Crook Meets Crook: GE's Immelt Meets TEPCO's Katsumata

Immelt met Katsumata, TEPCO's chairman and acting president while the regular one is being hospitalized for high blood pressure, on April 3, 2011 (JST) and promised that GE would assist TEPCO in dealing with Fukushima I Nuke Plant and in meeting the demand for power in the summer months.

Never waste a good crisis; it's a new business opportunity. Never mind that it was GE's Mark I reactor that was used in all of the Fukushima I reactors except Reactor 6. It's the earthquake that caused the problem, not GE's reactors, right? Besides, it's TEPCO's lax safety protocol, right?

So Prez Obama's promise to help the Japanese in any way he could was to send his buddy Immelt to sell GE's "expertise"? Great.

By the way, I've heard from some people in Chile that when the president went down there on the way from his Rio vacation it was partly to sell nuclear plants to Chile. Remember, the visit was after the earthquake/tsunami on March 11.

From Reuters (4/3/2011):

TOKYO (Reuters) - General Electric Co , which helped build the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant damaged by Japan's earthquake and tsunami, will help the plant's operator supply electricity in the coming summer when power demand soars.

GE chief executive Jeff Immelt, on a visit to Japan, met with officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co Ltd <9501.T> about the crippled Fukushima plant, site of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

"Immelt said GE would cooperate with TEPCO on restarting and strengthening its thermal power generation in anticipation of the rise in power demand for the summer," a TEPCO official told a webcast news briefing.

"As one of the manufacturers (of the reactors), he wanted to say GE wants to provide ideas to help resolve the situation," said the official from Japan's biggest utility.

Here's from williambanzai7 at Zero Hedge. More at the link:

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GE's Immelt 2010 Compensation More Than Doubled to $15.2 Million

GE, who designed all 6 reactors at #Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (reactors No.1-5 are Mark 1, reactor No.6 is Mark 2) and supplied three of them (No.1, 2, 6), generously gave its CEO $15.2 million dollars compensation for .... What did he do, other than being photographed with Obama?

From AP (3/14/2011; emphasis added):

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) -- General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt's 2010 compensation more than doubled to $15.2 million as the company benefited from a recovering economy.

Immelt's $3.3 million salary was unchanged from the previous year, according to an Associated Press analysis of a company filing on Monday. But he got a $4 million bonus in February for his work in 2010, after getting no bonus for two years in a row. And the company gave him stock options valued at $7.4 million.

His 2009 compensation package amounted to about $5.6 million.

GE's directors decided that Immelt "performed very well in 2010" and beat their goals for him in four financial measures, including earnings from continuing operations, cash generated, and profit margins, according to the filing.

Immelt also received $389,809 in other compensation, almost all of it for his personal use of the company plane. GE said that on Nov. 22, the company and Immelt made a deal where he will lease aircraft from GE for his personal use and pay the actual expenses for each specific flight.

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Obama's In-Your-Face Appointment of GE's Immelt May Have Marked the Stock Market Top

Likes of Kudlow and Cramer and a host of others in MSM financial media have been telling us "See, Obama is pro-business after all!" They also points to the appointment of GE's CEO Jeff Immelt as the head of the newly created (by presidential fiat) Jobs and Competitiveness Board, and scream "See? See? See?"

(It's gotta be a joke of some kind - a sick kind. Immelt is very good at CUTTING JOBS in the US.)

Yes I see it alright. But what I see is not Obama being "pro-business". I see a President giving favors to his buddies and his masters. If that's called "pro-business", sure, it is "pro-large, multinational businesses", aka "crony capitalism".

Take a look at this wonderful picture from the article linked above (first one): Obama, posing as a serious, attentive listener to Immelt, with Valerie "slum lord" Jarret looking on to make sure Barry is striking a right pose for the camera.

I have this feeling that the stock market, however much it has been manipulated by Ben and TBTF friends of his on Wall Street, may have stopped responding to this "economy is great and Obama is pro-business" chorus ever since December 1st. And looking at what has transpired during the Chinese president visit and seeing Immelt appointment, at least the part of the stock market may have thrown in the towel, saying "Ferrrgetit..."

Why do I have this feeling, you ask? The charts. If Obama is pro-business, intent on creating jobs (I'm too tired to even laugh), why are the two particular indices that represent growth and new jobs have been dropping big time?

The top one is Nasdaq, the bottom is Russell 2000. Technology companies and small/medium companies, which would create jobs through growth. They seem to know Obama being "pro-business" simply means he favors his big donors, i.e. large multinational conglomerates who have shipped jobs overseas, mostly to Communist China, and that Obama will bend over backwards to hand his buddies some lucrative contracts (like he just did for GE and Honeywell).

Both Nasdaq and Russell 2000 went down significantly for three days in a row, despite good earnings reports. Note the extremely narrow bollinger band on Russell 2000. Probably the narrowest since March last year. A big move seems to be coming. I don't sense that it is going to be to the upside. How about you?

The indices that represent big caps, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P500, both went up yet again today. Dow continues to levitate near the upper bollinger band, while S&P bounced off the mid bollinger band.

To give some credit to the viewership of Kudlow's show, 84% of online respondents do not believe Obama is pro-business.

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