Did "Dallas Business Leaders" lie to Bloomberg?!?

"A lying tongue hates those who are crushed by it,
And a flattering mouth works ruin."
Proverbs 26:28

Yesterday, we wrote a post about Jeb Hensarling, GE, and the Export-Import bank.  It was based upon this report from Bloomberg news.  The Bloomberg piece claimed that GE chose not to relocate to Dallas because Jeb Hensarling's opposition to the Ex-Im bank created an "unfavorable political climate."

Our former colleague Tim Carney is a national expert on the Export-Import bank and its relationship with GE.  When we posted yesterday's piece to Facebook, we tagged Tim.  Strangely, he didn't buy it:

• 

  Tim Carney This cannot be true.

  Like · 21 hrs
• 

  Adam Cahnman What?!?

  Like · 21 hrs
• 

  Tim Carney I don't believe GE would do that. I actually don't.

  Like · 21 hrs
• 

  Tim Carney It's only anonymous sources

  Like · 21 hrs
• 

  Adam Cahnman I've got to imagine Bloomberg would have solid sourcing on a story like this otherwise they wouldn't run it in the first place.

  Like · 19 hrs

This bothered us.  On the one hand, we trust Tim.  On the other hand, Bloomberg news doesn't have a reputation for publishing false stories.

That motivated us to take a closer look at the original Bloomberg report, consider this paragraph:

GE told Dallas business leaders in recent days it would look elsewhere for alternatives to its Connecticut home, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details aren’t public. They said GE cited some Texas lawmakers’ opposition to the U.S. Export-Import Bank, an important source of financing for some overseas sales.

The phrase "[T]hey said GE cited" in the second sentence strongly suggests that the sourcing for this article came from the "Dallas Business leaders" side of the talks.

And THAT'S interesting; Tim might be the expert on GE's method of operation, but this website is the expert on the "business community's" M.O. in Texas.

And it's VERY easy to believe that someone from the Dallas Chamber lied to Bloomberg.

Since the beginning of the year, the Texas Association of Business and their subsidiaries have been DESPERATELY attempting to paint supporters of free enterprise as "anti-business" because we oppose corporate rent seeking.  Last month, in a separate controversy over "business incentives" for Facebook, the Texas "business community's" favorite hack wrote:

It is difficult for some observers to imagine that a senator often described as one of the “the most conservative lawmakers in Austin” would actively argue against her community taking steps to be as competitive as possible in attracting high-quality jobs to her district. After all, bragging about the state’s economic prosperity is one of the Texas Tea Party’s favorite talking points. What they either deny or simply do not understand is that the so-called “Texas Miracle” is the result of a mixture of policies that has for years included economic incentives.

So the attack on Jeb Hensarling fits the narrative.

Bottom Line: We can't prove it, but it makes far more sense for someone from the Dallas "business community" to lie to attack the Tea Party than it does for a major multi-national corporation to go after a sitting Congressional chairman.

Thanks to Jeb Hensarling; Texas' Economy dodges Corporate Welfare bullet!!!

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

Phew:

General Electric Co. dropped the Dallas area as a site for a possible headquarters move because of concern that Texas’s political climate is unfavorable to the company’s business, people familiar with the matter said.

GE told Dallas business leaders in recent days it would look elsewhere for alternatives to its Connecticut home, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details aren’t public. They said GE cited some Texas lawmakers’ opposition to the U.S. Export-Import Bank, an important source of financing for some overseas sales.

....

The Ex-Im bank’s charter expired June 30 when Republican members of Congress blocked a reauthorization vote, eliminating a source of credit for U.S. companies seeking export sales. GE has benefited from that financing on international orders, especially for its jet-engine business.

Ex-Im Fight

Texas Republicans including Representative Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, helped lead the charge against the bank, saying the federal agency used taxpayer money to benefit large corporations and foreign interests. The congressman’s office said in a statement that if Ex-Im stances are influencing GE’s choice, “they are going to have to bypass pretty much every state, including Georgia.”

