Obama Taps GE’s Immelt to Head Economic Adviser Panel

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Bloomberg

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Immelt wrote in an op-ed today in the Washington Post that Obama asked him to take the helm of the newly renamed President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The group will reach out to labor and business leaders to serve “as a catalyst for action,” he wrote.

Immelt, 54, is an original member of the panel, which was formed as the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board in February 2009. GE’s CEO since 2001, he heads the world’s biggest maker of jet engines, medical-imaging equipment and power-plant turbines and gives the White House a corporate heavyweight to help burnish Obama’s pro-business credentials.

He has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama are committed to making the U.S. “the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.”

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-21/obama-taps-ge-s-immelt-to-head-economic-adviser-panel.html

[xchrom]

1. the Single Narrative Express is still going strong. nt

[molly77]

12. Not surprisingly GE's Immelt contributed to hillary and mccain

in the primaries. Wonder why Obama hasn't appointed anybody who has been his long time friend or worked with him in the past? Because he is a figure head. It isn't hard to understand..especially if you see the totalitarian down hill slide in the US since WWII. Hillary, who never met a dictator she didn't like. Bill, who gave US NAFTA. 3 strikes and you are out. Read the Guardian WikiLeaks comments for more understanding of what is going on in the US than WE have in MSM.

[earthside]

2. Labor?

Now, why did America's unions spend millions of dollars and spend hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours to elect Barack Obama?

The White House couldn't even bring themselves to find a union president to be a co-chair of this new panel?

[maritimer]

21. That's what I'd like to know.

What about Richard Trumka? Instead we get this fox to guard the henhouse?

[ixion]

3. LOL @ 'Change We Can Believe In'

Heady talk from such a corporate friendly human.

[westerebus]

4. The experiment with democracy is over.

The Supreme Court had it right.

A corporation has person-hood.

COTUS = POTUS.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Rat race is over-rats won.

[westerebus]

18. Chinese delicacy-deep fried rat.

[katnapped]

5. Birds of a feather..... n/t

[tomg]

6. Two quick points,

both from the article: "Immelt, a self-described Republican, has emerged as one of Obama’s most visible outside economic advisers" and "While Immelt will head an advisory panel for a Democratic administration, that won’t prevent him from embracing his Republican leanings." I really don't know what there is to say anymore.

[Octafish]

22. Your sig line makes a great point, three.

Thanks, tomg, for the Hat Trick!

[Still a Democrat]

7. Folks flipped over Daley and then Dean endorsed him

Let's wait for some reaction.

[JJW]

8. $ 16 billion bailout

Immelt ran GE into the ground and got $ 16 billion bailout package from Obama.

The bailout was the greatest heist, by the top 2%, in world history.

[avaistheone1]

9. GE ceo?!!!

GE was the primary company to first outsource American jobs overseas to make a quick buck.

WTF


:wow: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

[Lance_Boyle]

10. Great. Immelt will advise Obama to move the economy itself to Mexico or China.

GE - we bring good things to foreign countries while fucking our own.

[Smashcut]

11. One of the kings of outsourcing is his main advisor on "Jobs and Competitiveness"?!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-elk/ge-promotes-manufacturing_b_241944.html

Is Obama for fucking real?

I also shudder at their overuse of the "competitiveness" frame - we all know what that's code for to these people, don't we?

:argh:

[Roland99]

13. My left nut could give better economic advice.

[shireen]

14. this is exhausting

one disappointment after another, and I'll still end up having to vote for him in 2012 because the alternative is worse.

Our political system is broken, starting at the very top.

:(

[Broderick]

15. Shrug

Not surprised anymore. sigh.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Sanders also criticized GE, stating that the company has "an anti-labor history of outsourcing jobs

and with financial links to military and nuclear power industries."

Bernie Sanders Wants NBC-Comcast Merger Stopped Following Olbermann Suspension

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x245777

and Obama hires the GE CEO "to help burnish Obama’s pro-business credentials."?
:yoiks:

[lunasun]

20. Well then that may be where all this "competitiveness" will take place

in the military industrial complex and Obama had big $$ coming from nuclear power during election so get ready for some job openings where you either slowly fry or quickly die

[ProudDad]

19. Corporate Tool "birds of a feather"...

:puke: