NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The head of General Electric told a jobs summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday that businesses needed to take the lead on job creation. At a conference where many of the comments were focused on government barriers to hiring, GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged there needed to be some policy changes by Congress and the Obama administration. But he said that the responsibility for hiring lay with businesses.
“The people who are part of the business sector, the people in this room, have got to stop complaining about government and get some action underway,” he told the group. “There’s no excuse today for lack of leadership. The truth is we all need to be part of the solution.”
Immelt is the chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He said the group has made a number of recommendations for changes in government policies that should be able to help job creation, such as the executive order announced Monday asking independent agencies to rid their books of old and outdated regulations. (read more)
However, when you reconcile Immelt’s actual track record against these speeches it is difficult to reconcile his words without hypocrisy coming to mind. Consider:
During the January announcement of Obama’s new Czar appointment the Huffington Post ran this story…… (Huff Po) — Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. tapped by President Barack Obama as his next top outside economic adviser, will be asked to guide the White House as it attempts to jump-start lackluster job creation and spur a muddled recovery.
Immelt’s firm stands as Exhibit A of a successful and profitable corporate America standing at the forefront of the recovery. It also represents the archetypal company that’s hoarding cash, sending jobs overseas, relying on taxpayer bailouts and paying less taxes than envisioned. . . . – President Obama
As the administration struggles to prod businesses to create jobs at home, GE has been busy sending them abroad. Since Immelt took over in 2001, GE has shed 34,000 jobs in the U.S., according to its most recent annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But it’s added 25,000 jobs overseas. (more)
Unbefrigginlievable.
It’s happening everywhere. Xerox just sold off their engineering development for ‘high end production printing’ to HCL (Hindustan Computer Limited). These were the people designing copiers capable of printing out 2,000 plus pages a minute….the brains of the company. What’s left are the smaller office and digital copier developers. That spells the end for Xerox innovation.
And guess who helped shove the anti-incandescent light bulb law through Congress? They shut their US bulb making operation and fired up their brand-new Chi-Com factory to build those mercury-filled fluorescent POSs.
Isn’t it funny that Obama’s EPA is shutting down coal-fired power-plants because of mercury poisoning danger, yet the ONLY light bulbs we will soon be able to buy contain… mercury?
However, when your wholly-owned TV network is a subsidiary of the sitting president’s party, you can get a better deal.
“GE Brings Good Things To Light!” (except: truth, integrity, honesty, loyalty and patriotism)