The New York Times reports tonight on what a great job General Electric does in tax evasion avoidance, reaping a tax credit of $3.2 billion on $5.1 billion of reported US profits. And while GE is a particularly egregious example by virtue of having the most sophisticated tax operation in the US, it illustrates a more general point. The idea that US corporations are heavily or even meaningfully taxed is a canard (and this is true at the small end of the spectrum too). While nominal tax rates may appear to take a serious bite out of corporate earnings, a myriad of loopholes and income-shifting schemes allows companies to slip the taxman’s leash.
And before some of you contend that this line of thinking is somehow anti-capitalist, consider the reaction of President Reagan when learning of GE’s skills in tax dodging:
As it has evolved, the company has used, and in some cases pioneered, aggressive strategies to lower its tax bill. In the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan overhauled the tax system after learning that G.E. — a company for which he had once worked as a commercial pitchman — was among dozens of corporations that had used accounting gamesmanship to avoid paying any taxes.
“I didn’t realize things had gotten that far out of line,” Mr. Reagan told the Treasury secretary, Donald T. Regan, according to Mr. Regan’s 1988 memoir. The president supported a change that closed loopholes and required G.E. to pay a far higher effective rate, up to 32.5 percent.
And don’t try contending that it has always been like this. From Richard Wolf in the Guardian (emphasis his):
During the Great Depression, federal income tax receipts from individuals and corporations were roughly equal. During the second world war, income tax receipts from corporations were 50% greater than from individuals. The national crises of depression and war produced successful popular demands for corporations to contribute significant portions of federal tax revenues.
US corporations resented that arrangement, and after the war, they changed it. Corporate profits financed politicians’ campaigns and lobbies to make sure that income tax receipts from individuals rose faster than those from corporations and that tax cuts were larger for corporations than for individuals. By the 1980s, individual income taxes regularly yielded four times more than taxes on corporations’ profits…
Corporations repeated at the state and local levels what they accomplished federally. According to the US Census Bureau, corporations paid taxes on their profits to states and localities totalling $24.7bn in 1988, while individuals then paid income taxes of $90bn. However, by 2009, while corporate tax payments had roughly doubled (to $49.1bn), individual income taxes had more than tripled (to $290bn).
The article describes one of the biggest ruses used by major companies, that of shifting income to lower tax jurisdictions. Nicholas Shaxson, in his book Treasure Islands, discusses how the economic justifications are often thin to non-existant, which the operations in the tax-shelter countries often being skimpy even though the income attributed to them via transfer pricing schemes will be large. This operates to the extent that Africa loses more via tax stripping than it gets back in foreign aid. Consider the pattern at GE:
As the company expanded abroad, the portion of its profits booked in low-tax countries such as Ireland and Singapore grew far faster. From 1996 through 1998, its profits and revenue in the United States were in sync — 73 percent of the company’s total. Over the last three years, though, 46 percent of the company’s revenue was in the United States, but just 18 percent of its profits.
The story also recounts the lengths GE goes to in winning special tax waivers. GE’s tax chief and former Treasury official John Samuels kneeled before Charles Rangel to plead for a the extension of tax breaks favorable to GE (this seems to establish that when influential people go on bended knee before Congresscritters, the taxpayer is about to be screwed royally). By happenstance, just a month later, GE president Jeff Immelt and Rangel stood together as Immelt announced that the multinational was giving an unprecedented $30 million to New York City schools, $11 million of which would go to ones in Rangel’s district.
Another vignette of GE lobbying in action:
After the World Trade Organization forced the United States to halt $5 billion a year in export subsidies to G.E. and other manufacturers, the company’s lawyers and lobbyists became deeply involved in rewriting a portion of the corporate tax code, according to news reports after the 2002 decision and a Congressional staff member.
By the time the measure — the American Jobs Creation Act — was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2004, it contained more than $13 billion a year in tax breaks for corporations, many very beneficial to G.E. One provision allowed companies to defer taxes on overseas profits from leasing planes to airlines. It was so generous — and so tailored to G.E. and a handful of other companies — that staff members on the House Ways and Means Committee publicly complained that G.E. would reap “an overwhelming percentage” of the estimated $100 million in annual tax savings.
According to its 2007 regulatory filing, the company saved more than $1 billion in American taxes because of that law in the three years after it was enacted.
The ugly end result of all this tax avoidance is that jurisdictions go on fool’s missions of trying to accommodate the big boys to either get special favors (in the case of Rangel) or to create jobs, when the jobs may not really add up to much (as in there is no real specific quid pro quo, save in cases like new factory openings). And GE is half financial services, every bit as dependent on the munificence of the Fed and Treasury as the big banks for its survival, and was an active user of many of the fancy special lending facilities created by the Fed. And if AIG had failed, GE would have gone down too. So a company that refuses to pay its fair share of the tax burden has no compunctions of sucking heavily at the TBTF subsidies trough.
In addition, in some cases the consequences of failing to heed threat to leave don’t come close to the level that the corporations bandy about. As Richard Smith noted regarding the saber-rattling of various financial player about leaving London if higher levies are imposed:
The second interviewee has heard some rumours. Well, so have I, and mine say that Zug’s full up with expat hedgies, Geneva’s full up with expat hedgies, and they all come dashing back at the weekend anyway for the home comforts of London. There’s more to attractiveness than your tax rate. Let’s see someone carve a whole new anglophone Canary Wharf, City of London, and Mayfair out of the bare rock somewhere in a European time zone. And add a few shops and some nice nurseries, and so on. It might take a while. Short of that, it’s worth noting that when you inspect the tax revenue figures a bit more closely, it turns out that just over a tenth of the £53Bn is corporation tax: that’s (roughly speaking) all that’s at risk if a UK bank changes its domicile.The rest only walks if the staff ship out along with the banks. Where to?
And if HSBC decamped, wouldn’t that make someone other than the UK responsible for its rescue if it got in trouble? That trade sounds like a net plus to me. (But Richard Smith’s surmise looks correct: HSBC’s threat to depart looks to be pure bluster).
But in the US, the real economy justifications for these sorts of moves are guaranteed to become more and more unhinged from reality. The Citizens United decision means the cost of winning and holding any elected Federal post has just skyrocketed. Thus big corporate donors will be even more certain of getting what they want, no matter how much damage it does to citizens and the real economy.
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Austerity In Perspective (hilarious video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LgDjHOX_UE
A couple of months ago the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation released a report, which can be found here, called “PRESENT LAW AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE FEDERAL TAX SYSTEM.”
The single most important fact revealed by the report, the one that just screams at the top of its lungs to be heard, was this:
In 1952, the year I was born, 32.1% of federal receipts were paid by corporations. In 2009, the last year that data was available, corporations paid only 6.6% of federal receipts.
Corporations are a scam for the richest Americans to avoid paying taxes. The rich put their money into corporations where the income that capital generates is all but tax-free. Then when the rich want to spend the money, they sell the corporation (or their share of it) and pay only capital gains tax, currently 15%. If the income were to be taxed as it comes in, as workers’ pay is, they would pay the normal income tax rate, currently 35%. So by this little sleight of hand, the rich cut their tax bill in half.
Corporations are a scam by the owners of capital to screw working people.
Since the corp. tax brings in so little and so much is spent to avoid it, abolish it, and the cap gains and dividend preferences at the same time. Then all income is treated the same and all forms of business are treated the same (C-Corps, S-Corps, partnerships and sole props.) Add then the vat as well, since corps will be able to lay off their income tax sections which now probably cost as much as the taxes. Since ultimatly either consumers or shareholders pay taxes, companies don’t, let just end the game.
While we’re at it, let’s eliminate the privileges awarded to corporations, like limited liability. Just to be fair about it all. /snark
But all income should not be treated the same since some income comes from subsidized (and therefore artificially lower-risk) activities.
Shareholders should be double-taxed since the profits generated by corporations benefit from corporate law that favors capital.
My choice would be to eliminate policies that indirectly or directly favor/subsidize capital, but until you do that, the revenue generated through the corporations should be taxed at a higher rate.
It is generally not possible to tax publicly-held (or widely-held) businesses (like Microsoft) and their owners the same as closely-held businesses (like a five-person partnership) and their owners. Oh, were it so easy to develop a tax system most find equitable.
It is true also for Canada with a Conservative minority government grovelling to corporate Canada Inc to please allow us (ie: the taxpayer) to make life easier for you by reducing the corporate income tax by 1.5% to 15.0%…and we the taxpayer are told that it is to create (new ?) jobs…
I’ve always found it rather depressing how cheaply our politicians can be bought. So for $30m in donations to NYC schools, GE gets $1 *billion* in tax breaks? It’s the same here with companies like BAE. Different kind of TBTF, I suppose.
