The president of General Electric slams his previous company green policy as being “too elitist”, vows to get back to “working”. Maybe this will mean no more “green sin week” on GE owned TV networks.
His quote is similar to the headfirst smack into reality experienced this week by über greenist George Monbiot:
From Reuters: The head of the largest U.S. conglomerate, who in January was named a top adviser on job creation to U.S. President Barack Obama, said on Tuesday that GE’s focus on the environmentally friendly aspects of its wind turbines and high-efficiency appliances might have led his critics to believe he was more interested in saving the planet than growing the company.
“If I had one thing to do over again I would not have talked so much about green,” Immelt said at an event sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Even though I believe in global warming and I believe in the science … it just took on a connotation that was too elitist; it was too precious and it let opponents think that if you had a green initiative, you didn’t care about jobs. I’m a businessman. That’s all I care about, is jobs.”
…
“I’m kind of over the stage of arguing for a comprehensive energy policy. I’m back to keeping my head down and working,” Immelt said.
h/t to junkscience.com
What timing, from Failblog:
http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/5qm21.jpeg?w=500&h=669
http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/5qm21.jpeg?w=500&h=669
Instead of concentrating on its core businesses and quality, GE’s business plan seems to be to chase the latest fads, suck up to politicians, and finagle ways to completely avoid paying taxes.
Can’t argue with that.
If this trend continues…
April 11, 2011
“Wal-Mart Goes ‘Back to Basics’: A Cautionary Tale for the Left
Leslie Dach, former senior aide to Al Gore, was the impetus behind Wal-Mart’s failed shift to “green,” upscale items that fit the progressive agenda for what Americans should be buying.”
“After suffering seven straight quarters of losses, today the merchandise giant Wal-Mart will announce that it is “going back to basics,” ending its era of high-end organic foods, going “green,” and the remainder of its appeal to the upscale market. Next month the company will launch an “It’s Back” campaign to woo the millions of customers who have fled the store. They will be bringing back “heritage” products, like inexpensive jeans and sweatpants.”
“The failure, in large part, can be pinned to Leslie Dach: a well-known progressive and former senior aide to Vice President Al Gore. In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.
Out went drab, inexpensive merchandise so dear to low-income Americans. In came upscale organic foods, “green” products, trendy jeans, and political correctness. In other words, Dach sought to expose poor working Americans to the “good life” of the wealthy, environmentally conscious Prius driver.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wal-mart-goes-back-to-basics-a-cautionary-tale-for-the-left/
Jim G says: May 5, 2011 at 11:51 am
“She’s goin’ down. Abandon Ship!”
Better yet, She’s going down. All you rats abandon ship!
Yep! It’s gone down!
Just been told that if you google UK news for “global warming” and “peak oil”, that “peak oil” now has more news hits than global warming.
So guess where all the rats are heading?
How long before Mann, Hansen, Jones et al, find a way to link their work with peak oil?
How long before gorebals is castigating the “peak oil deniers”?
Charlie Foxtrot,
You say GE should get back to ‘real capitalism’ but then slam them for obtaining ‘special write offs’ and taxpayers money.
Real capitalism takes the money from wherever it is available. You need to go and think things through a bit more.
doesn’t pass the sniff test…..
They sold TV to Comcast…..
His shareholders did the math and realized without all that government stimulus money and tax rebates, it was going to bankrupt them all……
This is just a result of no more liberal feel good money.
And Canada just went conservative! LOL
Jim says:
May 5, 2011 at 11:20 am
Since when do businesses care about jobs? Well, unless it is jobs done by the cheapest possible labor or robot. The fewer people they have, the better for them. I’m not being critical, that’s just the way it is.
And indeed that’s the way it should be. Businesses are not charities; they work to make money to survive and prosper, as we all do. A person employed unnecessarily (e.g. where a robot could just as easily perform the same role) is a person – with all the skill and experience attached – who could be employed elsewhere in the market where there is a need. And paying an employee more than the minimal requirement is an unnecessary cost that must always be passed onto the consumer if the business is to survive. That’s why socialism is such a negative force; it demands jobs for the sake of jobs, rather than for the sake of fulfilling a genuine need, and robs areas of human resources where a genuine need does exist. It tries to create false value, where value does not exist, with subsidies (paid for by the hard-working taxpayer) to support jobs that the free market would never support and that society does not want or need. This amounts to redistribution of wealth (otherwise known as “theft”) and it’s what “Green” jobs and social sector jobs are all about.
