There is actually an impossibility to form words when confronted by this. I find it breathtaking than anyone can defend this administration’s approach.
General Electric Co.’s health care unit, the world’s biggest maker of medical imaging machines, is moving the headquarters of its 115-year-old X-ray business to Beijing. - BOSTON GLOBE TODAY
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
Obama Asks GE’s Immelt to Head Economic Advisory Panel, Replacing Volcker
President Barack Obama named Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
In announcing Immelt’s appointment to take the helm of the newly renamed President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Obama said the economy is “in a different place” from where it was during the financial crisis when Volcker was brought on, and new ideas are needed to keep the momentum going.
“The past two years was about moving our economy back from the brink,” Obama said alongside Immelt during an event in Schenectady,New York, home to the birthplace of GE’s energy business. “Our job now is putting our economy into overdrive.”
GE ‘zero’ US tax furor reignites calls for reform
WASHINGTON — Revelations that General Electric paid no US taxes last year, despite bagging a $14 billion profit, have reignited debate in Washington about tightening up corporate levies.
No one, it seems, is very fond of the US corporate tax system.
Businesses bemoan the 35 percent minimum rate that is among the highest in the world, and taxpayers are furious at how easily big firms seem to pay much less.
But in recent months the issue has been overshadowed by multiple global crises and a fierce argument over government spending.
It resurfaced with a bang last week, when it emerged that manufacturing titan GE paid no taxes to the US government in 2010.
“GE did not pay US federal taxes last year because we did not owe any,” spokeswoman Anne Eisele told AFP, rejecting suggestions the United States’ fourth largest company was gaming the system.
The GE-Obama affair, and Jeff Immelt’s harsh words
By: | Senior Political Columnist Follow Him @TPCarney | 07/01/10 3:00 AM
Except for maybe Google, no company has been closer and more in synch with the Obama administration than General Electric.
First, there’s the policy overlap: Obama wants cap-and-trade, GE wants cap-and-trade. Obama subsidizes embryonic stem-cell research, GE launches an embryonic stem-cell business. Obama calls for rail subsidies, GE hires Linda Daschle as a rail lobbyist. Obama gives a speeech, GE employee Chris Matthews feels a thrill up his leg. I could go on.
Then there’s the personal connections: CEO Jeff Immelt sits on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory board and was asked by Obama’s Export-Import Bank to the opening act for the President at the most recent Ex-Im conference.
Finally, there’s the philosophical similarities. Days after Obama promised in his inauguration to “remak[e] America,” Immelt wrote to shareholders:
The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.
At that Ex-Im confernce (Ex-Im is a government agency dedicated to subsidizing U.S. exports), Immelt declared “Germany is the model” economically because they believe in “government and business working as a pack.” Immelt also showed some China envy, I reported at the time:
And Immelt flashed an envious smile when he said, “China pays all the bills.” “What you see in China,” Immelt added, “is an incredible unanimity of purpose from top to bottom.”
All of this is why I’m surprised to read in the Financial Times, “Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama.” There’s clearly plenty of interpretation going on by the FT writer, and GE has fired back, but some details of Immelt’s talk jibe with my earlier observation:
Apparently, the writer saw as a dig at Obama Immelt’s “making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry.” And “we have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch.”
I’d love the full transcript. It could be that Obama is not progressive enough for Immelt.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/ge-obama-affair-and-jeff-immelt-s-harsh-words#ixzz1TDKdT7pK
- Obama Gives G.E. A Green-light In Paying No Taxes For The $5.1 Billion In Profits: Worst Bailout In U.S. History, G.E. Received $182.5 Billion In Obama Buddy Bailout. (politicalvelcraft.org)
- GE to shift X-Ray unit to China (bbc.co.uk)
- Immelt: Businesses need to do more on jobs (money.cnn.com)
- General Electric and American Jobs (fool.com)
- I’m sure that one fine day the CEO’s of Bayer and BASF felt the same way, Jeff (ibloga.blogspot.com)
- GE Moves X-Ray Business to China (online.wsj.com)
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