GM Plant Closings: Latest Round Hits Michigan Hardest

YAHOO FNANCE Kathy Barks Hoffman, Associated Press Writer

ANSING, Mich. (AP) -- As General Motors Corp. on Monday named the operations it would close or put on standby as it headed into bankruptcy, Michigan learned it would be taking the brunt of the bad news.

he list includes a truck assembly plant shuttered in Pontiac and engine and transmission plants shut down in Flint, Livonia and Willow Run. A Grand Rapids stamping plant also will close.

An Orion assembly plant will be placed on standby, as will a stamping plant in Pontiac.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm told CNN Monday that Michigan already has lost hundreds of thousands of automotive jobs and will be hurt by the bankruptcy.

She says "it's going to be a tough summer." Some GM workers already are on extended layoffs as the automaker trims production because of lower sales.

Comments

[MIKEBC]

10:00 PM on 06/01/2009

Whats happening in Michigan now is the end result of 8 years of GOP trickle-down, supply side, cut taxes for the rich economics.

[progressivegreg]

02:38 PM on 06/01/2009

to quote an old line from the 80's "Will the last person to leave Michigan please turn off the lights"

[Whatashame]

01:50 PM on 06/01/2009

GM never built cars that the public wanted it. It was whatever we build they will have to buy.

[KillTheMessenger]

02:22 PM on 06/01/2009

No, actually, it was

"Whatever we build our dealers have to clear off the lot by selling under cost!".

[KillTheMessenger]

01:25 PM on 06/01/2009

States need to learn not to put all their eggs into one basket. It would be better for them, their people and our political system since we could get rid of deadbeat Congressmen and Senators who will do everything to defend their own turf. "Everything" in this case includes harming the country.

[OC4Obama4Pres]

02:33 PM on 06/01/2009

Funny your kind of people didn't say that while Michigan was winning WWII for you. W/out Detroit, you'd all be sprechen sie deutche.

[KillTheMessenger]

03:05 PM on 06/01/2009

Wie haben Sie das nur erraten? Ich spreche ganz gut Deutsch. Aber das ist in diesem Zusammenhang nicht wichtig weil ich mich den Amerikanern sehr viel mehr verbunden fuehle als den Deutschen.

Here is the problem... the humiliation of losing the war did wonders to the German psyche... they became much less full of themselves, they got back to work and they realized that war is not the solution to a single problem, let alone all of them. Germany has flourished in the wake of that humiliating insight. And Europe has flourished in the wake of not having to fight itself and the Germans all the time.

In comparison winning the war seems to have given Americans a feeling of superiority and invincibility. There was not a problem that one could not solve with war over here: Cuba (lost), Korea (lost), Vietnam (lost), war on drugs (lost), Iraq I (stopped short of winning), Iraq II (still not won and no chance of winning), Afghanistan (questionable).

At the same time Americans replaced hard work with credit cards and profitability with government bailouts. That's a poor strategy when one is competing with two billion Chinese and Indian people...

[notAMoron]

12:50 PM on 06/01/2009

Have any other industries or entrepreneurs stepped in to the Michigan economy to try and pull the state's economy up by its bootstraps?

I know that the growth rate of a new industry will probably not match the decline rate of the auto industry but I just haven't seen any innovative companies which call Michigan home.