Will GM Spend Taxpayer Bailout Money on Overseas Operations? (unemployment rate, companies, dollars)

[bigskydude]

U.S. Operations Received $50 Billion in Taxpayer Funds -- And Now May Send Millions of Dollars Overseas.

Specifically, at a time when the nation's unemployment rate has soared to levels not seen in decades and GM is cutting thousands of U.S. jobs, the company's CEO is considering spending millions from its U.S. coffers -- fattened by $50 billion in taxpayer aid -- on its overseas operations, a possibility that has outraged critics and lawmakers.

Will General Motor Spend Taxpayer Bailout Money on Overseas Operations? - ABC News

[Drover]

I don't understand the controversy. GM is a global operation and the government knew that when they decided to become the primary shareholder. Overseas operations pay dividends at home both literally by strengthening the value of the company and figuratively by improving the quality of their domestic offerings. Personally I'm relieved GM decided to hold on to Opel/Vauxhall after all.

[bigskydude]

To put it in plain English;

Are offshore jobs more important than domestic jobs?

It's an American based company .. Shouldn't Americans get first crack at employment?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by bigskydude

To put it in plain English;

Are offshore jobs more important than domestic jobs?

It's an American based company .. Shouldn't Americans get first crack at employment?

It's not an either/or proposition. Letting its overseas operations wither for lack of operating capital is not going to improve its fortunes at home. Compelling GM to make inefficient business decisions is going to put it right back in the same position it was in before it went bankrupt.

[thecoalman]

This is one of the problems with the bailout to begin with, if a US company can make a profit in a foreign market why should they not pursue that? Now that we have taxpayer funds involved they can hold that over their heads and tell them it should be invested here but if those investments here don't lead to profits we're back to square one with a company losing money and the same people complaining now will be the same ones complaining about the failure of the company 2 years down the road.

[Theliberalvoice]

They'd better not or I will kick their ass.

[Wayland Woman]

You're missing the point on building GM cars in foreign markets. We couldn't build them here, ship them over there and be competitively priced anymore than Toyota could build their cars overseas, ship them here and be competitive. Thus they invested in factories in the U.S.A. just like GM is going there. Large companies need to be global in this day and age.

[joejitsu]