Has Jeff Immelt Changed His Mind Since Calling Obama Anti-Business?

[ProSense]

Has Jeff Immelt Changed His Mind Since Calling Obama Anti-Business?

“Signaling a shift to a new phase of the administration’s response to the nation’s economic woes,” President Obama announced that he is appointing General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The new council, which Obama will announce this afternoon, will replace a different outside advisory board currently headed by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who has been a close advisor to Obama but will now be leaving the White House. The new board will “focus its work on finding new ways to encourage the private sector to hire and invest in American competitiveness,” the White House said in a statement.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post published today, Immelt laid out his “blueprint for keeping America competitive,” which included growth in “anufacturing and exports,” and a promotion of “free trade” and “innovation”:

There is no easy solution to “fix” the American economy. Persistent and high unemployment – and the pessimism it breeds – should not be accepted. We must work together to construct an economy that creates more opportunity for more people.

Immelt has adeptly led America’s fourth-largest corporation, pushing major investment in alternative energy and green technology, and would likely provide valuable insight to any president.

But he is interesting choice for this president, considering that Immelt has expressed some very negative sentiment about Obama in the past. At a dinner with Italian executives last July, as quoted by the Financial Times (behind paywall), Immelt remarked that business does not like the president, and the president does not like business:

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Where are the jobs?

[still_one]

1. For the regular person, this has to be the worst choice /nt

[ProSense]

2. "Council on Jobs and Competitiveness"

You know, the buck stops with the President. Putting Immelt out front allows him to put up or shut up.

It's a council, which will likely garner input from many people. Everyone wanted the President to focus on jobs, demanding a jobs council, well now he is.

[still_one]

3. Immelt, like his predecessor is a huge advocate of off-shoring and deregulation. I am disappointed,

but not surprised

[ProSense]

4. Why

would the President change his opposition to offshoring and deregulation?

[still_one]

7. I believe simply because he believes this move will help him in 2012. As for his opposition to

offshoring and deregulation, that actually remains to be seen if his words match his actions. The financial reform package is a mixed bag. Flash trading continues to go on, Comcast buying NBC, and other corporate mergers do not indicate deregulation. As for offshoring, his meeting with Hu and other corporate leaders were more about those companies having access to the Asian market, but not with labor for the U.S., and the floating of the RMB

[ProSense]

8. "The financial reform package is a mixed bag."

Wall Street reform is in the process of being implemented, and Volcker and other seem to be pleased with the direction. The consumer bureau is in good hands.

"As for his opposition to offshoring and deregulation, that actually remains to be seen if his words match his actions."

Right, that's always the case.

[Blue_Tires]

5. of course, no matter what happens from here,

when 2012 comes Immelt and his cronies will go right back to buying commercial time to tout how 'anti-capitalist' our president is...

[ProSense]

6. Likely, and

his reputation and the President's rest on job creation.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[FrenchieCat]

10. When I think of this strategy of bringing someone on board

in creating private sector jobs, this selection seems to make sense, if we were to think about it.

first off, Pres. Obama can not pull jobs out of his ass, and he cannot create anymore government jobs, as the Republicans aren't going for that, no how no way...and they never have. States aren't hiring government workers either, as they have no money! None! So it appears that whether we like it or not, it's gonna be up to the private sector to do the hiring.....if we are to get the unemployment rate down, and that's the hard truth.

Who best to get the private sector industries, who have been hoarding their money rather than hiring new employees, to hire folks here in America? I would think that Krugman wouldn't be that guy. Nor Reich. Nor any liberal that have a well known contentious view of business (like many here do). So what's one to do? Well, perhaps getting some Republican CEO who has stated that you hate Business and business hates you might work out much better....since the goal is to get the private sector to start hiring, bottomline.....not someone who would prefer to diss the business world, as I doubt this would prove fruitful.

Some might want to opine that this means that this guy will now be Obama's BFF, and Obama will shadow this individual's ideology, so they will choose to (once again) recoil in outrage and horror.
But IMO, that's short sighted, and makes me understand better why Obama is the President, and not those who are so partisan that they'd choose to keep unemployment hovering near double digit levels because they simply would personally choose not to work with those who might be able to do what they themselves simply cannot based on circumstances as they are. Getting folks working must be terribly important to this President. That's a good thing.

[Uzybone]

11. Just get us private sector jobs

I don't care if its Immelt or Chomsky at the table. Who ever has the best ideas wins.

[displacedvermoter]

12. But damnit, Immelt's been a major proponent of the

outsourcing policies that have helped to create the long-term employment problems that are now destroying our middle class.

Doesn't that set off any bells anywhere?

[Uzybone]

13. Well now he has accepted a role that asks him to do the opposite

I hope he can perform

[displacedvermoter]

14. Alan Simpson also accepted a job...

[ProSense]

15. And failed to deliver a report.

Is it your belief that Immelt will fail to deliver jobs?