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Friday, May 29, 2009

“Subsidymagination:” GE’s regulatory robbery

General Electric's "Ecomagination" initiative turned four years old this week. My Examiner column today digs into what this whole green thing is about.

Imagine a salesman comes to your door peddling composting barrels. You tell him that while composting would offer some benefits—good for the environment, free topsoil—you don’t think it’s worth the cost.
He replies, “Oh, sir, but I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice. You see, the county government just passed a law requiring everyone to use a composting barrel. I should know—I’m also a lobbyist, and I helped write the law.”
You’d call that a racket. On a far larger scale—peddling “greenhouse gas credits” and windmills instead of composting barrels—General Electric calls it “Ecomagination.”
Read the whole thing here.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It seems GE is creating jobs, just not in the US.

The Hindu

GE to participate in Railway locomotive project

CHENNAI, February 24, 2010



GE India would like to have a larger manufacturing foot print in India to remain competitive. Besides, it would also participate in the multi-billion dollar Railway locomotive project, said GE India president and CEO, John L. Flannery on Wednesday.

“India provides a huge opportunity for us. We need to make more investment in local suppliers and in manufacturing system to have long term benefit and in high quality job creation. Currently, we don’t have a large manufacturing foot print in India. We really need to do that to be more competitive here in the long term,” he said after bagging the third ‘IACC-Sanmar Indo-US Business Co-operation Award’.

On the Railway Budget, he said it provided significant opportunity and GE would be a major player in the coming years.

Mentioning that they have been carrying out research oriented activities for the last two decades in India, he said “India with its huge talent pool is a giant source for technology and technical know-how. We have the John F. Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore and technical centre in Hyderabad. It is not about cost beneficial, but about the quality and levels of expertise here.”

Sanmar Group Chairman N. Sankar and IACC National president Syed Baderuddin presented the award to General Electric Company, US in recognition of its contribution to the enhancement of Indo-US relations, particularly in the area of bilateral trade and commerce, over the years.

Mr. Sankar and Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, Tamil Nadu Branch, chairperson, Usha Srinivasan presented the citation.

In his address, Mr. Sankar said that Indo-US commercial relations were progressing at an ‘ever increasing’ rate. The software and BPO industries were experiencing a new resurgence after a slump. There was increased co-operation between the two nations on the geopolitical front.

US Consul General in Chennai, Andrew T. Simkin said that it was proposed to double the bilateral trade between India and US in the next five years and India had the potential to realise the goal as Indian IT firms had stronger relationships with its counterparts.

McKinsey & Co India, Managing Director, Adil Zainulbhai called for a closer co-operation between SMEs of both the nations for mutual benefit and said that they were leading an automobile delegation to Detroit in April.