“Most companies base important decisions like this on low taxes, a skilled workforce, a fair legal system and quality of life, which is why everyone knows there is no better state to do business in than Texas,” Jeff Emerson, a spokesman for Hensarling, said via e-mail.

GE’s international customers received almost $1 billion in credit assistance from the bank last year, according to an Ex-Im annual report. GE Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt said in June that the company would move manufacturing work and jobs out of the U.S. if the bank isn’t reauthorized. Some lawmakers are working to revive the agency.

(h/t Bud Kennedy's Facebook)

For those unaware, General Electric is one of the most gluttonous consumers of corporate welfare in the United States.  They embraced the 'green' agenda long before Barack Obama showed up.  GE has supported a long list of transgressions against free enterprise.

Closer to home, these guys would have been a nightmare around the Texas Legislature; they also would have been a lifeline to "Battleground" Texas.

Bottom Line: There's nothing quite like seeing General Electric cite Texans' opposition to the Export-Import bank as an "unfavorable political climate" to illustrate the difference between corporate rent-seeking and free enterprise.

Inside the Reagan Library: The Hollywood Years

Great video from the Reagan Library about the Gipper and the Golden Age of Hollywood:



Highlights:

• Appeared in 53 films from '37 to '63.

• President of Screen Actors Guild (1947 - 1952)
• Developed his visceral dislike of Communism when he had to deal with the investigation into Communist subversion in Hollywood during the 1940's.

• Developed his views on the economy while working for General Electric.

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BONUS: Here's Reagan's Most famous movie line ever:

Big Corporations and Barack Obama's Faux "Centrism"

One of the persistent myths about Barack Obama is that, because he hasn't (yet) destroyed corporate America, and often works with large corporations that that makes him some sort of centrist.  This myth, while absurd, nonetheless has a certain persistent hold on the public and thus needs to be explained.

The most important thing to keep in mind when discussing Barack Obama's Marxism is to understand that Barack Obama is a Marxist from the Saul Alinsky school.  That means Obama's primary goal is to use stealth to corrupt existing institutions and use them to advance his agenda.  As author Richard Poe explains:

Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.

(Sidenote: This is also what Planned Parenthood is doing through the Girl Scouts)

That is why Obama has worked with large corporations as President.  Saul Alinsky taught, and Barack Obama learned, that it was much more effective for Marxists to infiltrate and corrupt existing institutions from within than to fight them openly.  Big Corporations have money and power (for now) that sophisticated Marxists like Alinsky and Obama would rather channel to their own ends than provoke into opposition.  Corporate Welfare has the same effect on the corporate soul as individual welfare has on the individual soul; both end in the government owning said soul.  If you hook them on government now, they'll be too weak to fight you later.

While Barack Obama's 'centrist' patina doesn't fool anyone not looking to be fooled, it does confuse a lot of people.  This helps the Alinksyite Obama, because confusion creates the atmosphere for deception.  As Stanley Kurtz explains in his book Radical in Chief the entire purpose of a community organizer is to use deception to promote Marxism via stealth.  When nominally 'private' corporations align themselves with the political agenda of the government, it allows the government to disguise the source of that agenda to deceive the public.  As Author Yichao Hao explains better than I can:

The fact that Obama has never openly advocated socialist policies and has recently appointed Clinton-era “centrist” bureaucrats to his staff are no reasons to exculpate him from the accusations of socialism. Any intelligent socialist who doesn’t want to end up like perennially irrelevant and invidious Ralph Nader would blend in with the mainstream crowd to produce actual change...Policy-wise, Obama and the 111th “Do-something” Congress has done the most to move the country toward socialism since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society: universal healthcare, one of the largest expansions of government debt in history, the Ted Kennedy National Service Act and numerous others. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein called the 111th Congress the “most ‘do-something’ Congress we’ve seen in 40 years.” A centrist would never have passed so many pieces of legislation; a centrist keeps the status quo (or cooperates with the opposition like Clinton).

 Barack Obama is no 'centrist;' he's an Alinskyite Marxist who uses deception and stealth to corrupt existing institutions from within.

Update: The Poe article linked above also contains this gem from Alinsky himself: "I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday."