Good news, America! The head of one of your largest corporations, Jeffrey Immelt of GE, is now going to be in charge of creating jobs in America. Especially ‘green jobs’.
It’s an amazing coincidence that the guy picked to create green jobs just happens to run a company looking for customers for its windmills, factory control systems, and compact-florescent light bulbs.
It’s also a happy coincidence that he happens to lead a company which has donated a huge amount of money to Obama’s campaign and has been actively lobbying Congress for special favors for a long time.
What do you think the likelihood is that Immelt’s recommendations will just happen to match GE’s strategic plan? What are the odds that he’ll recommend technologies or opportunities that benefit GE’s competitors more than they benefit GE?
Bonus question: Which American company benefited greatly from Obama’s ‘stimulus’ plan?
Double Bonus Question: Which company recently saw its sell-off of a division move ahead with record speed after the government rapidly approved the merger of Comcast with NBC?
Triple Bonus Question: Which company’s shares skyrocketed in value late last week?
Does anyone else have a problem with the current head of a large multinational corporation having a direct advisory position in the government?
Definitely seems like a conflict of interest. I’ve seen Immelt make statements for a long time now that he believes GE needs to expand its U.S.-based manufacturing because it is necessary for high tech manufacturing to come to the United States to invigorate the economy.
I actually remember thinking a few months back where I read about him saying things like this in the Wall Street Journal that it was weird for a CEO of one of the world’s largest multinationals to be acting so concerned about the American working man. I guess maybe he was leveraging himself into this position?
Nothing surprising here, though.
It’s exactly the sort of thing Bush used to get crucified for, but I’d be surprised if Obama gets raked over the coals very much for it.
It seems to me that the biggest complaints with the Bush choices were related to what it was suspected it would lead to, namely to benefit the oil companies and related ones like Haliburton, and if a stupid war was the result…
Now if you can tell me this adviser is likely to recommend moves that makes us more dependent of foreign oil and lead to actions overseas to protect the interests of the company he represented, I’m all ears.
Not that that leaves Obama off the hook, wasn’t GE a company that got lots of incentives in the past and very little came out in the way of American jobs?
I fucking hate it. When the banks brought the world economy down there plenty of highly qualified economists who saw it coming and wanted to stop it. They were ignored. Then when the disaster came, they were ignored again. The banks that destroyed the economy were given free reign to fix it. It is what we do.
Al Gore has built up an organization pushing green energy. He or many involved in his organization would have been logical choices. But they are not pro-corporate enough to get approved.
And what makes you think this is the only instance of crony capitalism I’ve complained about? You might want to go back and see what I’ve had to say about Bush’s sucking up to large agribusinesses and the steel industry, my comments on protectionism, and other collusion between government and business.
This isn’t partisan, and it’s not about me. Do try to stay on topic, even if your, “Protect Obama! Attack all opponents!” knee is jerking.
Not really. I wish large industry groups had less pull in the gov’t as well, but I don’t really think having a few official advisors from large companies is improper or even a bad idea. I mean, “direct advisory position” isn’t exactly a job title that rings with the sound of power.
Made me sick when Bush did it, makes me sick that Obama is doing it.
There is so much corruption out there, I believe it’s unstoppable. There’s too much money in it. Why would anyone want to stick their moralistic beak in the whole thing when they can get rich and set up their family instead?
How many people do you think got rich by knowing this info beforehand and benefited by buying and selling GE stock at the right time? Insider trading makes many people happy… and rich. Including those jackasses on Wall Street that raped our 401k’s, got their bailouts, gave themselves their bonuses, and laughed at the rest of us.
Where in the fuck is our bailout for the loss of our 401K losses? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
:mad:
