(we did this whole tariff thing in the 1800's and early 1900's; abolishing it is what led to people getting wealthier)
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Protectionism has mostly "worked" in Japan, at least in terms of jobs. They have a low unemployment rate compared to other countries. But many products are indeed more expensive because of it. Whether jobs or "stuff" is more important is a subjective choice.
Table-ized A.I.
Other than it being announced after the Election, there doesn't seem to be anything political in the announcement.
Sales are down on vehicles made at those two plant and they are cutting the Third Shift at both plants.
Nothing about moving production elsewhere or even discontinuing the two other shifts at both plants.
The added on Anonymously section to the /. article is where the politics are injected with a reference to Trump and his proposed tariffs on products made outside of the US by US mgs.. which this story is not about.
Growing up in a Rust Belt city, I watched as most factory workers got thrown out of work when factories moved to the South, then offshore. The next 4 years may or may not be a very interesting economics experiment depending on how many policies Trump implements from his campaign promises. The loss of stable high-paying manufacturing jobs has a devastating effect on the locations they hollow out when those workers aren't paying taxes, buying things locally, etc.
If he does succeed in building the wall, deporting immigrants and taxing foreign imports, how much of a tariff will be necessary to convince manufacturers to make goods for the US market in the US? I know India has a similar setup -- it's very expensive to import foreign goods to India, and manufacturers are responding by setting up plants in India. Unless there's absolutely no way around it, and the tariff is set at a punitive level, manufacturers are just going to say "tough" and raise the price of their goods to cover the cost.
I know all the arguments are against me on this one, but I would definitely like to see all the manufacturing come back. People say we're one of the top countries in manufacturing output, but the reality is that this is due to high dollar items like airplanes and weapons systems. I'm an educated person, working in a non-factory job for a non-manufacturer, and I see the need for this. The country needs to be able to dump low-skilled people directly out of high school into a job that will pay enough to sustain them and their families over a lifetime. Don't concentrate so hard on educating everyone -- some people can't handle it and don't want to be...look at how many students are just barely graduating college and not actually absorbing anything. I graduated high school in 1993, and even by that time the only route to a stable life without a college degree was to get a union apprenticeship in a skilled trade. This is still viable, but only in union states and it certainly doesn't pay the same as it used to.
College should be available to those who want it at a reasonable cost, but having it be the new minimum standard to be considered for any type of employment is crazy. Bring back old school factory work, and allow those who can't handle education to work in a steel mill, shipyard or car plant.
Of course it is the "smug liberal fuckers" who have collapsed the labor force right? You know, like CEOs of steel industries. They are real "liberals" arent they. That is the problem, you guys think that the "liberals" did this.
If you believe that companies should be able to move their production overseas, you are tacitly approving of working conditions( wages, safety, environmental, etc.) that, were they in effect here in the US, would have SJWs lighting themselves on fire in the public square in protest.
If Mexico or any other nation imposes the same regulations as the US, then moving to another nation would be no different than moving to another state. Absent that, it provides an unfair advantage to outsourcing companies at the expense of the employees of the overseas plant.
This is 100% against what most Democrats believe.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Speak for yourself. As a latino I take no offense in Trump winning. Why would you support people that pay no taxes only and accept whatever wage is thrown at them since they have no options, which in the process reduces the job pool for a lot of people, simply because they could not find a legal path to immigrate to the US?
It seems you are too blinded by the kool-aid that the media gave you about Trump to actually see that he was the one talking about bringing jobs back and making the economy work again.
But just chill, it is politics after all. I am not expecting miracles coming from either candidate so just focus on getting better opportunities or starting your own thing.
In 1930, in order to raise revenue the Republican Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley increased import tariffs on 20,000 imports. Trading partners did the same for US imports and a trade war started. US imports decreased to about a third and exports decreased by about 61%. The US GDP was cut in half. Was this act the cause? Other things were going on, but the increase in tariffs is blamed by many economists as part of the cause of deepening the Great Depression. Since the end of WW II there has been a continuing process of reducing tariffs and though we've had ups and downs in economic progress the trend has generally been up.
In this particular situation, if GM decides it can't make the Cruze economically in the US and the tariff would make it price uncompetitive then it could just stop making the car. Not only would no US workers make the car and dealers not have it to sell and make a profit, but there would be no Mexican workers making it either. This would be good news for foreign car makers producing similar sized cars made overseas. Another option is to build the car completely using robots. GM knows a lot about industrial robotic car assembly.
Economics is complicated and dramatic, swift changes in policies can have many unintended consequences.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I notice you failed to mention that Lordstown, Ohio has a Trump-supporting, Republican city council, a Republican congressman, a Republican senator and a Republican governor. Oh yeah, and Ohio is a "Right to Work" state.
And their plant is moving to Mexico, too. I notice you failed to mention that.
You are welcome on my lawn.