The Education of Jeffrey Immelt?

RUSH: Charles Gasparino with a piece in the New York Post today. "Back when he agreed to advise the Obama [regime] on economics, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt told friends that he thought it would be good for GE and good for the country. A life-long Republican, Immelt said he believed he could at the very least moderate the president's distinctly anti-business instincts. That was three years ago; these days Immelt is telling friends something quite different. Sure, GE has managed to feast on federal subsidies, particularly the 'green-energy' giveaways that are Obamanomics' hallmark." Yeah, there's no question that that's one of the reasons Immelt did this.

Here's a company doesn't need a federal dime and took all those Obama dollars and then turned all of those TV networks green two weeks a year and start doing green energy programs and so forth. Green energy jet engines (which don't exist), green energy dishwashers and all that stuff. It was crony capitalism. Pure and simple crony capitalism. That's a great definition of it. "But," according to Charlie Gasparino today in the New York Post, "Immelt doesn't think he's had anywhere near as much luck moderating the president's fat-cat-bashing, left-leaning economic agenda of taxing businesses and entrepreneurs to pay for government bloat."

I'll read that again. "Immelt doesn't think he's had anywhere near as much luck moderating the president's fat-cat-bashing, left-leaning economic agenda..." What made him think he could? Well, he's a CEO. He's got to be a very confident individual and he's gotta have a healthy ego. But he doesn't understand liberals and he certainly doesn't understand socialists, and he doesn't understand committed liberals and socialists. No capitalist is gonna talk a liberal out of it. No capitalist is gonna talk a socialist out of it. I don't care how confident in yourself you are, it isn't going to happen. What ends up happening is the capitalist gets corrupted, and you might say that a variation of that happened.

Here's a big company that ends up going green when there's no business there. In fact, that may be one of the reasons they took the subsidies: There isn't any business there! There isn't a green business. It doesn't exist. Solyndra, all the wind, all the solar, there's no business there. It was just a pipe dream. And Immelt managed to get a whole bunch of money. He got hundreds of millions of dollars and there's no business. That's pretty smart, actually, for his company. That was probably his objective. "Friends describe Immelt as privately dismayed that, even after three years on the job, President Obama hasn't moved to the center, but instead further left."

"The GE CEO," says Gasparino, "is appalled by everything from the president's class-warfare rhetoric to his continued belief that big government is the key to economic salvation. Or, as one friend recently put it to me," writes Gasparino, "'Jeff thought he could make a difference, and now realizes he couldn't.'" Now, yes, ladies and gentlemen, this kind of stuff frustrates me to no end. I know that Immelt wouldn't talk to me if his life depended on it. But if he would have, I could have predicted everything that has happened here. I could have told him that despite his brilliance, his confidence, and best efforts, there's no way.

(New Castrati impression) "How would you have done it, Mr. Limbaugh? You think Immelt couldn't talk Obama out of socialism? What makes you think you could explain it to him?" Because I would tell Immelt who Obama is. I would have told Immelt who Obama is: He's not just a Democrat; he's not just a misguided Democrat. That's what I would have told him, and I would have proved it. I would have documented it. Now, they say in this piece that Immelt is a lifelong Republican. But he's in Connecticut, which means he's gotta give to a lot of Democrats, and he did. Chris Shays, Chris Dodd, Tom Daschle, Pat Leahy, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, James Clyburn of the Congressional Black Caucasians.

But he did give smaller amounts. He did give to Bush and McCain, and even Romney. I don't know. Immelt might think that Obama's in over his ears, that he just doesn't get it (sigh) which is a mistake. "Immelt's conversion from public Obama supporter to a private detractor is important," writes Gasparino, "It shows how even businessmen who feast off his subsidies worry about his overall economic agenda and its long-term impact on the economy. Don't expect Immelt to say anything publicly about the downside of president's economic agenda anytime soon: He's still serving as what is considered the top outside economic adviser to the White House."

By the way, there are parenthesis here and Gasparino writes: "(A GE spokesman insists that the reports I'm sharing here about Immelt's private criticism of Obama are 'ludicrous.')" So a GE spokesman says: Gasparino, you're wrong; this is not how Jeff Immelt feels. "GE has too much to lose for Immelt to publicly 'fess up to his disdain. The president now routinely talks up his desire to tax businesses that create jobs overseas, and GE overseas expansion is well-documented. Nor does the company want to put all its green subsidies at risk.

