May 05, 2017
The Washington Post has a major article on a speech by GE’s chief executive Jeffrey Immelt in which he condemned lackluster efforts to fund the Export-Import Bank as “pathetic.” The piece neglected to mention that GE is almost always one of the largest recipients of below market interest rate loans or guarantees from the Export-Import Bank.
The headline also reported Immelt’s condemnation of “protectionism.” It would have been worth pointing out that much of what GE sells in the United States is produced overseas, which means that GE’s profits would likely be hurt by some protectionist measures or even efforts to reduce the value of the dollar closer to its market rate.
It is also worth noting that it appears that Mr. Immelt is just fine with patent and copyright protection. These forms of protection are enormously costly, often raising the price of the protected items by several thousand percent above the free market price. For this reason, it is wrong to say that Immelt is opposed to protectionism, he appears to just be opposed to types of protectionism that reduce this company’s profit.
Comments