Immelt on the Global Economy

One of my favorite things to do is meet with the folks at the world headquarters of General Electric, which is about 15 minutes away from my office. GE, as I like to say, is a window to the global economy. Here's a recent quote from CEO Jeff Immelt from FORTUNE that I found interesting...


"I don't see a slowdown… I think the U.S. consumer is still in pretty good shape. Unemployment is low, risk positions are healthy, so maybe the economy is growing by 4% and it'll slow down to 3% or something like that, but it's still going to be very good. Europe still is not robust, but it's positive. The developing world continues at a pretty good clip. The odds of China slowing down before the 2008 Olympics are de minimis. Oil at $60 a barrel transfers $300 billion a year to five countries in the Middle East; they're going to spend a lot of money. Latin America is very strong. So the global economy I think is going to be pretty good, pretty good."

- Jeffrey Immelt, CEO, General Electric
Quoted in FORTUNE, Dec 11, 2006