General Motors

Green Party of Canada leader Jim Harris (politician) was quoted in an article in the Montreal Gazette in claimed that "high oil prices have led consumers to demand more fuel-efficient cars, which also claimed that "Ford and General Motors's core profitability comes from gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks," and that accordingly their problems could be blamed on a failure to build hybrid vehicles. Additionally, large-scale asset-stripping of Gazprom was going on by corrupt management and board members through various transactions involving the Gazprom daughter Stroitansgaz and the regional gas company Sibneftegaz. While the company pleaded its high health care costs, amounting to US$1500 per vehicle on average (a veiled excuse to move jobs to Canada where health insurance is public), others blamed the product line. Gazprom conducted dubious transactions with Florida-based gas-trading company Itera and a Gazprom/Itera joint-venture, Purgaz, in the late 1990s, which allegedly benefited various management members and their relatives. Explanations were not long in coming. The reasons were not clear and were explained either by an aging pipeline transport network, by a management that was becoming increasingly corrupt or by pre-existing losses that appeared because of more transparent accounting policies. The anger was obvious at the shareholder meeting. Furthermore, the company's records started showing a loss for the first time at this point in time.

GM officials cited profitability of their Oshawa, Ontario plant in refusing to distribute the job losses. When tax prosecutors started to seize assets of Gazprom, the company had to give in and pay. For the first time ever in 2004, the total number of cars produced by all makers in Ontario exceeded those produced in Michigan. At the same time, the Russian government suddenly started demanding billions of dollars in back taxes from Gazprom. It did not announce any job cuts in Canada:. In 1998 Chernomyrdin was fired from his position by Russia's Prime Minister Boris Yeltsin. It announced plans to cut 25,000 jobs in the United States. Gazprom slowly established credibility in the western capital markets with an offering of 1% of its equity to foreigners in October 1996 in the form of London Depository Receipts and a successful large bond issue of US$ 2.5 billion in 1997.

Its debt was downgraded to junk bond status. However, trading these shares was extremely heavily regulated and the by-laws of the company prohibited foreigners to own more than 9% of the shares. In April 2005, General Motors posted a US$1.1-billion loss, for the first quarter of that year. As the new government was committed to economic reform, Gazprom began to be privatized, becoming a joint-stock company in November 1992, and starting to distribute shares under the voucher method, where every Russian citizen received vouchers to purchase shares of formerly state-owned companies. to expand their Canadian auto production, provide jobs and contribute to the economy", according to Jim Harris (politician). After the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed Chernomirdin to be his Prime Minister in December 1992, the political influence of Gazprom increased markedly. In March 2005, the Government of Canada "gave C$200 million to General Motors for its Ontario plants, and last fall it awarded C$100 million to Ford Motor Co. After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Gazprom lost a large part of its assets outside of Russia - one third of its pipelines and one fourth of its compression capacity.

It has the highest health care and labour costs in the industry, and some analysts have criticized the company for this. Viktor Chernomyrdin was made head of the operation. General Motors was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine. In July 1989, as part of his economic reforms, President Mikhail Gorbachev combined the ministries for oil and gas, and later carved out Gazprom as the entity responsible for gas production, distribution and sales. (KKR) in August 2004. Gas exploration, development and distribution were centralized in a state ministry. Newscorp sold PanAmSat to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Due to large natural gas reserves discovered in Siberia, in the Urals and in the Volga region in the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union became a major gas producer.

In 2000 the remaining parts of Hughes Electronics: DirecTV, DirecTV Latin America, PanAmSat and Hughes Network Systems were purchased by NewsCorp and renamed The DirecTV Group. . Hughes Space and Communications remained independent until 2000, when it was purchased by Boeing and became Boeing Satellite Systems. Gazprom supplies almost all the gas needs of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Late in the year the defense operations of Hughes Electronics (Hughes Aircraft and missile business) were merged with Raytheon. With sales of US$ 31 billion in 2004, it accounts for about 94% of Russian natural gas production and with reserves of 17,800 km³, it controls 25% of the world's gas reserves. In 1997 GM transferred Delco Electronics to its Delphi Automotive Systems business. Газпром, sometimes transcribed as Gasprom) is a major Russian company and the biggest natural gas extractor.

In 1996 Hughes Electronics and PanAmSat agree to merge their fixed satellite services into a new publicly held company, also called PanAmSat with GM Hughes Electronics as majority shareholder. Gazprom (russ. Also in 1995 the group purchased Magnavox Electronic Systems from the Carlyle Group. In 1995 Hughes Electronic's Hughes Space and Communications division became the largest supplier of commercial satellites. In 1994 Hughes Electronics introduced DirecTV, the world's first high-powered direct broadcast satellite service.

In August 1992 GM Hughes Electronics purchased General Dynamics' Missile Systems business. The group then consisted of:. General Motors merged Hughes Aircraft with its Delco Electronics unit to form GM Hughes Electronics (GMHE). Hughes Electronics was formed in 1985 when Hughes Aircraft was sold by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to General Motors for US$5 billion.

. sold is Electro-Motive Division to Greenbriar Equity Group LLC and Berkshire Partners. On April 4, 2005 General Motors Corp. See below under financial woes..

In May 2005, Standard & Poor's downgraded GM's credit rating to junk bond status. When he was asked, during the hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." Later this statement was often garbled when quoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." At the time, GM was the one of the largest employers in the world – only Soviet state industries employed more people. In 1953 Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named by Eisenhower as Secretary of Defense. At one point it was the largest corporation in the United States ever, in terms of its revenues as a percent of GDP.

A strike began at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan on June 5, 1998, that quickly spread to five other assembly plants and lasted seven weeks. Smith, in his first big hit, Roger & Me. After GM's massive layoffs hit Flint, Michigan, in the 1980s, budding documentary filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore focused on the company and its chairman and CEO at the time, Roger B. On December 31, 1955, General Motors became the first American corporation to make over one billion dollars in a year.

Over the next twenty years diesel-powered locomotives and trains, the majority built by GM, largely replaced other forms of traction on American railroads. General Motors bought the internal combustion engined railcar builder Electro-Motive Corporation and its engine supplier Winton Engine in 1930, renaming both as the General Motors Electro-Motive Division. See General Motors streetcar conspiracy for additional details.. GM formed United Cities Motor Transit, in 1932.

During the 1920s and 1930s General Motors bought out the bus company Yellow Coach, helped create Greyhound bus lines, replaced intercity train transport with buses, and established subsidiary companies to buy out streetcar companies and replace the rail-based services with buses. The next year, Durant brought in Cadillac, Elmore, and Oakland. Durant, and acquired Oldsmobile later that year. General Motors was founded in 1908 as a holding company for Buick, then controlled by William C.

. Smith, Jr. The current chairman (since May 1, 2003) and chief executive officer (since June 1, 2000) is Rick Wagoner, succeeding John F. GM owned Frigidaire from 1918 to 1979.

They also owned Electronic Data Systems from 1984 to 1996 and, prior to selling it to News Corporation, DirecTV. In 2002, GM sold 15 percent of all cars and trucks in the world. In 2001, GM sold 8.5 million vehicles through all its branches. General Motors is the world's largest vehicle manufacturer and employs over 340,000 people.

GM's headquarters are in the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan. In December 2003, it acquired Delta in South Africa, in which it had taken a 45 percent stake in 1997, and which is now a fully-owned subsidiary, General Motors South Africa. GM also has stakes in Isuzu, Subaru, and Suzuki in Japan and a joint venture with AutoVAZ (Lada) in Russia. Other brands include ACDelco, Allison Transmission, and General Motors Electro-Motive Division that produces diesel-electric locomotives.

Chevrolet and GMC divisions produce trucks, as well as passenger vehicles. General Motors Corporation NYSE: GM, also known as GM, is a United States-based automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Vauxhall. GM Acceptance Corp. EPA 2004 fuel economy report (General Motors).

GM vehicles by brand. List of GM VIN codes. List of GM engines. List of GM platforms.

General Motors streetcar conspiracy. Hughes Network Systems. Hughes Space and Communications. Delco Electronics.

Hughes Aircraft.