Unless every media story I have read/listened to is wrong, the Texas plant is non-union. GE previously asked the bargaining units at Erie to accept wage cuts, benefit cuts etc; they said no, and GE built the Texas facility. As to those of us who expect corporations granted charters and patents in the US to behave in a manner beneficial to the US as a whole, yes I do believe there is more to business than merely short term profit. As to my experience in running a business, I started by delivering newspapers in HS, when I left college I went to work in the book trade, for several recent decades I have been a freelance electrician. So, I have seen "business" from the stockroom, the sales floor/cash register, been the buyer,represented publishers, worked for various contracting firms-sole proprietor and group ownership. I have also watched as various supply houses, retailers, and others have gone bust, not because they were dumb but because the general economy simply destroyed them--think about the "Great Recession" which was in the main an artifact of fraudulent and crooked behavior by the people in banking and the equities markets. Among all such perps exactly one was convicted and did time, but huge swaths of the population who had not directly engaged in the criminal shenanigans were wiped out in the ensuing financial debacle. If you think GE's behavior is patriotic, buy more of their stock and enjoy your dividends. I think their behavior is close to treason which saddens me directly as in some of their other markets theyhave/sometimes still do purvey excellent hardware which I prefer over the competition. In others, they simply dropped out by selling divisions to competitors or more ignominiously buying marketing product from rivals with sloppily applied GE logo decals applied.

As to making a profit in the railway locomotive market, with EMD barely afloat GE's dominance in the North American market is really only challenged by Siemens whose plant is in Sacramento, not exactly a low wage/cheap housing area.