GM Shuts Down Venezuela Plant After Government Seizure
The closure has cost thousands of jobs as people protest against the socialist government.
General Motors has closed down its Venezuela plant after the socialist country seized the plant on Wednesday. Officials swiped the company’s “production facilities and car stock,” which forced GM to lay off 2,700 workers.
The closure comes only a day after Venezuela erupted in more protests that have left at least three dead. President Nicolas Maduro’s policies have left people jobless and without food.
Bloomberg reported:
GM’s factory was “unexpectedly taken by the public authorities, preventing normal operations,” according to an emailed statement. The Detroit-based automaker said it “strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights.”
The plant shutdown took place as protesters flooded the capital city of Caracas in the biggest show of opposition to President Nicolas Maduro’s government in months. The auto industry has collapsed, with sales plunging 92 percent in March, as a shortage of dollars has pushed new car prices beyond the means of all but the wealthiest Venezuelans.
GM has suffered a production downfall due the inability to “obtain hard currency to import car parts” since Venezuela has such strict currency controls. GM manufactured 5,052 vehicles in 2015, but did not produce a single one in 2016. The Venezuelan auto industry group Cavenez stated that the company has not produced anything so far this year.
Seven companies make up Cavenez: Chrysler, Ford, GM, Iveco, Mack, MMC, and Toyota. Statistics have shown that the group only made 2,849 cars in 2016, which was down 84% from 2015. In 2017, the seven had only made 240 cars. Venezuela houses over 30 million people.
From Bloomberg:
Operating in Venezuela has been a costly endeavor for years. GM reported charges of $720 million in 2015 and $419 million a year earlier related to currency devaluation and asset impairment in Venezuela.
GM said in its annual report filed in February that it was closely monitoring the environment in Venezuela to assess whether changes meant it no longer maintained control of its local subsidiaries. If such a determination was made, the company said it could incur a charge of as much as $100 million.
Riots
GM’s closure is just the latest slap in the face to the socialist country. Opposition to Maduro exploded into what the protesters called “the mother of all marches” on Wednesday to protest against the government. From The Guardian:
“We are desperate and tired of living in misery,” said Kelvyn Cava, a former Chavista from the eastern state of Zulia. “With Chávez our salaries were worth something. Now, if hunger doesn’t kill us, then crime will.”
A group of Catholic clergy were also among the crowd, although the Vatican has tried to adopt a neutral position in hosting talks between the two sides.
“I came with several priests because we have reached the breaking point for this regime of narcotraffickers and terrorists. We need peace and to reconstruct this country,” said Father José Palmar.
“We ask Pope Francis to do for Venezuela what Pope John Paul II did for Poland,” he add, referring to the role that the Catholic church played in overthrowing communism in eastern Europe during the Soviet era.
Slideshow: Mother of all marches in Venezuela https://t.co/dvWQKn7qLg pic.twitter.com/mShqfTrjBp
— Reuters Venezuela (@ReutersVzla) April 19, 2017
Muere abaleada estudiante universitaria durante protestas antigubernamentales en #Venezuela: familiares y testigos pic.twitter.com/xQVRaQzZNJ
— Reuters Venezuela (@ReutersVzla) April 19, 2017
Translation: College student dies during anti-government protests.
Three people died during this protest. Carlos Moreno, 17, was shot in the head, but his sister said he did not plan on joining the marches. Instead, he was headed to play soccer.
Paola Andreina Ramirez Gomez was shot to death and died from massive blood loss before medical help arrived.
Venezuelan National Guard Sgt. Niumar Jose San Clemente Barrios was also shot to death.
This occurred after Maduro declared he will provide “guns to as many as 400,000 loyalists.” Five years ago, Venezuela banned citizens from owning guns. The government strengthened this law “through a combination of gun buybacks and confiscations in the summer of 2016.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Maduro is using Atlas Shrugged as a “how to” manual.
I’m surprised they didn’t close sooner if they were unable to make even a single salable unit for a whole calendar year.
So Government Motors is fine when the federales seize the whole company, but not when they take one plant…I don’t get it.
It isn’t that hard;
Here it was a “friendly takeover” that the company and the UAW both wanted…badly. Fascist economics 101.
There it’s a “hostile appropriation” that nobody wanted. Communism 101.
“GM manufactured 5,052 vehicles in 2015, but did not produce a single one in 2016. …the company has not produced anything so far this year. …which forced GM to lay off 2,700 workers.”
So… What were those 2,700 workers doing for the last 16 months?
I wonder if Michael Moore is busy working on the sequel to “Roger & Me”
They never learn. Nationalizing a business enterprise is a fast and disastrous way to shut it down.
Seriously, how effin’ stupid are they? They’ve demonstrated that they can’t even keep toilet paper on the shelves… they think they can produce automobiles?
Just a few short years ago (less?) the progs in this country were singing the praises of the Bolivarian Socialist Paradise down there. Now they’ve done what everyone else knew they would do; they’ve destroyed the country’s capacity for production, ruining the economy and the lives of the citizenry in the process.
Yet just this week the US Democrat party leadership is on it’s “unity” tour which is being led by a self-avowed Socialist.
Seriously, how effin’ stupid are they?
Let me give you two things to consider.
First, Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity [or ignorance].”
Second, an observation: When someone who is “honestly mistaken” is given correction, one of two things will happen: he will either cease to be mistaken, or cease to be honest.
On the first point, stupidity could explain the continued romanticism surrounding the concept of socialism.
However, on the second point, socialism’s supporters have been offered correction — logical fallacies pointed out, historical and anecdotal testimonies, countless real-life examples (including the ongoing kerfuffle in Venezuela), etc. — continually over the past hundred years (at least).
They can no longer legitimately claim ignorance or stupidity.
Since stupidity is no longer an adequate explanation, Hanlon’s Razor offers malice as a replacement.
In short, they’re not “effin’ stupid” at all. They are malicious and evil, and intend to be at the top of the socialism pyramid — the only position where socialism “works” and life doesn’t suck.
With respect to Dem party “leadership” I totally agree with you.
With respect to the rank-and-file Dem supporters, and especially the “yutes” that are so enthusiastic about “feeling the Bern”, I attribute their voting behavior to stupidity / ignorance. They are the proverbial “useful idiots.”
Yep. And the Dem party “leadership” controls the public school system and effectively controls (via having the “right people” in charge) the university system.
Coincidentally (hah!), not one level of education will teach people about what socialism actually is and does.
The Democrat Party leadership has a vested interest in keeping the rank-and-file Party supporters stupid and/or ignorant.
The leadership is malicious and evil. The supporters are stupid and ignorant, and are kept that way — are fed the Kool-Aid, you might say — by the leadership.
It’s a predictably nasty cycle.
Having 2700 employees and not making anything since 2015 sounds like a bad idea too.
General Motors has closed down its Venezuela plant after the socialist country seized the plant on Wednesday. Officials swiped the company’s “production facilities and car stock,” which forced GM to lay off 2,700 workers.
How could they do this, the selfish bastards? Don’t they know it’s their duty to stay open and employ as many people as possible, for the good of the socialist country?
[/sarcasm]
Socialism requires the government to own the resources and means of production. Now that the government has seized the factory, all should be fine and dandy and production should resume at greater levels than before.
And it would, if socialism had any merit as a model of government.
In reality, those 2,700 badly-needed jobs will never come back under the current conditions, and may never come back at all.
### “We ask Pope Francis to do for Venezuela what Pope John Paul II did for Poland,” he add, referring to the role that the Catholic church played in overthrowing communism in eastern Europe during the Soviet era.
Yeah, good luck with that… Francis seems a hardcore socialist, he’s more likely to side with Maduro than the protesters.
[The fatal shootings] occurred after Maduro declared he will provide “guns to as many as 400,000 loyalists.” Five years ago, Venezuela banned citizens from owning guns. The government strengthened this law “through a combination of gun buybacks and confiscations in the summer of 2016.”
Like clockwork. To recap: gun registration, then gun restrictions, then gun bans, then gun buybacks and confiscations — all “reasonable” and “common-sense”, and all in the name of public safety. But then, tyrannical violence and oppression.
And it all started with registration. The rest cannot proceed without the “reasonable, common-sense” step of registration.
American anti-gun groups take note: THIS is why gun owners resist all your “reasonable” and “common-sense” gun laws. Your “new” ideas are anything but; they’ve been tried, over and over again throughout history, and it NEVER ends well for the citizenry.
^^^This^^^
Cold, dead hands baby. For the children.
Amen, brother. Thanks! 🙂
Where do they think they are going to get the tires,axles, radiators, motors, transmissions etc. to build cars? They can hardly sell the factory to China or any other party with a lawsuit pending. they freed GM from having to continue paying the workers. What are they thinking?
Someone needs to arm the people so they can fight against the Socialists.
Biggest problem is they’re confiscating the guns of the citizens and arming their supporters Conrad.