Unless you're a certain cast member of "The Real Housewives of New York City," you understand that to "make lemonade out of lemons" means to create something positive out of something negative. This past week brought the United States some challenging lemons: earthquakes, storms, hurricanes, and roller coaster financial markets, just to name a few. Although most of us try our best to avoid problems, some things - such as the acts of nature we have experienced this week - are beyond our control. In all tough situations, most of us do what we can to survive with as little damage to ourselves, our family and friends, and our property as possible. However, as much as I hate to admit it, challenging situations usually also present positive opportunities.
In last week's blog post, I ranted that President Obama's jobs plan needs to include a jobs-creating role for the federal government, and ranted about the conservatives who call such federal jobs creation programs "socialism." As a result of the hurricane, earthquake, and storms this week, there are now more opportunities for making lemonade by rebuilding and refurbishing our infrastructure. These opportunities could be filled by a federal jobs-creating engine that puts Americans back to work. In last week's post, I also compared the concept of a "socialistic" federal jobs program with the more widely accepted practice, albeit greater evil, of flooding U.S. markets with products made in the People's Republic of China. The United States has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs to China, aka the People's Republic, and we are losing more each day. On top of this, the companies who are outsourcing jobs to China advertise and promote themselves as "American companies," make billions off of U.S. consumers, and pay little back to the United States in taxes.
As a case in point, let's take a look at GE. General Electric used to be an American company. It was founded by the esteemed American inventor and businessman, Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the incandescent light bulb. In 1876, Edison began exploring electrical devices in a small laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. By 1890, Edison established the Edison General Electric Company, and in 1892, when Edison merged his company with a competitor, the new business became the General Electric Company. Electric fans, the first GE appliances, were produced in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in 1907. Aircraft engines were added to the company in 1917, when the U.S. government was searching for a company to develop an airplane engine booster. Plastics were added in 1930.
To this day, General Electric promotes itself to the American public as an American company. It proudly chronicles the American story of its history on its web site without mentioning its outsourcing activities, other than stating on one page that it employs over 300,000 people worldwide. GE carefully cultivates its image to the American consumer, and until recently, most of us, including me, thought that General Electric was an American company. However, it is one of the largest outsourcers of American jobs to foreign countries. In the past two years, GE has closed 29 factories in the U.S. and out sourced most of those jobs, mainly to China, which owns about 80% of the U.S . trade deficit.
Many of these jobs have been necessary to the future, as well as the present well-being of the U.S. economy, such as the outsourcing of CFL light bulb manufacturing, "green technology" jobs to China. Most recently, GE transferred its "synthetic vision" system to China. This technology helps pilots to take off and land their planes in adverse weather conditions, and may be worth millions to airlines in the future. Along with this system, math, science and technology jobs were outsourced to the People's Republic.
At the beginning of the year, President Obama appointed Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Chairman and CEO, to serve as chair of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. I am bemused by the President's selection of Immelt, and still wonder what the President's motive was. Did he hope that Immelt would "see the light" and start bringing their outsourced jobs back home? Was Obama following the advice of Sun-tze, the (ironically) Chinese General and military strategist who said, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" To be sure, GE has cut back on its outsourcing activities - but not enough - and it has brought back some of its IT jobs and created some new jobs at home - but not enough.
I, for one, think that the appointment of Immelt was just plain wrong. I don't believe that the CEO of GE should be rewarded for bad, unpatriotic behavior. In light of GE's recent outsourcing of the synthetic vision system, I think that Obama should fire Immelt, and appoint the CEO, President, or Founder of a company that is trying to remain loyal to his or her country by creating new jobs and maintaining jobs in the United States. Obama should appoint someone such as Fred Carl, founder of Viking Range Corporation, Patrick J. Callaghan, President of Pepperidge Farm, Terry McAuliffe, Chief of GreenTech Automotive, or Tom Chappell, founder of Tom's of Maine. At least these guys have proven that they are not only patriotic, but they know how to make lemonade out of lemons.*******************
We create and keep U.S. jobs when we demand, promote, and buy Made in USA goods and products.
This week's recommended products:
Ed. Note: With school starting, I continue my research on school supplies. Here are some recommended brands of "Made in USA" printer paper. Unfortunately, my "hands-on" research was limited this week due to Mother Nature's "lemons." (I tried my best to make lemonade - I'll add more info on printer paper in the next blog post.) Remember to check labels. Please feel free to post your own research to this blog!
· Printworks Multipurpose Paper - Made in USA by Paris Business Products, Westhampton, NJ
(http://www.myprintworks.com/)· up & up Multipurpose Printer Paper - Made in USA by Target Brands,
Inc., Minneapolis, MN
(http://www.totallytarget.com/2011/07/11/what-are-you-doing-with-your-1-up-up-coupon/)
· Hemmi Papilio Decal Paper - Made in USA by Hemmi Papilio Supplies LLC, Decatur,
TX
(www.papilio.com/)
"GE 'all in' on plane deal with China," Howard Schneider, The Washington Post, 08/23/11
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/01/manufacturing-alliance-chief-obama-turning-to-one-of-countrys-leading-outsourcers-in-immelt.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/immelt-appointment-labor-reaction_n_812278.html
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/07/30/ge-outsourcing-new-%E2%80%98green-jobs%E2%80%99-to-china/
http://www.industryweek.com/articles/ge_expansion_to_bring_250_manufacturing_jobs_to_ellisville_miss-_25291.aspx
http://www.industryweek.com/articles/ge_expansion_to_bring_250_manufacturing_jobs_to_ellisville_miss-_25291.aspx
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/press/releases
http://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/bio_callaghan.asp
http://www.terrymcauliffe.com/
http://www.prettyandstupid.com/idiot/176
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/36994.html
No comments:
Post a Comment