winterbadger | I love my fellow alumni

One of the chaps from my college wrote in to our alumni review to say that as he wrote his check to the IRS in April, he thought,

I hope my contribution will help the boys and girls in Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Libya and who knows where else, and I thank my lucky stats that General Electric doesn't have to make that sacrifice, so it can preserve ALL their income to create economic growth in our country. Meanwhile, the newspapers say that Jeffrey Imelt, GE chairman and a member of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, is cutting back the salaries of 15,000 GE workers to help cover the costs of pensions and benefits and spur our country's economic growth.

You might imagine this to be one of the hippy generation of the 1960s, or one of my lefty classmates of the 1980s. But, no, this gentleman is Class of 1951. Sir, I salute you. :-)

Oh, and by the way, GE's quarterly profits in 2Q2011 were up 18% to $3.7 billion. Good thing they are cutting back those salaries...