Five of the biggest companies on Obama’s jobs council, General Electric, Citigroup, Intel, Procter & Gamble and DuPont, rely on foreign revenues for a majority of their sales — a shift that’s occurred just in the past several years for most of these firms. As other countries’ economies recover more quickly, these corporations have taken advantage. Earnings at GE were up 77 percent in the latest quarter. Intel is enjoying record profits.
Obama seeks to reassure public, businesses he’s focused on jobsProfits seen boosting jobs. A central assumption in Obama’s economic plan is that private-sector growth will translate into more jobs in this country.
But that strategy could be less potent as decades of globalization have loosened the connection between the health of large U.S. firms and the economy, analysts say.
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