Corporate Media Push Wrong Story on Obama's Relationship With Business

Rose Aguilar | Monday 07 February 2011

President Barack Obama is hoping to “mend ties” with big business by speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce (COC), Washington DC’s top lobbyist. That’s the frame we’re hearing in the corporate media even though the President has extended the Bush tax cuts, recently named JP Morgan Chase executive and former COC board member William Daley as his chief of staff, and chose General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the new “White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.”

Since 2009, GE has closed more than 25 manufacturing plants in the US and slashed thousands of jobs, according to the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. While GE has laid off at least 10,000 workers in the US, it has created more than 30,000 jobs in India over the past decade. The administration’s job czar runs a company that employs more workers overseas than it does in the US.