Yet another shot in the arm for President Obama’s jobs commission.

White House defends embrace of G.E. CEO despite report company didn’t owe taxes in 2010

A sure-fire way to rally the base. To stay at home, that is.

and we thought Bush was bad. At least with him he didn’t try and pretend to be something other than what he was. Obama’s still passing himself off as a “liberal” while governing as a corporatist.

GE is only being fair. /s

Screw you, President Fucking Asshole.

And sadly how many so called liberals and progressives buy into it? Alot i imagine. Im personally REALLY hoping he doesnt get a second term.

Shame on General Electric and Shame on Obama. Boycott GE, maybe we should get some protests started.

Note to the neo-Oligarchy: Remember the French Revolution.

~~~Mod Note: Let’s not go any further down that path~~~

GE has a history of War Profiteering and lobbying for contracts and zero taxes for itself. It only makes sense tyhat Obama would criticise such behavior while turning right round right round and hiring Union Busting Republican, Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO as head of Job Creation for Obama’s Jobless Recovery.

If its a jobless recovery you seek, Immelt is your man.

Why hire lobbyists when you can get corporate CEO’s to write the laws?

in the naughts (2000-2009) we came to realize that globalization was a race to the bottom for wages and regulations. Area A has moderate regulations and moderate taxes. Area B has low taxes and high regulations. Area C has high taxes and low regulations. End result is not high taxes and high regulations, but low taxes and no regulations.

I guess the beatings will continue until morale improves.

From that article:

Carney was asked why, if the president wants corporate tax reform, he appointed “to the head of the Competitiveness and Jobs Council a person who is now the poster child for abusing the system to get out of paying taxes.”

“The jobs and competitiveness council is designed for just that,” Carney responded. “And he has brought together a lot of voices on that. And he wants to hear the opinions of every member of that council. And we have said, with regard to questions about other members who have been appointed, that the president obviously doesn’t want a council of people who agree with him on every issue; he wants to hear diversity of opinion.”

Considering CEO and Chairman heavy President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, that diversity would probably range from eliminating all corporate taxes, to subsidizing offshoring the remaining U.S. jobs. Seems of a piece with the Catfood Commission, with Trumka and Hansen playing their assigned “beard” roles.

I know that obama is a corporatist, but this whole ge thing leaves me breathless. I think, however, that immelt will be very good at getting jobs developed – in many other countries, just not in here at home. he will also be very good at head fakes for getting communities and the federal gov to give big corpses more tax breaks with the lure of job creation, it is just that those jobs will, at best, be short term, but the tax cuts will go on through some loop hole.

Hey, e. Short and sweet these days, huh? Of course, considering how much has been and still is being said.

GE will get $1 million benefits for every $30,000 job it “creates” (or “saves”). Or some arithmetic like that.

It’s mostly all been said.

Well, yeah. If the government has to lose tax revenue, the workers should lose wages. That’s shared sacrafice.

There’s that too.

I was thinking that whatever GE can do to nonunion workers, it can do to union workers better.

True but nobody of any significance is listening… Means… we be pissing up wind…WTF are those towels when ya need them… Time ta dip in the Lake to rinse off…

Actually Lawrence O’Donnell had a segment on his show on MSNBC about GE avoiding taxes… an amazing bit of bravery that he could be fired for. We need more of that from smart people with guts like him.

John

…ad nauseam…GE union people won’t strike because there are five people chasing every US job and striking workers can be replaced by skilled workers layed off from other industries. GE knows it. The unions know it. End game.

My ongoing frustration is in not being able to come up with a simple crystallization of GM-type (incl. bankster) problems. Whatever the R’s have used to get poor people to go against their own interests, I’d like to copy it.

Obama better hope and pray that the Republicans don’t find someone to run against him that’s not a complete nimrod. If they do, he’s in trouble.

Obama feels your pain /s

In my attic, I have all the stats on all the union strikes that occurred in the U.S. after WWII. I have done a fair amount of analytical work on the data.

The last major private sector one was against GM in the fourth quarter of 1970. If my arithmetic is correct, that would have been over 40 years ago.

Construction workers don’t strike in the winter. Teachers strike in September.

IOW, workers strike when employers need workers. Which, as you observed, is not now.

The only way striking workers can be replaced is if the striking workers allow their replacements to get in the door. Sadly, union members have long ago forgotten how to strike. These days, they practice the sign-carrying-sing-along. When unions were formed, and when they were strongest, they practiced the cross-my-line-and-suffer-the-f’ing-consequences method. Until they remember this – they are doomed.

The time has come to reframe this issue entirely. Too many of us still see GE, Exxon and even Walmart as “American Companies“. That is simply not the case. They are global corporations that have more in common with countries than companies and it is time we recognized that their “interests” rarely coincide with the interests of the American Citizenry.

Our politicians and government are in thrall to these corporate entities as we collectively carry their baggage while receiving little or nothing in return.

That is in large because the authorities will NOT allow them to do that any more and makes them “KEEP MOVING”.. Just another way the MOTU are stripping more and more rights from the masses. Just another front in the current class warfare being waged by the MOTU!!

“… Boycott GE ..”

In my deregulated electricity market I switched to a company that boasts the largest percentage electricity generated from “green sources“, i.e. “wind power”.

Who do you suppose makes all those windmills?

Unions were not formed by people who listened to “the authorities.” Nor will they be saved by them.

How and why conservatives can continue to defend corporations not paying their fair share – mainly by incessantly whiiiining about all the alleged horrible unfair high taxes that corporations are *forced* to pay in conservaFairyTaleVille – is way beyond my comprehension.

But now it’s time to cue the rightwing trolls to swing by and bash us dfh’s for daring to suggest that such MOTU as GE actually, you know, pay their fair share. Why why why it’s unthinkable! How UnAmerican! It’s unpatriotic… yadda yadda blah blah bullshit bullshit etc.

These are all moves to eventually force endentured servitude. Wage-slaves released from debtors prisons only if they agree to a lifetime of service at sub-standard wages. Or better yet, being able to pay people with company money like the mines used to. Company housing, company grocery stores. And rates that make it so at the end of the month the employee owes more to the company than they’ve earned! Republican paradise!

Sorry to be OT, but what are the drinking game words for O’s imminent/upcoming speech on Libya?

You are right, but it will cost GE to have to train all new people. People need to boycott their products–namely large kitchen appliances. Builders should do the same. I was surprised that Larry O’Donnell did a large piece on GE on MSNBC as they are half owner. Hope he holds onto his job.

Indeed. It does seem as if all these self-proclaimed libertarians who blog here regularly – claiming that they’re totally utterly & completely “self-sufficient” (what the fack that means) – really really really want things to be this.

What’s the old tune… “I owe my soul to the company store…” Why how very self-sufficient-y.

Is Kinetic one of them still? How about “rebels”??

Of course they won’t.. Look at who is pulling the cops strings…

Boycotting’s a nice idea, but GE frankly makes so much stuff that a few of us pissants not buying their products will not make a dent. Hate to be Debbie Downer, and I don’t wish to sound critical. I’m just not convinced that a boycott will work in this case.

It was once that way Just the same old shit as when we revolted from King George..

Hell, at was that way with miners until roughly 100 years ago. Maybe less.

This one..??

Heh. Self-suficient. I think that means they masturbate without porn.

??? I didn’t say they won’t be saved by the authorities – I said they won’t be saved by people who listen to the authorities. I’m talking about leadership and members who shutter and quake at the thought of violating a “keep moving” injunction from some jackass judge, etc. Screw the judges, cops, and politicians! A strike is a strike – and anyone on the side of the company is the enemy. PERIOD.

Very true.. Remember the shirtwaist fire now 100 years ago and the pukes want to roll back ALL the rules and regulations in the fucking name of the almighty Dollar and POWER!! Raw naked Power!
Where The Fuck are the pitch forks and torches?? The youth must carry the new torch of freedom in the work place and at home!!

But you can’t let it turn to violence which would be Just what those who are pulling the strings want so They can escalate into more violence..

Tell that to those who fought and died to form unions in the first place. You people act like unions were formed at nice cozy meetings, between labor and bosses, over tea and biscuits, followed by a big sigh of relief and a group hug. NONSENSE! People beat, and were beaten – they killed and were killed – all for the right to collectively bargain and be treated like human beings in the workplace. If these are the days to which the MOTU (as some are fond of calling them) wish to return, then it is incumbent upon all workers to remind them what those days were like! You might not wish to show them – but your grandchildren will be forced to.

When unions were formed, and when they were strongest, they practiced the cross-my-line-and-suffer-the-f’ing-consequences method.

So true. And Nahant’s comment about the authorities making strikers “keep moving” now is also off-base. In the formative days of unions, the cops beat and shot workers, but the strikers just kept coming back. Eventually the cops realized they were outnumbered, the media made such a stink over the deaths, and the disruption in production/distribution/sales was so great that the corps finally had to give in.

Self-suficient. I think that means they masturbate without porn.

Brutal! Funny!

Just a head’s up: I’m gonna steal that line and claim it as my own. Just so you know.

