UEIVLRHL "IV I UR.) www.GM.com Facts: 0 1908: Founded 0 1982: Built huge factory in Spain 0 2009: Files for bankruptcy - 2010: Emerges from bankruptcy - 201 3: Over 200,000 employees In some respects. General Motors (GM) is the story of globaliza- tion. It was one of the most successful companies in the world in the [9605 under the gifted manager Alfred Sloan. As it expanded globally, some of the jobs that had gone to Americans Were moved overseas, partly to be closer to where vehicles were sold but also to cut costs. Labor costs were much lower in other countries. Gasoline prices increased sharply during the 19705 and many Americans turned away from GM products and bought cars from Toyota. Honda. or Nissan. Americans were interested in the smaller, high-quality cars built by the Japanese. The weakened state of GM and the nancial crisis of 20082010 forced the company to le for bankruptcy in 2009 when the US. government stepped in to help. But the company has since recovered. Ben James received a bachelor's degree in statistics and a master's degree in business admin- istration. He has worked at GM for several years. Among other things, he studies data such as that shown in the following two gures and develops equations to forecast demand. 3. GM has responded to increasing competition, and rapid economic growth in China by build- ing and selling cars in China. About 1 out of every 8 vehicles sold in China is built by GM. Forecast monthly GM sales in China using the following equation (in thousands) when Advertising = $5.3 (millions), Economic Growth = 6.5%, and Level of Competition = .7. (See Section 4.3, Examples 1-8.) Sales = 50.9 + 9.6 . Advertising + 720 . Economic Growth - 28.7 . Level of Competition 4. In one European country, the sales of GM products increased from 23,850 to 36,400 in the third year that GM was in that market. Use a proportion to estimate the number of sales in the third year in a neighboring country with a very similar economy, if year two sales were 14,910. (See Section 4.4, Examples 5-7.)