President Obama's Jobs Commission - Outsourcers and Masters of the Universe

President Obama has named the members of his "Council on Jobs and Competitiveness" headed by GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Emptywheel took a whack at Immelt and his outsourcing to China last month here. Obviously Immelt knows how to create jobs, just not so sure he knows how to create jobs in the USA that can allow the US unemployed to earn a living wage.

And really, that is my biggest complaint over all with the "Council" appointed by President Obama. There are two, count'em, two, persons representing workers on this council, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO and Joseph T. Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Besides Trumka and Hansen, the other non-CEOs on the Council are Laura D'Andrea Tyson, President Clinton's Economic Adviser and John Doerr, senior partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Neither Tyson nor Doerr can be said to be particularly sympathetic or empathetic to workers, much less the 25 to 30 million un and underemployed.

The rest of the members represent the CEOs of the world:
Richard Parsons, Chairman of Citigroup
Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express
Roger Ferguson, CEO of TIAA-CREF and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve
Robert Wolf, Chairman of UBS America
Mark Gallogly, managing partner of Centerbridge Partners
Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel Corp
Steve Case, Co-founder of AOL
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook
Ellen Kullman, CEO of DuPont
Antonio Perez, chairman and chief executive of Eastman Kodak Co
Lewis “Lew” Hay III, chief executive of NextEra Energy Inc
Gary Kelly, board chairman of Southwest Airlines
A.G. Lafley, former board chairman, Procter & Gamble
Darlene Miller, chief executive of Permac Industries
Matt Rose, chief executive of Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Penny Pritzker, chairman and chief executive of Pritzker Realty Group
Brian L. Roberts, chief executive of Comcast Corp. and board chairman of NBCUniversal
Monica C. Lozano, publisher and chief executive of La Opinion, the U.S.’s largest Spanish newspaper

Now a quick check of der google and my own basic knowledge, it looks like out of the twenty-three members there are two labor reps, six financial services reps (including Immelt), two media, three "technology," eight variants on consumer/traditional industries/travel/realty, one academic, and one legal.

Eastman Kodak was one of the first firms to outsource IT work. GE outsourced to China as emptywheel discussed above. Procter & Gamble has outsourced their facilities management. DuPont loves them some China almost as much as GE does. So does Intel. And American Express. And TIAA-CREF, though it seems they prefer India. Citigroup also loves India. Permac Industries offers "Outsourcing Management" services.

These are the people that President Obama wants to advise him on how to get the economy going again and generate jobs? The Masters of the Universe who destroyed the economy in the first place, helped along by the titans of industry who sent millions of jobs away?

There's no wonder the Census Bureau was so happy with the available work pool this year. Mr. President, you need to hear the voices of real people who have dealt with real concerns and real problems in this economy, not more blather from the people who created the problems.

And because I can: