To Evade Collapse, GM Wants to Export More Jobs

AdCandy, an advertising funsite, has started a contest soliciting an identity overhaul for General Motors. "If GM were to go bankrupt," they say, "they may want to consider coming out of bankruptcy with a new name to shed the past and look to the future. What are your thoughts?"

Their competition is certainly timely: The Times reports that GM is losing more money since it received its government bailout back in the Bush days, and "faces a growing prospect of bankruptcy." As The Smart Asset has reported, "the automaker no longer even talks about planning to make a $1 billion debt payment when it comes due June 1 -- except to say that it's not going to pay it." Debt-for-equity is their alternative -- besides, of course, Chapter 11.

Their latest ploy is to send even more operations overseas. The Washington Post reveals that GM's new restructuring plan involves doubling the number of cars it builds in China, Mexico, and South Korea for U.S. consumption.

Former labor secretary Robert Reich calls it "an almost impossible dilemma" for Obama, who basically runs the company now. "Bailing them out doesn't necessarily redound to the benefit of the U.S. or American workers."

American workers -- 8.9 percent of whom are in fact not working, we learned this morning -- may be wondering what the point of a resurgent but job-exporting GM would be. So we can continue to have GM cars that fewer of us will have money to buy?