thegreekdog wrote:TGD wrote:GE doesn't care about financial derivativesstahrgazer wrote:Goldman Sachs lays off some people which is proof that GE does care about financial derivatives.
Wrong company dearie. Try again.stahrgazer wrote:GE loses $200 million on mortgage-backed securities.
There you go! Nice work. Now you need to prove that $200 million is enough for GE to care about AND that GE cares more about it than other companies AND that GE's corporate officers' salaries are influenced by decisions related to mortgage-backed securities. I'm sure you can get your professor to help you.stahrgazer wrote:In 2011, GE forces people to work 32 hours a week to pay them less and not give them supplemental pay when they are laid off. CEO makes $14 million in salary, stock awards, and deferred earnings in 2008.
Other than the fact that the dates are three years apart (and the major portion is from two years ago) and other than the fact that stock awards and deferred earnings probably make up 95% to 99% of that $14 million, it's disturbing. So what? What contributes to this and what do you think we should do about it? Two questions you have yet to answer.stahrgazer wrote:GE paid 2.3% federal taxes on $81 billion of profit.
The same bogus fact that keeps being brought up again and again and again by ignorant media members. How much of those profits were earned in the United States? How much of those profits were earned overseas? How much tax did GE pay overseas? Is this "problem" of GE not paying enough US taxes indicative of GE doing something wrong; if the answer is yes, please explain exactly what GE is doing wrong and how you propose to fix it?
It's not a "bogus fact," it's a real fact.
It's a US company that got big enough to go "overseas" at all because of US Government contracts, so it's "wrong" morally/patriotically, even if it's currently "Legal." But man the stinkum that Obama wants to close those loopholes and go after taxes for US companies' foreign assets (like our nation used to do.)
Personally I'd like to see trade tariffs on imports reinstated to re-equalize the balance, making it more profitable to employ people here to make things to export than to do the reverse.
It'd sure help ensure that our nation's defenses can be done properly.
I've stated in threads I worked for Pratt & Whitney at one time. At the time, some of the parts we needed could no longer be obtained from U.S. manufacturers because all the manufacturing got moved overseas. How'd you like your next-generation Air Force jet to be "made in Japan," or "Made in China," or "Made in Pakistan," like so many other jobs/products did? Imagine it, Greek, having our nation's security dependent on Pakistanis keeping our products "secret" from possible terrorists within their border.
Or would you say that our government shouldn't allow that to happen? Shouldn't deal with companies who manufacture overseas just in case that means our defense products ALSO get made overseas?
If not our defense products, why any of the products that we could and used to make here?
Should the government do what it can to keep production lines open so our US defense products DO continue to be 100% national? Well, to do that, it means "manufacturing" has to be kept here. And to do that, the government has to step in. And if the government steps in on that (as I believe it should have all along) then these CEOs can't send our jobs "over there," to claim massive profits.
I'd like to see a system that bases a product on its cost to make, not on "whatever the fools will pay." We do it in times of emergency (price gouging after a hurricane, etc., is a felony offense) and if we stopped that, the companies wouldn't go make things overseas for peanuts, to sell it here at prices just as though they were made here (Nike vs. New Balance, for example) which means CEO salaries would naturally be less.
As to your complaint that in my examples the cause sometimes preceded the effect by three years, well, sometimes that happens in economics, dearie. The "housing crash" technically took place in 2008 but there are still a ton of houses upside-down, still banks paying off TARP, still folks who were laid off then that aren't back to work (so more houses being foreclosed on)... as I said, sometimes there is a time delay between cause and effect.