President Barack Obama has been unabashed in his close association with General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt, including naming him to head the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Obama has continued to shower such honors and attention on Immelt despite the fact that GE has avoided paying ANY taxes. Indeed, GE has demanded a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. Now, GE has posted a 77% increase in profits while paying less taxes than any of its factory workers.
Investors are doing well even if the taxpayers are getting killed. The company increased its quarterly dividend for the third time in the past year.
Immelt took the opportunity to declare “GE has emerged from the recession a stronger, more competitive company.” Of course, GE takes a different tact in avoiding any taxes.
GE is able to avoid paying any taxes by using its army of lobbyists to get tax breaks from Congress, which has proven again to be in the pocket of corporate interests. This is a bipartisan sellout as both parties have caved to such demands. The company also has used “creative” accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.
Yet, Obama still embraces Immelt as a model CEO and repeatedly invites him to the White House to advise him and other companies on how to economic and business issues. Imagine the response of liberal members and commentators if George Bush relied so heavily on such a corporate figure. There were many such controversies and the press and commentators were outraged. Yet, once again, Obama is not viewed as a corporate shill or tool where Bush was denounced in the very same terms.
It should be a national scandal that a CEO who avoids any taxes should be given such a high-ranking position. Indeed, there should be hearings on how a company can get away with windfall profits while paying less in taxes than a waitress at a truck stop in I-95.
Source: WSJ
Jonathan Turley
I really enjoyed this post. You really know what you are talking about and it shows. Thanks for the wonderful post. You should really think about a more sexuality related post, maybe visit my phone sex site for inspiration.
Your masks keep slipping. I don’t aid known trolls, B. You lost the benefit of my help (and friendship) under your guise of Tautology.
So Rae = It’s All Good.
I am not trying to revise history at all. As I said, I searched all of his letters from about 1780 to 1826 and there were no negative references to corporations except in the letter to George Logan and that was an after thought.
If you can point me to other materials that would help my apparent lack of understanding, I would be grateful.
One should never be afraid of the truth.
I await with anticipation your references.
Here is where I gathered my information:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=quick_search.php
It may be that it is incomplete.
Sounds to me like 1) you have a problem with reading comprehension, 2) you cherry pick instead of reading actual source materials and 3) you like to make up your own context in a magnificent display of outcome determinism.
Jefferson knew the difference between corporations and banks as well as what a corporate charter entailed – private or public.
He was also a man who choose his words carefully.
Try to revise history all you like.
Buddha is Laughing:
I did a search on corporations in Jefferson’s letter from about 1780 until his death, I found only one citation that was negative. The letter to Logan about monied corporations which were banks as near as I can tell.
I am also pretty sure that if and when Jefferson did talk negatively about corporations he was talking about ecclesiastical corporations and ones like the Hudson Bay Company, the Dutch East India Company, that type of thing. Corporations chartered by European governments not corporations owned by individuals. Except for banks, and even then it seems to me he was not against banks per se but against the idea of a central bank.
It’s All Good
1, April 22, 2011 at 8:17 am
Puzzling:
good post. …
=========================================
That’s funny
Buddha,
I thought you were talking about George Jefferson! 🙂
BIL, maybe it is that we have the same bizarre sense of humor that we would both be aware of an out of print obscure humor book. Great minds and so forth.
OS,
I have. Odd that you mention it as it’s featured in the Locus article I posted above. Very funny book.