So think on, next time you feel like bemoaning how private businesses use cheap labour or robots.
Oh thank God! I was holding my breath till he turned. He must have seen me turning blue.
/sarc
What % of GE stuff is made in China? What major GE stock holder group said, “Isn’t it hypocritical to be preaching “green” in the US when GE’s factory’s in China are a major source of climate change pollution?” AND, question Mr. Immelt, “Are you going to now stop producing those dangerous mercury laden CFLs, or have you truly seen the light?”
Well, he may be tight with the political left, but he’s also got shareholders to answer to, and they’re probably tired of this.
Also, since the news stories on how many jobs GE has outsourced to China, including their fluorescent light bulb factory, I doubt many care about their “Green” approach. Considering they paid 0 federal taxes on huge profits.
Meanwhile in Britain: UK ‘MUST RETHINK ENERGY TARGETS’
The Government should renegotiate “hugely and unnecessarily expensive” EU targets to boost renewable power by 2020, a think tank urged today.
A study by Policy Exchange suggested that trying to meet the European goal, which requires the UK to deliver 15% of all its energy from green sources by the end of the decade, will actually damage efforts to cut emissions.
http://www.utilityproducts.com/news/2011/05/1411257965/uk-must-rethink-energy-targets.html
Going green is proving to be the first guaranteed way to creating a self inflicted recession. The best and brightests of the worlds ill considered big costly “save the planet” projects are folding one after another.
kwik said:
May 5, 2011 at 12:50 pm
………
But it will last 5 to 10 years before we stop hearing this cabon tax bullshit from the most stupid politicians on this planet.
The politicians in Norway.
—————————————————————————
That’s a bold claim. 😉
WalMart’s also beginning to see the light insofar as what their customers really want to buy.
http://www.huliq.com/10128/hired-guns-walmart-reintroduces-firearms-target-male-customers
harrywr2 says:
May 5, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Kum Dollison says:
May 5, 2011 at 11:18 am
Both Warren Buffett, and Jeff Immelt are betting the same way – that fossil fuels will get a lot more expensive
Warren Buffet’s railroad hauls 2.5 million rail cars of coal per year. I don’t think he believes his railroads biggest customer is going away anytime soon.
==============
From:
http://www.getransportation.com/rail/rail-products/locomotives/overview.html
“Right now, around the world, locomotives designed and built by GE are on the move, transporting products and people. At any one time, thousands of our locomotives are operating in more than 60 countries, from Australia to Zaire.”
coaldust says (May 5, 2011 at 11:24 am): “As a former GE employee I can tell you that GE cares about nothing except the bottom line. “Green” is only useful if it helps the bottom line. Period. If it starts to hurt thr bottom line, it will be thrown out faster than a speeding GE Hybrid Locomotive.”
If only that were true. I inherited some GE stock from my sainted mother back when it was trading in the 50’s. Wish I’d sold it the next day. Now this clown is renouncing the “green” religion for the “jobs” religion. Gimme a break.
“Even though I believe in global warming and I believe in the science …”
Science??? He sounds more like some guy proclaiming his devotion in church because he is worried that that the preacher might not think he has the faith. I would question his intelligence but I suspect he needs to act that way to keep his company out of the cross hairs of leftist politicians. It is the same with Big Oil Chevron and and recent idiotic commercials. If they don’t push the religion, the zealots will come after them with even more vigor and some of them have the actual political power to harm them. They will never be respected by anti-capitalists that make up the green movement so they might as well stop pretending to support the cult.
A few years ago I spoke to a GE engineer at a dinner meeting. I asked him “Why does GE hype wind turbines so much, as we, as engineers know, that they don’t make sense. Why not push nuclear power plants, which GE also used to make?”
The answer was:
“Simple business. In the olden days GE would sell a gas turbine peaker plant to the utilies every once on a while”.
Note: Those plants run only a few times in the year when demand peaks because they are expensive to run (fuel efficiency) and don’t last that long.
