Tweet
Pouting Baby doesn't understand why Little Melting Jeff won't let GE pay taxes. (photo courtesy of Jim White)
It looks like Pouting Baby is talking to us again. — JW
I don’t understand why Little Melting Jeff is so mean to our government. His company made $14 billion last year, but they won’t give any of that money to the government. Companies like Little Melting Jeff’s are a big reason why our government doesn’t have enough money. Even the Carnie Guy who is supposed to make things look good for Mr. O can’t explain this one:
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney acknowledged once more on Thursday that average Americans would be confused, if not appalled, by the fact that General Electric Co. did not pay any federal income taxes in 2010 despite more than $5 billion in profits.
One “might say, ‘what the heck, I don’t get this,’ ” Carney said during his daily briefing, adding that, “the president shares that opinion. … He believes our corporate tax structure needs to be reformed.”
The Carnie Guy needed to make this look good because Little Melting Jeff runs Mr. O’s jobs council:
President Barack Obama named 22 people to his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, whose estimable task, according to the White House, is to “out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build our global competitors in order to win the future.”
Whew.
The panel is led by General Electric Chief Executive Jeff Immelt.
I don’t know about winning the future, but Little Melting Jeff sure seems to have won the present if his company can keep all that money it made. He is feeling a little heat for it:
The chief of General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) on Thursday defended the conglomerate’s zero tax rate in 2010, and called for reform of the U.S. tax code.
In his first public speaking engagement since a barrage of criticism about not having to pay taxes in 2010, GE chief executive Jeff Immelt told the Economic Club in Washington that his company did nothing wrong.
“At GE, we do like to keep our tax rate low, but we do it in a compliant way, and there are no exceptions,” Immelt said. “Our tax rate will be much higher in 2011 as GE Capital recovers.”
Mr. Jake asked Little Melting Jeff about it today, too…
News that General Electric made $14 billion in profits in 2010 but paid zero in federal taxes has led to liberal leaders like former Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., and MoveOn to call for President Obama to show the door to GE CEO Jeff Immelt, the chairman of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
/snip/
We caught up with Immelt in Washington, DC today and I asked him about the criticism.
I always worry when I see someone saying something they want me to believe while they are shaking their head back and forth like they are saying “no.” Does Little Melting Jeff believe what he is saying to Mr. Jake? And I didn’t hear Little Melting Jeff say that those 6500 new jobs are in the US. Why didn’t Mr. Jake ask about that?
What’s really funny is that Little Melting Jeff probably didn’t expect all this attention about not paying taxes. Here is part of what he said in the letter to shareholders with GE’s annual report for 2010:
Our goal is to maintain Infrastructure earnings between 60% and 70% of GE’s earnings. Our tax rate increased in 2010 and will grow substantially in 2011.
How can the tax rate increase if they paid no taxes? That’s because Little Melting Jeff also works to get tax credits for his company. I guess they got a lower tax credit in 2010 than they got in 2009. Don’t you wish you could make that kind of money and still get tax credits?
.
171 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Jim & Pouting Baby!
GE won’t pay taxes because they hate America, even though they are a major defense contractor making money hand over fist of out current military misadventures.
And guess who built Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors?
pouting baby!
Pouting Baby, you sure do ask some really good questions!
Hiya, Doc. They do seem to hate a lot folks.
Well if you start at a zero tax rate paying a penny worth’s of taxes next year would be more right?
Suze!
If we only had more answers.
Yup.
Taxes are the price you pay for living in a civilized society. Avoiding taxes is not only un-American, it is positively treasonous in times like this (especially for war profiteers like GE). If you don’t want to pay taxes, move to fucking Somalia.
I can tell that Pouting Baby is all ears for Little Melting Jeff’s explanation.
But you see, there’s still that whole pot of SS that the corps haven’t got their hands on yet, and the USG still has the ability to borrow from the Chinese, so obviously, corps haven’t gotten their fair share yet.
So that makes them uncivilized, doesn’t it?
i bet little jeff doesn’t like this scene…. and avoids water
the corpse of Ronnie Raygun rebukes you for the disparagement of GE
Little Melting Jeff doesn’t believe in civilization so we should just make the proper arrangements for him.
corps haven’t gotten their fair share yet.
As in everything.
Yeah, but they’re getting close to having it all.
I still don’t get why GE’s stock has not gone down new nuclear power plant deals around the world are being delayed or canceled. GE’s finance branch are till part of the company is still engaged in gambling and the Chinese are eating their lunch making cheaper washing machines and dryers.
Obama is not going green in a big way and lets face it nobody thinks we can afford a few more years of war.
Very.
… and radiation!
Heh. I mentioned the Reagan zombie in my post yesterday.
Just love the title..
To Jim White: just who markets Omniscan? GE of course just use da google and look up gadolinium or MRI contrast or Omniscan.. Follow the $$$$$
Zombie Reagan has eaten the brains of our entire political class.
That’s because all those wars we have going on are good for the rest of their business.
Having it all is not good enough. The corps need to capture all the borrowing power of the USG.
GE owned Ronnie and Nancy body and soul,what little bit they had
Funny the anti Tax tea Baggers and Ron and Rand are not making a big deal about us having to pay taxes as GE skates on by. Fox News I think pays only a 6% tax rate on revenue obviously Rupert needs GE’s tax lawyer.
They follow it very well.
Can’t wait for Nicholas Shaxson’s book about offshore tax havens (“Treasure Islands”) to be published in US on April 12th. Maybe Pouting Baby will show up at the FDL Book Salon for that title, which is scheduled for April 30th ;-)
Ding!!!!
Lets keep it simple for little melting Jeff.
Tax code in 67 characters: You own it, you pay taxes on it. You own nothing, you pay nothing.
remember THE JETSONS….Ronnie and Nan were given a house like that to live in by GE….they owned them down to the toilet paper
Oh that will be a good one!
A large portion of the Fortune 500 companies pay no taxes.
Amen.
Actually, I was wrong bc once the corps captures all the borrowing power of the USG (aka taxpayer leverage), then Wall St. will figure out a way to leverage the leverage in the private sector.
Maybe Pouting Baby should be a co-host?
Couldn’t be simpler.
Outside of war Gambling seems to be their only money maker now. Still losing a few billion dollar nuclear reactor deals should make any corporation’s stock price take a dive.
I wonder if Obama has promised to bail GE out again? After all the big investors in GE should all have been out the door after the Japanese Nuclear accident.
The big investors have super fast computer sell programs heck they should have sold GE and then shorted the stock as soon as they heard the news.
Unless of course someone privately reassured the big investors.
You so quaint.
And we wonder why the government is broke.
A………..mazing…add on Slappy Thomas
those tax lawyers need their jobs yanno.. can’t have a simple tax code or else they would have to find a new line of work…
Only us pedestrian unwashed masses.
Howdy Jim n PB!
Nice catch, Jim, thanks.
I’d like to see a campaign of some sort to get Melting Immelt out of Obama’s reach, n certainly out of that anointed position. N maybe into a nice padded cell somewhere for tax evasion.
It would be great if we just said make a profit pay 30% in taxes om that profit no exceptions how many funny charities that are really political lobbying groups lobbying for lower taxes for business are out there?
Huh, bring on the Borax mules indeed.
Haven’t kept up on it, but I think GE is still avoiding cleanup of Hudson River PCBs.
Seems that’s what has done seeing as Obama’s been out hawking nuke plants in Chile.
Tax lawyers working for corps: GOOD.
Personal injury lawyers working for peeps: BAD.
Evening! He’s an untouchable in every sense of the word.
Hi, Pouting Baby. I wonder whether anyone here has already seen the explication of GE’s logo posted at Big Picture. It’s by Ritholtz’s book jacket illustrator, and looks like it could really enhance a youngster’s reading readiness.
Corporate Logos Reflect Company Principles
That’s an abomination if true.
Oh, that’s good.
I think it was probably a very lite snack.
Jeebuz, I’m behind the times. I thought they were already mostly done launching that new version rollout.
My bad.
something like 90%of all litigation is corp to corp
Lucent’s was mocked far and wide with a special salute for the flaming orifice that it was and still is.
Be sure to click on the link for Carnie in the post. It’s my little welcome gift to Jay Carney and seems to fit his job description very well.
If Obama were around during Nuremberg he would have appointed Goebbels as chief prosecutor.
From my link
What is the implication of that?
I bet a web based effort from a large and well known proggy blog to eradicate him for the position might stir up some shit . . . people are pissed nation wise and beginning to see corps as the problem as much as the GOP is. . . see Wisconsin, FL, IN n today Brown n CA are pissin people off, too.
Finally, here in CA.
Oh well, I can only hope. Sadly, hope seems more n more like prayer to me, n I’m rather averse to that in terms of theisms.
;-)
I don’t. I have known for quite a while that for all their whining about how high their taxes are, most major corporations and the very wealthy pay very little. You may well pay a higher rate than most of the Fortune 400.
Already on my calendar, and my book is on preorder.
I also have time blocked out to read it before the 30th.
Can’t wait ;-)
try this
BP Pretends 2010 Gulf Leak Never Happened
Edited on Thu Mar-31-11 07:36 PM by kpete
BP Refuses to Account for Gulf Leak in 2010 Sustainability Report
BP didn’t think it important to include (the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill) in the report because, according to the fine print, there’s been “no accurate determination” of how much oil actually leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. And so because there’s no exact measure, they didn’t think they should include it.
http://www.good.is/post/bp-refuses-to-account-for-gulf-...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110329/ts_yb...
So Obama loans GE a bunch of money bails them out but GE pays no taxes and creates no jobs in America last I checked? Why have them on a jobs commission?
How many jobs has GE outsourced out of America in the last ten years?
Does this WH not know what vetting means?
Well said!
that tort reform is a steaming pile of bull kackeeeee
Well, Russ Feingold’s group is on the job. You can give his effort some love here.
close to 60% of corps pay…..0
limp noodle doesnt care,the’re buddies
Got it.
Christine!
aww, hi pouting B.
k, let me splain again, about this latest. truth is there’s no splanation. you were rudely yanked from blissful nothingness into a carnival of cruel delusional murderous idiocy where awful people destroy everything but which will also be over before you know it and you’ll be blissful again. till then console yourself with laffs, non-assholes, and nature as much as possible. luvz as usual, cool gay auntie sharky
Yeah, but someone’s probably already shorting funny charities. So you know, it’s not about the charities. It’s about the short positions.
Mum’s the word.
Jeebus. I wouldn’t trust GE to do that job as they created the problem in the first place.
Heh. Nice catch!
Thanks, auntie. Good advice.
One does tend to apologize to the very young these days, doesn’t one?
!8D It must be fun to have everything one needs at the ready for those moments of inspiration, musn’t it?;>
As I said, I haven’t kept up on how it’s going. According to my link, there are 2 phases & phase 1 “cleaned up” 10% of the problem, while running into more difficulties than expected.
OTOH, there are very active environmental groups keeping tabs on teh Hudson, so hopefully they’re watching more carefully.
I know there was a lot of controversy on how to do it, and I was working then, so didn’t have the time to figure it out.
I think I’ll google around & see if I can update myself in coming days.
didja see this?
BP Oil Spill Claimants’ Personal Data Disappears with Lost Laptop
By: Fahmida Y. Rashid
2011-03-30
A BP employee has misplaced a laptop containing the personal information of more than 13,000 U.S. residents who filed compensation claims against the oil giant in the wake of the Deepwater Horizons oil spill.
Gulf Coast residents who’d filed claims against oil giant British Petroleum in the wake of last year’s oil spill have another thing to worry about: their private information has been lost and possibly exposed.
A BP employee on a business trip misplaced a laptop containing private information of about 13,000 individuals, the oil company said March 29. The laptop contained a spreadsheet of names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and Social Security numbers belonging to people who filed compensation claims after the disastrous April 2010 fire and oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spreadsheet listed only those who filed claims directly with BP before the Gulf Coast Claims Facility took over the processing in August 2010. There is no need for anyone to refile claims because of this incident, according to BP.
“There is no evidence that the laptop or data was targeted or that anyone’s personal data has in fact been compromised or accessed in any way,” said BP spokesman Tom Mueller.
The laptop, lost March 1, was password-protected, but the information was not encrypted, according to BP spokesman Curtis Thomas. While there were reports that the laptop had the capability to be remotely disabled, BP did not comment to eWEEK on that feature.
The company notified affected individuals of the information breach and offered free credit monitoring services with Equifax. The loss of the laptop has been reported to law enforcement and BP’s security team.
BP declined to provide any information on the employee or where the laptop was lost because of the ongoing investigation.
Well, from the same people who were stealing carcasses off the beaches in the night and hiring ‘security’ to ‘police’ the beachs so that the media would not get photos, what else would you expect?
Ah, the Bushies already short circuited the legal options.
They knew what they were doing over 20+ years of judicial nominations.
Gee whiz, GE, hope the light bulb comes back on for you.
there is a story on whales and dolphins i wont post…too sad for us animal loverz
Hey Pouting Baby! Waaaaaaah me some more!
In case you missed it, my state of Florida was in the news today for more Republican insanity. Marcy did a great post on it.
love her headline too!
Saw that several places today. Parody has been renditioned to a secret location in an Eastern Bloc country for enhanced interrogation.
your gov…also cut funds for disabled children,then went on photo op,at special Olympics
I am fading, so I think I will toddle off. One more day until spring break! Take care all.
The three reporting agencies are just a blackmail and extortion racket.
g’nite dr dick
Indeed. The spouse just leaned in the door and drolly, acidly announced our 2010 tax bill.
Next time I need light bulbs, they won’t be GE brand.
What other consumer items should I **not** be picking up, just to soothe my pissed off sense of indignation.
OTOH, just think of the grandiose vanity in which I could wallow if I wanted to think just how much more patriotic, virtuous, community spirited, and decent I am than GE.
I am many multiples more patriotic than GE.
Yes, that was infuriating, too.
Good night. And enjoy your upcoming break from shaping those young minds.
Niters Dr Dick.
Yeah, and unlike GE, I’m guessing those environmentalists actually pay taxes.
Speaking as an ‘environmentalist’, I sure as hell pay taxes!
DrDick is right: send GE to f*cking Somalia.
Let ‘em see how great an unfunded, failed state really is.
Whee!!!!
Infinitely! (division by zero, and all that…)
and they upped FEINBERGS pay to $1,200,000.00per month….nice
nite dic doc sweet dreamz
Still made in China, but I’ve been buying Feit Electric Company, Pico Rivera CA, Ecobulb. Don’t know if this is bad or good, but the price was right. 23W=100 watt. Anyone know?
That’s obscene.
they are all multinational now and quite frankly imo…schizophrenic
Pouting Baby!
When PII is lost laws in 49 states require notification of the individuals potentially impacted.
Offering credit monitoring is not legally required by any state.
he is a nasty piece of work
Kris!
Fading too. Nite all.
I know! Little Melting Jeff is a manipulative little prick. Kinda makes me want to outsource his ass.
g’nite ecahn
niters EC
Nite eCAHN.
Well hey, what’s a failed state or two as long as investors get their quarterly earnings, eh?
So what if that failed state is.. California… Indiana… Ohio… Wisconsin…
Obviously, cutting taxes for corporations and the uber-wealthy will make those failed states functional again.
/s
Feb 24, 2011
President Obama:
Athena Alliance,
Washington Post, Mar 31:
Russ Feingold:
lol
teh sad
Goodnight.
It’s like this, Pouting Baby, when you get to make the rules, you always win.
Go Russ!
GE and such need certain finite resources to make that stuff offshore with slaves and then to sell to you via price-fixing as they are a monopoly. Find out what the key ingredients are and see if you can get a bit of them as if they are in your hands those resources can’t be in theirs. Just think what happens when a bunch of people do that. Yet another reason the Chinese government doesn’t like the Tibetans and the US government doesn’t like the American Indians as both groups object to having their resources stolen and being poisoned to boot. Notice that paper is not one of those items nor, as helpfully explained to us by Ratigan’s panel today, is salt.
golden rule
And these guys buy the folks who make the rules.
x2
Little Melting Jeff doesn’t make the rules, he just exploits the shit out of them to the detriment of his country. Does that make him treasonous? I think so.
God, the taxes GE should’ve paid last year would’ve covered the cuts to LIHEAP.
Chew on that for a minute.
Good night folks. Don’t forget, only about two weeks left to file those taxes…
g’nite jim
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-03-30-wal-mart-ceo-expects-inflation_N.htm
nite Jim……guess ill hit the hay too….nite all
g’nite sadly
Immelt is one of the biggest welfare recipients. Shame on you, Barack Obama.
Niters eCAHN and Jim W.
Yeah I saw that little signal to the “market.”
I’m off as well. Oya.
g’nite mzchief
Perhaps as bad, there is a Pacific Gas & Electric Company sticker on the box all about saving energy. Bleech. I could barely read the print.
eeeeeeekkkk! I just stumbled on a Hardball segment in which it reports about a Republican Congressman – who serves on Foreign Relations Committee – who is concerned that US military intervention could ‘spread to AFRICA’.
“Do we go into Africa next”, Morino asks?
eeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkk!!
Silly me.
I had not realized that the US was in some kind of parallel universe ‘non-African Libya’ at present.
Must.Pay.More.Attention.In.Future…
Argh.
Duke Energy (my electric service), for my choosing paperless billing gave me seven 20w (= 100w) bulbs & eight 13w (= 60w) bulbs free. Made in China, Niagara Conservation company. So Duke will get less revenue and be required to raise the rate. They’re still in the box (shipped from NJ).
I just don’t know what to believe or do. I put these bulbs all over the house and felt so damn good. Now, not so much. LeSigh as Larue says.
Hinkley, CA still has water quality problems. Confirmed it myself.
Still happy we went Solar Saves us $$$ and helps the environment..
I love your story, and so admire you. Sigh. Happy Solar!
In the 1970′s I read that fluorescent lighting over time destroyed the visual purple (rods & cones?) and led to ‘night blindness’ — the inability for the eye to recover quickly from light bursts.
I don’t know if these newfangled bulbs yield the same light spectra as fluorescent bulbs.
I rent, but if I owned I’d be reaping the benefits of solar (like my basil plant).
Well, I’m pretty night blind at 58 years old.
i don’t feel comfy driving after dark anymore and i’m only 56
You’re young, though. Did you work mostly under fluorescent lighting?
You gotta grow as much as you can.. Renting or owning.. So long as you get sun you can grow great veggies… ground or pots or what ever.. Grow your own as much as you can..
My Wednesday night drives home at 9:00 in winter are a bit scary. And I need to have my eyes examined (like the dentist, I’ve been avoiding that too).
Thirty-five years in libraries, I’d say yes.
The light bulb movement is mostly feel-good PR. The energy saving and lower carbon footprint are statistically insignificant. Like gas consumption in my car: in my lifetime I will never have used as much gas as one airliner uses for one RT coast to coast flight. There are umpteen thousand flights every day! Twenty years ago a journalist hung out with Donald Trump for a few days, flew to West Palm Beach in Trump’s private jet. $25,000 RT from NYC for fuel.
That is a sad story for me. I am such a sucker. AND MrCE hates the bulbs anyway.
Our federal government has no shortages of money. Our establishment just likes to pretend there’s a shortage for political reasons.
Nicholas Shaxson, who readerOfTeaLeaves mentioned, has a lot to say about the present state of global tax havens. Not to long ago he gave a talk about at the London School of Economics.
The City of London and its Tax Haven Empire (mp3 download, 37MB)
I have a good-size terrace but it’s in the back where the sun comes late afternoon, not sufficient for vegs, but herbs do okay. Last year’s chives came up a few weeks ago twice as thick as their parents were and darker too, with double the flavor.
Thanks, Capt’n. I’ll put it in my queue for Saturday catch-up viewing.
I think we have to cut out the bit where corporations turn our politicans into sockpuppets who then rig the tax system to the benefit of the corporations.
These big corporations have teams of people who’s only job is to reduce the corporate tax bill. Presumably by legal means but that might depend on the bonus’s available for ‘good work’. Either way, they won’t pay a penny more than they are forced to pay.
Not a sucker, just an early adopter. The incandescents will be unavailable soon. Just like the golf clubs with U grooves, they’re no longer made and they violate the rules in official PGA and USGA competitions.
Oh good grief, there was just an ad on tv for “Con Agra feeding the people.” Could anything be more vile? BBC too.
MrCE has been hoarding massive amounts of incandescents (in baggies all over the basement). Should I let him bring them back upstairs?
do you want to send him a map? or a recent newspaper headline?
Toss a coin. If the incandescents are used much later, after the rates have gone up, you’ll pay a lot more.
And guess who will be paying for THAT? (GE is NOT an answer)
It is because very simply stock price has nothing to do with 1.) what a company makes, 2.) how a company is operated, or 3.) what a company is worth. Its only value is what the gamblers who invest think other gamblers will pay for the stock. Right now the gamblers see that America is in three wars, GE is a major defense contractor who has major contacts with the American government, has been smart enough to sell a part of their company to another company which should have never been alllowed near that part, has had its stumbling finance company propped up by the government AND not only has not paid one cent in taxes has actually gotten additional credits from that government. WINNING! Other suckers will buy this!
If markets and governments were truly rational, GE stock would be tanking as the government would have canned the sale of NBC, would be investigating its books, breaking up its finance company, AND be shutting every door in its plans to eliminate jobs not putting its CEO at the head of a commission to encourage corporations to act like they do. But there is nothing rational about stocks, and our President is too busy trying to line up his retirement to actually be the President.
I work at a GE plant as a contractor…have for years. Just this year the direct employees at the aircraft engine plant told me they just had their healthcare benefits slashed. Deductibles soared and GE contribution was lowered. I will never forget their faces as they told me about this. These people work hard for this criminal enterprise only to have their benefits slashed.
And now the word of their profits and tax dodging. 17 billion in profits while they slash their workers pay. GE is a criminal organization. A crime family if you will, built on the backs of abused workers.
Oh and all my friends there are worried their jobs are going to be outsourced. I have seen all kinds of IT and mfg jobs moved out the plant over to China and India. And its not slowing down at all. In fact its getting worse.
And the CEO of this criminal organization, Jeff “China My China” Immelt, is who Obama put in charge of his jobs policy programs? Of all the disgusting shit that Obama has done this was the one that finally made me despise the man. I have seen first hand the damage Immelt has done to hard working people and their families.
Obama, the greatest hoodwinker and bamboozler of all time.
Thanks for that report. It’s even more infuriating when you can put real faces on the people who are being abused by this evil system, so I’m sure this hit you really hard.
That pretty much states their case… though not in language that little melting Jeff would use.
Maybe it’s time that we all began to barter for things. It’s one way for the rest of us to avoid some of our taxes.
Barter is great.