# Jack Welch: pure projection?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [October 6, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936 "2012-10-06T20:46:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/1 "2012-10-06T20:46:46Z")
[LINK](http://www.salon.com/2012/10/05/neutron_jacks_back/)
I’m sure you’ve seen or heard about the former GE head charging that Obama influenced the Department of Labor to produce the 7.8% UE figure to help him win the election. When asked, he said he’d stand by his accusation but admitted that he had no evidence to support it. Numerous economists (some right-wing) have argued that there is no way Obama could have exerted the slightest pressure to do anything of the kind (and if he had, it would be an election-blowing scandal–would a sane person risk an election he was leading in?) so my question remains for you armchair shrinks out there–isn’t this the most naked sort of projection, wherein Welch (who sounds btw as if his testicles have been removed–what a squeaky voice!) assumes that is what happened because that is what he would have tried to do in Obama’s place?
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/2 "2012-10-06T23:04:00Z")
It’s hardly any surprise a guy whose primary method of increasing stock value was to keep laying employees off would be a big Mitt Romney fan. They didn’t call him “Neutron Jack” because he was good at physics.
He likes to fire people. Mitt like to fire people. They’re peas in a pod.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/3 "2012-10-07T04:22:44Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#):
>
> (and if he had, it would be an election-blowing scandal–would a sane person risk an election he was leading in?)
See Nixon vs. McGovern re: Watergate.
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/4 "2012-10-07T04:37:00Z")
Nah, he wants attention, and possibly a pundit job.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/5 "2012-10-07T13:52:28Z")
What if “someone from Bain” called Welsh and told him. Would that be enough to justify the accusations?
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/6 "2012-10-07T15:44:09Z")
I agree it’s projection. Because it’s what he did at GE, cook the books. The FCC and the GE stockholders should be investigating him. He’s clearly stupid or irrational and the success at GE must be a result of fraudulent bookkeepping.
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### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/7 "2012-10-07T15:45:20Z")
I don’t think Obama put pressure on BLS, but I dispute that it would be an election blowing scandal if he did. That implies that the mainstream media would make it a scandal, which they wouldn’t.
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### Author:  [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/8 "2012-10-07T15:50:18Z")
You have no clue how the media works, then. It would be a career-making story for any journalist who came across the facts, one that the most liberal, Obama-worshipping professional journalist would leap at without two seconds of hesitation.
You are now marked in my book as a hopelessly irrational hater of all things with Obama’s stamp on them.
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/9 "2012-10-07T17:22:20Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> I don’t think Obama put pressure on BLS, but I dispute that it would be an election blowing scandal if he did. That implies that the mainstream media would make it a scandal, which they wouldn’t.
This is a better example of projection, IMHO.
Adaher thinks that thousands of journalists would walk mindlessly lockstep with the administration even if the administration did something viscerally wrong.
Sort of like how Republicans high-fived every time Bush did something insane.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/10 "2012-10-07T17:33:56Z")
Well, now, just a second there. With Fox News, Breitbart, and Drudge totally in the bag for Obama, really, who else is left?
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### Author:  [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/11 "2012-10-07T17:34:04Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> What if “someone from Bain” called Welsh and told him. Would that be enough to justify the accusations?
Sure, if Bain was involved in calculating the unemployment numbers. Otherwise, no.
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### Author:  [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/12 "2012-10-07T18:02:04Z")
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> Well, now, just a second there. With Fox News, Breitbart, and Drudge totally in the bag for Obama, really, who else is left?
There’s always the voices inside one’s head. That’s a good enough source for Jack Welch, so it should be a good enough source for you.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/13 "2012-10-07T19:06:29Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> I don’t think Obama put pressure on BLS, but I dispute that it would be an election blowing scandal if he did. That implies that the mainstream media would make it a scandal, which they wouldn’t.
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#):
>
> You have no clue how the media works, then. It would be a career-making story for any journalist who came across the facts, one that the most liberal, Obama-worshipping professional journalist would leap at without two seconds of hesitation.
>
> You are now marked in my book as a hopelessly irrational hater of all things with Obama’s stamp on them.
NOW?
What, have you been on vacation or something?
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### Author:  [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/14 "2012-10-07T21:44:58Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> NOW?
>
> What, have you been on vacation or something?
It was the “hopelessly” part that I finally settled upon.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/15 "2012-10-07T21:59:55Z")
So, who is this guy, again? I’m afraid I haven’t been staying current, is he making some sort of charge? Have we been waiting for him, or someone like him?
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/16 "2012-10-08T00:45:46Z")
Well, _“this can’t be happening, there’s got to be someone pulling some trick”_ is not an uncommon human reaction. An _“I don’t know how Nixon could win, I don’t know anyone who voted for him”_ sort of thing. Just that at a certain level you have to get over that and acknowledge that yes, it is possible that the other guy has for once drawn a better card.
Good thing he’s a _former_ GE head, I’d be concerned about investing in a company whose boss just pulls an unsupported conspiracy accusation out of his fundament when he doesn’t like a published statistic. After all these are the same guys who did statistics during the boom years, were they cooking the books then, too?
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/17 "2012-10-08T01:03:47Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#):
>
> Good thing he’s a _former_ GE head, I’d be concerned about investing in a company whose boss just pulls an unsupported conspiracy accusation out of his fundament when he doesn’t like a published statistic. After all these are the same guys who did statistics during the boom years, were they cooking the books then, too?
Well, yes they were. Jack Welch’s GE aggressively practiced “[Earnings](http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2008/04/is-jack-welch-o.html) [management](http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/191.asp#axzz28fHwdpEM)”. They liked earnings to be smooth and rising. Unfortunately, that’s not something that happens naturally. So they would routinely buy and sell businesses and conduct other accounting maneuvers before quarterly reports in order to book or postpone profits.
Jack Welch was also one of the few innovative CEOs: he actually made the conglomerate model work in the US. But that we now know that he dabbles in crackpottery tends to undermine the Great Man Theory of Job and Wealth Creation. Personally, I would thank GE’s engineers and researchers.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/18 "2012-10-08T01:17:01Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> … tends to undermine the Great Man Theory of Job and Wealth Creation. …
Wouldn’t be so sure. You could fuil a library wall with autobiographies written by men such as he, and the themes than unite them all are virtue, hard work, bold innovation, and vision. And modesty. Some modesty, at any rate.
People who have had some experience with office politics might be surprised that such virtues are the principal sources of success. But the evidence is overwhelming.
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### Author:  [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/19 "2012-10-08T01:35:24Z")
I’d just like to point out, that here in Singapore, if he made such an accusation without any basis for support he would be sued.
I wouldn’t like to see that happen in the US, but perhaps it IS time that you all looked at the way you’re doing things to try and crack down a bit on this sort of totally unsubstaniated bullshit going on.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-welch-pure-projection/636936/20 "2012-10-08T01:40:22Z")
> [@bengangmo](#):
>
> I’d just like to point out, that here in Singapore, if he made such an accusation without any basis for support he would be sued.
And would he be caned if he lost? Because I’m all over that!
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