General Motors has announced the leftist-led Venezuelan authorities have illegally seized its manufacturing plant and industrial hub in Valencia, reports Reuters.
The country of Venezuela, which remains in a deep economic crisis, did not respond to a request for comment on the situation when forwarded to the information ministry.
“Yesterday, GMV’s (General Motors Venezolana) plant was unexpectedly taken by the public authorities, preventing normal operations. In addition, other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities,” the company said in a statement.
GM vowed to “take all legal actions” to defend its rights after the seizing halted operations in the country. GM estimates irreversible damage to take place and fears the worst for its 2,678 workers, 79 dealers and local suppliers.
The Venezuelan government isn’t a stranger to temporary taking things over. In 2014, the government seized two plants belonging to U.S. cleaning products maker Clorox Co which had left the country.
Many plants in the country are barely producing much of anything at all, thanks to dwindling raw materials and currency controls. In 2015, Ford wrote off its entire investment in the country by taking an $800 million pre-tax write-down.
Comments
This ain’t good, however….
When a government seizes property and machines on its own land, that just isn’t ‘illegal’. It might be immoral because they may have made promises, but it is not illegal.
Proof of my point? Look up Dick Cheney’s daughter’s MA thesis! In it, she argues, just like her dad, that elected governments are Monarchs, able to do anything they please, and because they are elected, they are no longer held by law, because being elected makes your mouth become the law, according to the Cheneys.
So, GMAuthority posters, tell me which way you swing – either Bush II and Cheney could do whatever they like, and so can Venezuela’s govt, or Bush/Cheney/Venezuela cannot. What’s your verdict?
Are you right wingers consistent with facts, or do you cherry-pick opposite theories whenever your ‘gut-instinct’ tells you to flip-flop?
So is a cut and dry political issue? Interesting.
So your plan is to make a leftist argument while complaining about government usurpation? Good luck with that. The only one flip flopping is you, Mack. What’s hilarious about leftists is, if you say “I’m here to help businesses thrive” they’ll call you a Wall Street puppet, but if you say “Down with big corporations” they’ll say you hate the working class. If you don’t recall, the Bush/Cheney days have been over for nearly a decade. To answer your question, even though you don’t deserve it and you’ll probably think I’m disagreeing with you, when a government steals from it’s people, it’s always wrong. Venezuela has a long, well documented history of stealing from it’s people.
John Kerry is a Flip-Flopper
Bush II is someone who doesn’t think it’s ‘cut and dried’
Is that how to argue your way out of an invalid syllogism?
I hilariously never said I’m here to help businesses thrive or not, or help the workers or not
I said this: “Down with hypocrites who can’t see that Bush II / Cheney saying their mouth is law is any different from Venezuela’s govt saying their mouths are law”
See? I HATE flip flopping.
Apparently right folks only dislike left-flipflopping.
And that’s why it’s great that we have a Congress and Supreme Court, to balance off the supposed powers of the Executive Branch, with the Constitution as the guiding foundation! This shows you how badly things can go in a socialist state.
And the NFL Draft shows you how excellently things can go in a (morally well-managed) socialist state.
Socialism says the worst-off get the FIRST pick of the new resources
Sovietism says the best-off get ALL the resources and then pick who gets them.
See the difference?
Anybody want to challenge me on the technical definition of socialism and if it is any different from the NFL Draft? Because even the NFL themselves admit it, so take your argument to them…
From The Pacific (sorry, wrong one)
“The NFL equally shares its nearly $5 billion of national television revenue among all its teams. It also shares a substantial portion of its ticket and merchandise revenue, but not revenue from suites, sponsorships, or naming rights. All of this means that the link between a team’s record and the revenue it brings in is quite weak.”
So why don’t all teams simply spend as little as the league allows? One suspects that teams are not strictly motivated by financial incentives. People in the NFL don’t try to win just to make money. They also are motivated to win games because they like winning.
But although winning can make people in the NFL happier, the big economic story is that winning doesn’t make owners in the NFL much richer. In sum, teams simply do not have much of a financial incentive to win. No matter what happens, next season there will be equal numbers of wins and losses across the league, because for every team that wins, another one loses. But not so for the owners: They, unlike their teams, will all get to be winners.”