Obama Said to Consider Kindler (Pfizer), Schmidt (Google) for Commerce Secretary

[onehandle]

Source: Bloomberg News

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may look to the business community for his next secretary of Commerce with former Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler and Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt among potential candidates, according to a person familiar with the process.

Ron Kirk, who has had a leading role in pressing the administration’s trade agenda as U.S. trade representative, also is a contender for the job, according to another person. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because the search is in preliminary stages.

The post is coming open because the president said yesterday that he is nominating the current secretary, Gary Locke, to be the U.S. ambassador to China. Locke would replace Jon Huntsman, whose resignation is effective April 30.

Administration officials yesterday refused to comment on a possible successor to Locke.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-10/obama-said-to-consider-kindler-schmidt-for-commerce-secretary.html

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Corporate Rule You Can Believe In.




.

[Angry Dragon]

1. It is good to have a corporate cabinet

[Zorra]

2. Hopefully there will be a Democrat running for President in 2012.

Cuz we're gonna have Sarah Palin (insane Tea Party radical fascist) running against Obama (conservative republican corporatist).

yikes

[Teaser]

4. cuz all American businesses are SATAN

what do we expect from Adolf Pol Pot Obama?

[Zorra]

6. Nah. The multi-national corporations that own our government are satan.

I have nothing against folks in business that don't use their wealth to destroy democracy, the environment, and control people with their wealth. I wish them success.

Obama is not a dictator. He's just a tool of the multi-national corporations.

[Teaser]

11. Google is really not in that league though

they've had a few bad missteps in the last few years, but by and large they have been a step above most of that ilk.

[Zorra]

17. I understand your point. But it is pretty clear that almost everything in politics

is controlled by money and therefore most politicians are primarily concerned with furthering the agenda of wealthy private commercial interests. Continually appointing employees of these wealthy private commercial interests to high level cabinet posts is a recipe for failure. Given the perfect example of the utter failure of the Bu*h Administration, economically, and in every other way imaginable, it does not at all follow that people who are good at marketing and running businesses are good at running government. In fact, if we look around us, it is very clear that the exact opposite is true - business people do very poorly in running government. Possibly because their training, and their primary focus, is narrow in that it is geared toward making profit, and not in serving people, which is supposed to be the function of government in our democratic republic.

So how about someone like Paul Krugman for a cabinet post? That just ain't never gonna happen until we make it happen. The best we're gonna do is a wealthy CEO from a not totally bad multinational corporation.

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Recommendations Relative to the Strengthening and Enforcement of Anti-trust Laws"

[neoralme]

8. Accurately stated. It is like we are alone.

[Zorra]

14. The trick they use is this: They run republicans for Prez that are so dangerous

that Democrats will vote for anyone that runs as a Democrat against the wacko republican. The multinational corporations have the money and the media to control public opinion to the extent that they can guarantee (they have the best marketing analysts that money can buy) that one of their corporatist "Democratic" candidates (see Clinton vs. Obama, 2008 election) will be nominated as the Democratic candidate to run against the nutjob republican candidate. It's a win-win for them - they will gain more control with the republican in office but the "Democrat" will still further the corporate agenda - just a little less to make it look good enough to us "little people" so that we have a least some shred of an illusion that we live in a democracy.

Here's how Subcomandante Marcos explained it back when he was involved in the Zapatista revolt of indigenous peoples back in the 90's. This is from an essay (an informative read and easy to find through search) entitled "The Seven Loose Pieces of the Global Jigsaw Puzzle":

"The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers. It will be this way until the dwarfs rebel..."

We're not alone. There's lots of us not just in the US but all over the world. We need to agree on what the problem is, and then unite in steadfast solidarity to fix it.

[ej510]

15. This Obama needs that corporate cash to get re-elected.

[neoralme]

19. Right. And much of the contest for that cash we are not seeing.

[neoralme]

18. I have fully believed what you have said for a long time. The Corporatists

have a hierarchy of who they want to be President. Between McCain and Obama, Obama became a better choice because McCain has liberal pockets that he wouldn't dispense with out of mere arrogance. Obama was more malleable. In 2012, the Corporatists have to decide who is the safer bet, Obama or Pawlenty. It doesn't really matter because neither poses a serious threat to their financial structure, but a Palin might, because she might not take commands due to her stupidity. After watching Inside Job yesterday, I know a lot more than I did about how crooked everything is. Most of the executives from Goldman Sachs should be in jail right now. Yes, we need to have solidarity to fix it, and we have to be ready to move beyond passivity in our methods or they will win. We desperately need a leader. Also, we need better methods of communication.

[Teaser]

3. I'd take Google over Pfizer

significantly less evil.

[msongs]

5. aren't there any republicans looking for the job? nt

[tpsbmam]

7. Pfizer. I'm so fucking surprised. nt

[howaboutme]

9. More of the same ole

We need Secretary of Commerce that works in the USA people's interest, not for world corporations and other nations.

Ron Kirk and every other US Trade Rep have never ever represented Americans. They represent international corporations including Wall St and Asia, etc. That is the one thing that Donald Trump has repeatedly stated where he has been spot on imho.

Jeffrey Kindler was not a success for Pfizer, why would he be a successful advocate for America and its people.

What we don't need are more of the same Ivy League template grads of the same culture that Obama has used for most of his appointments. They have spent their lives surrounded with wealth and understand and have empathy for only those with their own Ivory Tower beliefs.

Why not some salt of the earth Americans from universities that understand that the USA is about more than NYC and Harvard?

[luvspeas]

10. Another reactionary knee-jerk response from reactionary knee-jerks...

Did any of you actually READ the article? It is full of speculation and it says among people being considered in the early stages it includes some business people. I am familiar with Ron Kirk from his work in Texas. He is a pretty good Democrat (middle, socially left of middle), and not a business fat cat.

The article also implies that the business community does not agree with Obama's policies. Hardly a response from people who have someone in their pocket.

The comments are wildly over the top on this one.

[russspeakeasy]

20. "the business community does not agree with Obama's policies"

and you fall for that shit?

[frylock]

23. please don't throw me in the briar patch..

the business community saying it doesn't agree with obama is just a way for them to extort even more.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

12. no fucking way!!.

[JJW]

13. O's revolving door of corruption

How much does Google pay in US income tax? 2.5 percent on billions in profits.

[PurityOfEssence]

16. And Yogi Bear, Secretary of Pick-a-nick baskets

Somehow the acolytes will justify this as necessary and further proof of his concern for the commoners.

[nalnn]

21. I have a bad feeling

That this is what we as Americans (and a lot of the developed world) have to look forward to no matter who the next few presidents are. Corporatcracy is now the order of the day.

[OhioChick]

22. You have to be shitting me...Pfizer & Google?

:wtf:

[xchrom]

24. Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html

Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google’s income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.