He continued:
“With the renewable mandates, the utilities are forced to utilize wind turbines, which we supply. To cover the continuously changing and uncontrollable output of those, the utilities need also a fast reacting gas turbine plant for every few wind turbines. And they still need the original peaker plant as well. So we sell three turbines instead of one. With a nuclear plant you sell one, and that one will run for 60 years with nary a hitch. Not a good business for a manufacturer.”
GE = Government Electric, guaranteed money at the tax trough. The companies’ innovation is now in its political partnerships. Inspiring American technical leadership has evolved and is taking its direction and decisions from superior intellectual political czars, its the new age. Our future is secure.
Rent seeking hasn’t paid off too well for GE shareholders, who are very unhappy with the stock continuing to languish at 20 compared to close to 50 when Immhelt took over. We can guess that Immhelt’s musings aim to defuse shareholder wrath. The previous CEO, Jack Welch, had built the company into a profit-making dynamo based on real value delivered. Mr. Welch could be very unhappy with what has happened to GE since he left the scene.
I don’t trust them. I don’t trust GE. I don’t trust the “Team”. I don’t trust President Obama, I don’t trust our “Elected Elite”. All they have shown is more regulations and new hidden taxes. The CO2 battle will not be over until Congress declares CO2 a non pollutant.
Immelt isn’t nearly as important as this:
“raised the hackles of some shareholders.”
Share price is the ONLY THING THAT COUNTS in America. If pseudo-science is no longer a magic way to raise your share price, pseudo-science will disappear. This is definitely good news.
Immelt must be feeling some pressure otherwise he wouldn’t be saying what he just did. The truth for GE is that as long as Immelt in at the helm, the ship will never reach a profitable port.
Shareholders: GET RID OF THIS ALBATROSS !!!
1. I believe in Gore, the Warmer almighty, creator of an Inconvenient lie.
2. I believe in Michael Man, his only Prophet, our Gorebull warming Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the almight Hansen and born of the CRU.
4. He suffered under McKyntre, was found out, that he lied, and but was brought forth again and again.
5. He descended to the insignificant. On the 3rd month he rose again.
6. He ascended into the Nobel Peace Prize and is seated at the right hand of the Paccurri.
7. He will come again to judge the GW Believers and the evil deniers.
8. I believe in the IPPC,
9. the holy catholic consensus, the communion of the climate saints,
10. the granting of carbon credits, of sins,
11. the resurrection of the CRU and IPPC,
12. and of strife everlasting.
Amen.
Sound familiar? Well, I am one that says the “Original” at my CHURCH when participating in “Holy Communion”
All the rest, I take facts, data, equations. I make judgments made on NUMBERS and good engineering understanding and principles.
When it comes to “Global Warming”, I don’t do “Belief”. Anyone that does, shows them selves slightly above a Neanderthal.
Just remember GE stockholders, you have a Neanderthal running your company.
Good luck, and good grunts.
If GE wants to come home, they would have the American Lighting Industry pretty much to themselves.
No more “Made in China” on the box and watch them line up for the Edison.
polistra says:
“Share price is the ONLY THING THAT COUNTS in America.”
Correct. Those who expect companies like GE to be ‘socially conscious’, or whatever the term du jour is, fail to understand that maximizing shareholder profits isn’t just a nice idea – it’s the law.
Public, for-profit companies have a fiduciary duty to make as much money as legally possible for their shareholders. To the extent that they waste shareholders’ money on “stakeholder” demands from outside NGOs, or on money-wasting ‘green’ schemes, the corporate officers may be personally liable for action by shareholders.
Immelt claims he’s doing his fiduciary duty. He’s either incompetent or lying. Certainly in either case, he is not worth $12 million a year for his wretched performance.
The appropriation of environmentalism in the form of AGW by those who consider themselves an elite, either for financial gain a la GE, or personal aggrandisement and the pushing of a political agenda a la sanctimonious tribalistic automatons like Monbiot and Flannery will do untold damage to genuine environmental concerns, not to mention the perception of science in the future. Most of the public don’t take kindly to being crudely manipulated, and will most likely throw the baby out with the bathwater as regards the damaging and real things we can do to our planet.