Free Republic

<p>It certainly is a remarkable speech. Under Immelt’s eight years at the helm, General Electric has lost almost two-thirds of its value. Earlier this year, GE was on the verge of a total meltdown. So was GE’s “leadership” to blame?</p>

One lesson that Democrats learned from the failure of HillaryCare in 1994 is that they had to buy the silence, if not the outright support, of the business class. They've done this brilliantly by peddling the illusion that ObamaCare will "lower costs" for employers. But slowly as the legislative details become clear, it is dawning on executives of businesses large and small that reform is boiling down to a huge tax increase to finance a gigantic new entitlement. The cost and quality of care are afterthoughts that will both suffer, as a growing roll of medical experts have been writing...

AOL and Time Warner have finally called it quits. James Quinn looks at the souring of the dotcom match that appeared to have been made in mergers and acquisitions heaven It was an auspicious occasion, the business titans of the West standing shoulder to shoulder at the dawn of a new century. On the stage of the Shanghai International Convention Centre, in late September 1999, the crème de la crème of business achievement smiled at the hundreds of delegates, both Chinese and from around the world, who had gathered for the Fortune Global Forum. From AIG's Hank Greenberg to Viacom's...

Coca-Cola is spearheading a coalition of more than 100 companies pushing a United Nations climate treaty to bind the U.S. to cap-and-trade emissions regulation, commit the world's wealthiest nations to a potential $10 trillion in foreign aid and, possibly, form a proposed international "super-grid" for regulating and distributing electric power worldwide. Together with the SAP and Siemens corporations, Coca-Cola launched a website called Hopenhagen, leading up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, which opens on Dec. 7. The website invites the citizens of the world to sign a petition demanding world leaders draft binding agreements on climate...

100 companies push '16 days left to seal deal' on $10 trillion treaty Coca-Cola is spearheading a coalition of more than 100 companies pushing a United Nations climate treaty to bind the U.S. to cap-and-trade emissions regulation, commit the world's wealthiest nations[. . .] Other "friends" of Hopenhagen include media outlets Newsweek, Discovery Channel, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, The Wall Street Journal and Clear Channel, among others, Internet giants Yahoo, Google and AOL and dozens of other companies and organizations. WND:link

Unemployment is foremost on everyone's mind today. Yet jobs can continue to leave the U.S. because of the threat of new taxes, the convergence of technology, the ease of digital collaboration and ready access to abundant foreign engineering talent. Multinational corporate executives may have to move R&D, product development, management and manufacturing overseas when there is no longer a comparative advantage to staying in the United States. A shocking thought for sure, but it's the new reality. After Japan, the U.S. has the world's highest corporate tax rate, and there is seemingly no willingness by Washington to bring rates down....

Tom Borelli October 15, 2009 Nike, Starbucks and Other Team Up With the Left to Sell Cap-and-Trade Every day we have an opportunity to vote with our wallets by letting companies know there is a price to pay for colluding with those who oppose our values. "Yes We Can!" the slogan used by then-Senator Obama during last year’s presidential campaign – is now being used by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) to launch a last ditch effort to jumpstart cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate. Graham and Kerry’s commentary, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)” published in...

Public Discourse: Our energy secretary applauds and encourages companies to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its position on climate change. Should any Cabinet secretary, with the powers of government behind him, be threatening U.S. companies? Part of the climate-change mantra is that the debate is over and the science is settled. Just to make sure, environmental groups have sought to pressure businesses to go green or at least keep silent. Now it would appear the whole weight of the federal government is being thrown behind this campaign to coerce and silence real and potential opposition. On Thursday, Steven...

A massive energy bill that has already passed the House, and is currently before the Senate, would create new government programs that would not only encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by utilities and energy companies, but set limits over time as to the quantity of that reduction over the next several years. The US Chamber of Commerce (USCC), a private business federation that is not affiliated with the federal government, went on record last August as being skeptical of any legislative or regulatory effort that assumes greenhouse gasses truly endanger human health. Late last month, the Chamber voiced...

Not only do they profit billions from Obama’s policies, they shut out dissenting voices on their “news” networks!Obama and the Democrats love to slam Fox News for presenting opposing points of view. So, it’s no surprise that Obama prefers to give interviews to NBC which he feels is more sympathetic to his cause. NBC has been in the tank for Obama from the beginning.Further proof of NBC’s favoritism came this week when the network rejected the following ad from the League of American Voters:

“MOST VALUABLE BOSSES” At a time of economic pain and insecurity, populist outrage inevitably focuses on corporate leaders who pocket huge paychecks despite the wretched performance of their companies. For instance, since Kenneth D. Lewis took over as top executive of Bank of America in April, 2001, the firm’s annual return of -8% (as reported by Forbes Magazine) significantly trailed the record of the S & P 500, but Mr. Lewis has received compensation that averages more than $30 million annually. Fortunately, many other bosses offer a wholesome contrast to the well-publicized instances of lavish pay for poor performance. Since...

Linked to FR post regarding P & G product line (Corporate Wall-of-Shame). Here is one of my letters... TO: Men's Warehouse From the reports I have seen, Men’s Warehouse has either 1). Independently determined that there is an inflammatory nature to the comments posed on ‘The Glenn Beck Show’ that just happens to coincide in time with a threatened boycott by an organization called “Colors of Change”, or 2). That in order to avoid controversy, Men’s Warehouse will cave to any organization that threatens to Boycott? I want to remind you that Men’s Warehouse didn't seem to have a problem...

Drastic cuts boost bottom line at U.S. firms But profits unlikely to last unless consumers open their wallets again July 24, 2009 NEW YORK - Corporate America is turning a profit again, but only by spending less, not making more. While recent bullish profit reports have fueled the stock market, a true economic revival will depend on consumers opening their wallets. So far, there's little evidence of that. Big names such as Caterpillar, IBM, Whirlpool, Pfizer, 3M and Lowe's boosted profit forecasts for 2009 following a slew of second-quarter earning reports that blew past lackluster expectations. Yet the gains aren't...

Behind the bipartisan motives for employer-provided health insurance. On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows.

On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows. For the Obama administration, this announcement comes at a particularly convenient time. The president's health reform effort has hit...

General Electric is getting yet more taxpayer money, possibly laundered federal money, to subsidize its business. A GE press release announced that the state of Michigan will provide GE with $60 million to build a $100 million “technology & software center” — what used to be known as an “office building.”

Matthew Yglesias proudly announces that his employer the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress has convinced Wal-Mart (WMT) to support a law that would legally obligate employers to pay for their employees' health insurance. The Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, and Wal-Mart joined forces today to release a letter (PDF) endorsing the dual ideas of an employer mandate to provide health insurance and “triggers” to automatically reduce costs if health care spending gets too high (more on that here). The highly ideological behavior of the business community, and high degree of class solidarity exhibited by the...

In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Tuesday told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans. The support of Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, could give momentum to one of the most-contentious aspects of legislation taking shape in Congress to fix the health system. To help pay for covering the 46 million uninsured, lawmakers have proposed mandating that all but small employers provide insurance for workers or help pay for it. Lobbies for large...

It pays to be in the tank for the president. All of the "tinkle down my leg" news coverage is paying off big for NBC News' parent company. By taking advantage of its ownership of two tiny banks in Utah, GE has been able to issue $80 Billion dollars worth of federally backed loans about one out of every four dollars available in the program. And true to being a friend of the President, General Electric didn't have to go through any of the burdens other participants had to go through like the financial stress test. Nor did they have...

HR 2998 American Clean Energy and Security Act. The Congressional record minutes of yesterday can be accessed at Thomas.gov. The Corporations and Associations that are backing this legislation can be found on pages H7685 & H7686. Listing below:

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life organization that monitors corporations that donate money to Planned Parenthood has released a new list of companies that give money to the nation's largest abortion business. New corporations on the boycott list include jeweler Tiffany & Company and Blackjack Pizza restaurants. Life Decisions International has been monitoring companies for over 15 years and says that at least 137 corporations have stopped funding Planned Parenthood as a result of the pro-life boycotts. That's cost Planned Parenthood an estimated $35 million. "This should be a testament to those who believe it is impossible to change corporate...

The next shoe is dropping in an effort to end what is described as decades of persistent and systemic bias at the agencies that create, buy and place television commercials and other forms of media advertising. The N.A.A.C.P. is calling on the nation’s 25 biggest advertisers — on TV and in other media — to require that their agencies use racially diverse teams of employees in creative and account-management posts. The first letter in the initiative is to be sent to Procter & Gamble, the No. 1 advertiser in the United States with ad spending last year, according to the...

The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM (NYSE: IBM)'s pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries. Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that's developing markets like India, China, and Brazil. His challenge? Creating open environment for Internet users without compromising information security and privacy."IBM has established Project...

From what the experts are saying, the economic crisis of 2008 would be the buggest since the Great Depression that started in 1929. So in this new crisis, the stock market is going down, unemployment is going up, banks are filing for bankruptcy, some Americans automakers barely survive, etc. With this current situations, big enterprises are even thinking about changing their corporate logos.

The guys hawking Barack Obama T-shirts and trinkets on the corners of downtown Washington have some new competition in the selling frenzy building up to the president-elect's inauguration Tuesday — Corporate America. Companies ranging from global giants like soda and snacks maker PepsiCo to a local grocery chain offering cakes with Obama's face in icing are jumping on the Obama commercial wave. Others, like the Swedish home store Ikea, are hoping consumers take Obama's mantra of "change" to heart so much that they go out and buy furniture to mark the change in the White House. It is relatively rare...

Lobbyists and corporations have found an opening in the latest congressional-ethics law that allows them to pay for special access to lawmakers and members of the incoming Obama administration during next week's inaugural festivities. President-elect Barack Obama was a vocal champion of rules enacted last year that prohibit companies and lobbyists from buying anything worth more than $10 for lawmakers. But well-heeled interests have found a way to circumvent the ban by partnering with "state societies" that are throwing parties to celebrate Mr. Obama's inauguration. These Washington-based nonprofits, whose members include lawmakers, congressional aides, lobbyists and executives from a given...

Pepsi is running a new advertising campaign that keys into the upcoming inauguration – one that features a re-designed corporate logo that mimics the distinctive Obama “O” campaign logo, and refers to the president-elect as “the man who is about to refresh our nation.”PepsiCo’s Web site -- RefreshEverything.com -- features an application allowing anyone to send a video message to the president-elect. The feature’s explanation reads, “Help us refresh America.”

Once-unstoppable Nascar is hitting a wall as its fan base erodes, race attendance declines, TV ratings slip, the auto industry implodes and economically stressed marketers slam the brakes on sponsorships. The pileup is so big that Nascar, long held up as the gold standard in sports marketing due to its followers -- fiercely loyal to the sport and its sponsoring brands -- had to lay off 1,000 employees and is fretting over whether it could actually lose money next year. CEO Brian France, speaking last week in New York at its big year-end promotional event, Champions Week, said Nascar won't...

We're beginning to get a sense of what the next four years will look like. It won't be a conservative era, that's for sure. Nor will it, despite appearances to the contrary, be a reprise of the Clinton era. Bill Clinton's version of economic liberalism meant slightly higher tax rates on income and capital, a slightly more burdensome regulatory apparatus, lower deficits, and a commitment to free trade. The public sector didn't meddle too much in the private sector. It was content, for the most part, to sit back and enjoy the tax revenue that the tech boom poured in....

In which a lunatic has an aneurism over apparently nothing. Next April, I’m going to turn fifty. I’ll be fifty years old. Good lord. Somehow, I’ve managed to get this far without working in a large corporate office. So today I got my first taste of a world that most of you are already much more familiar with than I am: the world of modern American big business. So what lit me up like a Fourth of July skyrocket was something that seemed to mean nothing at all to the other 23 people in the room, because today, for the...

The corporate raiders of the 1980s first worked out that you might be able to make more money downsizing, or even breaking up industry than building it up. It is a perverse result of the profit motive that private gain should grow out of public decay. But even the corporate raiders never dreamt of making deindustrialisation into an avowed policy goal which the rest of us would pay for. What some of the cannier Green Capitalists realised is that scarcity increases price, and manufacturing scarcity can increase returns. What could be more old hat, they said, than trying to make...

RONALD MCDONALD TAKES A WRONG TURN by Judie Brown Some years ago a very holy priest explained that once the door was opened to contraception, all manner of sexual sins would flood the culture. His name was Father John Hardon, SJ, and I cannot tell you how much I miss his wise and courageous guidance. In one of the many articles he wrote on this subject, he said: The spectacle of broken families, broken homes, divorce and annulments, abortion and the mania of homosexuality—all of this has its roots in the acceptance of contraception on a wide scale in what...

Below is the list, in alphabetical order, of companies scoring a perfect 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign's 2009 Corporate Equality Index, with policies beneficial toward homosexuals: 3M Co. AAA Northern California, Nevada and Uta Abercrombie & Fitch Accenture Ltd. Aetna Agilent Technologies Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld Alaska Airlines Alcatel-Lucent Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America Allstate Corp.

The newly released Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index, which ranks hundreds of businesses on their "treatment" of employees who have chosen homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lifestyles, awards a record 259 corporations perfect scores, including newcomers Campbell's Soup and Target. The total in the 2009 report is up one-third from the 195 corporations so honored in 2008, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which explained that now an estimated nine million workers "are protected from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression because of their employers' policies on diversity & inclusion, training, health care,...

Self-described Vagina-American Kate Clinton trashed the family of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin as "insane" today, called religious conservatives "cancerous" and mocked their belief in Jesus Christ in an article posted at Progressive.com (http://www.progressive.org/mag/wxclinton091208.html).Clinton, an out lesbian comic is the emcee of the Out & Equal Workplace Summit 'Outie Awards' dinner being held in Austin, Texas this weekend.The gay and lesbian meeting is sponsored by many top American companies, including Hewlett Packard which is sponsoring the awards dinner.Other sponsors include Freddie Mac, which is being bailed out by the federal government and many other companies that will disappoint many...

A new study by the Washington, DC-based Leadership Institute highlights how companies divvy their political dollars. The Leadership Institute has released its study of the largest corporate and business-related Political Action Committee (PAC) contributors. The study is more or less a compilation of publicly available data from the 2005-2006 election cycle. Institute spokesman Ian Ivey says, although they do not draw any conclusion from the data, it is published on their website so browsers can see whether companies line up with their political views. "People who visit our website and take a look at this can examine what companies that...

By most accounts, 2005 was a good year for the U.S. economy. The nation added more than 2 million jobs and the unemployment rate averaged less than 5%. Gross domestic product grew robustly, and corporate profits soared nearly 18%. But few people, including many in the media who report on the economy, understand what happened below the surface to produce those surprisingly good results. Consider job growth. American businesses produced 31 million jobs in 2005, driven by on average 1.5 million firms every quarter that were expanding, and an additional 370,000 businesses that were starting up. Firms also eliminated 29...

At a time when scores of companies are freezing pensions for their workers, some are quietly converting their pension plans into resources to finance their executives' retirement benefits and pay. In recent years, companies from Intel Corp. to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of regular workers and use them to pay for executives' supplemental benefits and compensation....

Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April. Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they hire him as a consultant. The cash flows even as the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has been conducting a grand-jury investigation of NAN's finances. http://www.nypost.com/seven/06152008/news/regionalnews/rev__al_soaks_up_boycott_bucks_115554.htm

Last week’s Senate debate over Lieberman-Warner – the America’s Climate Security Act – brought to national attention an under-recognized yet rising threat to liberty and limited government: corporate America. Several of the largest corporations worked with environmental special interest groups and left-wing politicians to pass so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation to address global warming concerns. By pushing for the legislation, these companies hoped to get revenue in the form of government subsidies plus accolades from the media for taking measures to “save the planet.” Never mind the impact on the everyday citizen, who pays for it all with higher taxes and increased...

RUSH: Now, a couple thoughts here. I meant to get into this yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, and events just superseded my intent. But I had a bunch of stories, and I talked about it on the margins yesterday, all these Drive-By Media stories, there was one Washington Post story mentioning Obama is black four or five times. There were three or four other Drive-By Media publications focusing on Obama's race and how what a great step this is for the United States of America, we've passed a major milestone. It just is so wonderful and so forth. Interestingly, there's a...

McDonald's restaurant's, famed for the Golden Arches, Ronald McDonald and kids meals, has signed onto a nationwide effort to promote "gay" and "lesbian" business ventures. The company, which is listed on the website of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce as a "corporate partner and organization ally" for an undisclosed financial contribution, also recently placed one of its executives on the NGLCC board of directors. Earlier this month, the chamber confirmed that Richard Ellis, vice president of communications of McDonald's USA, was elected to the special interest chamber board. "We could not be more delighted with the addition...

United Parcel Service Inc. has added lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-owned businesses to its supplier diversity program. The move comes with a partnership with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), Atlanta-based UPS (NYSE: UPS) said. The NGLCC represents the interests of some 1.4 million LGBT-owned businesses. UPS began its supplier diversity process in 1992, giving UPS business opportunities for small businesses and those owned by minorities, women, veterans and now lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. LGBT-owned businesses also will get a discount on UPS shipping services.

Michelle Obama - "Hope makes a comeback"? From Byron York at National Review's The Corner:I have a new story today about Michelle Obama's visit to Zanesville, Ohio, where she met with a group of women at a local day care center. According to the U.S. Census, Muskingum County, where Zanesville is located, had a median household income of $37,192 in 2004, below both the Ohio and national averages. Just 12.2 percent of adults in the county have a bachelor's degree or higher, also well below the state and national averages. About 20 percent don't have a high school degree....

Guidelines to strengthen environmental and economic risk management in the financing and construction of electricity generation NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Three of the world’s leading financial institutions today announced the formation of The Carbon Principles, climate change guidelines for advisors and lenders to power companies in the United States. These Principles are the result of a nine-month intensive effort to create an approach to evaluating and addressing carbon risks in the financing of electric power projects. The need for these Principles is driven by the risks faced by the power industry as utilities, independent producers, regulators, lenders and investors deal with the...

Cost of insuring corporate debt soars By Robert Cookson and Sarah O'Connor in London Mon Jan 21, 2:35 PM ET The cost of protecting corporate debt against default surged in Europe on Monday as fears intensified over the fate of global bond insurers and the $2,400bn of debt they guarantee. ADVERTISEMENT The credit market was in its blackest mood since the height of the summer's subprime panic after Ambac, one of the biggest bond insurers, or so-called monolines, was downgraded by Fitch Ratings on Friday. Smaller insurer ACA - which has been slashed to junk - managed on Sunday to...

>As the year comes to a close, it’s time to announce the FiveWorst CEOs of 2007. The CEOs shared a common theme: they allowed the liberalagenda embodied by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to drive businessdecisions.  All of the “winners� are actively seeking federal regulationto address global warming despite the fact they failed to evaluate the economiccost of regulation – higher energy prices, slower economic growth and anincrease in job loss – on consumers and future earnings.  In addition, the CEOs also failed toanticipate the unintended consequences of promoting global warming fears ontheir businesses. The desire for regulation is an outgrowth...

I saw that Coca-Cola is promoting the movie [<a href="http://zenit.org/article-21008?l=english">What Every Parent Should Know About "The Golden Compass"</a>], and I wrote to them to express my feelings about it -- including mentioning that the villains are called "The Magisterium" in the movie. Here is the response I got: "We appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concerns. "The Golden Compass movie is a story about friendship, love, loyalty, tolerance, courage and responsibility. This movie also provides an opportunity for Coca-Cola to help raise awareness about climate change and the perilous state of the polar bear. "We do not believe that...

US industrial conglomerate Honeywell has announced that it will move the headquarters of its electronic materials business from the United States to Shanghai to better position itself for further growth in Asia. The company also announced that Shanghai UOP Ltd, the largest molecular sieve adsorbents manufacturing plant in Asia, has completed an expansion to boost capacity to meet growing demand in China. Shanghai UOP is a subsidiary company of Honeywell China. "The relocation of the electronic materials' global headquarters to Shanghai will further underline Honeywell's emphasis on China as an important platform to drive Honeywell's globalization," Honeywell China's CEO Shane...

WASHINGTON - Some of the world's top business leaders are demanding that international diplomats meeting next week come up with drastic and urgent measures to cut greenhouse gas pollution at least in half by 2050. Officials from more than 150 global companies - worth nearly $4 trillion in market capitalization - have signed a petition urging "strong, early action on climate change" when political leaders meet in Indonesia. The hastily prepared petition drive, coordinated through the environmental office of Britain's Prince Charles, is signed by leaders from mainstream powerhouse companies such as Shell UK, GE International, Coca-Cola Co., Dupont Co.,...