Email from a friend- re Jeff Immelt

[The Green Manalishi]

I'll just post the text. Don't think there are any copyright violations. Any help in refuting or contexturalizing the facts appreciated. Snopes says 'true' but this does NOT look good.

begin paste:

"GE Leaving Wisconsin for .......

Keep your eye
on Waukesha , Wisconsin ......Their biggest employer just moved out.

General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from
Waukesha , Wis. , to Beijing .


In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in
China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers.

This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year, but
paid no taxes
- the same company that employs more people overseas than it does
in the United States .

So let me get this straight.
President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt
to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help
create jobs. I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was
supposed to be creating those jobs.

Thanks Jeff, you're a "real" American....give Barrack our Best!

If this doesn't show you the total lack of leadership of this President, I
don't know what does. Please pass this information to others and think about it
before you buy a GE product."


---Actually pre snopes they aren't getting RID of any jobs here, but still, WTF is wrong with this situation.

[Politicalboi]

1. They complain about leadership

But forget how their "leader" led us into an illegal war. People got killed. Money got laundered. Cities were destroyed. And there were no WMD's. Granted this doesn't look good for Obama, but maybe we here in America don't have the qualified engineers to do the jobs required. And lack of education is also another Repuke value, so it would make sense we don't have qualified people for some jobs.

These morons concentrate only on the bad with Obama. Since this x-ray company is in Wisconsin, there may be other Scott Walker issues that made this move happen.

[BenFox]

2. Email wrong about GE, a job creator

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to some inaccuracies in the chain email you reference.

The fact is that GE did not move its X-ray operation to China, but we did move four executives from Wisconsin to China. The rest of the business stays here. Having a presence in growing markets is critical for GE as we look for ways to create jobs at home through exports (GE is a net exporter to China).

The email is also wrong about GE’s taxes. The truth is that GE paid $1 billion in federal, state and local taxes in the U.S. for 2010. Our tax rate was low because GE lost billions of dollars as a result of the global financial crisis. We expect that our tax rate will be higher for 2011 as our business recovers. Like most Americans, we believe the U.S. tax system is in desperate need of reform, which includes closing loopholes.

GE is one of the largest private employers and the second-largest exporter in the United States. During 2011, GE announced the creation of more than 8,000 new U.S. jobs, bringing total new jobs added since 2009 to more than 13,000. These jobs will fill the 16 new U.S. factories that GE is building or rebuilding in the U.S. GE currently has nearly 2,000 U.S. job openings posted on its gecareers.com site.

Thanks again for the chance to clarify some inaccuracies in this chain email.

Ben Fox
GE Healthcare
[e-mail]

[The Green Manalishi]

3. Thank you

Thank you for the clarification, and for being on this forum.
It is much appreciated.

[JDPriestly]

4. Sounds good.

We need more jobs in the US. More precisely we need more good jobs in the US, including jobs that require training and experience in engineering.

But first, we need more media coverage about engineers.

More young Americans would choose careers in engineering if they knew just what engineers do and how interesting and challenging their work can be. Seems like a topic that is never discussed much.

Do you suppose companies like GE could support popular media programs about engineers, maybe some shows featuring real engineers and the work they are doing.