Bill Richardson, GM, Citibank: Where is the Bail-Out Debate on Offshoring Middle Class Jobs Overseas?

By Steve Clemons - November 24, 2008, 8:32AM

A bit more than a decade ago, I received a briefing at Sandia National Weapons Laboratories on a few of their private-public partnerships, or CRADAs (Cooperative Research and Development Agreements). Intel had a CRADA with Sandia and Los Alamos Labs on developing extreme ultra-violet lithography. Many other top tier firms did too.

But the CRADA that interested me most was General Motors.

GM's tech team was with us -- and we learned about a great number of tax-payer supported national security research technological achievements that could prove useful to the auto industry. I asked whether these acquired technologies would be applied differentially to GM's production base in the U.S. -- and whether they would be careful of extending such technology in their China operations.

The answer was pretty shocking.

GM said that it was taking all of the technology it could get its hands on -- whether from the labs or elsewhere -- and fully deploying it in China.