posted April 13, 2011 10:11 PM            

hopefully the Yes Men or others will do Big Oil next.

The Associated Press and other news organizations have had to withdraw stories reporting that General Electric would pay a $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S. Treasury after it was revealed that the stories were based on a hoax press release.

GE came under fire after a New York Times story that said despite $14.2 billion in worldwide profits - including more than $5 billion from U.S. operations - GE did not owe taxes in 2010. The story reported G.E. claimed a tax benefit that year of $3.2 billion. GE says the tax benefit claim is not true and that it received no rebate from the government on its 2010 taxes.

The hoax press release, which you can see here, claimed that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt had informed the Obama administration that his company was returning $3.2 billion to the Treasury and "will furthermore adopt a host of new policies that secure its position as a leader in corporate social responsibility."

The release included what seem to be some pretty obvious fake quotes, including this, attributed to Immelt: "All seven of our foreign tax havens are entirely legal. But Americans have made it clear that they deplore laws that enable tax avoidance. While we owe it to our shareholders to use every legal loophole to maximize returns - we also owe something to the American people. We didn't write the laws that let us legally avoid paying taxes. Congress did. But we benefit from those laws, and now we'd like to share those benefits."

The AP nonetheless ran a four-paragraph story that began, "Facing criticism over the amount of taxes it pays, General Electric announced it will repay its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the US Treasury on April 18."

The hoax press release included a contact phone number for "Samuel Winnacker," who is listed as a communications representative with GE. The first time CBS News called the number, the call went to voicemail with this recording: "Hey, you've reached Andrew and his prone to fail but nonetheless handy-dandy iPhone."

The second time CBS News called the recording was of a computerized-sounding British woman's voice claiming that the caller had reached GE media - which was closed.

Then someone called back claiming to be "Samuel Winnacker." He said the press release was in fact "very real."

Instructed that a previous call had resulted in a recording featuring an "Andrew" with a strikingly similar voice to "Samuel Winnacker," he said, "that is inexplicable to me, it should be a standard GE corporate message." He attributed the situation to the fact that his "team was scrambling right now" to deal with the day's news.

Andrew Williams, an actual GE spokesman, confirmed to CBS News: "It was a hoax."

The hoax was reminiscent of the Yes Men, whose stated goal is "Impersonating big time criminals to publicly humiliate them. Our targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else."

A representative for the group, Mike Bonnano, told CBS News that the Yes Men are not directly responsible for the GE effort. He said they advised an "ad-hoc group" that "did most of the heavy lifting" - and that the group was trained through their "Yes Lab" project where they have trained activists to use their tactics.

"Samuel Winnacker," the fake GE representative, claimed he had just heard about The Yes Men today. Asked about their claims to be tied to the press release, he restated the release was real and said the Yes Men are "publicity hounds."

A group called US Uncut, which describes itself as "a burgeoning grassroots movement pressuring corporate tax cheats to pay their fair share," took credit for the hoax in a press release Wednesday afternoon.

"This action showed us how the world could work," US Uncut spokesperson Carl Gibson said. "For a brief moment people believed that the biggest corporate tax dodger had a change of heart and actually did the right thing. But the only way anything like this is really going to happen is if we change the laws that allow corporate tax avoidance in the first place."

The fake press release was posted to www.genewscenters.com - which is just one letter off from where GE posts its actual press releases, www.genewscenter.com. According to Network Solutions, the domain genewscenters.com was registered last week by an outfit in Utah.

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GE made 156 Billion in 2009 while laying off over 18,000 Americans They received stimulus grants, not loans, grants and now they are going to buy 25,000 GM Volts but here is the kicker. They will get a 2,000 dollar subsidy per GE Wattstation (the device that will be used nationwide to charge the cars) of your tax money.

What the hell is going on here?

One more thing that just came to mind, and I have searched but cannot find an answer. Where are these Wattstations made? If we (the tax payers) have to kick in 2000 bucks each, I sure hope they are made here in the USA, I have searched the internet and no hits, which tells me they are not.
Source:

The Obama administration gave corporate giant General Electric $24.9 million in grants from the $787-billion economic "stimulus" law President Barack Obama signed in February 2009, according to records posted by the administration at Recovery.gov,? reports CNS News. Despite getting $24.9 million from U.S. taxpayers, GE decreased its U.S.-based employees by 18,000 in 2009. According to Standard & Poors, GE took in $156 billion in revenue in 2009.?

The Detroit News reports this week that "General Electric will convert half its 30,000 worldwide fleet of vehicles to electrics, including purchasing 12,000 cars from GM beginning with the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. In all, the Fairfield, Conn.-based company, which makes charging stations, will purchase 25,000 plug-in electric cars by 2015."

Yes, those charging stations - GE makes the GE Wattstation - are also subsidized by up to $2,000 of your tax money.

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posted April 16, 2011 05:45 PM            

GE did make $5 Billion in profits from US operations and didn't pay a penny in corporate income tax.

Of course, GE President Jeffrey Immelt is/was a big backer of O'Bomber and GE a big campaign contributor.

posted April 18, 2011 12:06 PM            

Jeffrey Immelt/GE and O'Bomber have established what is at best a "Crony Capitalist" relationship.

At worst, it's Socialism.

posted April 18, 2011 02:01 PM            

I sure wouldn't take any definitions from someone who doesn't know the definition of
"Most".

posted April 18, 2011 02:15 PM            

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Running private enterprise by overseeing and directing their operations through appointed government Czars IS Socialism acoustic.

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