GE is setting up facilities in China with the agreement that they must be manned with Chinese workers and that the technology is shared (and stolen by) the Chinese. World class facilities are being built to build machine tools, aerospace, power generation, etc. The multinational corporations are selling us down the river so that a few CEO's can become billionaires. Manufacturing creates a trickle down effect on the economy. You buy a widget, the widget maker buys machines and material, the machine builder buys machinery and material......The Wal-Mart and service economy creates no wealth or trickle down economic developement. The only way to save this country is to have a revolution and throw the two partys out of office.
Possibly, but I think our most sensitive military secrets are not owned by GE, but rather by the federal government. GE might be giving away its own technology, and if that's the case, then the solution is for GE shareholders to fire their management.
Personally, I'm a stockholder in GE and a lot of other companies, and I always vote against management because they typically represent only their own interests.
Textiles and Apparel:
Carolina Mills is a 75-year-old company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel-makershalf of which supply Wal-Mart. But since 2000, Carolina Mills' customers have begun to find imported clothing sold so cheaply at Wal-Mart, that Carolina Mills could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing! Since 2000, Carolina Mills has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Steve Dobbins, the CEO of Carolina Mills, told the December issue of Fast-Company magazine: "People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs".
Lovable Garments, which was founded in 1926, had, by the 1990s, become the sixth-largest producer of women's lingerie in the United States, employing 700 workers. Wal-Mart became the biggest purchaser of Lovable's goods; in 1995, Wal-Mart demanded that Lovable slash its prices to compete with cheap imports. When Lovable indicated it could not do that, Wal-Mart illegally reneged on its contract, and outsourced the lingerie production to Ibero-America, Asia, and China. Without the Wal-Mart market, in 1998 Lovable had to close its American manufacturing facilities and fire the workers. Stated Frank Garson, who was then Lovable's president, "Their actions to pulverize people are unnecessary. Wal-Mart chewed us up and spit us out."
Food:
Vlasic Pickles was roped into a contract with Wal-Mart, in which Wal-Mart sold a 3 gallon jar of whole pickles for $2.97. Wal-Mart sold 240,000 gallons of pickles per week. But the price of the 3 gallon jar was so low, that it vastly undercut Vlasic's sales of 8 ounce and 16 ounce jars of cut pickles; further, Vlasic only made a few pennies per 3 gallon jar. With its profits tumbling, Vlasic asked Wal-Mart for the right to raise the price per 3 gallon jar to $3.49, and according to a Vlasic executive, Wal-Mart threatened that if Vlasic tried to back out of this feature of the contract, Wal-Mart would cease carrying any Vlasic product. Eventually, a Wal-Mart executive said, "Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it"meaning it had wiped out competitor products. Finally, it allowed Vlasic to raise prices; but in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy.