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If President Barack Obama had announced this week that he was
appointing Japan's Takanobu Ito, president and CEO of Honda, to head his
new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, one can imagine the shock wave
that would go through the American body politic. A foreigner!--and one
from one of America's major competitors--to head a White House advisory
panel on jobs and competitiveness?
And yet, at least the president could argue that Ito represents a
company that earns the bulk of its revenues from its operations in the
US.
But what are we to make of the actual announcement, that the
president has named Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE Corp., to
chair the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness?
Immelt heads a company that has for years topped the list of
transnational corporations as ranked by the size of their foreign asset
holdings. More significantly, GE is a company that for years has also
received more of its revenues and its profits from abroad than from its
US operations, that has far more of its 304,000 employees overseas than
in the US, and that has more assets abroad than at "home," where its
headquarters offices are located.
Even those domestic revenues and earnings are less than they might
appear, in terms of jobs at least, since they are primarily from the
company's financial subsidiaries, while most of the revenues and
earnings from abroad are from its manufacturing operations.
What this means is that in very real terms, GE is not an American company.
It is a foreign company that happens to be headquartered in the US, and
that happens to have a chairman/CEO who was born in the US, and holds a
US passport.
If Congress were serious about enforcing government rules on foreign
lobbying, and if the Federal Election Commission were serious about
enforcing its rules about foreign influence in US elections, Immelt and
GE would have to register as foreign agents when they lobby Congress and
the White House, and GE would be barred from donating funds to election
campaigns.
It's ironic, isn't it, that people on the loopy right are still
making a fuss about whether President Obama was really born in Hawaii,
or might really have been secretly born abroad before being sneaked into
the US territory by his mother, but aren't outraged at the appointment
of the head of a functionally foreign firm to advise him on his domestic
jobs policy. The truth is, it would hardly matter where an American
president entered the world from his mother's womb. The important thing
would be where he grew up, how he viewed his national allegiance, and of
course, whether he is an American citizen, none of which is in question
in Obama's case. On the other hand, there are plenty of good reasons to
wonder whether GE's chief executive, in becoming the president's top
advisor on jobs policy, really has America's and American workers' best
interests at heart.
Between 2005 and 2009, according to GE's own 10-K financial reports,
the company shed jobs in the US so fast, and added them abroad so fast,
that the US employee share of GE's total workforce dropped from 51% to
44%, a process of job destruction that has continued apace since then.
In 2009 and 2010, according to information compiled by the United
Electrical Workers (UE), GE closed down 29 manufacturing plants in North
America, 28 of them in the US and one in Canada. A total of 3000
workers lost their jobs in those closings, with many of those jobs being
added at GE facilities overseas in low-paying countries like China and
India. But actually, the job losses were greater, as those shuttered
facilities had until recently employed twice that many workers, UE
reports.
Just last September, for example, GE announced that it was shutting
down its last US lightbulb manufacturing plant and moving that operation
to China. The 200 workers at the factory in Winchester, VA, who had
been earning some $30 per hour making lightbulbs for the US market, were
all added to the US jobless rolls. Why? Workers in China could make the
new substitute fluorescent bulbs cheaper, and then GE could import them
back into the US duty-free.
Meanwhile, Immelt recently told Forbes magazine about his
company's plans for expanding jobs...in India. As he put it to the
magazine, the company's approach to expanding its markets in the rest of
the world is "to be 'local' in every sense of the word. That means
migrating P&L (profit and loss) responsibility and major business
functions (like R&D, manufacturing and marketing) from a centralized
headquarters to an experienced in-country team."
Doesn't sound like the kind of model that's likely to be adding many jobs here in the US, does it?
And yet, President Obama, in naming Immelt to his new post, said,
"We think GE has something to teach businesses all over America."
On the evidence, let's hope not!
You have to wonder what kind of advice Immelt will be giving the
president (and American businesses). GE likes international trade
agreements that allow the company to shift production abroad and then
import the goods to the US tariff-free. The company also likes the idea
of lower corporate taxes (for the years 2007 to 2009, according to
Citizens for Tax Justice's Bob McIntyre, Immelt's GE managed to finagle a
tax rate of -14.1%, which is to say the government gave the
company an extra 14.1% over and above its profits!), and of course all
kinds of tax incentives aimed at increasing hiring, though these
measures, while helping corporate bottom lines, have demonstrably failed
to lead to significant job creation. GE also opposes measures that
would punish companies for outsourcing production, or that would make it
harder for it to bring in high-skilled workers from abroad to replace
educated but higher-paid American workers.
Arguably, from the point of view of American workers, it might be
better if Obama had hired Honda's chief executive, whose company at
least has been adding jobs in the US, not eliminating them.
Looked at another way, it's ironic to note that the US Justice
Department is currently trying to cook up a legal concoction that will
allow it to arrest and prosecute Australian Wikileaks founder Julian
Assange for espionage, because he dared to do what US journalists should
have been doing--digging up the documents that expose US misdeeds
abroad. They might more appropriately be looking into the way
ostensibly American corporate executives like Immelt have been using
their companies to sabotage the nation's entire economy and political
system.
Come to think of it, that kind of thing--undermining the
country--used to be called treason. Now it's just a ticket to a job as
White House adviser.
If President Barack Obama had announced this week that he was
appointing Japan's Takanobu Ito, president and CEO of Honda, to head his
new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, one can imagine the shock wave
that would go through the American body politic. A foreigner!--and one
from one of America's major competitors--to head a White House advisory
panel on jobs and competitiveness?
And yet, at least the president could argue that Ito represents a
company that earns the bulk of its revenues from its operations in the
US.
But what are we to make of the actual announcement, that the
president has named Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE Corp., to
chair the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness?
Immelt heads a company that has for years topped the list of
transnational corporations as ranked by the size of their foreign asset
holdings. More significantly, GE is a company that for years has also
received more of its revenues and its profits from abroad than from its
US operations, that has far more of its 304,000 employees overseas than
in the US, and that has more assets abroad than at "home," where its
headquarters offices are located.
Even those domestic revenues and earnings are less than they might
appear, in terms of jobs at least, since they are primarily from the
company's financial subsidiaries, while most of the revenues and
earnings from abroad are from its manufacturing operations.
What this means is that in very real terms, GE is not an American company.
It is a foreign company that happens to be headquartered in the US, and
that happens to have a chairman/CEO who was born in the US, and holds a
US passport.
If Congress were serious about enforcing government rules on foreign
lobbying, and if the Federal Election Commission were serious about
enforcing its rules about foreign influence in US elections, Immelt and
GE would have to register as foreign agents when they lobby Congress and
the White House, and GE would be barred from donating funds to election
campaigns.
It's ironic, isn't it, that people on the loopy right are still
making a fuss about whether President Obama was really born in Hawaii,
or might really have been secretly born abroad before being sneaked into
the US territory by his mother, but aren't outraged at the appointment
of the head of a functionally foreign firm to advise him on his domestic
jobs policy. The truth is, it would hardly matter where an American
president entered the world from his mother's womb. The important thing
would be where he grew up, how he viewed his national allegiance, and of
course, whether he is an American citizen, none of which is in question
in Obama's case. On the other hand, there are plenty of good reasons to
wonder whether GE's chief executive, in becoming the president's top
advisor on jobs policy, really has America's and American workers' best
interests at heart.
Between 2005 and 2009, according to GE's own 10-K financial reports,
the company shed jobs in the US so fast, and added them abroad so fast,
that the US employee share of GE's total workforce dropped from 51% to
44%, a process of job destruction that has continued apace since then.
In 2009 and 2010, according to information compiled by the United
Electrical Workers (UE), GE closed down 29 manufacturing plants in North
America, 28 of them in the US and one in Canada. A total of 3000
workers lost their jobs in those closings, with many of those jobs being
added at GE facilities overseas in low-paying countries like China and
India. But actually, the job losses were greater, as those shuttered
facilities had until recently employed twice that many workers, UE
reports.
