http://news.yahoo.com/ge-moving-x-ray-le...49888.html

Good thing Obama appointed GE CEO Jeff Immelt to the committee responsible for figuring out how to stop U.S. corporations from outsourcing jobs. It's clearly working.

(07-26-2011 10:50 AM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  http://news.yahoo.com/ge-moving-x-ray-le...49888.html

Good thing Obama appointed GE CEO Jeff Immelt to the committee responsible for figuring out how to stop U.S. corporations from outsourcing jobs. It's clearly working.

It's fine...if the plan is for China to acquire us.

Gotta hand it to Immelt, he's just the second guy I know who can talk out of both sides of his face at the same time. The 1st one is the doofus that tapped him to create jobs.

Apparently it's not taxes that are causing them to move overseas.

Another economic zinger for COTUS.

Wow - $2bb to be invested in China for 6 research centers. The USA could sure use those, along with the jobs being created by this "investment"!

I guess China's government doesn't talk pie in the sky "Hope & Change" but simply keeps kicking @ss with a red hot GDP of about 8.2% right now.

(07-26-2011 02:01 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  Apparently it's not taxes that are causing them to move overseas.

Source?


Actually, taxes are almost certainly not the sole reason for this, or any, move. There is a complex calculus of factors typically considered, including labor and other costs, productivity (labor quality and infrastructure being two primary considerations), risks (economic, political, currency), regulation (environmental, corporate governance, other), litigation system, proximity to vendors and markets, and of course taxes. We need to win as many of those battles as we can if we want industry to come here instead of leaving. Taxes aren't the only consideration, but they are one that we could win but are currently losing.

The more I think about it, the more I think that my approach to getting us out of the current economic crisis would include turning the US into a tax haven. With the size of our market and tax haven status, we'd be a serious contender for every multinational on the planet to relocate headquarters here. That would presumably include both a lot of highly-paid executive employees and significant operations. Holland has done this for years, and Ireland has recently tried to out-Dutch the Dutch. The biggest problem I'd foresee is the one Ireland had--the infrastructure to support that growth would be very expensive to put in so quickly. But unlike Ireland, we a) have a big enough economy to take that on, and b) have a big enough economy that we could sustain through future crises by stimulating domestic consumption.

I think it's a reference to the reports that GE paid no income tax last year.

(07-26-2011 03:08 PM)I45owl Wrote:  I think it's a reference to the reports that GE paid no income tax last year.

Yes, but the way they accomplished that is by doing deals like this.

If that's the reference, then it's actually dead wrong. It is precisely to avoid US taxes that GE is moving things overseas. While I said taxes are generally just part of the calculus, in this case it's pretty clearly a driving element of their strategy.

Look at the results. Res ipsa loquitur.

(07-26-2011 02:44 PM)boss man Wrote:  Another economic zinger for COTUS.

Wow - $2bb to be invested in China for 6 research centers. The USA could sure use those, along with the jobs being created by this "investment"!

I guess China's government doesn't talk pie in the sky "Hope & Change" but simply keeps kicking @ss with a red hot GDP of about 8.2% right now.

Their GDP growth is from building infrastructure and real estate that they don't need, and that is largely going unused. They can't keep that up for much longer.

(07-26-2011 02:44 PM)boss man Wrote:  Another economic zinger for COTUS.

Wow - $2bb to be invested in China for 6 research centers. The USA could sure use those, along with the jobs being created by this "investment"!

I guess China's government doesn't talk pie in the sky "Hope & Change" but simply keeps kicking @ss with a red hot GDP of about 8.2% right now.

All we have to do is get a work force of 1 billion poor people that will work for cheap, and not have any pollution standards, and we could vie for that business as well.

From Wisconsin to China. Maybe Immelt is doing Obama and the unions a payback favor.

(07-26-2011 03:11 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-26-2011 03:08 PM)I45owl Wrote:  I think it's a reference to the reports that GE paid no income tax last year.

Yes, but the way they accomplished that is by doing deals like this.

If that's the reference, then it's actually dead wrong. It is precisely to avoid US taxes that GE is moving things overseas. While I said taxes are generally just part of the calculus, in this case it's pretty clearly a driving element of their strategy.

Look at the results. Res ipsa loquitur.

I don't think they've moved much overseas recently - not jobs anyway. They have about 15% fewer employees in the U.S. than they did 4 years ago (most of the drop was in 2009) but they also have about 10% fewer employees overseas, than they did 4 years ago. That was through 2010. Even the move mentioned here was not very many people.