Did GE Threaten To Move Jobs Overseas If The Export-Import Bank is Defunded
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Big business executives can be as arrogant and dishonest as politicians.
General Electric (GE) continues to depend on government regulations and financial assistance to support its businesses and the prospect of losing financial backing from the Export-Import Bank has one GE executive throwing a tantrum.
The Ex-Im Bank provides companies with loans, loan guarantees or other financial mechanisms to boost U.S. exports.
In an interview with the Financial Times, GE Vice Chairman John Rice said the company would move jobs overseas if the Ex-Im Bank was closed.
Mr Rice said the issue was crucial for GE and that if the Ex-Im Bank were to be shut down it was likely to have to shift production of gas turbines and jet engines overseas where it could take advantage of other countries’ export credit agencies.
“Some of those jobs will go away if we elect to build stuff that could have been built in the United States in other countries,” he said.
Hundreds of small and medium enterprises in the US supply GE and their survival in many cases depends on Ex-Im Bank helping to arrange export financing and guarantees, he added.
Then in an amazing disregard for the truth Rice added, “The idea that Ex-Im is a fat cat support mechanism just is not true.”
The facts show that multinational corporations are the biggest beneficiaries of the Ex-Im Bank.
According to the Mercatus Center, 76 percent of the Ex-Im Bank total financial support goes to huge multinational corporations including GE.
In addition to its support of big business, the Ex-Im Bank is a source of government corruption. Recently, the Department of Justice brought bribery charges against a former Ex-Im Bank loan officer alleging that the individual’s job activity was influenced by cash provided by a company that was looking for government financing.
The Ex-Im Bank is a source of corporatism and corruption and Congress should not continue to fund it.
