Congressional pressure to make the CEO of GM take a car instead of his corporate jet was a nice jesture, but obviously it had no effect on the real operations of the company. The attitude behind the jet is still there, and it can be seen when the auto giant takes a billion dollars of that taxpayer bailout and sends it down to Brazil so that they can grow their business down there.
From The Latin American Herald Tribune:
SAO PAULO -- 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.It is great to see Brazil's investment in GM so that business comes back in their country, but in these dire times, American bailout money should be focused right here at home. The problem is that these multi-national companies take advantage of national governments around the world, whether it be for giveaways or low-cost labor. If only nation-states got together to combat these companies....oh yeah, I know, that sounds like a pipe dream. However, the money given by the Bush White House to GM via TARP should be revamped by the Obama Administration, so that we can start to get some sort of handle on these corporate behemoths.
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."[...]
For Ardila, the injection in Brazil's automobile sector of 8 billion reais ($3.51 billion) recently announced by the federal and state governments of Sao Paulo "has already begun to revive sales," which fell by 12% in October.
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