Obamagate – The tangled web of Obama, GE, Immelt, Cap & Trade, GE Healthcare and Daschle

This is one of the most convoluted political webs that I have ever seen. In order to break it down I am writing this in several parts As I researched and started writing I realized that this is not a simple story. There is so much information regarding GE available that as I researched one area I discovered another that is part of the tangled web. This will be an ongoing project and as new and more twisted information evolves I will research and publish. I still do not understand how any of this is legal. It is obviously not ethical but since when are politicians and greedy, desperate CEOs ethical. You can decide for yourself.

In 2000, Jack Welch, the successful CEO of General Electric (GE), retired and it was announced that Jeffrey Immelt would take over as CEO. He officially took over in September 2001. Previous to this position Immelt was the head of GE Healthcare, a division of GE that provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. GE has since gone a step further and developed what they call Healthymagination where they believe that its time for a better, simpler system where innovation helps lower the cost of care and improve the quality of outcomes for more people. It almost sounds like something right out of Obamas playbook regarding healthcare.

Obama named Immelt to his Economic Advisory Board, which is ironic since GE has done worse since Immelt took over as CEO. Wouldnt it make more sense to have successful business people on an economic advisory board? This is the very same Immelt whose company continued to provide products to Iran through offshore subsidiaries despite American sanctions against rogue nations. In fact, it is against United States law for American companies to provide products or services to nations that the U.S. deems as rogue, in this case Iran. In a story reported by Leslie Stahl of 60 minutes back in 2004 GE stated that they are breaking no laws, and like Halliburton, make no apologies for their business dealings with states that sponsor terrorism. Everyone on the left was up in arms about Halliburton due to the Cheney connection where is the outrage now regarding the fact that Immelt holds a position in the current administration yet clearly violated U.S. sanctions via a loophole? GE did not stop doing business with Iran until 2005.

In 2007, Immelt earned a total salary of over $14,000,000 dollars between bonuses, base salary and stock options. Isnt this the exact type of compensation that Obama is trying to cap on executives working for any companies that received TARP funds? Since GE did not do well and has not since Immelt became the CEO, how do they justify his bonus? Did Obama ask him about his bonus or is it perfectly okay for some CEOs to receive unwarranted bonuses but not for others such as those in the banking industry? Now personally I believe executive pay is completely up to the company and its board but Obama has informed the country that he would like to put restrictions on ALL executive pay, not just TARP companies.

But wait, GE is also part of the banking industry. GE Capital became FDIC insured back in November of 2008 so they would be able to receive $139 million dollars in the FDICs Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program aka T.A.R.P. GE also maintains a credit card line for consumers. With the recent outrage by Obama regarding the credit card industries practices, it is simply amazing that GEs credit line is doing the exact things that Obama is pushing to have stopped. There are thousands of complaints about GE raising interest rates on good paying consumers to 30% as well as cutting credit lines and outright ending credit lines of on-time good-paying customers. This practice hurts the very consumers that Obama claims he is trying to protect, yet one of the CEOs whose company is performing these practices sits on his Economic Advisory Board.

GE also happens to own NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. I believe at this point we all know how each of those stations feels about Obama. MSNBC touts itself as a 24 hour cable news network, yet when anchor Chris Matthews stated that he had a thrill up his leg about Obama during the election, it was quite apparent that any unbiased, balanced news reporting flew out the door. It is one thing when he is commenting on his program, another when he is supposed to be reporting the news. All you need to do is watch any of these stations for a week and you will see that there is no negative news reported about Obama or his administration. Even Wikipedia makes note that critics have charged MSNBC with becoming liberal. How convenient that the CEO of the parent company of MSNBC sits on one of Obamas boards.

The above touches on some of the background of Immelt, GE and Obama. There is so very much more to this story. Nothing of course that will ever be told on the networks I mentioned. That would be reporting the actual NEWS. I havent even touched on GEs lobbying efforts for Cap & Trade. I am going to end Part I here otherwise you may be calling your doctor for new blood pressure medication. To be continued.

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[edit on 3/6/10 by Misoir]

PART 2

Cap & Trade has been a huge part of Obamas plans since before the election. His ideas are outlined on the White House government budget site. We all know that Cap & Trade is an ideology to reduce carbon emissions by setting a cap on the amount of emissions that companies are allowed to expend into the atmosphere. Companies will pay big money for emissions allowances as set forth by Congress or the President, that has not been ironed out yet. What is perfectly clear is that Americans will definitely be paying more for pretty much anything they purchase if the Cap & Trade program is put into place. What has been unclear is GEs role in the Cap & Trade policies and how they stand to make billions.

In 2007 the Climate Action Partnership was formed by several corporations to come up with a solution to curbing greenhouse gases, aka CAP. One of the largest corporations that is part of this organization is GE. GE currently is also the largest manufacturer of clean energy equipment such as windmills, natural gas and nuclear power. Since GE already has the technology that will be required for other companies to purchase, with the sales of its products alone in order for companies to abide by any Cap & Trade laws, GE stands to make billions. GE has spent a cool million dollars the past year alone touting their green energy initiatives in a marketing blitz, as if their corporate policy is caring about the environment. Immelt is quoted as saying I didnt come to this as an environmentalist, I come to it as an industrialist, Im a capitalist, plain and simple. While I totally agree with capitalism and think its great he wants to earn cash for GE, I dont agree that it should be on the backs of the American people who will truly pay the price for Cap & Trade.

The trade part of Cap & Trade is where companies like Goldman Sachs come into play. You see, those companies that do not use their entire allotment of emissions, can sell them to other companies who may need more. Yes, Wall Street is also in on Cap & Trade. Wall Street will be trading these excess allotments as commodities. The very Wall Street companies that Obama constantly derides and claims consist of greedy people who hurt Americans will be earning billions thanks to his plan. One industry analyst believes that this Cap & Trade trading on Wall Street could turn into a $2 trillion business within five years.

The very man who outright states his mission with Cap & Trade is to make money sits on Obamas Economic Advisory Board. Obama has continually blasted Wall Street for months. While Obama is touting how wonderful Cap & Trade will be in reducing the devastating effects of the yet unproven Global Warming theories, one of his advisors is rubbing his hands together and dreaming about dollar signs the closer cap & trade gets to passing in Congress. GE even created a brand new division in 2005 called GE Ecomagination from Immelt: GE Economagination is GE’s commitment to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water.”

What is completely and utterly ironic about that last statement is what the EPA calls Superfund Sites. These are sites that companies have polluted with dangerous toxins and have been designated by the EPA to clean them up. GE has many sites like this but two of the largest are the Hudson River in NY and the Housatonic River in Massachusetts. GE has been fighting the EPA against having to clean up these two sites for 25 years. Their plant in NY left carcinogenic PCBs in the Hudson River known to cause cancer in animals and known as carcinogens in humans. Funny, Immelt touts clean water when GE did not want to clean up the very water their plant made a toxic mess of. They finally started cleaning up the Hudson River on May 15, 2009 yes literally just last week.

GE has gone so far as to create yet another division called GE AES GHGS Green House Gas Services. The company website explains how they can help companies reduce green house gas emissions by purchasing credits from GEs GHGS: Greenhouse Gas Services certifies each one of its GHG credits to a rigorous Standard of Practice to ensure the environmental and scientific integrity of each credit. As a result, companies that purchase GHG credits from Greenhouse Gas Services can be certain that what they are doing is truly helping to reduce climate change-causing greenhouse gases. Essentially yet another way that GE will make billions off of Cap & Trade.

Obama has an Economic Advisors who stands to make billions for the company he is the CEO of if Cap & Trade passes. Should an economic advisor be giving advice to a President if the advice would certainly create a windfall of cash to the advisors company? Isnt there some type of ethics violation in here somewhere? How about the deceit of the American people? Its not that Obama or Immelt are hiding any of this, its that neither of them are telling the people that GE and other big corporations plus Wall Street will make billions and even trillions if Cap & Trade passes and it boils down to being at OUR expense.

What do you all make of this? Could this be for real? And if so how bad could it effect Obama if it was revealed?

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GE stands to make a ton of money on Cap & Trade. GE is one of only two locomotive manufacturers in the US. The other one is EMD, which had the first successful design of the modern electric-diesel locomotive. Projected sales orders for new locomotives for 2008 were 2000. GE was to build 1700 of them.

The carbon credits will a major factor in transportation as there is not a single tangible product that does not spend some time in a semi before being for sale at your local store. Many transportation companies will suffer under Cap & Trade buying the Carbon Credits for their fleet of rigs. The independent Owner/Operators will be unable to compete in long-haul operations and will be limited to short run (low paying) rail yard to warehouse and warehouse to store runs. We may see more 24 foot straight box trucks doing these warehouse to store runs as a result. Which actually consumes more fuel as a whole (due to limited space and increased runs), but will be more efficient for individual and company haulers to operate.

Semi-Trailers may become a thing of the past as cargo containers can go from ship to rail to container rack trailer more efficiently. The loading and unloading of containers are no different at distribution points than the standard dry-box trailers we see today.

Why the switch back to rail? The freight rate will become immensely cheaper on the business owner. But the same draw back will apply: Time. In today's transportation and sales, we use the "just in time" method of warehousing and inventory. Companies' assets of raw material and finished products do not spend their time on a shelf, but rather in transit. What this means to a consumer is lower prices due to the lower cost of ownership of a product by the seller.

Ultimately consumers will pay higher prices and have less selection of products even if Carbon Credits were free but of finite supply, just because of how products will arrive. By using the efficiency of rail, products will have to be ordered well in advance and every finger in the pie has to be paid. By truck, there is increased rates by less available trucks. The freight rate will reflect the expenditure of the Carbon Credit to one store over another.

Why is this a real concern, price notwithstanding, is that of the major US cities there is only a three day supply of food and other goods. In minor cities, about seven to ten days. Food is perishable and would have to go by truck. Think of a head of lettuce going from California to New York. By truck it would be there in 3-4 days. By rail, in 7-14 days and have no refrigeration while on the train other than ice or dry ice.