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Post 03 Feb 2011, 10:36 am

In a banana republic, the objective of the ruler is to make sure he and his family enrich themselves as much as possible before the inevitable revolution sweeps the next dictator into power.

My question: how much different is this? Right now, the Administration is passing laws and regulations of a size and scope we have not seen in decades. However, they are taking care of all their buddies and cohorts on an unprecedented scale too.

We already have more than 700 waivers to the requirements of ObamaCare in place, with 40% of those affected being in unions. Now we see waivers beginning in another area of the Obama administration’s key policy areas — greenhouse gas emissions. In January, the administration began enforcing new EPA rules on new or expanding power plants, and within just a few weeks, announced the first waiver of those rules:

The Obama administration will spare a stalled power plant project in California from the newest federal limits on greenhouse gases and conventional air pollution, U.S. EPA says in a new court filing that marks a policy shift in the face of industry groups and Republicans accusing the agency of holding up construction of large industrial facilities.

According to a declaration by air chief Gina McCarthy, officials reviewed EPA policies and decided it was appropriate to “grandfather” projects such as the Avenal Power Center, a proposed 600-megawatt power plant in the San Joaquin Valley, so they are exempted from rules such as new air quality standards for smog-forming nitrogen dioxide (NO2).


Hey, you know what else Barack Obama did in January? He picked GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to lead his new jobs commission. Does that sound like a non-sequitur to you? Let Timothy Carney explain the details of the Avenal Power Center:

The proposed Avenal Energy project will be a combined-cycle generating plant consisting of two natural gas-fired General Electric 7FA Gas Turbines with Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG) and one General Electric Steam Turbine.


GE: They bring good waivers to life!

The Obama administration seems very eager to impose regulation on everyone except their bestest buddies. If these policies are so bad that Obama’s friends and political allies need waivers to get around them, then perhaps they shouldn’t be in place at all. And perhaps the Obama administration should learn something about the rule of law, rather than the rule of whim — or as the rest of us call it, The Chicago Way.


Before the inevitable "whataboutery" concerning Halliburton and Cheney, can we just focus on this a bit? More on the Obamacare waivers:

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama‘s campaign efforts. That’s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama‘s White House.


Are any liberals here tired of the wink and nod routine?

Help the President and get direct financial benefit? I don't think that's what the country ought to be about.
Last edited by Doctor Fate on 11 Feb 2011, 8:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post 10 Feb 2011, 6:37 pm

But that is what the country has been about since the 1820s. I know you don't want to play the "what about" game, but its relevant. You can deplore the state of politics all you want, but that's the way it is. More relevant might be whether or not ONLY Obama's friends are getting promoted; if that's the case you might have a more legitimate argument. But the fact that out of 733 waivers, some are Obama's supporters, is not ridiculous in the slightest. If you can show me that a statistically significant number of people over what can be assumed to be his general base of support (55%, or what he won the election by) are getting rewarded, go nuts. But even without cronyism its inevitable that some of his supporters would garner consideration for such an exemption, and if he has a slight natural inclination to favor his allies, that seems natural. As long as it isn't done to the detriment of the country as a whole.
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Post 11 Feb 2011, 8:20 am

I actually learned a rather interesting and perhaps a little scarey piece of presidential trivia yesterday. With the exception of 1964, every presidential election between 1952 and 2004 has either a Nixon, Dole or Bush on the Republican Presidential Ticket.
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Post 11 Feb 2011, 8:55 am

Ozymandias wrote:But that is what the country has been about since the 1820s. I know you don't want to play the "what about" game, but its relevant. You can deplore the state of politics all you want, but that's the way it is. More relevant might be whether or not ONLY Obama's friends are getting promoted; if that's the case you might have a more legitimate argument. But the fact that out of 733 waivers, some are Obama's supporters, is not ridiculous in the slightest.


However, as I pointed out, it's not just the medical insurance waivers. The Obama administration has been very kind to GE in terms of business. Besides, why Immelt? GE has lost value, shipped jobs overseas, and shed jobs overall since he took over. Why not someone who runs a successful enterprise?
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Post 11 Feb 2011, 10:47 am

You do realise that Immelt donated to Obama's opponent in the last election? And to Hilary during the Primaries? Hardly a way to buy favour. He also describes himself as a Republican.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-2 ... lcker.html

GE took a hit about 9-10 years ago (9/11's effect on the air industry combined with the tech-bubble), but has been doing pretty well recently. Profits are up (and above expectations).
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Post 11 Feb 2011, 4:37 pm

danivon wrote:You do realise that Immelt donated to Obama's opponent in the last election? And to Hilary during the Primaries? Hardly a way to buy favour. He also describes himself as a Republican.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-2 ... lcker.html

GE took a hit about 9-10 years ago (9/11's effect on the air industry combined with the tech-bubble), but has been doing pretty well recently. Profits are up (and above expectations).


From your article:

Last year, GE’s stock outpaced the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index for the first time since 2004 after lagging amid asset sales and investor concern about the GE Capital finance unit. The shares fell 55 percent from Aug. 31, 2001, just before Immelt took over from Jack Welch, to the end of 2010. That compares with an 11 percent rise in the S&P 500.


To me, that doesn't seem very impressive.

In any event, the point is he's still CEO for a major corporation--one that seems to have lobbied the government and received benefit from it. Now, he's going to be an adviser to the President. How cozy.
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Post 12 Feb 2011, 5:13 am

Because that's never happened before, has it? No president has ever appointed a CEO as an adviser? It's just that eevill Obama, right?

And yes, I did read the whole article. The part you quote shows that things are improving now after a period of decline. The last lines in the article are:

GE has announced 6,500 new U.S. manufacturing jobs and retained more than 8,700 permanent and temporary positions across its manufacturing units in the past two years.

Many of the jobs are tied to Immelt’s export push. GE this week announced joint ventures and orders for Chinese rail, aviation and energy projects that may yield $2.1 billion in sales, creating or retaining about 5,000 jobs.


Surely someone whose company is creating jobs for export industry is doing what America needs?
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Post 12 Feb 2011, 7:54 am

danivon wrote:Because that's never happened before, has it? No president has ever appointed a CEO as an adviser? It's just that eevill Obama, right?


The question is whether being an adviser and benefiting directly from the Obama administrations choices is a conflict of interest. Imagine the howls if Bush had named the CEO of a corporation to such a position who kept his position and whose corporation gained directly from Bush's decisions. The liberal media was screaming about the Iraq war being at the behest of Halliburton. But then, that was the eeeevil Bush, right?

And yes, I did read the whole article. The part you quote shows that things are improving now after a period of decline. The last lines in the article are:

GE has announced 6,500 new U.S. manufacturing jobs and retained more than 8,700 permanent and temporary positions across its manufacturing units in the past two years.

Many of the jobs are tied to Immelt’s export push. GE this week announced joint ventures and orders for Chinese rail, aviation and energy projects that may yield $2.1 billion in sales, creating or retaining about 5,000 jobs.


Read more carefully. First, notice the weasel words--"creating or RETAINING" (meaning there may be zero net new jobs) and "may" (meaning "possibly"). That's certainly no guarantee.

Furthermore, China is exploiting companies like GE. These companies believe they are gaining an opening to Chinese markets. Instead, their technology and know-how are appropriated and Chinese companies replicate them.

Of course, the brilliant President Obama, a man too smart for us mere mortals to comprehend, hosts a state dinner for the Chinese President while his fellow Nobel laureate wastes away in Chinese custody. That's way too intelligent for me. I'm just dopey enough to think we should work to stop being beholden to China so that we have the willpower to speak truth to them. President Obama thinks it more wise to borrow more from them so they can build up their infrastructure, military, and economic base, while brutally suppressing their people as needed, and at the same time violate international trade standards with impunity.

Yeah, Obama is a genius. He knows China is our friend, no matter what the evidence may be.
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Post 12 Feb 2011, 11:19 am

The question is whether being an adviser and benefiting directly from the Obama administrations choices is a conflict of interest. Imagine the howls if Bush had named the CEO of a corporation to such a position who kept his position and whose corporation gained directly from Bush's decisions. The liberal media was screaming about the Iraq war being at the behest of Halliburton. But then, that was the eeeevil Bush, right?


Your missing a fundamental logical flaw in your argument. Cheney was an ex-Halliburton executive who was in a very high position of power and influence when his former company was given a highly lucrative contract, under perhaps less than transparent conditions.

Immelt is an successful executive who is becoming a Presidential advisor based on his experience at a giant corporation. I'm sure you see the difference... in the former case, it takes no huge leap of faith to assume that the cause and effect of the relationship was tilted to the relationship being the cause and the contract the effect. In Immelt's case, at least until GE starts reaping unusually large rewards, the cause is the success of the company and the effect is that a qualified CEO becomes a Presidential advisor, which seems intelligent on the part of the Obama administration. You seem to be assuming future wrongdoing as a matter of course in making your (admittedly poor) argument.

These companies believe they are gaining an opening to Chinese markets. Instead, their technology and know-how are appropriated and Chinese companies replicate them.


This is ridiculous. Very little of the technology the US is exporting to China is beyond their capability to produce. We're not selling state secrets or cutting edge DoD R&D... so calm down. If the Chinese get their hands on some steel producing tech from GE or whatever the hell your afraid of... well, let them.

Of course, the brilliant President Obama, a man too smart for us mere mortals to comprehend, hosts a state dinner for the Chinese President while his fellow Nobel laureate wastes away in Chinese custody. That's way too intelligent for me. I'm just dopey enough to think we should work to stop being beholden to China so that we have the willpower to speak truth to them. President Obama thinks it more wise to borrow more from them so they can build up their infrastructure, military, and economic base, while brutally suppressing their people as needed, and at the same time violate international trade standards with impunity.


So its stupid to play nice to chief executive of one of the most powerful nations on the planet? How is hosting a state dinner for the President of an overwhelmingly important trade partner and political counterparty at all out of whack?

And your following lines, in which you use an ironic tone of self-deprecation in order to underscore your point that Obama is incompetent, makes you look a fool. "Being beholden to China"? "Speaking the truth to them"? Come on, if you are going to parrot current political rhetoric, at least choose some of the intelligent and catchy sound bites and not ridiculous crap like that. Firstly, we HAVE to borrow from them, or the Arabs, or any number of politically unsavory characters, because our nation is so profligate, and has been, for so long, that we can't finance the operations of our own government. And for the record, it was only 50 or so years ago that we were brutally suppressing elements of our own population. Lets not act as the paragon of moral virtue here.

We do decry the breaches of basic civil liberties the Chinese engage in. But there isn't much we can do. Political expedience means we have to get in bed with them. Its only the usual media fearmongery which classifies us as "beholden" to the Chinese. Outside of the crushing amount of US debt they hold, we owe them nothing.
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Post 12 Feb 2011, 11:53 am

Ozymandias wrote:
The question is whether being an adviser and benefiting directly from the Obama administrations choices is a conflict of interest. Imagine the howls if Bush had named the CEO of a corporation to such a position who kept his position and whose corporation gained directly from Bush's decisions. The liberal media was screaming about the Iraq war being at the behest of Halliburton. But then, that was the eeeevil Bush, right?


Your missing a fundamental logical flaw in your argument. Cheney was an ex-Halliburton executive who was in a very high position of power and influence when his former company was given a highly lucrative contract, under perhaps less than transparent conditions.


Gee, I did miss that. :no:

Here's the question (whatever one thinks of no bid contracts): did Cheney personally benefit from the Halliburton contract to which you refer?

Immelt is an successful executive who is becoming a Presidential advisor based on his experience at a giant corporation. I'm sure you see the difference...


Except that he's not "successful" by many measurements--and he is an adviser while remaining CEO. Furthermore, many of the "green" initiatives championed by the President impact Immelt's corporation directly.

The Cheney/Immelt comparison breaks down because Immelt is keeping his corporate job and advising the President simultaneously.

You seem to be assuming future wrongdoing as a matter of course in making your (admittedly poor) argument.


Not at all. Immelt has been the head of GE, which owns MSNBC. What news network has fawned over Obama for the past 3 plus years? If you really want me to, I will show how GE has already profited from the Obama administration's decision-making thus far. He took a government contractor who largely agrees with him and put him in an even more powerful position:

Whether it is pushing the president’s plan for global warming fees in order to create demand for his “Ecomagination” line of windmills, solar panels, etc., boosting the president’s national health-care law as part of an effort to sell more medical equipment, or enthusing over the Obama strategy of making loans available for industrial exporters, Immelt has been an Obama stalwart all along. Immelt has also consistently argued to shareholders that there is big money to be made in advancing the Democratic agenda.

While most corporate leaders have taken a wait and see approach to Obama’s occasional overtures to the private sector, G.E., along with Google, Goldman and few others, have backed him to the hilt.

It is unclear how the administration plans to deal with the ethics challenges created by having a CEO whose income is determined by stock performance leading a panel designed to recommend government policies. G.E. (2009 revenue: $157 billion) is a huge government contractor and is always in the market for new subsidies and incentives.


These companies believe they are gaining an opening to Chinese markets. Instead, their technology and know-how are appropriated and Chinese companies replicate them.


This is ridiculous. Very little of the technology the US is exporting to China is beyond their capability to produce.


Really? So, why are they expending such energy on hacking and espionage?

We're not selling state secrets or cutting edge DoD R&D... so calm down. If the Chinese get their hands on some steel producing tech from GE or whatever the hell your afraid of... well, let them.


No, no one's selling it. They're stealing it--like their new stealth fighter. It's far more serious than your "whatever" attitude. In fact, I thought about starting a "selling them the rope to hang us" thread:

Chinese policy towards the energy industries provides perhaps the best but far from the only example. Westinghouse Electric recently completed a technology transfer as part of a deal to sell four nuclear plants to China. So, too, with the green energy business. The Chinese agree with President Obama: Solar panels are an increasingly important product and source of jobs. The main raw material is polysilicon, and when its price soared the Chinese poured cash into domestic plants and short-circuited the permitting process so that plants could go from groundbreaking to full production in a bit over a year; in the West that is a multiyear process. Result: China controls half the world market for solar-power equipment.

Move on to wind turbines. GE acceded to a Chinese government demand that it build a wind turbine factory in China if it wanted to tap its market. Now, subsidized state-owned contractors direct all their business to domestic manufacturers, who are also eating steadily into GE’s U.S. market. The Obama administration has filed a complaint at the WTO​—​with no help from GE. Like all other companies that still see the Chinese market as one they must cultivate in order to grow their earnings, GE has backed off the public criticism of China in which it and others were temporarily emboldened to indulge when Google drew the line at accepting censorship and pulled out of China.

The camels that trod the old Silk Road laden with spices and porcelain are being replaced by air and sea freighters hauling solar panels and all sorts of goods based on copied technologies and purloined intellectual property. Nothing seems to have changed since Lenin observed, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”


In his solutions section, the author writes:

Expand the definition of technology transfers barred because they might threaten national security. GE claims its joint venture in avionics, the brains of military jet aircraft, transfers only nonmilitary technology, but the recipient is a Chinese company that, according to the Wall Street Journal, “makes fighter jets and helicopters in addition to civilian products.”


You might think Chinese theft of our technology and manipulation of currency is a joke, but the Chinese do not. They learned a lot from the fall of the Soviet Union and are working hard at weakening us in ways that don't seem overtly hostile. Obviously, this is too subtle for some observers--like you and the President.
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Post 12 Feb 2011, 2:36 pm

Steve is largely right about the Chinese eating the US's lunch in trade deals. Of course he's only recognized it because its happening under Obama. The fact is that deals that included technology transfer began in the early 1980s with all the Far Eastern nations..

Making the deal for the short term assumes that there will be technology advancements in the US, and that the transfer is like giving someone the ability to build out of date and behind the times product. However, what the technology transfer has done has allowed the Chinese (and Taiwanese and Koreans) to establish industries that have quickly become innovative in their own right. Developing a wholly independent capability means you create your own competition.

reason? Other nations corporations tend to be concerned about their own nations prospects over short term profits. (Usually because of government involvement in the policy.) US corporations have largely been left to respond only to the needs of short shareholders, who often aren't American and seemingly care less about the domestic benefits of exporting finished products versus exporting the means to produce the finished products.
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Post 12 Feb 2011, 8:33 pm

rickyp wrote:Steve is largely right about the Chinese eating the US's lunch in trade deals. Of course he's only recognized it because its happening under Obama.


As usual for you, an unsupported and unsupportable conclusion.

The fact is that deals that included technology transfer began in the early 1980s with all the Far Eastern nations..


Okay, now you're getting loopy. I do remember boycotting Toshiba for a while because they sold the Soviets submarine technology. However, no country has gone to the lengths China has in terms of hacking and a combination of old-fashioned espionage and industrial spying, then leveraging the results for economic benefit.
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Post 14 Feb 2011, 6:09 am

Doctor Fate wrote:Furthermore, China is exploiting companies like GE. These companies believe they are gaining an opening to Chinese markets. Instead, their technology and know-how are appropriated and Chinese companies replicate them.
It's called free trade, Steve. Capitalists claim to love it. The history of industrialisation is of innovation being spread and copied. The only way to stop that would be to stop all trade. Which would damage the USA massively.

I love you blaming Obama though. Wasn't it Nixon who gave China MFN status? You think that in the past 40 years things have been completely cold with China until Barack came along?

Please, Steve, your obsession with smearing the President is getting a little desperate now.
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Post 14 Feb 2011, 9:04 am

danivon wrote:
Doctor Fate wrote:Furthermore, China is exploiting companies like GE. These companies believe they are gaining an opening to Chinese markets. Instead, their technology and know-how are appropriated and Chinese companies replicate them.
It's called free trade.


By which definition?

Only a socialist, like yourself, would call industrial espionage and intellectual property theft "free trade."

I love you blaming Obama though. Wasn't it Nixon who gave China MFN status?


No, it wasn't. It was Carter, then continued on temporarily until made permanent under Clinton. Close though. :rolleyes:

Please, Steve, your obsession with smearing the President is getting a little desperate now.


Meh. I just point out what he's doing. He smears himself.
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Post 14 Feb 2011, 12:31 pm

steve

As usual for you, an unsupported and unsupportable conclusion.

Gawd you're an idiot. In March 1984, US trade talks with Japan over the issue of semi-conductors being "dumped" in the US stale mated. Over the next few years a number of US chip makers closed shop and 100,000 Americans lost their jobs. Was anything learned? Under Bush II's tenure.....

M2 PRESSWIRE-9 September 2007 DALIAN, China - Intel today broke ground on its first 300mm wafer fabrication facility in Asia. The new factory, named Fab 68, will extend Intel's manufacturing leadership, while helping cultivate engineering talent, accelerate the growth of China's information technology (IT) ecosystem, and bring Intel's culture of environmental leadership to China. The $2.5 billion project is set to begin construction immediately
source:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168493507.html

CEO Paul Otellini said "Intels goal is to support a transition from 'manufactured in China to innovated in China".
From : The Betrayal of American Prosperity by Clyde Prestowicz