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tv   Forbes on FOX  FOX Business  May 12, 2013 9:00am-9:31am EDT

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never, ever taken in by wall street bs and the wall street wealth extraction machine, never scared to take on the biggest, toughest guys on the block. when i was a forthem, always had my back. a man that we'll never see ain. >> outstanding. an american icon now made in china. general motors spending $1.3 billion to start producing cadillacs and new jobs in shanghai. this after getting $50 billion bailout bucks fr u.s. taxpayers. gm saying it wants to stay competitive in china's growing luxury vehicle market, but critics say our bailout dollars were used to rev up american jobs, not jo in china. so who's right? hi, everybody, welcome to "forbes on fox." let's go in focus with rich carlton, rick unger, elizabeth mcdonald. you're fired up about this. >> i am. what we're talking about is a
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politicized bailout. what's happening here is, you know, china gets the jobs but we're stuck with the taxpayers paid for vanity projects like the chevy volt and no jobs here. i'm all for gm building in china, i don't have a problem with that. this is a political bailout. they were not allowed to restructure and get toyota or a korean company to buy gm in a bankruptcy and make it even healthier to avoid having to do a bailout. they still owe us, by the way, $20 billion. >> we're the reluctant holders of gm stock, which is not at its origil price. rich, the disproportionality is what bothers a lot of people. they're spending $11 billion in china by 2016. here's what a guy said in the "wall street journal." gm has only invested $8.5 billion here and the number of workers it implies here in north america has fallen by 76,000. the bailout was for american
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jobs, not chinese jobs. >> i share your outrage about the bailout, but we have to look forward. the chinese luxury car market is the largest in the world, believe it or not, and it's only getting bigger. the cadillac escalade, cadillac's suv is the highest profit margin personal vehic that general motors sells. so to held the highest profit margin product into the luxury car market is an opportunity for general motors that cannot be passed up. it's in everyone's interests, shareholders, employees, the u.s. government, taxpayers, for general motors to be successful and this helps them be successful. >> bill, it is absolutely true that the luxury car market is growing in china, so that is one aspect of their move, their decision. but should a u.s. subsidized company be paying for chinese jobs? >> i think sadly this is just the opening chapter in what is a grand plot to move all of its manufacturing some day to low-wage countries.
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it's a shame, given that a lot of other u.s. manufacturers are going the other way, they're bringing jobs back to the u.s. to take advantage of low energy prices, better automation and proximity to our markets. gm is going the other way. >> mike, i china taking advantage of the u.s. taxpayer? the may be sense in investing in china, but it's our money investing in chinese jobs. it should be american jobs, right? >> bailouts are bad, profits are good. if gm is going to be more profitable by building factories in china, that's where they should build them. it will attract more capital, help them be more profitable and in the long run help them hire more people. this is a good thing if it's successful in terms of creasing profits. >> rick, american taxpayers subsidizing chinese jobs. i can't get over that. >> i am just amazed that some of my friends on the panel are not taking the usual position that what's bes for the shareholders is the best thing to do. it's stunning to me. >> we or the shareholders?
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the american taxpayers are the shareholders of gm. >> we're a small part of it. from what i understand, we may have in the past two weeks got rid of the rest of it. >> no. >> let me say this. to the extent that they are not making cars over there to export to the u.s., to the extent that it's going to lower their cost of mafacturing to sell in china, i can kind of understand this. i also understand that to do business in china you often have to partner up with a chinese company. if my friend, bill, is correct andwe see them start to manufacture there, to ship cars back to the u.s., you're going to find me on your side. >> here's the deal. they're not growing -- gm is not growing as fast as hyundai or toyota or volkswagen because they have a really flexible labor force. they're a lot of nonunion, i get it. the problem is this was a highly politicized bailout. president obama said during the debate to mitt romney, if we took your advice, governor romney, we'd be buying cars from china instead of creating jobs
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here via gm and selling cars back to china. that didn't work out. i'm all for paying back the taxpayer, i'm all for gm being profitable. i support them going to china. we have to keep in mind what the president was saying stimulus to create jobs and gm to create jobs. >> we're also hearing about china now buying up all of these failed solar companies and electric battery operators like a123. again, u.s. taxpayers are being used sort of as the seed corn for chinese jobs and chinese entrepreneurs. >> i think that you are falling into the trap of the sunk cost fallacy. you're looking backwards, you're outraged, rightly outraged abo the bailout, you simply have to look forward. bmw sold 300,000 luxury cars in china last year. audi 400,000, cadillac only 30,000 and this just a huge
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profit opportunity. i don't know why you're so upset about them making a profit. >> we'll tell you why. >> rich, you're treating the $20 billion that taxpayers are still owed like a rounding error. just pooh-pooh. >> the best way to pay it down is for gm to become profable. >> you're clearly missing my point. i'm saying don't ever do this again. >> bingo. >> do not use taxpayer money -- >> rich, i would emphasize that fact. we are looking ahead and are worried about this happening before. there have been bailouts before in the past that have gone bust. clearly some of these green energy projects that have gone bust, and there are more of them coming online all the time. they're buying them up, the chinese are buying tem up for fire sales. we don't want that to happen again, do you? >> i do not. and i'm not arguing that point at all. i'm saying the best thingor all concerned, shareholders, taxpayers, employees and the united states is for gm to
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become healthily profitable and the's profits to be made in china. >> bill, i'll go to you on this. china has a history of reverse engineering. that is stealing our ideas, buying our products or working on some kind of partnership with u.s. companies and tn reverse engineering the products and getting rid of the patents and the copyrights and coming out with their own. are you concerned that gm may be falling into the reverse engineering trap? >> i think intlectual property is getting more respect in china as they become creators -- >> wait a minute, you trust the chinese? you don't think they'll do any more reverse engineering? >> oh, they'll steal a couple things but they'll be creating some things too. there's a good side to this. this may be so bad that it may poison taxpayers and the united states against the next bailout. >> rick, go ahead. >> i have personally been a victim of chinese ripping off intellectual properties. >> you know what we're tking about. >> but i do have to stand up a
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bit for the bailout. i know it hurts, i know you don't like it, but i also know so many jobs we saved as a result of that gm. >> we bailed out -- we bailed out -- no, we bailed out failed management. we could have had even more jobs if they had better management. >> hold on. the number of workers that gm employs in north america has fallen by 76,000. got to leave it at that. coming up next, charles ramsey, he's being hailed as a he for helping rescue the kidnapped women. now some are calling him a villain for turning it into a publicity stunt. some say mcdonald should be thanked for what he's done. >> i hear some girls screaming. we went out and asked people a simple question:
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now back" i just came from mcdonald's, right. i'm eating my food and this broad is trying to break out the house next door to me. >> you just heard charles ramsey sa that he was eating mcdonald's from helping free those three kidnapped women in ohio. mickey d's was quick to tweet and thank him with this. quote, we salute the courage of ohio kidnap victims and respect their privacy. way to go, charles ramsey, we'll be in touch. the tweet firing up a big debate over whether mcdonald's should have done this. critics calling it a cheesy pr move. rich, you disagree.
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why? >> oh, my goodness. this is e age of twitter and facebook. i think what mcdonald's did was mildly heroic and i applaud it. i'm glad when a company of mcdonald's size still goes on the aggressive tact and takes opportunistic chances like this. as far as charles ramsey as a flaweded pers eperson, this is s salvation. maybee'll look at himself differently and not fall back into a life of crime. i think this is wonderful for everyone. >> so rich says mcdonald's is mildly heroic for this tweet. >> i think we call people heroes a little too easy these days. >> he certainly as, charles was. >> absolutely. mcdonald's, they posted to twitter. listen, i have no problem with mcdonald's congratulating him online. if i had been their marketing consultant, i would have left off that last sentence because it does invite the kind of blowback they're getting. do it slowly, do it carefully and then take the photos down the road with you doing
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something for charles ramsey. it would have been a better way to market it. they just ask for trouble. >> companies have marketed heroism of others before, right? >> absolutely. wheaties is the breakfast of champions and i think mcdonald's might be the lunch of heroes. i think this is good news for mcdonald's. look, charles ramsey is a flawed human being, as all of us are. but this was a moment of bravery and something that he should be praised for. hesaved the lives of several people. this is something that if mcdonald's would be good for their brand and is someone that they want toprofile, then good for them. >> mike, mcdonald's the lunch of heroes. i love that line. >> it's a great line but we don't know how this is going to work out. it's always very risky when a company or an individual attaches themself to a tragic situation. i think of president obama when he surrounded himself with the families of the schoolchildren that were murdered in connecticut so that he would help him get his legislation passed on guns. of course it failed and he took a lot of heat for that. so there's a lot of risk
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attached with with this as well. >> it's a risky move, no doubt, but is it a good one? >> i think it's fine. listen, i'm just glad that mr. ramsey didn't say he was paying his exxonmobil heating bill and then exxon tweet about it because rick ungar may have had a mild, transient stroke over that one. no, i'm just kidding, or heart failure. listen, this is just a tweet. it's just a tweet. basically mcdonald's is not saying we're going to build a commercial built on kidnapping. i think how we blast companies and ceos for not being socially conscientious and now mcdonald's put out a tiny its tweet. it's not as if they went and poured cyanide into the pacific ocean, they just put out a tweet, that's all they did. >> bill, is this a good mve or not? >> i didn't think it took very long for it to boomerang on mcdonald's. first it wasn't just the hero but the apparent perpetrator of the crime that loves mcdonald's. the second thing is charles ramsey's rambling discourse on
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television had a lot of negativity in it. talking about domestic violence and 9/11. does mcdonald's want its brand associated wih that kind of stuff? >> first of all, a lot of that stuff from his history has been admitted by him and his ex-spouse who apparently was involved in the beating at one point but they apparently have buried the hatchet. so, rich, that is history. but the fact is that a lot of the blowback mcdonald's is getting now, i see no evidence that it's hurting them, that it's hurting their sales, have you? >> yeah, and that's exactly what was on my mind after bill's comments. i don't see any evidence of that. and the fact is we all know that big companies like walmart and mcdonald's, particularly those that market, you know, to working class people get criticized by the elites on the coast who spend all their time in the twitterverse. so i think what mcdonald's did wa -- i like it. >> by the way, rick immediately jumped up when you said the elites on the coast.
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rick, i can only suspect he was talking about you. >> i just love -- we've actually found a way to take a marketing issue of mcdonald's, tie it into a negative thing about president obama, take a shot at elites on the coast and we're talking about mcdonald's? >> is it good for mcdonald's or not? >> listen, any time we can turn cholesterol and fat into the lunch of heroes, how bad can it be. >> maybe they'll have mr. ramsey doing a veggie mcdonald's salad -- >> by the way, sabrina and e e. mac have something ideas. benghazi hearings turn emotional as they discuss consequences of not beefing up security overseas. is it time to stop sending money to countries that hate us. first, a judge knocking down the national labor board's new rule requiring employers hang posters in the workplace telling workers how to unionize. if this is a loss for unions, is it a win for jobs?
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a loss for unions but a win for jobs? this week a court ruled against the national labor relation board's so-called poster rule. this would hav required over 6 million employers around the country to hang up this sign that tells workers basically how to organize. the judge says this new rule violates employers' freedom of speech. rich, you say this is great news
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for jobs. how does that work out? >> yeah, i think so. you know, unemployment is still close to 8%, and i think it's just -- for the government, for a government entity to kind of sow the seeds of discord and content between employers and employees i think is a terrible thing to do. employers are dying for talented, committed people. here's a copy of the poster. i circled the stuff that was very anti-employer here. here's the stuffhat speaks on the employer's behalf. it's so lopsided it's ridiculous. >> gandy, it is kind of, rick, an ad for unionizing. and ads work. otherwise people wouldn't spend money on them. >> i thought rich's comment was perfect because it highlights how wrong this decision was. none of this decision was based on anything rich just pointed out. it was based on a freedom of speech argument. so you know what that means? >> hold on a second. let me just explain. the court decided that employers have the freedom of speech not to put the posters up if they
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don't want to. go ahead, finish your thought. >> that means that little poster you always see if you're in a wash room at a staurant that reminds employees they must wash their hands? well, you know what if you own a restaurant, this is violating your free speech. so you can take that poster down. persally, i don't want to eat there. it was a ridiculous decision. i think the most pro-business supreme court in our history will strike it down. >> sabrina shall was it good or not for jobs? >> i think it was good for jobs. you know what it's also good for is to change the narrative. we talk about unions being the small counter weight to business, big mean business, but the public knows differently. i think this is responding to public -- or unhappiness with public and private sector unions. gallup found a few months ago that 42% of americans want to see unions have less influence and think this ruling reflects that very well. >> mike, there a a lot of service employers who were behind striking this rule down, saying that if we had to put up these things, if the workers
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unionize as a result of these ads, we'd be out of business. >> david, this is very good for js because companies in the private sector that are not unionized are much more profitable and grow much more faster and end up hiring more peoplehan private companies that are unionized. >> e. mac, what do you think? >> i agree with rich because this really is lop sided in favor of unions. it does not tell the worker and really hides from the worker and misleads the worker that they have the right to refuse to pay union dues, they have the right to decertify a union if they don't want the really bad union representing them. i think this is a plus for workers to get the best information that they deserve in the workplace. >> rick, you read through these employee rights, the same thing rich just said. it is lopsided in favor of union organizes, is it not? >> actually i think it does what the law says but here's the important point. each and every one of you just gave your reason why you don't like the poster. fine. that was not the basis of the decision. you can't --
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>> yes, it was. it was the right not to speak and not to be coerced. it was a first amendment right for the company not to be coerced with a misleading poster. >> we've got to wrap it up. >> you would argue that no employer should have to put up any of these warnings. >> rick was holding up one side of the argunt. no surprise, by the way, about new reports that we're going to spend more or moms this year. but before you buy the flowers, check out our stocks that could make your mom's fites this mother's day. bny mellon combines investment management & investment servicing,
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we are back with stocks for mom. >> jds uniphase. wall street just put a bad earnings quarter behind it. >>id you see that pathetic earnings report? we make money as long as we don't count our costs. >> my wife loves looking at her tiffany products. >> get a piece of the action. >> the stock has become as overpriced as some of the jewelry this company sells. >> you're for more basic stuff like tractors. >> yes. everybody has got to eat. cnh global spent a tremendous amount of money upgrading their facilities. this will help profits going forward. >> i like making a big push in latin and south america.
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>> you guys are great. three stocks so great. that's it for "forbes on fox." have a wonderful mother's day weekend. keep it right here. we continue with eric bowlen cashing in. life, liberty and the right to health care? health care should be a constitional right. >> although health care was not listed per se in the constitution, it should be a constitutional right. >> wait a minute, not so fast, "cashin' in" has some ideas for you, representative. plus the battle for answers over benghazi far from over. we're handing over billions to people who fnkly would rather see us dead than alive. maybe it's time to stop them from cashin' in on our hard work. cashin' in, derailing the liberal gravy train, right now.

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