"And of course the last thing Immelt or his shareholders need is for the president to turn his class-warfare fire on them, as he did to his erstwhile pals in the banking business. Yet friends report that Immelt's displeasure with the [Obama] economic policies is real and palpable in private settings. ... I'm told a clue to Immelt's disenchantment with the president can be found in GE's annual letter to shareholders, in which the CEO laments, 'We live in a tough era in which the public discourse, in general, is negative ... American companies, particularly big companies, are vilified,' when 'we need to work together to find a better way.'

"Sure doesn't sound like an Obama booster to me." That's how Gasparino closes his piece. In a companion piece from the Business Insider. Headline: "The Head of Obama's Jobs Council is Voting for Romney -- General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, the head of President Obama's Jobs Board, plans to vote for Mitt Romney" if he gets the nomination. "If true, the news would represent a major embarrassment to the [regime], which had elevated Immelt in their pursuit of private sector employment growth." So chalk that one up very frustrated. All of this could have been prevent if Immelt had simply been told who Obama is.

Even that might not have stopped him because those green energy subsidies are hard for a CEO to turn down. That's one of the problems with this all-powerful federal government that can just give money away that it does not have. Here you've got General Electric. What more could Obama ask for than to have a company like that go all in for "green," clean energy and all that? And what we know is that Immelt wouldn't do it on his own. He needed Obama bucks. Obama was more than happy to spend it. "Okay, here my Obama bucks. Now you're on my team, and I'm gonna put you on some jobs committee over there just to keep the wolves at bay."

Immelt has exchanged billions of dollars in graft with Obama’s government, as he moves GE from the U.S. to Communist China.

If he’s now saying this, it must mean that he thinks Obama will lose the election, and that Romney would be his best crony capitalist pal on the Republican side.

Heard the whole thing on Rush, but I have a different take on it: I see it as an indication that the smart money knows Obummer’s in big trouble, and they’re trying to position themselves for the Emperor’s big fall.

Immelt strikes me as the arch-typical crony capitalist - I may be completely off-base, but he seems to be the sort of guy who would don the kneepads for anybody who’d give his company the inside track. Of course that fits perfectly with Obama’s “pay-for-play” Chicago machine roots. But only if Obama wins. If he gets his @ss handed to him in November, Immelt is going to need some credibility with the next batch of DC pimps - hence the story reported by Rush.

I think Immelt knew and is in position of power to be influence for himself. However, if anyone would have spent 1 second listening to what Obama spouted to Joe the Plumber, they would have never voted for him. I guess Immelt and many others get what they deserve. My problem is for me because I am not getting what I deserve because I did not vote for Obama.

This is a story about stock performance.

Since Immelt took charge of GE in 2001:

(1) GE stock price - down 50%

(2) S&P 500 - up 30%

Immelt is fighting for his corporate life.

In fairness, the guy did inherit a ticking time bomb from “legendary” CEO Jack Welch.

When Welch gave up control in 2001, GE was pretty much a highly unionized old line manufacturing company with an extremely profitable “bank” called GE Capital.

Growth at GE Capital started to slow just about the time Welch retired.

Still, Immelt got paid serious money to manage the future, and he has failed badly.

“A life-long Republican, Immelt”

BS!!!

Immelt, Jeffrey R.
New Canaan, CT 06840
GE/CEO James E. “Jim” Clyburn (D)
House (SC District: 06)
FRIENDS OF JIM CLYBURN - $2,000
primary 11/13/09

IMMELT, JEFFREY R
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
GENERAL ELECTRIC/CHAIRMAN/CHIEF EXE Debbie Stabenow (D)
Senate - MI
STABENOW FOR US SENATE - $2,000
primary 03/23/09

Immelt, Jeffrey
New Canaan, CT 06840
Ge/Ceo DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE (DELAWARE) (D) - $10,000
primary 07/30/08

Immelt, Jeffrey R
New Canaan, CT 06840
General Electric Company/Business E Hillary Clinton (D)
President
HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT Lost $2,300
primary 10/17/07

Immelt, Jeffrey Mr.
New Canaan, CT 06840
GE/Business Executive Chris Dodd (D)
President
CHRIS DODD FOR PRESIDENT INC Lost $2,300
primary 10/16/07

IMMELT, JEFFREY R
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
GENERAL ELECTRIC Harry Reid (D)
Senate - NV
FRIENDS FOR HARRY REID Won $1,000
primary 12/15/03

