MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Exterminating Races
As soon as General Electric cemented its deal with Krupp the price of tungsten carbide jumped from $48 a pound to $453 a pound. With its cartel agreement in place with Krupp, General Electric used its position to buy out or cripple domestic competition in the abrasive market. General Electric paid royalties to Krupp on every pound of carboloy produced. Not only did this arrangement inform the Nazis of how much carboloy was being used during America's build up for war, but also the royalties, in effect ended up in Hitler's war chest.
In September 1940, the agreement came to a halt when two federal anti-trust indictments were returned against General Electric and Krupp subsequent to a complaint by the Firth-Sterling Steel Co. The Firth-Sterling Steel Co had run afoul of General Electric's price levels as it sought to sell shell turning blanks to the U.S. Army. The Senate Committee on Military Affairs was outraged at how the cartel agreement hindered war production. The General Electric-Krupp cartel had created a bottleneck in production. There was no domestic production since General Electric had driven them out of business. Even if sufficient quantities were available more time would be lost in retooling plants and training workmen to use the new tooling properly.
On January 26, 1947, the trial of General Electric resumed in New York City. Under indictment were GE Vice President Zay Jeffries, President W.G. Robbins of the Carboloy Co., and Walter M. Stearns, former GE trade manager and Gustav Krupp. Krupp was not present as he was being held in Germany for war crimes. Ironically during the trial Jeffries accused union leaders as having "un-American objectives" and denounced high wages.
Throughout the trial General Electric's lawyers fought bitterly against the introduction of captured Nazi documents. In one such document Walter Stearns was quoted as telling the Germans that while GE intended to fix prices, "this must never be expressed in the contract itself or in any correspondence which might come into the files of GE." Other documents quoted Jefferies threatening the president of a competitor: "We’ll either buy you out or break you." The jury found that General Electric, its subsidiaries, and company officials were guilty on five counts of criminal conspiracy. Ironically, no further charges---such as sedition or hindering the war effort were leveled against the conspirators. Despite pleads from the Department of Justice for heavy sentences; Judge John C. Knox handed down only minor fines. Stearns and Jeffries were fined $2,500 each and Robbins $1,000. GE and Carboloy were fined $20,000 each and International General Electric only $10,000.
The fine for General Electric was particularly lax considering the firm had made millions on carboloy. In fact, in 1935 and 1936, General Electric's subsidiary that manufactured and sold carboloy made a profit of $694,000 in just those two years. The newspapers of the time failed to cover the trial and the convictions. Nevertheless, the newspapers found plenty of space on their front pages to cover General Electric's charges that UE members employed at atomic energy facilities were potential security risks. The union's UE News was the only paper to report on the trial and convictions. Once again the rich and powerful escaped from justice with a mere slap on the wrist.
The Aluminum Corporation had an agreement with I.G. Farben, which restricted production of aluminum and magnesium, which hindered the building of fighters and bombers. The record from that era makes it clear, corporate America was doing its damnest to sabotage the war effort. A recent article in the press now states that at least 300 corporations were doing business with the Nazis during the war.39
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MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Nazi Prison Partnerships IBM and GE's Interlogix business unit announced a joint agreement Friday to provide integrated computer- and physical-security systems to large customers.
Under the terms of the agreement, GE Interlogix will integrate its security software with IBM's enterprise management and application server software to create systems meant to protect computer networks, buildings and employees.
An example of a possible project under the agreement would be an integrated security network in which employees' facility key cards are linked to the passwords on computer systems. Customers would benefit through increased security and lowered overhead, according to Ray Blair, vice president of business development at IBM Global Services.
"Say one person 'badges-out' of a facility and 10 minutes later someone else tries to access a computer system using that person's password. Immediately alarms would go off," Blair said. "By integrating physical security with IT security tools you get a whole new level of protection."
IBM reported that the partnership would combine human resource systems and facilities management applications with physical security assets such as badge readers and intrusion and surveillance systems. The system would also link to "logical security capabilities," including single sign-on protection through smart cards, Blair said.
Blair said IBM and GE Interlogix have been working together for years to build internal security systems for their own companies and only recently decided to market their work to users. The companies estimate they have saved as much as 80 percent of the time and money they previously spent performing now-redundant security tasks, according to Blair.
Other potential applications could include facial recognition systems that identify when someone has illegally gained access to a secure facility, or radio frequency identification (RFID) tags inserted into laptop computers to track equipment movement around facilities, he said.
IBM will be responsible for providing IT security services and application integration for customers, and it will work with network partners to help customers integrate their information technology infrastructure and back-office systems. IBM will also handle overall project management when requested, the companies said.
Blair said the partnership is non-exclusive, allowing both companies the freedom to work with other vendors on similar projects. It will also let them maintain an open-systems architecture.
Under the deal, GE Interlogix will integrate its Facility Commander security integration software with IBM's Tivoli enterprise management software--including Tivoli Risk Manager and Tivoli Enterprise Console--and its WebSphere server software. GE Interlogix will also support IBM Directory Integrator and IBM DB2 database, IBM said.
IBM reported that it also plans to incorporate its IBM Tivoli Access Manager and IBM Tivoli Identity Manager into other GE products to integrate and automate identity management businesses processes with physical security practices.
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MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Raping America of her wealth Tell me again what a triple-A rating is good for? Not a whole lot, if one of the iconic triple-As in American industry, General Electric, has to go hat in hand to the federal government for a $140 billion bailout.
Or maybe G.E. isn't the bulletproof financial juggernaut the rating agencies say. The company's vaunted GE Capital unit has supposedly been a money machine for years, having generated solid returns come rain or shine. By now, the unit generates upwards of 40% of G.E. overall profits.
Except there's one problem: G.E.'s financial services business may be the blackest box on Wall Street. The unit has little transparency, no regulatory oversight, and now, we are finding out, an unstable funding model.
In particular, G.E. has chosen to fund its finance business with short-term commercial paper rather than secure more stable long-term funding based on its triple-A rating--which, it appears, turns out to be fiction.
Odd, isn't it, that even though it operates in the same economic environment as regulated financial behemoths, G.E. never seems to get hit by outsized credit losses or asset writedowns? Is that because a) the people at G.E. are just smarter than everybody else, or b) the company has wide latitude to paper over problems since it doesn't have a regulator looking over its shoulder?
I vote for b. We know, for instance, that GE is not above skimping on non-cash discretionary items in order to plump up its near-term results. And not in a small way, either: one reason Jack Welch could show such sparkling earnings gains toward the end of his tenure as CEO is that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, G.E. systematically underreserved for losses at its reinsurance unit. When the company sold the business in 2005, it had to pump in an extra $10 billion to make up the shortfall.
Opaque assets and unstable funding. That's some combination. In any event, yet another pillar of the "shadow banking system" founders.
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MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Forcing Debt on the American People General Electric said Wednesday that the federal government had agreed to insure as much as $139 billion in debt for its lending subsidiary, GE Capital. This is the second time in a month that G.E. has turned to a federal program aimed at helping companies during the global credit crisis.
GE Capital is not a bank, but granting it access to a new program from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation may reassure investors and help the lender compete with banks that already have government-protected debt, a G.E. spokesman, Russell Wilkerson, told Bloomberg News.
“Inclusion in this program will allow us to source our debt competitively with other participating financial institutions,” Mr. Wilkerson said.
The F.D.I.C. program covers about $139 billion of G.E.’s debt, or 125 percent of total senior unsecured debt outstanding as of Sept. 30 and maturing by June 30.
G.E. sent investors an e-mail letter about the program on Wednesday and posted the letter on its Web site. “Our participation is a positive development for our investors,” it said.
G.E.’s finance businesses are able to seek F.D.I.C. debt coverage because its GE Capital subsidiary also owns a federal savings bank and an industrial loan company, both of which already qualify.
Last month, G.E. started using a new Federal Reserve program aimed at reviving demand for the commercial paper for a wide variety of companies.
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MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Hidden Bailouts While many companies hire lobbyists to win earmarks, General Electric’s unmatched lobbying force has secured a tax increase — or its equivalent — in President Barack Obama’s budget.
Labeled “climate revenues” and totaling $646 billion over eight years, this line item in Obama’s budget has inspired confidence in GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt. As Immelt put it in a letter this week, he believes that the Obama administration will be a profitable “financier” and “key partner.”
On page 115 of Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget is Table S-2, titled “Effect of Budget Proposals on Projected Deficits.” The chart forecasts the costs of Obama’s spending proposals and the added revenue of his proposed tax increases. It also forecasts, beginning in 2012, billions of dollars a year in “climate revenues.” This budget line, which has struck fear into some lawmakers from coal-dependent states, could spell salvation for GE in these times of uncertainty.
How can Obama generate “climate revenues”? By forcing companies to pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
A tax on greenhouse gas emissions could accomplish this, but Obama’s preferred policy — and the approach embraced by a few congressional bills in recent years — is called “cap and trade.” In short, cap and trade requires businesses to spend “credits” to pay for their emissions. Businesses can buy or sell these credits, and the market — not the government — would directly set the price of a credit. Government would initially auction them off, generating revenue.
GE — a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which advocates cap and trade — leads the push for greenhouse gas restrictions.
In the fourth quarter of 2008 as the company’s stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.
Reviewing their lobbying filings, you might think you were looking at Al Gore’s agenda. GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.”
This isn’t altruism or public relations. GE has started a joint venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which invests in — and hopes to manage the trade in — greenhouse gas credits. But these investments and this trading floor are of basically no use and nearly no value without government restrictions on greenhouse gases.
Hence the lobbying, buttressed by generous campaign contributions: Employees and executives gave $1.35 million to politicians in the past election while GE’s political action committee shelled out $1.55 million. About 64 percent of this $2.9 million went to Democrats, with Obama easily the top recipient of GE money.
Obama’s budget includes the payoff, promising to start a multibillion-dollar greenhouse gas industry by 2012. In a letter this week, GE’S Immelt told shareholders that current events present an “opportunity of a lifetime,” because “capitalism will be ‘reset.’ ”
Immelt wrote: “The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.”
In short, GE plans to get rich by being one of the government’s closest partners — which it has always been, thanks to its unmatched lobbying efforts.
The environmentalist at this point might respond, “Well, good for GE. if they can get rich while helping the planet, more power to them.” But this ignores important issues. First, restraining greenhouse gas emissions will cost Americans dearly. Gas, electricity and heating prices will all go up. The prices of manufactured and shipped goods will go up. A Clemson University report on similar cap-and-trade proposals forecast a 1 percent decline in he U.S. gross domestic product by 2015 if they were implemented.
There are environmental costs, also, to such a focus on greenhouse gases: Ethanol’s damage to water supplies, soil health and air quality are the fruit of government pushing the product as a climate-friendly fuel.
When the lobbying fingerprints of GE and other well-connected firms are considered, it’s not hard to conclude that the policy that will finally emerge won’t be the one that is best for the planet and least bad for the economy, but the one that is best for General Electric
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MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Oval Office Cronyism! By the way this post is dedicated to Lizzy. Ihope it answers all your questions. Thank you for making me take a closer look at “how GE bought the Oval Office and its current occupant”.
As I wrote earlier GE nows owns Bambi and the White House lock, stock and barrel. GE stands to gain contracts not only in the area of “green initiatives” but in Obamacare, our new socialized health care plan. Interestingly enough Tom Daschle, former HHS nominee and tax cheat extraordinaire is now involved in this health care plan as he sits on the board of GE’s Healthy Imagination which is partnered with Intel, developing “innovative” software to track your medical records.
Jeffrey Immelt discusses partnerships between the Oval Office and businesses:
For all of the carping liberals did for eight years about corporate cronyism in George W. Bush’s White House, they seem to turn a blind eye to the same behavior in President Obama’s. With plans in place for a major overhaul in the health-care industry, General Electric is positioning itself to become a major beneficiary of these health care reforms. (This is why GE supported Bambi along with its news affiliates MSNBC and NBC, which are still in the tank for Obama. Can you hear the kumbayas from MSNBC and NBC during the election? They still echo today in their love affair with all things Bambi and the Bambettes!)
Recently at the Business and Social Responsibility Conference, General Electric Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt referred to America’s current economic crisis as part of a “reset” rather than part of an economic cycle, saying, “People who understand that will prosper in the future, and people who don’t understand that will get left behind.”
In the same address, Mr. Immelt, who is also a member of Mr. Obama’s economic recovery advisory board, added, “The intersection of government and business will be changed, maybe for a generation.” In other words, companies should be prepared to beg for a seat at the government’s table if they plan on remaining lucrative.
Glenn Beck and Andrew Wilkow
Let me answer one question that Beck and Wilkow had in their discussion. How did GE get $ 139 billion dollars from the FDIC? They own a savings bank and a financial company.
General Electric Co. said the U.S. government agreed to insure as much as $139 billion in debt for lending arm GE Capital Corp., the second time in a month it has turned to a federal program designed to help companies during a global credit crunch.
Granting GE Capital, which isn’t a bank, access to a new Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. program may reassure investors and help the unit compete with banks that already have government protection behind their debt, said Russell Wilkerson, a spokesman for the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company. Coverage would be for about $139 billion, or 125 percent of total senior unsecured debt outstanding as of Sept. 30 and maturing by June 30.
“Inclusion in this program will allow us to source our debt competitively with other participating financial institutions,” Wilkerson said. GE sent investors an e-mail about the program today. “Our participation is a positive development for our investors.”
GE’s finance businesses are able to seek FDIC debt coverage because its GE Capital subsidiary also owns a federal savings bank and an industrial loan company, both of which already qualify. GE last month started using a new Federal Reserve program designed to revive demand for commercial paper amid the global crisis.
So now we know how they got their money. Here is more on Healthy Imagination from Bungalow Bill:
Tom Daschle is back and working on nationalized healthcare. It’s obvious now, GE is a chosen winner by Obama who is choosing which companies win and lose based around his policies, and that doesn’t include the government has been buying GE’s bad paper. Daschle has been chosen as a board member of Healthymagination. GE will drive socialized medicine through a happy-named company.
Healthymagination will be in charge of the national patient database, which is established in the stimulus plan. The reports show that GE with Intel Corp is investing $6 billion to improve and make healthcare affordable through Healthymagination, and I have no doubt it is our money they are investing.
Healthymagination is founded by GE, and GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, sits on Obama’s team of economic advisers. Healthymagination’s landing page describes the company will change the way we approach healthcare, with more than 100 innovations all focused on addressing three critical needs, lowering costs, touching more lives, and improving quality.
Let’s not forget Daschle is one of the hardest pushers of socialized medicine in this country. Socialized medicine will be controlled by the government with General Electric as its partner, who will make billions as your health care is sacrificed.
As you can see there is absolutely no competition in this health care model. It will destroy all small health care plans because they are being left out of the loop. The government will easily track your health care making vitally important decisions for your physician. Americans stand to lose their freedom of choice under this plan. The only one that benefits from this plan is GE and the large insurance companies like Aetna, Blue Cross, etc… There will be no open bidding, the decision has been made by the GE-owned White House and Oval Office.
Here is how the connections between GE and the GE owned administration work:GE runs all NBC stations.
NBC was and still is in the tank for Obama. (Now we know why! Just ask Jeffrey Immelt!)
GE supported Obama and still does, Jeff Immelt, GE CEO, is on Obamas “economic recovery” board.
Tom Daschle is on the board of Jeff Immelt’s new “Healthymagination” endeavor.
Tom Daschle was to be the HHS but happened to be one of every Obama appointee that has/had tax “issues”.
Tom Daschle has written a book about “Universal Health Care” (his book discusses nothing else but socialized medicine.).
Now all of the cards are in place for the following to happen:GE gets the sole health care contract and Obama get everlasting support from ALL of GE owned NBC affiliates.
Immelt said today that they will use all NBC affiliates “to distribute over 5000 pieces of health related content to over 100mm consumers” In other words, he will help sell the “plan” to the public.
There is a ton more to this story but keep an eye on the connection between a very powerful corporation and the administration.
More from Twine on how GE will profit from its close friendship with Bambi and the Oval Office in the area of healthcare:
Mr. Immelt’s words betray GE’s willingness to partner with the Obama government in order to turn a profit. To this end, GE has appointed Mr. Obama’s former nominee for secretary of health and human services, Tom Daschle, to the board of advisers for Healthymagination, an initiative launched by General Electric in partnership along with Intel, which will invest $6 billion over the next six years on “health care innovation that will help deliver better care to more people at lower cost.”
Mr. Daschle said, “We can only find real solutions in health care when business, government and their partners work together.”
In 2008, Mr. Daschle wrote the book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis” in which he explains his radical solutions to the problems in American health care. In the book, Mr. Daschle calls for a British-style Federal Council on health care.
-The profitability of GE’s new venture will depend heavily on the nationalization of the health care industry. The standardization and streamlining of health care recordkeeping, something on which Mr. Obama ran in 2008, would require a massive government contract for the technology to achieve such standardization.
-Fortunately for Bambi and Congress, Healtymagination is developing a health care record management system.
With Bambi’s most ardent supporter, Tom Daschle, sitting on the board of Healthymagination, GE will certainly get some of those very lucrative contracts. Quid Pro Quo for a former Senator!
-And did I mention that NBC is in on the crony capitalism in the Oval Office? Healthy Imaging reports that GE-owned media conglomerate NBC with its ratings in the tank will be a shill for the program.
-NBC Universal and NBC News will air more than 5,000 televised reports annually on health and wellness. (Now the subliminal messages begin. NBC will convince you that you aren’t healthy unless the government controls your healthcare!)
-MSNBC will do their part to convince you that government run health care is the best for you during their coverage of medical issues and examination of health policies. (Okay! Now I understand why NBC ran with Farah’s Story which I covered in a previous post. It is working because now everyone is talking about how her cancer shows why our health care system is so bad!)
Put very simply, the media will put the propaganda out there for you to view (like they did with Farah’s Story), the government will be overwhelmed with popular demand for socialized medicine especially single payer (I covered the myths about single payer health care in another post) health care and it will be enacted while no one bothers to read the fine print in Congress. Trust me there will be no debate because the Democraps will enact it while some of the Repelicans fall in line.Crony capitalism at its best. And Bambi’s administration will pay back his best friends in corporate America with our taxpayer dollars.
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MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Genocide! Nasty Nazi Business: General Electric caught helping to exterminate raceshttp://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_nastybiz.htmlNineteen Forty-Six: Not for the first time and not for the last, the giant General Electric Co. found itself in federal court on charges of violating anti-trust law. The U.S. government charged GE and a corporate ally with conspiracy to monopolize a market, raise prices and drive out competitors.
But this was no ordinary anti-trust case. The year following the end of World War II, GE stood accused of criminal conspiracy with Krupp, a major German munitions firm.
Their partnership artificially raised the cost of U.S. defense preparations while helping to subsidize Hitler’s rearmament of Germany. The arrangement continued even after Nazi tanks smashed into Poland.GE was not alone among U.S. big business in having cordial, profitable arrangements with the corporations of Nazi Germany. Kodak, DuPont and Shell Oil are also known to have had business dealing with Germany. Due to a recent reparations case, the activities of General Motors and Ford are the most well known. And the cases are instructive:
"It came as an unpleasant surprise to discover that the enemy was also driving trucks manufactured by Ford and Opel — a 100 percent GM-owned subsidiary ..."
GM and Ford, through their subsidiaries, controlled 70 percent of the German automobile market when war broke out in 1939. Those companies
"rapidly retooled themselves to become suppliers of war materiel to the Germany army," writes Michael Dobbs in the Washington Post.
"When American GIs invaded Europe in June 1944, they did so in jeeps, trucks and tanks manufactured by the Big Three motor companies in one of the largest crash militarization programs ever undertaken," observes Dobbs. "It came as an unpleasant surprise to discover that the enemy was also driving trucks manufactured by Ford and Opel — a 100 percent GM-owned subsidiary — and flying Opel-built warplanes."
The major U.S. automakers (including Chrysler) established multinational operations as early as the 1920s and 1930s, locating plants in Germany, eastern Europe and Japan.
FRIEND OF THE FUHRER
It wasn’t all strictly business. Henry Ford, a notorious anti-Semite, formed a kind of mutual admiration society with Adolf Hitler. The German dictator enthusiastically applauded American mass-production techniques. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," declared Hitler, who kept a life-size portrait of the American industrialist next to his desk. In 1938, Ford accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could award a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.
Ford had a role in Nazi Germany’s prewar military buildup. U.S. Army Intelligence reported that the "real purpose" of the truck assembly plant opened in Berlin in 1938 was to produce "troop transport-type vehicles for the Wehrmacht (German military).
A senior executive of General Motors also received a medal from Hitler, apparently for services rendered, and services to come. GM’s involvement in Germany began in 1935 with the opening of a truck factory near Berlin. Within a few years trucks produced by that factory would be part of German Army convoys rumbling through Poland, France and the Soviet Union.
A senior executive of General Motors also received a medal from Hitler, apparently for services rendered, and services to come.
After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan commented that the Nazis’ behavior "should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors." The GM plant in Germany was highly profitable. "We have no right to shut down that plant," Sloan declared.
TRUCKS FOR TYRANNY
GM and Ford were vital components of the Nazi war effort. German Ford was the second largest producer of trucks for the Nazi military. GM’s plants built thousands of bomber and jet fighter propulsion systems for the Luftwaffe — while at the same time profiting from production of aircraft engines for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
"The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted inevitably in the full conversion by GM and Ford of their Axis plants to the production of military aircraft and trucks," according to a 1974 report printed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. "On the ground, GM and Ford subsidiaries built nearly 90 percent of the armored ‘mule’ 3-ton half-trucks and more than 70 percent of the Reich’s medium and heavy-duty trucks. These vehicles, according to American intelligence reports, served as ‘the backbone of the German Army transportation system.’"
"General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland," says researcher Bradford Snell. "Switzerland was just a repository of looted funds, while GM was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not have done so without GM."
GOING ALONG
'The Nazis could not have invaded Poland and Russia without GM'
Company officials have maintained that the Hitler government took over their German plants and that they "lost control" of the situation. But documents discovered in German and American archives show that in some cases, American managers of both Ford and GM seem to have gone along with the conversion of those plants to military production.
"When American GIs liberated the Ford plants in Cologne and Berlin, they found destitute foreign workers confined behind barbed wire and company documents extolling the ‘genius of the Fuhrer,’" writes Michael Dobbs.
Shamelessly, after the war both GM and Ford demanded reparations from the U.S. government for damage to their German plants caused by Allied bombing. In 1967, GM was compensated with $33 million from the U.S. government for the American bombing of its Russelsheim plant.
GE GOES GLOBAL EARLY
Compared to Ford and General Motors, GE’s involvement appears less overt and extensive than that of the automakers. But it is nonetheless instructive, showing
GE’s more complex relationship to the Third Reich.As early as 1904, GE began joining forces with major foreign "competitors" to carve up world markets for crucial goods and technologies. In that year GE reached agreement with AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft). The following year GE established a relationship with Tokyo Electric. GE’s early alliance with German firms was only temporarily disrupted by World War I. GE acquired 16 percent of AEG stock and placed four of its officials on the AEG board. It also obtained a stake in Siemens, Germany’s other big electrical manufacturing company.
GE’s patent agreements and minority stock ownership with German and Japanese corporations protected the domestic market while gaining access to foreign markets.
It was GE’s conspiracy with the German steel company Krupp that affected the U.S. war effort and dragged the company into a New York courtroom.
Both GE and Krupp had patents for tungsten carbide, a hard metal composition valued for its use in cutting dies and machining metal. Neither company’s patents were good enough to set up a monopoly. But jointly they could influence the world market.
Discussions between GE and Krupp began in April 1928. A GE representative asserted that his company’s willingness to enter new lines of business was dependent upon "the extent to which they can discourage competition." Eight months later they had an agreement which allowed GE the right to fix prices. GE set up a separate subsidiary, Carboloy, to handle the business.
Immediately, the price of tungsten carbide went from $48 to $453 a pound.
A GE representative asserted that his company’s willingness to enter new lines of business was dependent upon "the extent to which they can discourage competition."GE used the agreement to cripple — or buy out — domestic competitors. When the head of American Cutting Alloys appealed to GE to be permitted to remain in business, he was told by a GE official: "It seems rather obvious to me that five suppliers in the American market all supplying carbides is a better situation than six suppliers."
In its agreement with Krupp, GE agreed to sell tungsten carbide (also known as carboloy) only in the western hemisphere, and to pay royalties to Krupp. Gustav Krupp, owner of the company, was a major corporate backer of Adolf Hitler. Both before and after Hitler’s rise to power, GE’s royalties indirectly subsidized the Nazis.
In 1935, as the U.S. government began defense preparations, tungsten carbide (at GE’s prices) was regarded as too expensive.
AGREED TO PROTECT THE NAZIS
On Dec. 11, 1939 (nine weeks after the Hitler attack on Poland), the representative of International General Electric cabled from Berlin to GE official Dr. Zay Jeffries: "Our friends at Osram Co. [a German lighting company linked to GE] informed me yesterday that Krupp would be interested in capitalizing the royalties now being received from Carboloy... In this connection, Dr. Louis (a Krupp official) has asked for an appointment with me in Zurich where we shall both be next week. They are quite anxious that the Krupp name be kept out of correspondence, particularly telegrams that might reach improper hands and therefore I shall refer to them in the future either as the European licensor under Carboloy contract or simply as Dr. Louis..."
"The ‘improper hands’ could be either the United States government or the governments of Europe which had been attacked by Hitler," reported the UE NEWS in 1948. "GE agreed to protect the Nazis.
For every pound of the material sold in the U.S., Hitler through Krupp was getting royalties with which he bought more munitions.
"In 1940, with the American defense moves in full swing, GE was still reporting to the Nazi representatives, now stationed in Zurich, Switzerland, how much tungsten carbide was being used in the United States. GE paid royalties to the Nazis on every pound used here. That was money for the Hitler war chest."
In other words, Hitler was getting 12 pounds of tungsten carbide at the price the U.S. government was getting one pound. For every pound of the material sold in the U.S., Hitler through Krupp was getting royalties with which he bought more munitions.
In 1940, with Europe at war, Krupp arranged to have its royalties from GE collected by a Swiss go-between.
BUSTED
As late as August 1940, nearly a year after Hitler attacked Poland, GE was seeking renewal of its monopoly agreement with Krupp. But the GE-Krupp deal came to an end as a result of a lawsuit — and an embargo the U.S. government clamped on shipment of money to the Nazis.
The Firth-Sterling Steel Co., which sought to sell shell turning blanks to the U.S. Army, Frankford Arsenal, ran afoul of GE’s price levels and complained to the U.S. Justice Dept.
In September 1940, the UE NEWS reported that two federal anti-trust indictments had been returned against GE and the Krupp company, charging them with having conspired to maintain worldwide monopoly in the production and sale of tungsten carbide. U.S. entry into World War II interrupted the proceedings, however.
‘PRINCIPAL BOTTLENECK’
In the meantime, a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs took an understandably dim view of how international cartels had hindered the anti-fascist war effort. The Senate subcommittee charged that the GE-Krupp arrangement had created a bottleneck in production of tungsten carbide. "In contrast with the situation in Germany, the present drastic shortage of this essential material in this country is notorious," stated John Henry Lewin, special assistant to the Attorney General. "The need to produce it, to retool our manufacturing plants with it, and to instruct workmen in the use of such tools has constituted one of the principal bottlenecks in our production program."
' ...the present drastic shortage of this essential material in this country is notorious'
There was no tungsten carbide to meet military needs. There were no independent manufacturers — GE had crippled them.
The trial resumed in New York on Jan. 26 1947. Under indictment were GE Vice Pres. Zay Jeffries; Pres. W.G. Robbins of the Carboloy Co., and Walter M. Stearns, former GE trade manager. Gustav Krupp, held as a war criminal in Germany, was not present, although he, too, was indicted.Ironically, Jeffries had accused UE leaders as having "un-American objectives" and denounced high wages.
INCRIMINATING DOCUMENTS
During the trial GE attorneys bitterly fought the introduction of German documents seized by the U.S. military. In one such document, indicted GE conspirator Walter Stearns was quoted as telling the Germans that while GE intended to fix prices, "this must never be expressed in the contract itself or in any correspondence which might come into the files of GE."
The court also heard testimony from U.S. companies pressured by GE not to buy from competitors. The president of one company, Union Wire Die, testified that Dr. Jeffries had warned him: "We’ll either buy you out or break you."
GE, its subsidiaries and company officials were
found guilty on five counts of criminal conspiracy with Friederich Krupp A.G. of Essen, Germany.
Summing up his opinion on one of the five counts, Judge John C. Knox declared: "Competitors were excluded by purchase and by boycott; prices on unpatented products were fixed, future patent rights were forced into the pool, world markets were divided, and on occasion prices were fixed beyond the scope of any asserted patent protection..."
Judge Knox concluded: "defendants did unlawfully monopolize."
WRIST-SLAPPING
'While the working people of America were giving everything to the anti-fascist war effort, that effort was being hindered by ... big business'
However, the court declined the Justice Department’s request for heavy penalties, including jail time. Stearns and Jeffries were fined $2,500 each and Robbins $1,000. GE and Carboloy were fined $20,000 each and International GE only $10,000 — even though the profits GE made through its conspiracy with Krupp must have run into many millions of dollars.
In 1935 and 1936 alone, GE’s subsidiary Carboloy made a profit of $694,000. On top if that it paid GE $454,000 as a manufacturing profit and another $300,000 as interest on a loan from GE during the period of the monopoly.
Ironically, reports on the trial and conviction were buried or ignored by many newspapers, at a time when GE allegations that UE members employed at atomic energy facilities were potential security risks were prominently displayed on the front page. The UE NEWS (with a circulation of more than 700,000) was the only newspaper courageous enough to cover the trial consistently and dig out the facts of the story.
"While the working people of America were giving everything to the anti-fascist war effort, that effort was being hindered by international cartel agreements of big business," write Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais in Labor’s Untold Story.---------------
MSNBC...A Fuller Spectrum Of Parading on the Streets with Nazis Wall Street and corporate America built Hitler's war machine. Once war was ominous and the Roosevelt administration started to build up American defense corporate America went on strike. Many of the deals arranged between corporate America and the Nazis, border on the line of treason. The majority of the deals between corporate America and the Nazis were the cartel-type agreements, not unlike the establishment of monopolies.
Prior to the U.S. entry into the war, the biggest scandal was in aviation. Contracts had been awarded for 4,000 planes in 1940 but by August 9, only 33 planes had been built. The truth was that the aviation industry was dominated in many cases by General Motors and thus under the control of the du Ponts. The press suppressed the real story of a "sit-down strike" by big business and distracted the public's attention by blaming labor. The truth was it a capitalist's strike, and until big business got special tax breaks it refused to produce planes. 36 For six months from May to October 1940 no planes were produced. Corporate America was using the aviation industry as a front to thwart President Roosevelt’s plan.
Throughout this "sit-down strike" by corporate America, the press was busily attacking labor and failed to mention the refusal of General Motors to accept contracts already awarded for planes. This sit-down "strike" by corporate America had the support of the newspaper chains as well as the support of the War and Navy departments.
During WWI, the auto industry came close to committing treason. Throughout 1917, the auto companies refused to cut production by 25% in the second half of the year, thereby denying the defense industry much needed production space and a substantial amount of iron and coal that would have been better used for defense production. In the 1941, General Motors announced it would produce no new models until 1943. General Motors promptly broke that pledge and produced new models in 1942.
On March 26, 1942, Senator Truman accused Standard Oil of treason. Standard had delivered the new tetraethyl lead gas additive to both Germany and Japan. Standard was the major supplier of oil to both the Nazis and Japan. In his appearance before the Senate committee, Farish, the president of Standard, was asked if Standard had delivered the oil to Japan that made the attack on Pearl Harbor possible. He answered that Standard Oil was an international company. Standard’s buffed its image with an advertising campaign that promoted the virtues of Standard products, and was helped along by the willingness of the major papers.37 Next to gasoline, steel is the element needed most in producing armaments. The record of big steel was one of sabotage. As some of the following quotes show pulled from Labor, a union publication by Seldes. 38
Sabotage of war program charged to Steel magnates: Labor July 7, 1942. Subtitle: More interested In keeping Monopoly than with beating Axis declares Senator O’ Mahoney."
"Truman Accuses Steel Companies of Sabotage; PM, June 6, 1942 Subtitle Senator Black charges that big corporations hamstring production."
And from Labor April 28, 1942 the following quote. " It has become clear as the noonday sun that the vicious attack which has been made on the nation’s workers in recent weeks was actually a red herring designed to divert attention from the treasonable sabotage of the nation’s war program by Big Business, which is being exposed by congressional committees and defense agencies.
Proof of that statement may reasonably be drawn from the sensational and unbelievably shocking disclosures of a cold-blooded betrayal of national welfare by men whose only flag is the dollar sign.
One of the most shameful chapters in our history.
The Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation subsidiary of U.S. Steel and the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company were charged by the War Production Board with having refused to fill government armament orders while diverting iron and steel to favorite civilian customers for non-essential purposes. The result is that shipbuilding and other war construction have been held up.
The President directed the navy to take over three plants of the Brewster Aero Company, accused of sabotaging the aviation program.
< The United States faces a shortage of critical war materials because the outstanding industrial concerns have contracts with German monopolists restricting production here."
One of the necessary war materials needed that was hamstrung by these cartel agreements was carboloy or cemented tungsten carbide. Carboloy’s abrasive properties were vital in the machining of hardened steel products. Without it, parts for tanks and other instruments of war were next to impossible to machine.
General Electric held the patent along with a cartel agreement with Krupp that limited the production and restricted sales.
As soon as General Electric cemented its deal with Krupp the price of tungsten carbide jumped from $48 a pound to $453 a pound. With its cartel agreement in place with Krupp, General Electric used its position to buy out or cripple domestic competition in the abrasive market. General Electric paid royalties to Krupp on every pound of carboloy produced. Not only did this arrangement inform the Nazis of how much carboloy was being used during America's build up for war, but also the royalties, in effect ended up in Hitler's war chest.
In September 1940, the agreement came to a halt when two federal anti-trust indictments were returned against General Electric and Krupp subsequent to a complaint by the Firth-Sterling Steel Co. The Firth-Sterling Steel Co had run afoul of General Electric's price levels as it sought to sell shell turning blanks to the U.S. Army. The Senate Committee on Military Affairs was outraged at how the cartel agreement hindered war production. The General Electric-Krupp cartel had created a bottleneck in production. There was no domestic production since General Electric had driven them out of business. Even if sufficient quantities were available more time would be lost in retooling plants and training workmen to use the new tooling properly.
On January 26, 1947, the trial of General Electric resumed in New York City. Under indictment were GE Vice President Zay Jeffries, President W.G. Robbins of the Carboloy Co., and Walter M. Stearns, former GE trade manager and Gustav Krupp. Krupp was not present as he was being held in Germany for war crimes. Ironically during the trial Jeffries accused union leaders as having "un-American objectives" and denounced high wages.
Throughout the trial General Electric's lawyers fought bitterly against the introduction of captured Nazi documents. In one such document Walter Stearns was quoted as telling the Germans that while GE intended to fix prices, "this must never be expressed in the contract itself or in any correspondence which might come into the files of GE." Other documents quoted Jefferies threatening the president of a competitor: "We’ll either buy you out or break you." The jury found that General Electric, its subsidiaries, and company officials were guilty on five counts of criminal conspiracy. Ironically, no further charges---such as sedition or hindering the war effort were leveled against the conspirators. Despite pleads from the Department of Justice for heavy sentences; Judge John C. Knox handed down only minor fines. Stearns and Jeffries were fined $2,500 each and Robbins $1,000. GE and Carboloy were fined $20,000 each and International General Electric only $10,000.
The fine for General Electric was particularly lax considering the firm had made millions on carboloy. In fact, in 1935 and 1936, General Electric's subsidiary that manufactured and sold carboloy made a profit of $694,000 in just those two years. The newspapers of the time failed to cover the trial and the convictions. Nevertheless, the newspapers found plenty of space on their front pages to cover General Electric's charges that UE members employed at atomic energy facilities were potential security risks. The union's UE News was the only paper to report on the trial and convictions. Once again the rich and powerful escaped from justice with a mere slap on the wrist. The Aluminum Corporation had an agreement with I.G. Farben, which restricted production of aluminum and magnesium, which hindered the building of fighters and bombers. The record from that era makes it clear, corporate America was doing its damnest to sabotage the war effort. A recent article in the press now states that at least 300 corporations were doing business with the Nazis during the war.39
The following reactionaries among big business men were supporters of Merwin Hart’s American Union for Nationalistic Spain, one of the many pro-fascist groups Hart formed and supported: James Rand of Remington-Rand, Lammont du Pont, A. W. Erickson, chairman of a New York advertising agency, Alfred Sloan president of General Motors and J. H Alstyne president of Otis Elevators. Hart supported the fascist line fully. He opposed the 44-hour week, fought against the Unemployment Act, fought against the Child Labor Act and, even more odiously, demanded that only those persons not on relief be allowed to vote. Hart was not much of a believer in democracy as the following quote shows.
"Democracy is the rallying cry under which the American system of government is being prepared for despotism. If you find any organization containing the word "democracy" it is probably directly or indirectly affiliated with the Communist Party." 40
Next to the du Ponts and their friends, Henry Ford was the most notorious pro-Hitler backer. In 1919, he first announced his anti-Semitic views when he stated.
"International financiers are behind all wars. They are what is called the International Jew; German-Jews, French-Jews, English-Jews, American-Jews…the Jew is the threat."10
Again, the same rhetoric is familiar today with many of the right wing groups particularly the Posse Comitatus. The quote above is almost unchanged from the rhetoric of the Posse in the 1980s. The Posse uses code words such as international bankers to mean Jews. Similarly, they and others are still promoting the Protocols of Zion, a malicious anti-Semitic book based on nothing more than outrageous lies first published in this country by Ford in his Dearborn Independent.
Ford's involvement went much further than merely publishing anti-Semitic trash. He was one of the early financiers of Hitler. Obtaining hard evidence of funding for Hitler is a rarity but in the case of Ford, it is irrefutable. The most credible evidence comes from the Hitler's treason trial after the failed Beer Hall Putsch from the testimony of Herr Auer, vice president of the Bavarian Diet on February 7, 1923.11, 12
Ford like Hart supported the Nazi agenda, harboring a rabid hatred of Jews and unions. One of the myths that Ford successfully created was that he paid his workers more than other firms did. In fact he paid less; the United Autoworkers printed tables showing the wages for every category of worker was lower than the wages paid by Chrysler and Briggs (General Motors). The reality was that the maximum wage paid by Ford was below the minimum wage of the union. 13
Ford was not known to be generous or supportive of charities, he never contributed any large sum to anyone with one exception. The exception was the Moral Re-Armament Movement lead by Dr. Frank Buchman, a notorious fascist and a Lutheran minister.14
Buchman preached a philosophy of pacification of labor through the use of force. Followers of Buchman read like a whose who in the anti-union movement such as Harry Chandler, the reactionary publisher of the Los Angles Times and Louis B. Mayer. Along with his program for the pacification of labor, Buchman was rabidly opposed to communism and praised Hitler’s opposition to communism as the following quote reveals.
"I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism."97
While many of Buchman’s apologists claim Buchman later said he was deceived by Hitler, Buchman never renounced fascism or changed his fascist views towards labor. The primary reasons the Moral Re-Armament group has persisted to the present day, despite its controversial views, are the pro-business and anti-labor stance and the support it receives from such business leaders as Ford. Buchman was also the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Ford employed Harry Bennett to deal with labor. Bennett had one of the largest spy and thug services in America at that time, which battered, killed and otherwise intimidated workers. Where ever a Ford plant was located there was a long record of murders and beatings of workers at the hands of Bennett’s thugs. Ford even went so far as to fire workers who took part in the 1932 Ford hunger march. Bennett employed Father Coughlin, the rabid fascist radio priest to undermine the efforts to unionize Ford. In essence, Coughlin bribed Homer Martin into betraying the union in an effort to form a company union rather than to join the AFL or CIO.15
The plight of the American worker during the 30s is hardly imaginable today. In fact, the conditions under which labor worked were so intolerable that numerous congressional committees and hearings were held. Employers routinely used spies, and hired stool pigeons, thugs, gangsters and murders. They were well equipped with arms including Thompson machine guns and "poisonous gas," the term at the time for tear gas. This visceral hatred of labor and unions by employers is documented in the many volumes of the La Follette reports on corporate America. George Seldes lists the following seven facts from the La Follette reports:
"1. that American business employs a vast espionage system whose purpose is to fight labor.
2. that 200 agencies employ 40,000 to 50,000 spies in industry;
3. that $80,000,000 a year is spent by big corporations in fighting labor, employing spies, buying gas and guns, hiring gangs;
4. that almost all the great corporations are in the spy racket, including Ford, General Motors, U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Consolidated Edison, Weir, Frick Coke, etc
5. that 2,500 companies comprising what Senator La Follette called the "Blue Book of American Industry" are part of the American Gestapo.
6. that the National Association of Manufactures, US Chamber of Commerce, Merchants and Manufactures Association, National Metal Trades Association are the chief organizations engaged in native fascism
7. that the American press, which still gives its front pages and its approving editorials to smears, exaggerations and falsehoods of the Dies Committee. And similar committees, and which employ reporters to attack labor, and especially those labor unions which are progressive and militant and put up a strong fight for the rights of labor, suppressed almost all the hearings and findings of the La Follette Committee, which constituted an exposure of Fascism in American industry." 16
