Fiat firestorm for floating Detroit move

[Lars77]

Source: BBC News

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler, has been forced on the defensive after causing a political firestorm in Italy by suggesting he could move the Italian company's headquarters from Turin to the US and saying Chrysler's bail-out loans from the US government carried "shyster rates".

His comments come just a month after he won tough labour concessions at Fiat's flagship Turin plant on a pledge that he would not move production to cheaper sites in North America or eastern Europe.

Fiat is a symbol of Italy's industrial might, and business leaders say any decision by Mr Marchionne to reduce its presence there would have a disastrous effect on the country's already weak image as a place for foreign investment. Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the opposition Democratic party, demanding an explanation from Mr Marchionne said it was unacceptable for "Turin and the country to become a suburb of Detroit".

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/02/06/fiat.detroit.italy.ft/index.html?hpt=Sbin

[leveymg]

1. That's it. America is now officially a Third-World country.

His comments come just a month after he won tough labour concessions at Fiat's flagship Turin plant on a pledge that he would not move production to cheaper sites in North America or eastern Europe.

:wow:

[harmonicon]

2. Not exactly third-world, but more like second-world.

The US is just Mexico 2 now. We have far more in common with the "BRIC" countries than with the real first-world in a very large number of ways. It seems like pure fear and hubris keep the fallacy of American supremacy afloat in international discourse.

[DBoon]

4. the second world used to be the Soviet Union

until it shed its scary ideology and revealed itself as Mexico with nuclear weapons

"Second World" sound like a good description for the USA, come to think of it - a make believe world power that is economically hollowed out.

[bossy22]

5. so who is first world?

who has economic supremecy? china?- where 10% of the population still lives on only $1 a day- where the average person makes $4,000 a year (the U.S. per capita is 40,000).

cheaper isnt necessarily due to labor costs- it can be due to land availability, business regulation, etc. So saying that is cheaper to do business in the U.S. is a good thing for us because it encourages job growth here.

[leveymg]

7. Lower Manhattan, Dubai, City of London, Hong Kong, Bern, Cayman Islands, Aspen and a

couple dozen other select pieces of Real Estate worldwide. If your house isn't appraised at $15 million, and if you don't have at least five more like it around the globe, you're a Second or Third World citizen. Don't even think about peaking inside our gates - we don't mingle with riff-raff. Security!

[Safetykitten]

8. Actually yes, you may remember them as they loan us billions and billions.

[bossy22]

10. while they themselves borrown billions and billions

the chinese government has run deficits the last decade (like almost all governments). Debt is more like an investment for these countries- China has large foreign reserves and wants to keep them in a safe place- therefore they buy U.S. bonds- we benefit as a result of the cheap borrowing rate and they benefit because there money is generally pretty safe

[DBoon]

9. The EU, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada

Countries with a middle class

[bossy22]

11. we have a larger middle class than

Japan, australia, new zealand, and canada combined (a bit small then the EU but thats because the EU has a larger population)

Plus how long will those countries stay there? how long can japan maintain its standard of living with an extremely rapidly aging AND SHRINKING population?- atleast the U.S. is only marginally aging and our population is set to grow 100 million in the next 40 years (japan is expected to shrink by 10 million)

[DBoon]

12. so do India and China

We are falling in the same category as those two, and are exiting the affluent industrialized world.

By many demographic measure, the US is becoming closer to countries like Mexico than the above mentioned countries

The long ride downhill has been going on for 30 years, and has reached a point where we are a cheap place for businesses in truly developed countries to locate their facilities

[decidedlyso]

3. Yep. Without its bombs, it is nothing. Maybe even with its bombs...

[bossy22]

6. how do you come to that conclusion?

last time i checked the U.S. is 10X the size of italy meaning that there is 10X more land which could be home a factory- this would lead to less property costs. Maybe we have less taxes, maybe our regulations are less expensive.

[harmonicon]

13. ... the same arguments US companies make when moving manufacturing to China, no? nt.