So did you hear about GM? RANT!

I read you and I feel sad of what I read for many reasons. I hesitated to comment, as this quite get out of photography, but I'd like to provide another perspective. And well, if THAT is nos photographic somehow I don't know what is...

So here it goes: in the 80's, home appliances started flooding the western market from India and China. For instance tea boilers, which are plastic tubes with electric heating resistance in them. You would find them for 5$ in the stores... When they used to cost 7-8$ to produce in France where I live. Here we had 2 manufacturers called Moulinex and Seb who both thought they would disappear.

Moulinex actually did. They stayed in France, played politics, worked the unions, created huge strikes and protest marches and then just disappeared. 8 000 job were lost and we don't even count subcontracters.

Seb became what they are today: the world leader. They innovated and launched a boiler called "quick and hot" which combined electro-magnetic fields with electrical resistance to boil the water in 1.5 seconds. Manufacturing cost was around 12$ but they sold it 40$. Everyone started buying them because they saw value in having instant tea or coffee in the morning and not waiting the usual 90 seconds (too long... too short...).

With the profit they made, they went to China and used the low rate of the Yuan to buy all the competitors including the largest manufacturer called Supor. And they created 5 more factories in mainland China from 1985 to 2005.

So in these 30 years, Seb went from 70% workers in France to 20% workers in France and 80% abroad, most of them in India and China. But what we must know is that in absolute number the French workers went from 8 000 (they were the same size as Moulinex at that time) to 20 000. Nicely enough, they hired 70% of the workers laid off when Moulinex bankrupted.

I wrote a book about this, which is a bestseller in France but, of course, never interested an publisher in the States and really, I can understand why. For this I gathered all the data, interviewed all the key managers including both CEOs. It's a solid research (and as you'll have gathered by now, it's my main job to do this).

I hope this perspective sheds an brighter light on your thoughts: even though I can't say for GM, economic history shows over and over again that companies remaining local in a very competitive industry in the process of globalization always end up firing everyone, whereas creating value abroad is often the best way to reinvest it home. Many cases of course in the US like Apple, but I'm sure you know of them and how producing in China has lead to other types of controversy, but never to unemployment or poverty in Cupertino.

Well now, back to your wonderful photographs and no more economics or politics this year between us I promise!