By Jim Hoover
I can remember that when JFK was president in the 1960s, he gave credence to the best minds in America and routinely utilized them for important advisory and cabinet positions in his administration. Contrarily George W. Bush seemed to brag about his own mediocrity, demonizing the intellectually elite while he appointed business cronies to important positions in his administration.
Now President Obama has done the same in his own administration. Many of his appointments are an attempt to silence his vocal critics, to exercise political expediency, or to curry favor from the business community. Certainly it has too little to do with appointing enlightened independent authorities.
The FEMA director, Michael Brown, who resigned September 12, 2005, shortly after his lethally inept handling of Hurricane Katrina, was the poster boy for cronyism. For example, in the Justice Department none of Bush’s senior officials had experience as a criminal prosecutor, this unprecedented in known appointment history.
For Bush, loyalty and cronyism always had priority over qualifications, most notably in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of the Treasury. Political hacks were chosen and the enforcement functions were forgotten in all regulatory agencies.
President Obama has made improvements in many of these consumer protection areas, but business functionaries, dominated by Goldman Sachs favorites like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, rule and/or ruled in the important areas like the Treasury, economic policy and jobs czar, for example.
A case in point is General Electric Chairman Jeff Immelt, whom Obama chose as Jobs Czar. It’s like appointing the fox to guard the hen house, thus setting loose the predatory business interests, which perpetuates the George W. Bush legacy.
Not since the Great Depression has unemployment been so bad for so long, and no company has been more aggressive in exporting jobs than General Electric. Yet Obama hires their right-wing CEO, Jeff Immelt as his job czar.
“The mood is dark. People are pissed. Why not do better. “ Snickering as he says this on 60 Minutes last Sunday, Jeff Immelt displays more of a detached amusement than empathy for millions of Americans, Americans who are suffering under the oppressive economic burden that people like Immelt put upon the people.
While he earns over $14 million in total compensation from GE per year, negotiating deals that put GE squarely in the global market in terms of sales, jobs, and factories, Obama expects him to relate to impoverished Americans and solve our deficit of jobs problem?
In the eleven years he’s been CEO, GE’s non-US sales went from 36% of GE’s revenue to over 60%. As CEO, he has actively participated in America’s loss of some 3 million jobs while almost as many have been added overseas.
This is our job czar? What are you thinking, Barack?
I know, your rhetoric is pro-people, but actions like this show plutocratic solicitation in the form of money to run that re-election campaign.
Be My Jobs Czar -- Pretty Please,
Rabby
12 Oct 2011GOOD IDEA TO GET ADVICE FROM PEOPLE WITH EXPERIENCE IN JOBS! The economic problems are gobal so maybe this will work. CONGRESS FOCUS ON JOBS!! (CBS News) General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt was charged by the president with a Herculean task: figuring out how to get big American firms to start hiring again. First, he says, we need “a sense of national urgency around jobs” and a government that’s focused 100 percent on the task at hand. But can Immelt, a self-proclaimed globalist when it comes to running his own company, really help solve America’s biggest domestic problem?
Rabby
12 Oct 2011If you think the only initials on CEO Jeff Immelt’s mind are “GE,” then think again. He’s also big on “R&D,” research and development!
Simone
12 Oct 2011”‘The mood is dark. People are pissed. Why not do better.’ Snickering as he says this on 60 Minutes last Sunday, Jeff Immelt displays more of a detached amusement than empathy for millions of Americans, Americans who are suffering under the oppressive economic burden that people like Immelt put upon the people.”
Ha ha, what an ass. I don’t know why we haven’t given Immelt the boot, GE doesn’t even pay taxes. OWS ought to go for him
Charles
13 Oct 2011Corporations need to pay their fair share!
Didn’t Immelt outsource a boatload of jobs to China?
Oh the hypocrisy of it all!
Obama is a puppet of the rich, global, ‘citizen of the world’ bankers who has his brain-dead minions down in the trenches playing class warfare and screeching “Eat the rich!” at “Occupy” here in NYC.
Pure unbridled genius!
Simone
13 Oct 2011That’s why they marched on the White House and told him to end the wars, they love the guy
Are you serious?
BTW “class warfare” is nothing but Marxist rhetoric and I won’t cotton to Marxists