Jeff Immelt is the CEO and Chairman of the Board of General Electric. GE is scheduled to make about $160 Billion in the first 10 years of the 21st Century! Immelt’s recent appearance on C-Span put on by the Wall Street Journal was quite telling. “GE… brings good things to life!” is the slogan.
Immelt was recently named to the board of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisors. Immelt stands against the “Buy American” paradigm in lieu of the Global Trading Policy of the Bush and Clinton administrations. Jeff seems to think it is a generational thing and that the days of the old American mom and pop business are over. He seems to think that unless you are a total Global Company, your success will be greatly limited in the future.
Immelt then praises former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and FED Chairman Ben Bernanke for what a great job they did on the first Bail Out..under the the conditions they were faced with! He seems to believe that Corporations are just partners with government. His eyes seem to glaze over when he thinks of the new Obama Bail Out package and how GE might profit with big projects from public-private partnerships!
When asked about the Financial Services arm of GE, Immelt just says they will have to deleverage (write down or write off) and move on. He visualizes a much smaller, leaner GE financial operation in 2009 and beyond. Jeff also believes any caps on Management Salaries and Bonuses are stupid. He says: “If you want to pay a CEO $500,000 a year….then that’s the level of expertise you are going to get!” “You really have to pay whatever it takes….to keep your good people!”
Immelt believes we will need to move to a “Cap & Trade” Tax forum for Energy in 2010. For those that don’t know….that is the Al Gore deal which allows polluters to:
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Cap and Trade
Cap and Trade is a market-based policy tool for protecting human health and the environment. A cap and trade program first sets an aggressive cap, or maximum limit, on emissions. Sources covered by the program then receive authorizations to emit in the form of emissions allowances, with the total amount of allowances limited by the cap. Each source can design its own compliance strategy to meet the overall reduction requirement, including sale or purchase of allowances, installation of pollution controls, implementation of efficiency measures, among other options. Individual control requirements are not specified under a cap and trade program, but each emissions source must surrender allowances equal to its actual emissions in order to comply. Sources must also completely and accurately measure and report all emissions in a timely manner to guarantee that the overall cap is achieved.
For those of us that do not believe in Cap & Trade….we simply call it:
Smoke & Mirrors!
All in all, CEO Jeff Immelt opitimizes what is currently wrong with American business. He wants everyone to change – but him! He repeatedly said that no matter what happens….he will not be changing the way he runs GE. Jeff thinks that Healthcare and Energy are going to be the big winners in the next ten years! Jeff thinks China’s Airline Industry will be bigger than the entire fleets of the rest of world.
He believes in the new Bail Out cash……because his company deals with State, Federal and local government operations. So, we suppose it was quite telling of Mr. Immelt to let us know….where the next $985 Billion dollars is going to go! Let’s hope Mr. Immelt is right….but we are not very hopeful.
The Global economy is currently in meltdown mode. How long will it last and when can we look forward to a recovery? No answer for now…….the psychic 8-Ball needs to be turned a few times….so we can look for another answer!
Jeff Immelt has been a disaster at General Electric. Under his guidance–since jack Welch left—GE’S stock has precipitously declined in value.
As a holder of GE stock I am anything but please with it’s now $11.10 per share value. Immelt should not be advising anyone !!
“He seems to believe that Corporations are just partners with government. His eyes seem to glaze over when he thinks of … how GE might profit with big projects from public-private partnerships!”
Sounds like socialism to me.