China to replace U.S. as top economic power, says GE CEO Immelt

[somone]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70J5JZ20110120

China to replace U.S. as top economic power, says GE CEO
By Chrystia Freeland

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, the 130 year-old American industrial behemoth, the financial crisis marked the end of the age of America's economic dominance. "I came to GE in 1982," Mr. Immelt told me this week in Washington. "For the first 25 years, until the bubble crashed in 2007, the American consumer was the definitive driver of the global economy."

But Mr. Immelt said the future will be different. For the next 25 years, he said, the American consumer "is not going to be the engine of global growth. It is going to be the billion people joining the middle class in Asia, it is going to be what the resource-rich countries do with their newfound wealth of high oil prices. That's the game." A lot of that game will be played in China. At a moment when it is compulsory on the American right to pay homage to the exceptionalism of the United States, Mr. Immelt, a lifelong Republican, is matter-of-fact about China's inevitable rise.

Indeed, reflecting this pragmatism, GE is this week signing a joint venture agreement in commercial aviation with a state-owned Chinese company that -- despite any risk of handing over advanced technology -- will mean sharing some of the most sophisticated airplane electronics. "It is going to be the biggest economy in the world," Mr. Immelt said of China. "The only question is when."...

The China challenge, in Mr. Immelt's view, is about much more than a manipulated exchange rate and "cheap labor." "It is the adaptability, it is the speed with which they move, it is the unanimity of purpose, it is the productivity of thought," he said, adding that when he visits his interlocutors at the Ministry of Railways in Beijing, the mandarins are at work on Sunday. Nor does Mr. Immelt flinch when, in conversation, it is suggested that this "business model that works for them" is Communist authoritarianism. "That has been very effective," he said. "They're in their 12th five-year plan and they've done quite well."...

[tabatha]

1. Yep, Immelt, because you shipped jobs there.

[OhioChick]

11. Bingo n/t

[madrchsod]

2. he`s obama`s right hand man...

we are so screwed

[Autumn]

3. This man is going to be good for us?

That's the game. And we have to play. Ok:puke:

[HughBeaumont]

4. Ha Ha Ha America.

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/haha_america/

Jeffrey "Immelt American Worker's Futures" never met a plant he couldn't close or a job he couldn't ship overseas.

But hey, that's who Commie Marxist Leninist Socialist Fascist Preznits roll with, right?

[leftstreet]

5. Good. Then THEY can take over the $$ military policing $$ of the worldz!

And LOL at "Communist authoritarianism"

yeah, riiiiiight

[Hydra]

12. What "Millitary policing of the world" would that be?

When there's no oil, minerals or water, we're not interested. I'm sure China will be happy to take that racket over.

[OHdem10]

6. Henry Kissinger wisely says just a minute now and Henry has

spent as much time and done business in China.

On C. Rose the other night, Kissenger pointed out
all these estimate show China going in this straight
line and almost straight up. He reminds us that
China has their doubts. No country has gone
uninterruped by perhaps unintended forces.

China's coast is built up and can be compared to
Western world but alas start visiting the interior
and close to 3rd world with millions of people.
Can they really move all these millions to the coast
and provide them with jobs----keeping everyone employed
over long long periods of time.

They are going to run into their own demographic problem,
All those families producing only one child. Whooeeee.
Not enough people to sustain the society in the style
to which it has become accustomed.



While I like somethings about Immelt, he sounds like
a "Salesman". Is this the Corporates with another
fairy tale. WE HAVE SEEN WHAT HAPPENED when they
sold the world on Unfettered FREE TRADE. The whole
d... thing has collapsed in their faces.

[provis99]

7. hasn't 30 years of Reaganomics been just dandy?

we did it to ourselves, if we're being overtaken by a crappy country like China.

[DCKit]

8. Where was he when BushCo* was having secret meetings with corporate leaders?

Could they not have even tried in 2000 to reverse this trend? Was the Clinton administration unwilling to listen to the corporate titans who (given their position) should have seen what was coming?

There are no excuses, and things are playing out exactly as TPTB want them to.

BTW, has anyone else seen how corporate conglomerates, sovereign funds and insanely wealthy individuals (many from China) are buying massive tracts of land and resources all over the globe? Not sure if the report was on Aljazeera or RT, but it was a doozie.

[Nay]

9. WTH is Obama doing with this jackal? We're finished. Totally

finished. I'm so glad I'm 60+ years old. I won't have much longer to deal with this shit.

[Swamp Rat]

10. I smell war with China in the not-so-distant future,

and not some proxy war, though it'll begin that way.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8Hj_Wh-XlWQ/TNGBfS2An6I/AAAAAAAABmU/Pk1BtOUsjLw/s1600/apocalypse+now.jpg

[Hydra]

13. Only if we're lucky

The smart man does not go to war at all- he demolishes his opponent's economy.

But that's all war boils down to anyway. Economics of "You have something I want- gimmeee!!"

[Caretha]

14. We are so screwed

I knew that before this OP was posted, but it just empasizes that I really need to get my shit together in the next 2 years in order to make sure I can survive.

[pampango]

15. Inevitable. We're 4 times bigger than the UK and surpassed their economy.

I'm glad our economy is not smaller than the UK's today. China is 4 times bigger than us and will surpass our economy at some point. Like in the UK is still pretty good because they take care of their people.