Free Republic

Our word, not his . . . but the message is unmistakable. Jeff Immelt has been around awhile as chairman and CEO of General Electric, and I’m sure Bernie Sanders is not the first blowhard politician he’s heard railing against big business without the slightest idea of how or why major companies do the things they do. So maybe it’s because Sanders is getting so much attention, or maybe it’s because he’s even more spectacularly wrong than your average blowhard, but Immelt felt the need to respond when Sanders accused GE of “destroying the moral fabric” of America. And boy,...

So now several of the largest corporations in the state, including Yankee mainstays such as insurance giants Aetna and Travelers, as well as General Electric, are threatening to leave and get out of this abusive relationship. GE's CEO Jeff Immelt told his thousands of Connecticut-based employees that he has put together a team to evaluate a move to another state with "a more pro-business environment." He says the company's state taxes have increased five times since 2011 and the new hike would impose "significant and retroactive tax increases for businesses." Aetna complained that it already pays $65 million a year...

Back when he agreed to advise the Obama administration on economics, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt told friends that he thought it would be good for GE and good for the country. A life-long Republican, Immelt said he believed he could at the very least moderate the president’s distinctly anti-business instincts. That was three years ago; these days Immelt is telling friends something quite different. Sure, GE has managed to feast on federal subsidies, particularly the “green-energy” giveaways that are Obamanomics’ hallmark. But Immelt doesn’t think he’s had anywhere near as much luck moderating the president’s fat-cat-bashing, left-leaning economic agenda...

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, the head of President Obama's Jobs Board, plans to vote for Mitt Romney, Fox Business' Charles Gasparino reports (via Bloomberg). If true, the news would represent a major embarrassment to the Obama administration, which had elevated Immelt in their pursuit of private sector employment growth. Gasparino has not spoken with Immelt, but said sources close to the G.E. chief said he was leaving Obama's side. The president named Immelt the head of his panel of economic advisers in January as a replacement to Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman.

Sixteen months ago, General Electric announced it would place the "largest order in history" for electric cars , to be used by its employees who are issued company cars. Now, those cars are starting to arrive and be placed with employees. And where changes are made, personnel policies are sure to follow. A person inside GE recently forwarded a memo to us that covers some of the nuts and bolts of using the 2012 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car. It's from the fleet operations manager for GE Healthcare. Among the interesting points: "All sedans ordered in 2012 will be...

Some 40% of the roughly 700 waivers issued on Obamacare have gone to the Democrats’ liberal allies in the labor unions who, ironically enough, campaigned long and hard to get Obamacare passed. But now we learn that waivers from Obamacare isn’t where the cronyism is going to end. Guess who just got a big, fat waiver from new EPA rules? Why, none other Obama’s good friend General Electric whose CEO Jeff Immelt is one of Obama’s economic advisers. I wonder how long it will take someone to challenge this selective enforcement of the law in court. After all, it surely...

The naming of General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt to head the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is supposed to show the country that President Obama really is serious about dealing with the nation's economic woes through the free market system, rather than the government programs and handouts that characterized his first two years in office. Except it doesn't. Sure, Immelt brings a lot of business experience to the post -- he's spent many years in the trenches of one of the world's biggest companies, and his last 10 as its CEO. Problem is, this isn't necessarily the kind of...

In case there existed any doubt that Barack Obama (D., Goldman Sachs) is Big Business’s man in Washington, he has named General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to a key economic position: head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, successor to Paul Volcker’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. GE, you will not be surprised to know, spent $32 million on lobbying in the last year and is a big political donor. Like its colleagues in most Big Business sectors, it heavily favors Democrats: It was a large contributor to Barack Obama’s senatorial and presidential campaigns, and the single largest recipient...

Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, said on Wednesday his generation of business leaders had succumbed to “meanness and greed” that had harmed the US economy and increased the gap between the rich and the poor. Mr Immelt’s attack on his fellow corporate chiefs – made in a speech at the West Point military academy – is one of the strongest criticisms by a top executive of the compensation and business practices that prevailed before the financial crisis. “We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership ... tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and...

The transformation of America’s environmental movement began, as ex-United Steelworkers board member David Foster recalls, in late 2004 in a borrowed conference room at a table surrounded by union officials, top aides and the always-present group of Washington assistants. “We’re in this together,” Foster remembered Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope and Frances Beinecke, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, telling USW President Leo Gerard. About the same time, another group of environmentalists began networking with equally unlikely partners. Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, asked General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt to help lobby for a national...

Days after Obama's inauguration, Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, wrote to shareholders: "[W]e are going through more than a cycle. The global economy, and capitalism, will be 'reset' in several important ways. "The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner."

This is an excerpt from a recently obtained internal E mail written by a gleeful GE executive. “On climate change we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses.” “…benefit many GE businesses” becomes clearer by following the paper trail of “donations” from GEPAC the lobbying arm of General Electric Corporation. GE/Democrat pay to play scheme Last year most of GEPAC’s contributions went to Democrats. This year almost all of its cash bought...

While many companies hire lobbyists to win earmarks, General Electric’s unmatched lobbying force has secured a tax increase — or its equivalent — in President Barack Obama’s budget. Labeled “climate revenues” and totaling $646 billion over eight years, this line item in Obama’s budget has inspired confidence in GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt. As Immelt put it in a letter this week, he believes that the Obama administration will be a profitable “financier” and “key partner.” On page 115 of Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget is Table S-2, titled “Effect of Budget Proposals on Projected Deficits.” The chart forecasts the...

Green CEOs and good business just don’t mix. Witness this past week’s embarrassing examples of Ford Motor Co.’s Bill Ford and BP’s Lord John Browne – with General Electric’s Jeff Immelt warming up in the bull pen. ... Ford always appeared more concerned about being green than being profitable. In May 2000, he declared that SUVs – his company’s most profitable product – harmed the environment. He lectured a Greenpeace audience that something needed to be done about global warming. Ford focused on turning the company’s massive Rouge plant into an “icon of lean, green manufacturing” and issued reports about...