Just last September, for example, GE announced that it was shutting
down its last US lightbulb manufacturing plant and moving that operation
to China. The 200 workers at the factory in Winchester, VA, who had
been earning some $30 per hour making lightbulbs for the US market, were
all added to the US jobless rolls. Why? Workers in China could make the
new substitute fluorescent bulbs cheaper, and then GE could import them
back into the US duty-free.
Meanwhile, Immelt recently told Forbes magazine about his
company's plans for expanding jobs...in India. As he put it to the
magazine, the company's approach to expanding its markets in the rest of
the world is "to be 'local' in every sense of the word. That means
migrating P&L (profit and loss) responsibility and major business
functions (like R&D, manufacturing and marketing) from a centralized
headquarters to an experienced in-country team."
Doesn't sound like the kind of model that's likely to be adding many jobs here in the US, does it?
And yet, President Obama, in naming Immelt to his new post, said,
"We think GE has something to teach businesses all over America."
On the evidence, let's hope not!
You have to wonder what kind of advice Immelt will be giving the
president (and American businesses). GE likes international trade
agreements that allow the company to shift production abroad and then
import the goods to the US tariff-free. The company also likes the idea
of lower corporate taxes (for the years 2007 to 2009, according to
Citizens for Tax Justice's Bob McIntyre, Immelt's GE managed to finagle a
tax rate of -14.1%, which is to say the government gave the
company an extra 14.1% over and above its profits!), and of course all
kinds of tax incentives aimed at increasing hiring, though these
measures, while helping corporate bottom lines, have demonstrably failed
to lead to significant job creation. GE also opposes measures that
would punish companies for outsourcing production, or that would make it
harder for it to bring in high-skilled workers from abroad to replace
educated but higher-paid American workers.
Arguably, from the point of view of American workers, it might be
better if Obama had hired Honda's chief executive, whose company at
least has been adding jobs in the US, not eliminating them.
Looked at another way, it's ironic to note that the US Justice
Department is currently trying to cook up a legal concoction that will
allow it to arrest and prosecute Australian Wikileaks founder Julian
Assange for espionage, because he dared to do what US journalists should
have been doing--digging up the documents that expose US misdeeds
abroad. They might more appropriately be looking into the way
ostensibly American corporate executives like Immelt have been using
their companies to sabotage the nation's entire economy and political
system.
Come to think of it, that kind of thing--undermining the
country--used to be called treason. Now it's just a ticket to a job as
White House adviser.
If President Barack Obama had announced this week that he was
appointing Japan's Takanobu Ito, president and CEO of Honda, to head his
new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, one can imagine the shock wave
that would go through the American body politic. A foreigner!--and one
from one of America's major competitors--to head a White House advisory
panel on jobs and competitiveness?
And yet, at least the president could argue that Ito represents a
company that earns the bulk of its revenues from its operations in the
US.
But what are we to make of the actual announcement, that the
president has named Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE Corp., to
chair the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness?
Immelt heads a company that has for years topped the list of
transnational corporations as ranked by the size of their foreign asset
holdings. More significantly, GE is a company that for years has also
received more of its revenues and its profits from abroad than from its
US operations, that has far more of its 304,000 employees overseas than
in the US, and that has more assets abroad than at "home," where its
headquarters offices are located.
Even those domestic revenues and earnings are less than they might
appear, in terms of jobs at least, since they are primarily from the
company's financial subsidiaries, while most of the revenues and
earnings from abroad are from its manufacturing operations.
What this means is that in very real terms, GE is not an American company.
It is a foreign company that happens to be headquartered in the US, and
that happens to have a chairman/CEO who was born in the US, and holds a
US passport.
If Congress were serious about enforcing government rules on foreign
lobbying, and if the Federal Election Commission were serious about
enforcing its rules about foreign influence in US elections, Immelt and
GE would have to register as foreign agents when they lobby Congress and
the White House, and GE would be barred from donating funds to election
campaigns.
It's ironic, isn't it, that people on the loopy right are still
making a fuss about whether President Obama was really born in Hawaii,
or might really have been secretly born abroad before being sneaked into
the US territory by his mother, but aren't outraged at the appointment
of the head of a functionally foreign firm to advise him on his domestic
jobs policy. The truth is, it would hardly matter where an American
president entered the world from his mother's womb. The important thing
would be where he grew up, how he viewed his national allegiance, and of
course, whether he is an American citizen, none of which is in question
in Obama's case. On the other hand, there are plenty of good reasons to
wonder whether GE's chief executive, in becoming the president's top
advisor on jobs policy, really has America's and American workers' best
interests at heart.
Between 2005 and 2009, according to GE's own 10-K financial reports,
the company shed jobs in the US so fast, and added them abroad so fast,
that the US employee share of GE's total workforce dropped from 51% to
44%, a process of job destruction that has continued apace since then.
In 2009 and 2010, according to information compiled by the United
Electrical Workers (UE), GE closed down 29 manufacturing plants in North
America, 28 of them in the US and one in Canada. A total of 3000
workers lost their jobs in those closings, with many of those jobs being
added at GE facilities overseas in low-paying countries like China and
India. But actually, the job losses were greater, as those shuttered
facilities had until recently employed twice that many workers, UE
reports.
Just last September, for example, GE announced that it was shutting
down its last US lightbulb manufacturing plant and moving that operation
to China. The 200 workers at the factory in Winchester, VA, who had
been earning some $30 per hour making lightbulbs for the US market, were
all added to the US jobless rolls. Why? Workers in China could make the
new substitute fluorescent bulbs cheaper, and then GE could import them
back into the US duty-free.
Meanwhile, Immelt recently told Forbes magazine about his
company's plans for expanding jobs...in India. As he put it to the
magazine, the company's approach to expanding its markets in the rest of
the world is "to be 'local' in every sense of the word. That means
migrating P&L (profit and loss) responsibility and major business
functions (like R&D, manufacturing and marketing) from a centralized
headquarters to an experienced in-country team."
Doesn't sound like the kind of model that's likely to be adding many jobs here in the US, does it?
And yet, President Obama, in naming Immelt to his new post, said,
"We think GE has something to teach businesses all over America."
On the evidence, let's hope not!
You have to wonder what kind of advice Immelt will be giving the
president (and American businesses). GE likes international trade
agreements that allow the company to shift production abroad and then
import the goods to the US tariff-free. The company also likes the idea
of lower corporate taxes (for the years 2007 to 2009, according to
Citizens for Tax Justice's Bob McIntyre, Immelt's GE managed to finagle a
tax rate of -14.1%, which is to say the government gave the
company an extra 14.1% over and above its profits!), and of course all
kinds of tax incentives aimed at increasing hiring, though these
measures, while helping corporate bottom lines, have demonstrably failed
to lead to significant job creation. GE also opposes measures that
would punish companies for outsourcing production, or that would make it
harder for it to bring in high-skilled workers from abroad to replace
educated but higher-paid American workers.
Arguably, from the point of view of American workers, it might be
better if Obama had hired Honda's chief executive, whose company at
least has been adding jobs in the US, not eliminating them.
Looked at another way, it's ironic to note that the US Justice
Department is currently trying to cook up a legal concoction that will
allow it to arrest and prosecute Australian Wikileaks founder Julian
Assange for espionage, because he dared to do what US journalists should
have been doing--digging up the documents that expose US misdeeds
abroad. They might more appropriately be looking into the way
ostensibly American corporate executives like Immelt have been using
their companies to sabotage the nation's entire economy and political
system.
Come to think of it, that kind of thing--undermining the
country--used to be called treason. Now it's just a ticket to a job as
White House adviser.