One must love our Benedict Arnold corporations. In the Economic Stimulus package currently being crafted in Congress, the U.S. chamber of Commerce, G.E. and Catepiller are trying to strip out the Buy American provisions in the bill.
Ok, the U.S. is in trouble and we are going to use U.S. taxpayer funds to stimulate our economy....
therefore our U.S. corporations try to fight support of U.S. manufacturing, goods, raw materials and demand they do not have to buy materials and supplies from other American companies.
In Corporate Citizen - an Oxymoron?, are some policy recommendations to get our corporations and businesses in line with the United States national interest.
Bloomberg seems to be the only financial press reporting on our lovely Benedict Arnold Corporations and GE....they were one of the first to squeeze their workers and arbitrage:
General Electric Co. and Caterpillar Inc. are among U.S. exporters that oppose “Buy American” provisions in the $825 billion stimulus legislation, saying it might spark a trade war.
The companies say that proposals pushed by companies such as U.S. Steel Corp. and Nucor Corp. to limit spending in the stimulus plan to American-made iron and steel risk igniting retaliation from other countries.
“You would be creating an ample basis for countries to close their markets to U.S. products,” said Karan Bhatia, GE’s senior counsel for international law in Washington, in an interview. Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE, the world’s biggest maker of jet engines and locomotives, gets half its sales from outside the U.S.
Of course they try to get our dirty word in, protectionist.
I make the case
That these are not American Corporations, they're representatives of a new international government that is attempting to invade our nation- and succeeding rather well, since they now own our government.
They deserve to be fought at all levels- from the dollar in your store whenever possible, to guns, bombs, and violence when necessary.
They do not deserve protection of the US military for their interests.
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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Why does the the U.S.
Why does the the U.S. chamber of Commerce always fight anything good for the American Middle Class? They should not be allowed to have the "U.S" in their name since they work for foreign companies.
All the nations are protecting their citizens (China, Britain, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan to name a few) and we are not allowed to protect our own American citizens, no wonder why the sky is falling.
Oh that's easy
Because the US Chamber of Commerce represents the nation's registered companies, not it's employees; this is especially true in regards to foreign relations. There is a major difference here. Also, the USCC is not a government organization, it is a non-for-profit group. Look at it this way, the US Chamber of Commerce, sorta, is to corporations, what the AFL-CIO is to workers. Not exactly, but close...you see what I'm saying here?
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
though they seem to be lobbying against their own long term interests and especially smaller business. They keep lobbying for things to trash the U.S. economy...I mean even from a pure Machiavellian business point of view they seem to be stuck on stupid and their own personal internal clock has to be in Quarters and does not display the next quarter until about 10 days before the current one ends. ;)
It's the same with another outfit...one we pay for...
the Department of Commerce!
Obama Commerce Secretary No Friend to U.S. High-tech Labor
Very, very funny you should mention the Commerce Department. Obama is suggesting John Thompson from Silicon Valley's Semantec be our new Dept. of Commerce (DOC) secretary. Well, guess what? That company outsources and H1B-visas workers like crazy. It is not pro-U.S. labor at all.
HuffPo Info on Thompson: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/john-thompson-commerce-se_n_161...
"India is Semantec's Second Largest Engineering Site"
(http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070212/market05.shtml)
and from their Semantec's site:
(http://www.symantec.com/en/in/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=200705...)
Secretary of Commerce, Symantec
I agree with you, it's a positively horrific choice and gives a horrific message not only to US workers but to US businesses. Symantec is one of the biggest labor arbitrage agenda/offshore outsourcing/H-1B employers in Silicon valley.
Here is the Instapopulist on this horrific choice.
You are spelling the corporate name incorrectly.
Obama, if he is going to the private sector should find a CEO who has not offshore outsourced to China/India/etc. and instead utilized the United States business friendly laws to build up a successful business and frankly one in advanced manufacturing would be ideal.
GE Corporate Welfare Queen
GE is getting bailout funds from US taxpayers and yet they spit in the US taxpayers face and lobby Congress to get Buy American provisions stripped from the stimulus package? Now that takes chutzpah!
General Electric Taps TARP for Additional Liquidity
GE's Finance Arm Launches $10 Billion FDIC-backed Debt
Commerce Secretary Pick/CTO Pick
I was told to be aware of the Commerce Secretary pick... a pro-outsourcer (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/john-thompson-commerce-se_n_161...) and the CTO pick might come from staunch ReThuglican Cisco Systems, Padmina Wagoneer (wrong spelling), studied chemistry in India, spent years at Motorola, and is now at Cisco in Silicon Valley. For sure, if these two are appointed, I will be dismayed. Silicon Valley is filled with H1Bers who have taken all sorts of jobs from HR (they seem to infiltrate the companies) to project management. It's pretty bad. Everyone knows that the salaries are low-balled too 'cause they get to live like royalty here compared to their third-world country. Pretty sad times.
People coming from Huffington Post
I see everyone is completely upset, and rightly so with the idea that one of the most notorious offshore outsourcers, labor arbitragers, H-1B users in Silicon valley might get such a position of government power as Commerce secretary.
I hear ya! May I suggest writing blog posts on this outrage on sites like:
www.democraticunderground.com
www.dailykos.com
www.openleft.com
slashdot.com
and any other blog you can find PLUS
call the white house, leave a message of outrage and disgust on whitehouse.gov (be polite in your outrage of course), call the White House and call your Congressional representatives as well.
Also, spread this fact around, few are aware of Symantec for while they are notorious, they are also more under the radar than say Intel, CISCO or Microsoft.
There are so many better choices, one's that would truly build up U.S. business using U.S. workers, for the national interest, U.S. economy. The last thing we need is to literally offshore outsource the United States Commerce Department.
I could not agree more with
I could not agree more with your post, I stringently believe that without making the stimulus plan coincide with new "Buy American" provisions, it will be just as much a failure as Bush's economic stimulus checks, which went straight back into peoples bills, and never saw the light of day in the economy. We owe it to our children to turn around our manufacturing sector, Otherwise, they will be left to flipping burgers in an impoverished America.
There are tons more information about this and other Buy American topics and discussions at my favorite blog site www.AmericanBoom.com/blog, give it a look.
Welcome to EP John
Since you are writing about US products, buy American, US manufacturing, you might consider creating an account on EP (upper right). We are a community blog which means you can write a blog post or an Instapopulist (just read all of the rules first) and many of us who are "regulars" are desperate to have the U.S. return to a production economy, boost in finished products, productions and especially focused on U.S. manufacturing. So, you will find kindred spirits here.
Bloomberg seems to be the
Bloomberg seems to be the only financial press reporting on our lovely Benedict Arnold Corporations and GE....they were one of the first to squeeze their workers and arbitrage: