Thomson Reuters Newsmaker with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
- Good morning all, I'm perched just to the right of the stage here as we get ready for today's Newsmaker. If you've got a question to ask you can submit it directly on this page or you can post it via Twitter tagged with #Newsmaker

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) talks with council chairman, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt (L), after a meeting of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness at the International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers Local Union #5 Training Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania October 11, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
- Watch Reuters interview with GE CEO Jeff Immelt, coming up at 8:30 a.m. blogs.reuters.com #Newsmakerby malonereuters via twitter 10/17/2011 12:06:00 PM
- I'm sitting just to the left of Scott Malone who covers General Electric for Reuters. This comes from his recent article:
The memory of the sharp downturn following the late 2008 credit crunch is still fresh in their minds.
"Are managements going to retrench as quickly and as deeply in the event of a credit moment in Europe or China as they did last time around?" said Peter Klein, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cleveland, Ohio. "What we want to hear is a dose of reality. What are you planning, what's your contingency, what are you actually seeing?"
This comes as CEOs of many big U.S. companies say orders are holding up, and one of the main risks they see is that customers will start holding off on orders out of fear that something might happen to hurt the economy.
"There is just not enough certainty and in some ways the most important thing we can do right now is social and it has to do with rebuilding confidence," GE CEO Jeff Immelt told a group of executives from mid-sized U.S. companies in Columbus, Ohio last week. 
President Obama shakes hands with council chairman, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, after a meeting of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in Pittsburgh, October 11, 2011. Also pictured is Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
- Sitting at the @Reuters #Newsmaker with Chrystia Freeland and
GE's Jeff Immelt. Watch it here: reut.rsby mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:17:19 PM - The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which as you can see from the picture below is chaired by Immelt, presented President Obama with a report last week suggesting ways he could create millions of jobs in the U.S. Here are a few of the suggestions Immelt and the others came up with:
Change student loan repayment rules for graduates who own or work for new companies
Offer visas to foreign-born entrepreneurs who form or join startups in the U.S.
Streamline drug approvals
Reduce costs of initial public offerings
Improve air traffic control
Speed up the process of immigrant visa decisions
Propose foreign graduates who earn U.S. degrees in science, technology, engineering and math get green cards offering them permanent residency Here's the recent 60 Minutes interview of Immelt.
- Immelt's jobs council also made some more standard recommendations to Obama, such as lower corporate taxes for new companies in their first three years and a reduced capital gains rate for investors buying equity in young firms. The council's report calls for tax reforms to make it more competitive for companies to locate in the U.S., which it says could help drive up foreign direct investment in the U.S. Reuters correspondent Laura MacInnis has more:
"It said rising wage and operating costs in India and China have made the United States more attractive to firms that have shifted their business abroad in recent years but may want to return because of strong U.S. universities and research hubs.
'By capitalizing on these shifts in costs with a more aggressive marketing of America's attractiveness as an investment destination, the United States has an opportunity to recapture lost market share and grow jobs previously lost in tradable sectors," it said."
www.reuters.com - Here are five quick facts about Immelt:
He took over reins at GE in September, 2001.
Immelt has overseen some sizable divestures in his time as CEO, including the 2004 spin-off of Genworth Financial Inc and the 2010 sale of a majority stake in its NBC Universal media business to No. 1 U.S. cable operator Comcast Corp.
With the exception of a brief stint at Procter & Gamble Co between his 1978 graduation from Dartmouth College, Immelt has spent his entire career at GE, primarily at its plastics, appliances and healthcare units.
A lifelong Republican, Immelt has embraced causes backed by Democrats, including expanding GE into renewable energy.
Immelt, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, takes a less confrontational approach than his predecessor, Welch, who kept a relentless focus on costs and earned the nickname "Neutron Jack" for waves of mass layoffs early in his tenure as CEO. Immelt, by contrast, has focused more of his energies on finding new sources of revenue growth.
www.reuters.com - "Chrystia Freeland must remain unbiased but I am a totally unabashed Jeff Immelt fan" - Tom Glocer at our @Reuters #Newsmaker
- Immelt: Jobs council proposals to Obama sought ideas that didn't
need bipartisan support for new lawsby mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:34:24 PM - "Like 9-9-9 this is online" - Immelt doing his best Herman Cain impression to tout his job creation plan.
- Immelt: “There are jobs that can be created in this document, with
these ideas”by mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:35:17 PM - Immelt: Jobs plan needs to balance government's role as a
catalyst and where it can scale backby mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:37:51 PM - Immelt does not want to blame any one party for unemployment, he says regulations climbed every year under both administrations.
- Here is a list of all the members who make up the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness: www.whitehouse.gov
- Immelt: "The amount and intensity of regulation is extraordinary"by mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:38:36 PM
- Immelt quips that if imitation is the consequence of innovation, no one is
trying to copy the U.S. in terms of its regulatory environmentby mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:40:08 PM - Chrystia challenging Immelt on regulations, and the real need for some of them, Immelt willing to concede there are some that work, others that don't but he's not being specific.
- Immelt points to difficulty of small businesses to get credit, blaming some of that on over-regulation.
- Immelt: "In the end good regulation is what counts. Just by having
more doesn’t mean it’s better."by mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:41:15 PM - "How is the current dialogue with business and government going?", asks Chrystia...the crowd laughs when Jeff states "ongoing"
- "What is your view of Occupy Wall Street?" - Freeland
"It is natural to assume people are angry" - Immelt - Take a look at the full report "Taking Action, Building Confidence" presented by Immelt and the jobs council to Obama last week: www.jobs-council.com
- Immelt on Occupy Wall Street: "It is natural to assume people are angry...we have to be empathetic and understand"by mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:45:19 PM
- Chrystia tries to get Immelt to comment on his view of how Obama and congress are doing, asking "is it a problem of political leadership?"
- While I personally am agnostic about Mr. Immelt, but among most people who I know, Mr Immelt is one of the more reviled figures in the Obama Administration. I do wish he weren't the face of the Jobs Council.
- Immelt on entering the fray in the effort to create jobs: "I'd rather be
in the arena trying than not doing what I can to help"by mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:49:00 PM - "Our tax rate this year will be 30%" - Immelt
- GE CEO Jeff Immelt tells @cafreeland that his company DOES pay taxes. Says paid $1 bln last year to various US municipalities #Newsmaker $GEby ernestscheyder via twitter 10/17/2011 12:50:19 PM
- RT @ErnestScheyder: GE CEO Jeff Immelt tells @cafreeland that his company DOES pay taxes. Says paid $1 bln last year to various US municipalities #Newsmaker $GEby antderosa via twitter edited by anthony.derosa 10/17/2011 12:50:26 PM
- Immelt expects $GE tax rate to normalize as country gets through
the recessionby mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:50:48 PM - "China is kind of a 25 year story" - Immelt
- RT @AnnCensky: @cafreeland: "You’d be ready to give up your loopholes?" #newsmakerby antderosa via twitter 10/17/2011 12:51:11 PM
- RT @AnnCensky: Immelt's response: "We would take what was in Simpson-Bowles... I think that’s kind of the right approach" #newsmakerby antderosa via twitter 10/17/2011 12:51:34 PM
- Immelt now talking about Russia: "In the businesses we’re in, Russia is going to be a massively huge market" #newsmakerby anncensky via twitter 10/17/2011 12:52:15 PM
- Russia is a "hard place. It has a lot of challenges," Immelt says. But notes "particularly interesting time" to invest there. $GE #Newsmakerby ernestscheyder via twitter 10/17/2011 12:52:20 PM
- Immelt has been talking about eliminating tax loopholes for a while now. He told Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in August: "Corporate tax in this country needs to be reformed. Stuff that the deficit commission came up with, which was a lower corporate tax rate ending every loophole, is what we would take, with a territorial system, we would take in a heartbeat. The fact is I'd take Germany's or Japan's or the U.K.'s corporate tax policy today, sight unseen, without any dispute, I would take any of those tax policies today." www.reuters.com
- RT @thomsonreuters: Jeff Immelt discussing China's 25 year story, the growth of Brazil and the future prospects of Russia #Newsmakerby antderosa via twitter 10/17/2011 12:52:54 PM
- Immelt sees huge market developing in Russia for $GE, also
investing in Africa - Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria, South Africaby mygershberg via twitter 10/17/2011 12:53:12 PM - Immelt: "It’s always worthwhile to understand your competitors...for the US today, our competitor is China, so we should study what they do"by anncensky via twitter 10/17/2011 12:53:40 PM
- "China is a very formidable competitor" to the United States -- GE CEO Jeff Immelt says at Reuters #Newsmaker. $GEby ernestscheyder via twitter 10/17/2011 12:54:04 PM
- Immelt: U.S. is not being as aggressive in expanding exports as Germany. "The rest of the world plays to keep." #newsmakerby anncensky via twitter 10/17/2011 12:55:43 PM
- "The rest of the world just plays harder than we do." - GE CEO Jeff Immelt says of U.S. economy and focus on exports. #Newsmaker $GEby ernestscheyder via twitter 10/17/2011 12:55:49 PM
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