GE moving X-ray business to China. What message is sent to U.S.?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Here is more evidence of the suicide mission this country is on: General Electric announced it's moving its 115-year-old X-ray business from Waukesha, Wisconsin to Beijing, China.
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The X-ray business is part of General Electric's GE Healthcare unit, and this move is just part of a broader plan by GE to invest $2 billion in China.
This will become the first GE business to be headquartered there. A handful of the unit's top executives will be transferred to China but otherwise, the company says, none of the 150 staffers in the Milwaukee-area facility will lose jobs or be transferred. However, GE plans to hire more than 65 engineers and a support staff at a new facility in China.
It's the kind of news that makes you want to reach for something sharp and jab it in your eye. General Electric's Chief Executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is one of President Obama's advisers on… ready? U.S. job creation!
In January, President Obama asked Immelt, a self-described Republican, to head up the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Tapping Immelt was supposed to provide the Obama administration with a business world perspective on job creation - not in China - here.
The administration also hoped it would give the president a leg up negotiating with the Republican-controlled House on deficit reduction, jobs programs, and health care. And we can all see how that's worked out really well.
Two months after Immelt was named to the council, The New York Times reported that General Electric paid no income taxes last year... thanks to some fancy accounting footwork, even though the company earned $14.2 billion in profits last year - more than $5 billion in the U.S. alone.
Here’s my question to you: General Electric is moving its X-ray business to China. What message does this send Americans?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Debt ceiling crisis: Why won't gov't listen to the American people?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
The American people have had enough, but their feelings on the debt ceiling crisis continue to fall on deaf ears.
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Monday night, President Barack Obama called on the American people to "make your voices heard," and boy, did they. The calls and e-mails to Congress the next day almost shut down the phones and computers in Washington. Might not have been a bad idea. But no matter. Here it is Wednesday. Default is less than a week away. And still nothing. Americans want compromise, and they've made that very clear.
The polls - CNN-ORC, Pew, ABC News-Washington Post - have all been reflecting this for weeks. They do not want their government to default on its debt obligations. They know the rest of the world is watching, and they want leadership to fix this mess. But Washington is clueless. They don't seem to hear us or care much what we think.
They have their own agendas and, as a result, are playing games with the financial well-being of millions. According to two recent polls, two-thirds of Americans believe a failure to raise the debt ceiling would have a negative impact on their own financial situation.
Yesterday, the new chief of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said a default or even a downgrade of U.S. debt would be a "very, very, very serious event," not just for the U.S. economy but for the global economy. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a plan that won't pass, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has a plan that won't pass and President Obama has no plan at all.
Maybe the voters will come up with a plan for these dysfunctional clowns in 2012.
Here’s my question to you: When it comes to the debt ceiling crisis, why won't the government listen to the American people?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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