Or even better is the money being spent here in the UK on (non-nuclear) aircraft carriers just to keep the Glaswegian shipbuilding industry on life support for another few years. For the amount we’re spending on building the things, we could have bought 2 operational Nimitz-class carriers from the US and given every ship worker in Scotland a healthy cash handout in order to retrain into something more competitive while keeping the Navy fully-employed (1 of the 2 carriers we’re getting will be immediately mothballed, genius).
The US and UK are far too craven when it comes to taxing corporations, although the complexity of the tax code makes it easier for firms to skirt the law. It’s in cases like these where a flat tax with no loopholes *almost* makes sense. The UK also makes it easier for people to threaten to leave because ‘unoccupied’ second homes are taxed *less* than occupied first homes. In other words, if you decamp to the Isle of Man or to Zug but keep your pied-a-terre in Chelsea then your home will be taxed *less*. I guess government is worried about hitting families operating in the buy-to-let market, but FFS we’ve got a housing affordability shortage and we’ve got thousands of homes locked up by foreign owners.
Grrrrrrrr. Need to get myself a banner for tomorrow’s march.
And this is why GE is one of the “World’s most ethical companies”!
Very nice work. The bottom line is that the income tax, like the Fed, is designed to keep the poor poor and the rich rich. Notice that both involved “reforms” of the “progressive” era, championed by Morgan stooge Woodrow Wilson, who also got reelected for “keeping us out of war”, at least until the 1916 election was safely over. Those who think that Clinton and Obama are the first Democrat gas bags whose primary skill was playing footsie with the corporate rich need a better sense of history.
My personal recommendation is a universal refusal to elect a single Democrat to any office until the party is brought to realize it cannot succeed by talking bullshit and sucking up to plutocrats. After all, how much worse a President could we possibly have? Some idiot determined to conduct four middle east wars simultaneously instead of only three? Some lunatic who insists that everyone should be compelled to buy health insurance?
To be quite blunt, your “personal recommendation” sucks, big time. To think that we can solve what ails America by going to the polls every couple of years and pulling the lever for one of two candidates pre-selected for us by the ruling oligarchy is delusional.
The technical term for what we have in America today is called “polyarchy,” described by William I. Robinson in the documentary film Lifting the Veil:
Robinson: The definition of polyarchy that we have in the social sciences is a system where the participation of masses of people is limited to voting among one or another representatives of the elite in periodic elections. And in between elections the masses are now expected to keep quiet, to go back to life as usual while the elite make decisions and run the world until they can choose between one or another elite another four years later.
So really polyarchy is a system of elite rule and a system of elite rule which is a little bit more soft-core than the type of elite rule we would see under a military dictatorship for instance.
But what we see is that under a polyarchy the basic socioeconomic system does not change, it does not become democratized. Wealth is not redistributed downward. You don’t see a more equitable redistribution of wealth and resources.
So that’s the key: socioeconomic dictatorship and free elections.
The film can be viewed on the internet here. I highly recommend viewing the whole film, but for the time-challenged Robinson’s discussion of polyarchy begins at minute 01:29:00.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy {Full Film}
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzULm4d8h8w
Today’s new term for the American system of government = Polyarchy
Yeaterdays term (pre 1776) for the American system of government = Monarchy.
I dont see any significant difference in structure between these two terms. King George had a parliment back in those days, but it mattered only for the purpose of debate since King George made the decisions. Alan Greenspan felt in 2004 no debate on Central Banking, our current overlord be allowed. No worries to him on wedge issues for debate, just no debate on what really matters.
The FRBYN now has a blog with the intent of communicating with the public. Chairman Bernanke gets kudos for at least realizing no debate means the Bastille part deaux. The CB charter for America expires in 2013. If it is renewed by Congress, I expect that by 2020 America will be called some new federation name, like the conclusion and rebranding of the Soviet government.
“The bottom line is that the income tax, like the Fed, is designed to keep the poor poor and the rich rich.”
You can call the color green “blue” all day long, but it will still be green. You know that, right?
Heard that neither HK nor Singapore regulatory authorities would be well pleased with HSBC moving there… (too big for them to oversee, not enough experience in doing so => problems down the road…)
Corporations…
The gift that keeps on giving, and screwing working Americans.
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Treasure Islands to read more on the subject.
If the Supreme Court says that big corporations have political speech rights under the Constitution, they certainly should pay taxes like the rest of us peasants.
No representation without taxation!
Again, the Naked Cap Leftists are utterly misguided on another issue…
This isn’t a corporate issue. This is a legislative tax code issue.
If you want to avoid this kind of absurdity, then push for a simplification of the obscene tax code.
[Why is it that Leftists never push for a simplification of the tax code? Is it too Libertarian..too Kochian to ask for a simple, straightforward and sane tax code?]
For all those commenting that “corporations are an evil sham”….
Have you ever taken the time to read the piece of shit that is our tax code? Take the issue at hand regarding GE…
In the late ’90s, Congress allowed many heretofore unqualified C Corporations to opt for a “Check the Box” election. This election allowed the C Corps to be treated like “S Corporations” or LLCs. With this election, C Corps could now avoid double-taxation by having the income simply “pass-through” directly to shareholders.
In all of this, there is the issue of Double-Taxation…whether it’s fair to allow some entities to avoid it, while others had to pay it. I haven’t even scratched the surface on the issues involved with pass-thru taxation as it gets ridiculously complicated.
But neither did Yves, or ZH or Ritholtz who also wrote about this subject. If you purport to be a knowledgeable pundit on economic matters, then you have to discuss the actual Tax Code that allows for this GE tax situation to occur.
But you don’t even mention the Code. Not once! You just bitch and moan that corporations are unfair.
As long as we have a bloated, dense, incomprehensible tax code that is continually amended on the fly, cronyism will flourish.
Many will contend that these exceptions are carved by special interests and corporate cronyism. Fair enough. Then address the issue head and and push for a simplified tax code!
But that’s not what Leftists do. Instead they just blather on out inane issues like “corporations are evil”.
And for the record, the Right is just as guilty. People on the Right always gripe about the tax code. They want the Code simplified…except where mortgage interest, business deductions, child tax credits, church exemptions, oil drilling exemptions and on and on and on.
What makes you think “leftists” dont’ want to simplify the tax code?
Since the only reason complications are in the tax code to begin with is to benefit the wealthy, any thinking leftist is in favor of simplifying the tax code.
For example, disparate treatment of wage income and capital gains complicates the tax code and should be removed from it.
Dan,
This is one of those rare occasions when I find myself sympathetic to your proposed solution.
What I find lacking in your analysis, however, is any acknowledgement of the political calculus it took to get us “the piece of shit that is our tax code,” or that it’s going to require a plan of political action to get rid of it.
This declaration of the independence of economics from state power, or politics, is all part and parcel of Classical economics. The eventual coining of the word “economics,” identifying a distinct realm of human activity subject to its own laws, was one sign of the faith in that independence.
Wow. Yet again you go off and embarrass yourself, scolding people about their ignorance while you put your own on display for all to see.
Entities formed as corporations under state law are generally not eligible for the check-the-box election. Also, partnerships that are publicly traded (unless they are almost entirely passive-income based PTPs) must be taxed as corporations (i.e., according to subchapter C). The check-the-box election does not apply to them.
Check-the-box was intended to allow closely-held entities (if formed as partnerships or LLCs) to choose subchapter K or subchapter C (yes, some closely-held state-law corporations can still choose subchapter S). Widely-held entities have no choice. Entities formed as corporations under state law generally have no choice.
You obviously know nothing of the Code. It’s amazing the time you spend and lengths you go to in order to embarrass yourself. A thing to behold.
Not a “corporate” issue? Who the hell do you think worked so hard (and had the means to convert the legislative chambers into the Bought-and-Paid-For Rent-A-Congress we’ve got now? The International Brotherhood of Community Organizers? The High Chamber of Purple Dragons from Planet Assholery?
I do agree the US tax code is the archetypal definition of insanity. But it’s is what it is courtesy of the moneyed classes; they just don’t want this sucker to be too obvious; the hoi polloi could get ideas that it is not fair. Can’t have that, can we?
I was born in Russia, former USSR, and seen corruption at all levels of government but I have never seen anything like this. I look at USA as my homeland now but sadly it is crumbling because of corrupt politicians. GULAG is the answer.
It is ridiculous that the GE CEO Jeff Immelt was picked as the head of the economic advisory council considering that it has been the leader in job outsourcing to low cost countries and in tax evasion.
Au contraire, it is PERFECT that Immelt now has a seat at the table with Mr. O. Well actually Mr. O likely to be found on his knees UNDER the table, but that’s for another thread. Seems like each successive POTUS needs thicker and more durable knee-pads than the previous.
Here is a GE spokesperson claiming that zero is too much tax…will pull out of America altogether unless it brings in a Less Than Zero policy…
http://manurelagoon.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/ge-pays-zero-tax-threatens-to-leave-america-if-taxes-remain-this-high/
The solution is really simple:
1. Get rid of the corporate income tax altogether. It’s a fiction anyway.
2. Tax capital gains (after indexing for inflation) at the same rate as wage income.
The problem with your proposal is that it would not require the owners of capital to pay taxes on their income in a timely manner.
Workers have to pay taxes in the same fiscal year the income is earned. Rich people should have to do the same. Have you ever heard of time value of money?
If you need some help understanding the concept, ther’s an excellent primer here:
Understanding The Time Value Of Money
It begins by asking the following question:
Congratulations!!! You have won a cash prize! You have two payment options:
A. Receive $10,000 now
OR
B. Receive $10,000 in three years
Which option would you choose?
Nobody Really Understands Economics
Contrary to popular scholastic belief, the wise choice would be 3 years, that way you’ve at least got $10,000 parked on the side and you’re protecting it from being spent in Vegas or on some Flat Screen TV you don’t need, or, God Forbid, losing every penny speculating in options as you try to turn it into an easy million. In three years, you might know better. Depending on how old you are. If it’s me, personally, for most of my life I’d have been better off it was 5 years. Now I know.
In a slightly more sane a less corrupt world where the interests of citizens factored in politicians’ decisions it would be perfectly possible, simple even, to find ways of making it a condition of doing business in the US that companies paid their dues – no pay no play.
This is roughly what China does and companies have been falling over themselves to get a piece of the action and giving aways big chunks of IP never mind just paying a few taxes.
Then again, maybe giving away the IP (aka the future) doesn’t matter to the current generation of directors because by the time it does matter they will be sipping cocktails in comfortable retirement on their own private Caribbean island – or so they imagine.
Time to replace the current tax system with the Automated Payment Transaction Tax.
Yves, very good article on corporate taxes. I think we need to consider how global corporations are dismantling the economies of nation-states (like America/unlike China) who’s politicians they have captured:
1. Capture politicians of both parties. Corporations did
this over a century ago in the Gilded Age.
2. Persistently push the tax burden onto individuals,
use politicians to make this happen. Chisel away
at corporate taxes relentlessly and incessantly.
3. Invest some money saved on corporate taxes in lobbyists
and campaign contributions. Repeat cycle over and over.
4. Use corporate economic power to get politicians to
initiate and support trade treaties facilitating
Jack Welch “factories on barges” global business
model. Make nation states compete via low wages,
minimal regulations, low taxes for your factory.
5. Increase profit margins by offshoring. Continue to
market aggressively in high income countries while
dismantling their manufacturing infrastructure.
Get nation state politicians to subsidize your
offshoring and the new factory-recipient state to
give you tax holiday.
Use ever increasing profits (highest for many in
2010) to further capture politicos. In foreign
nations, achieve high profit producer and “too big
to tax or throw out” status. Make foreign states
dependent on reducing your tax burdens.
6. Get members of WTO to relax rules to favor global
corporations to permit even more fluid capital and
infrastructure flows.
7. Force original nation states chartering you into
bankruptcy by combination of dismantled job base,
ever reduced taxes on corporations to force collapse
of government revenues.
8. When nation state has gone pass economic tipping point,
use political influence to privatize state assets and
sell them highest bidder. Let your financial business
unit (listening GE?) make huge fees on privitization
of national resources. Buy brand names, trademarks
and other marketing equities from bankrupted private
companies in nation states the World Bank has forced
into receivership.
9. Eliminate the estate tax so progeny of CEOs and C-class
executives can buy Bali Hai and create their own
private paradises protected by mercenaries.
This is the underlying business strategy of global capitalism. This is how the 21st century “invisible
hand” of predatory capitalism works.
Think this sounds nuts? Read the business pages. You won’t
see the strategy spelled out but the manifestations of the
strategy will be well documented. For those who chose to
connect the dots.
Courtesy of Lord Robbins in the 1930s…”Workers spend what they get while capitalists get what they spend”.
How bad is the tax avoidance? EPIC!!!!!
US Senators requested GAO analysis of corporate tax receipts. The short answer is longer than what most pay: ZERO!!!!
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08957.pdf
A Greater Percentage of Large FCDCs Reported No Tax Liability over Multiple Years between 1998 and 2005
Foreign Controlled Domestic Corps and US Controlled Corps are compared.
In the 8 years from 1998 through 2005, large FCDCs in a panel data set that we analyzed consisting of tax returns that were present in the SOI corporate files in every year were more likely to report no tax liability over multiple years than large USCCs in the same panel data set. As figure 2 shows, about 72 percent of FCDCs and 55 percent of USCCs reported no tax liability for at least 1 year during the 8 years. About 57 percent of FCDCs and 42 percent of USCCs reported no tax liability in multiple years—2 or more years—and about 34 percent of FCDCs and 24 percent of USCCs reported no tax liability for at least half the study period—4 or more years. A correspondingly higher percentage of USCCs reported a tax liability in all 8 years, 45 percent for USCCs and 28 percent for FCDCs.
Not only do corporations benefit from labor arbitrage in global free trade they now also benefit from substantially global free taxation. Do not expect Neo-Liberal captured Obama or Congress to do anything about it!
Amazingly enough, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell gave, on his Friday show, a pretty harsh and detailed monologue about GE’s pattern of tax evasion. Considering that GE pays O’Donnell’s absurdly inflated salary, I wonder what purpose did this play in GE’s grand corporate strategy.
Psychoanalystus
GE’s response:
http://www.gereports.com/setting-the-record-straight-ge-and-taxes
These sound shallow at best, but I’d love to see a professional’s take on these points.
Obviously GE is not going to answer my questions but this stuff is seriously toxic. Worldwide over 48M doses have been administered and if just 20% of those injections result in lifelong chronic disease or death the financial toll is huge. A million dollars per person for care is an underestimate. Just do the math and realize there are many that are sick and don’t know why. With these statistics it’s easy to see that their liability would be over $9T but they are really good at covering up their mistakes. I beg people to look into this before someone in your family is sickened by this toxic heavy metal. There are other screening technologies that work better and are less toxic; proteomics for one.
Please read below for links and other information about Omniscan, the product GE manufacturers for use with MRIs and if you or a loved one has been injured look up the MDL 1909. They are called gadolinium based contrasting agents and gadolinium is a toxic heavy metal. GE’s product releases in the body more than the others in a process called transmetalation. It causes a new man-made disease called Gadolinium Associated Systemic Fibrosis or Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis.
If you think this is bad you ought to look at the new man-made disease caused by and large 80% of the cases called Gadolinium Associated Systemic Fibrosis or Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis. And GE has done such a good job of covering this us only the sickest can get a diagnosis and then many are dying waiting for a settlement. Gadolinium is a toxic heavy metal and stays in the body after injections of Omniscan a gadolinium based contrasting agent. They are finding this stuff in the brain tumors of non-renally impaired patients and in the reproductive organs of women of childbearing years. Most that are sick don’t even know why they are sick and I even think it is contributing to autism.
Check out these links regarding GE’s Omniscan. In the Robbie Booker vs. GEHC’s ET EL motion for leave to add punitive damages it clearly states that GE knew this stuff was toxic before it was approved by the FDA.
Come clean GE. If these lawsuits ever gain momentum you won’t survive. It has the potential to be bigger than tobacco.
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/robbie-booker-v-general-electric-041510
http://www.propublica.org/series/general-electric-omniscan
Hey GE “but I love to see a professional’s take of these points” for gadolinium based contrasting agents that is. Or have you bought off all of them yet? Are the settlements approaching $1B yet for your poisonous Omniscan? Make sure you fight till the victims die so that you don’t have to put it in your SEC filing and it doesn’t reach the $1B mark. How many victims have died so far? How many have died waiting for a settlement from GE? How many more have to die before you take this poison off the market? Why do you think it’s okay to inject people with a toxic heavy metal?