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I seriously hope this rumor is not true. This would be one gigantic middle finger to the Detroit area (and America, really), and becomes further evidence that corporations have no compassion for the people anymore (or at all).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spac3d
GM doesn't have the capital to up and move. Period.
Exactly. I would be very upset if this is what the are using their bailout for...
Besides, Texas is Ford country. "Ford is the Best in Texas!" I can't remember the last time I've seen Texans happy/proud to purchase or own a GM vehicle. Moving GM HQ there would be anticlimactic.
If this rumor is indeed true, I wouldn't be surprised. It's all about survival and viability at this point. Unfortunately, there are very few corporations that are loyal to Detroit. I still believe it's an uphill battle!
Maybe I should start a thread saying "Rumors of Bank of America Moving Headquarters to Nebraska!!!!!!"
Boy you got that wrong! "Bank of America moves their headquarters back to their building in San Francisco as part of SF's Financial District revitalization along with the likes of high-tech companies HP, Intel, Sun, Google, eBay, and Yahoo."
I know the claim about GM HQ moving to TX is an unproven rumor. But don't completely write it off. We are about talking about the new General Motors, where Ed Whitacre is the new CEO. If you don't know about Ed Whitacre, one of the most successful corporate leaders in Texas and in the USA, read a bit more.
The new CEO of GM is Ed Whitacre is a lifelong Texan who lives on a huge ranch in South Texas. He is the former CEO of ATT, who put ATT back together from a bunch of the former "baby bells" (Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, Ameritech, Southern New England Telecom, BellSouth). He had the grand vision in the 1990s that the wireless communications business would explode and eclipse the world of copper pair phone lines, and the way to create a grand wireless company was to buy the premium wireless franchises and put them together into a nationwide wireless network. He started out working as a telephone switch room technician many decades ago when telephones were all provided by Ma Bell over copper wires. He rose up the ranks to become CEO of Southwestern Bell in the 1980s. In the 1990s he was working at the corporate headquarters of Southwestern Bell in St. Louis in the tallest building in town. His company was the biggest employer in town. The regulators in Missouri were giving Southwestern Bell a real hard time about giving that company more flexibility in rates to hold onto business phone customers. Whitacre told the Missouri regulators that if the state did not make it easier for Southwestern Bell to do business in Missouri, he would consider moving the corporate HQ to some other state that was more business friendly. Missouri did nothing to change it's tune. About 18 months later, over 10,000 jobs were moved out of downtown St. Louis to San Antonio, Texas. I work in the telecom business and used to work for one of the companies where Ed Whitacre was the CEO, and know all the nitty gritty details about went down in 1998.
So don't write off this rumor as a bunch of bogus hooey. Learn something about Ed Whitacre and you might realize it's not that far fetched. I'm not saying GM HQ is moving to TX, but I'm suggesting that there might be a chance it could happen.
Last edited by recycled; 09-16-2009 at 08:17 PM..
Reason: typo
Originally it was a local rumor that General Motors was going to move its headquarters from the Rennaisance Center in downtown Detroit to the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan (a suburb just north of Detroit). This was based on news-reported offers by the mayor of Warren to offer tax breaks to GM in the event of such a move.
The original poster of this thread, RadioDude, just appropriated the rumor, embellished it with the "move to Texas" hoo-ha, posted it to C-D Forums and then disappeared from the thread to watch the fun as Texans and Michiganders wrangled over the concept.
Despite the current CEO's affections for the Lone Star State, General Motors isn't ever going to move its world headquarters to the very edge of the American automotive manufacturing map.
Instead, GM is most likely moving its world headquarters to Shanghai, China. Its operations there have currently been upgraded from managing just the Chinese market to managing all markets outside of the Americas.
When you get right down to it, China is a much cheaper and all around better place to conduct business than anywhere in Texas, especially a manufacturing business.
Its just a matter of time before GM has its American operations reporting to the Shanghai office. And by then GM's American headquarters may very well have moved from Detroit...but most likely to Tennessee or Alabama, the current/future geographical center of American automotive manufacturing.
This rumor's a City-Data exclusive. The link's in your browser, at the top of this window.
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