IMMELT, JEFFREY R
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
GE Patrick Leahy (D)
Senate - VT
LEAHY FOR U.S. SENATOR COMMITTEE Won $1,000
primary 05/

IMMELT, JEFFREY R
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
GENERAL ELECTRIC Max Baucus (D)
Senate - MT
FRIENDS OF MAX BAUCUS Won $1,000
primary 03

http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Jeffrey_Immelt.php

“Whether it is pushing the president’s plan for global warming fees in order to create demand for his “Ecomagination” line of windmills, solar panels, etc., boosting the president’s national health-care law as part of an effort to sell more medical equipment, or enthusing over the Obama strategy of making loans available for industrial exporters, Immelt has been an Obama stalwart all along. Immelt has also consistently argued to shareholders that there is big money to be made in advancing the Democratic agenda.

While most corporate leaders have taken a wait and see approach to Obama’s occasional overtures to the private sector, G.E., along with Google, Goldman and few others, have backed him to the hilt.”

Also yesterday, the Department of Interior announced that it would offer nearly $1 billion in loans for an Arizona power plant.

Guess who sells solar panels?… That’s right, General Electric.

http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/obama-rewards-pal-jeffrey-immelt-with-new-job-position/

Gasparino Confirms Jeff Immelt Scolded CNBC Staff For Being Anti-Obama

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/10/2010 23:29 -0400

Charlie Gasparino, who recently left CNBC not on the best of terms, and ever since has been casting stone after stone at his former megalith employer, was on the O’Reilly Factor earlier, confirming what everyone has known for a long, long time, namely that CNBC’s pro administration bias which appeared spontaneously and unexpectedly in early 2009, came from the very top, i.e., Jeff Immelt himself. Quote Gasparino: “There was this issue where Jeff Immelt, Chairman of GE, called in some of the senior staff [of CNBC] and clearly was worried, according to the people I spoke to, who were in that meeting, about the possibility that we were becoming too “anti-administration.” They will deny it officially, but from what I understand, people got called into this meeting and they were basically not exactly read the riot act, but the question of whether they were being fair to the president was brought up. I have never heard that before.” Of course, with GE one of the primary beneficiaries of the administration’s TBTF largesse (lest we forget what a toxic repository of worthless toxic filth GE Commercial managed to become), this is not at all surprising. We just hope readers keep all this in mind if they ever are exposed to CNBC content.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/gasparino-confirms-jeff-immelt-scolded-cnbc-staff-being-anti-obama

August 31, 2011

Top 25 Corporate Tax Dodgers

What companies ranked as the nation’s top tax dodgers?

According to IPS, the tax-dodging gold medal goes to General Electric, which had a effective federal tax rate of negative 64.1%. The company’s pre-tax earnings from U.S. operations were $5.1 billion but it got a stunning $3.2 billion tax refund, according to the report.

Remarkably, that’s NOT the lowest tax rate in the survey. International Paper, which earned $198 million in pre-tax profits from U.S. operations and got a $249 million refund, wins that distinction with a negative 125.8% effective federal rate.

But GE beat out the competition by also spending a tidy $41.8 million on lobbying and campaign contributions, while awarding CEO Jeff Immelt a 172% raise. Immelt’s total compensation package was worth $15.2 million in 2010, according to the survey. A New York Times expose that ran earlier this year attributed GE’s extraordinary ability to cut its corporate taxes to “an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-36945095/top-25-corporate-tax-dodgers/

Immelt was named to Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

He was also named one of the five worst Non-Financial-Crisis-Related CEOs of 2008 by the Free Enterprise Action Fund.

Since taking over, GE’s stock has dropped nearly 60%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._Immelt

In February 2009, Immelt was appointed as a member to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the president and his administration with advice and counsel in fixing America’s economic downturn

I may be completely off-base, but he seems to be the sort of guy who would don the kneepads for anybody who’d give his company the inside track

You're not off base. Immelt was seduced by the promise of the electric car, with GE having the monopoly on gubbermint and highway recharging stations. Since the Volt has basically turned into a pumpkin, Immelt and GE are left holding a big R&D bag that looks increasingly like it will be empty. His commitment to buy thousands of Volts for the GE motor pool now looks like a fools errand instead of building his own product's market, which is what it was intended to be.

Yeah, Immelt is proof that just because you're rich doesn't mean you're not stupid.

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