Great reply. This idea that real reform will take place in a violence-free kumbiyah negotiation is bullshit. Ain’t a-gonna happen.

By all means, please do. I am all for free other people’s speech!

If it’s a jobless recovery you seek, Immelt’s Obama’s your man.

Fixed it for you.

Up-beat observation from afar:

Main Street moves against Wall Street
At last, the first signs that politicians are heeding popular anger at the austerity measures imposed to pay for bankers’ greed

“After all, the public wants its taxes to fund programmes that help people rather than flow to government creditors. And there’s the problem. Uncle Sam’s creditors include US businesses and the richest US citizens who used the money they did not pay in taxes to lend to the government instead.
. . .
“Political leaders executing the business strategy of socialising the costs of the crisis find themselves in trouble. Governor Walker in Wisconsin faces a far stronger opposition than anyone foresaw.
. . .
“Such policies could shift the burden and costs of overcoming the economic crisis onto the larger corporations and the richest citizens. Indeed, such policies might well go further and change the system that keeps bringing us these crises and breaking its defenders’ promises to prevent more crises. ”

LINK.

Exactly! And whenever some scab crossed the line, he got his friggin’ knees busted. I’m so sick of the whining on the left, in general, and labor, in this instance that “they won’t let us….” If raising your fist in the air and carrying your sign doesn’t bring them around – bring your fist and sign down on their heads! Or – shut your mouth and fall in line with the rest of the sheep.

well I guess you are here just to incite Violence.. Guess you were waiting for your topic to pop up so you could troll the thread…bye

I’m not trolling the thread – I’m responding to your replies. Nor am I inciting violence. I’m inciting self defense and the preservation of a way of life. Have you ever read a history book, labor history or other? No group can long survive the unwillingness of its members to defend the group.
Do you really think today’s corporate leaders can be begged or shamed into doing what’s right? They’ve been waging a successful war on workers for 30+ years! They’re surely not going to stop, now that they’re so close to totally annihilating the standard of living of the masses. When they’ve acheived their goal, you beg for their scraps if you want. I’ll be taking the food from their table!

IamRAGING is not trolling the thread; he’s pointing out historical fact. The only places where unions and worker’s rights blossomed without a desperate, violent struggle against the oligarchs occurred in a few countries that came to the reform curve late in the process. The big boys saw what happened in other countries and realized that they only had two choices: give in, or be forced to give in through “unpleasantries” — i.e. harsh worker mass action.

As Rage pointed out, nobody “lets” workers do anything. Workers have to take that power into their own hands, which means snatching it from the hands of the rich and powerful.

GE management are the ones who think the world owes them a living, while they ignore the commons, and worship money. They’re just like my crumb bum grandpa who thought he was superior to the union workers who patronized his retail establishment because he ‘worked’ so hard. He was a ‘Merchant’ who owned his own store, so he could look down on his fellow man. He never looked at it once that maybe he just got a lucky break from A&P because he was white!

yes and i voted for him…..change…ya the wrong way….

Since we human beings, at least the peasants among us, are obliged to pay an “alternative minimum tax” if we manage to take advantage of too many loopholes, why then cannot our fellow “persons,” i.e., the corporations, also pay an alternative minimum tax, say 10% of worldwide gross revenue? Shouldn’t Citizens United be interpreted to apply AMT to individuals? If not, why not?

BTW, I agree with John@20 – Lawrence O’Donnell really did bravely stick his neck out in criticizing GE on his show last Friday. Sometimes LOD is really good, sometimes he’s just a smug former Senate Finance Committee staffer who keeps reminding you of that as he interrupts his guests.

if not now when……remember you are part of the problem or part of the solution….change this capitalistic structure that is destroying the families of the working people in this country…or lose it to anarchy….

Yes, doesn’t it tell you something that Obama is taking advice from people like Immelt, Summers, Rubin and other plutocrats? Why doesn’t he talk to Krugman or Reich? Obama isn’t and never has been a progressive; he’s a corrupt Chicago machine politician, an empty suit, a shill for big money interests. Our 2012 campaign theme song should be “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Breaking: Wis DA seeks more legal relief
Wisconsin GOP Screwed at TRO Hearing Tomorrow

LINK.

O/T Whoodathunkit?

US says Libyan rebels may sell oil
“The United States gave a green light to sales of Libyan crude oil from rebel-held territory, giving a potential boost to forces battling Muammar Gaddafi.”

LINK.

Obama 2012 : Hope I Change!

Voting machines for sale on Ebay!

I can remember when GE used to be known as Generous Electric. No more!!!

If this doesn’t prove to the masses that we are a hardcore corporatocracy, I fear we’re going to have to wait a very long time while things get progressively worse until we can hope for a turnaround fueled by the cheated people of America.