GM Using Bail Out Money to Invest in Brazil?

Update: The quoted paper is the Latin American Herald Tribune. But there is a comment left by a supposed GM representative here which I highlight:

GM is NOT using U.S. Government Loans to Invest in Brazil

Re: Robert Oak's post on 1/19/09, "GM using Bail Out Money to Invest in Brazil"...The claims that General Motors is planning to invest $1 billion of U.S. federal aid money in its Brazilian operations is unequivocally wrong and without any basis in fact. No monies from a U.S. government loan would be allocated to investments in Brazil. In the case of Brazil, GM has $1 billion in investments that have been announced over the last two years. These investments are fully financed by GM's Brazilian operations through local sources. GM's operations in Brazil are fully self-funded.

Laura Toole
GM Latin America, Africa, Middle East Communications

I think it's very important to be accurate on such an obviously bombshell story so I will update this as I get more information. In the interim, below is the original post.

U.S. taxpayer money. All of that talk about workers, demanding the UAW give up concessions and this is what GM is doing with the money!

General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations -- Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program

General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.

According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."

"It wouldn't be logical to withdraw the investment from where we're growing, and our goal is to protect investments in emerging markets," he said in a statement published by the business daily Gazeta Mercantil.

Look at that! On top of it GM is saying Brazil shouldn't cough up the money since they are trying to grow their economy!

Bail out money to GM should be immediately rescinded!

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video

Be sure to watch the video that is linked from that article:

http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189

This seems like an anti-union schtick

and after a little investigation shows that Ford is idling the Camaçari plant.

My knowledge of Portugese is based on its similiarity to Spanish, but Google auto-translate tells me.

Three days after the return period of collective holidays, employees of the Northeast Industrial Complex Ford in Camaçari, received on Wednesday (7) the news that the factory will paralyze some shifts of production during the month of January.

The measure, called preventive, it is nothing more than a way of trying to avoid layoffs, since 20% of the workforce is idle because the automobile sector has not yet recovered from the impacts caused by the crisis.

Through a statement, Ford said that the parades will be equivalent to four days of production. Taking into account that the plant produces 912 cars a day, this means that 3,648 cars will no longer be manufactured. "Given the reaction of the automotive market in the month of December, only minor adjustments will be needed to bring production to market demand, which has not yet returned to previous levels," says the note.

Ok, obviously things aren't going well there either. This is a global crisis, and it's only through shared sacrifice that we are going to get out of it. That means that before we even touch pay for line workers, management needs to be called to account.

GM using loan money in Argentinal

Another lie about GM. This is old propaganda being used to discredit GM. Why People write such lies about GM is beyond me. These people probably work for the foreign car companies and want GM to fail.

GM is NOT using U.S. Government Loans to Invest in Brazil

Re: Robert Oak's post on 1/19/09, "GM using Bail Out Money to Invest in Brazil"...The claims that General Motors is planning to invest $1 billion of U.S. federal aid money in its Brazilian operations is unequivocally wrong and without any basis in fact. No monies from a U.S. government loan would be allocated to investments in Brazil. In the case of Brazil, GM has $1 billion in investments that have been announced over the last two years. These investments are fully financed by GM's Brazilian operations through local sources. GM's operations in Brazil are fully self-funded.

Laura Toole
GM Latin America, Africa, Middle East Communications

Your Brazilian GM manager is quoted

In the article referenced. So, if this is inaccurate, he needs to state a retraction as well as the original reporter. If you can get that from him in a press release, I will update this post so you do not have misinformation barrage.

But since we have your attention, may I note that GM has increased the offshore outsourcing of advanced R&D by 22.7%!

You are pouring billions and yes this is not local money, or money "put up" by EE's (emerging economies). This money is directly from GM, incorporated in the US, as well as JVs...billions from your domestically incorporated headquarters....in plants, facilities, manufacturing and the worst of all, advanced R&D in China and India and Brazil.

Hell man, you're selling Aeros for $1200 bucks in China? How can you recapture any profit doing that?

So, trying to deny that GM actively engages in offshore outsourcing is obviously wrong and may I suggest that GM consider returning to the United States, hiring US citizens for vehicles not only in the US market but also to export, and then put your corporate lobbyists to get trade agreements modified which give GM and other domestic auto and track manufacturers at least a level playing field instead of arguing to increase tax breaks and accelerate offshore outsourcing. Obviously.....from the last few years whoever came up with the great "cost saving" strategy is dead wrong and instead you're wiping out your primary consumer base....U.S. citizens!

It's one thing to expand into new markets, it another thing to labor arbitrage, offshore outsource, create some monstrous supply chain hybrid which hurts the United States worker, stops the U.S. from being the center of innovation, which is a major element in future economic competitiveness, massively increases the trade deficit and bottom line, hurts our national economy.

Lat American Herald Tribune says money probably headed 2 Brzil

They do offshore in a few places (from what I've read/heard, they're in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China and possibly Russia as well) and I saw this article in the LATIN AMERICAN HERALD TRIBUNE.

People write such lies about

People write such lies about GM is beyond me. These people probably work for the foreign car companies and want GM to fail.

Get Verified and avoid Captcha

If you get verified, you'll avoid the Captcha, and we can have a more reasonable conversation.

Are you saying GM hasn't been outsourcing? Or that NONE of the Bailout money went to support outsourcing? Or what?

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

GM & Brazil

With the big push to get the stimulus through I am reminded of a few months ago when we had a big push to get the bailout through. Amidst a host of other problems (billion dollar bonuses with taxpayer money, etc) the bailout money has been repeatedly used for purposes other than helping our economy. This is another example of this: http://www.weeklypoint.com/2009/02/09/gm-uses-bailout-money-to-invest-in...

In light of GM's misuse of bailout money, Merril's big bonuses, we really should pause and stop to think about what holes we will be pouring stimulus money down.

Maybe somebody should look

Maybe somebody should look more into this . . .

Translating portuguese from spanish ? wow . . .

and one more thing .

stop trying to find the cause of all of your problems overseas . . . there is a lot of wrong going on here.

But like children, we can never accept that mommy is wrong . . .

Have you bothered to read the whole site first?

We've had plenty of posts of what is going wrong here- and the only *real* contribution overseas is making is that's where the jobs went.

The rest has to do primarily with the "New American Way" since Reagan to spend more than we earn.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.