Who's in That Obama's "Council on Jobs and Competitiveness"?

The first meeting of the Presidential Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, created by another Presidential fiat called "executive order" on January 31, 2011, was held today (2/24/2011).

It's more like "Council on how to lose more jobs from America and still keep the big companies profitable and rich investors richer so that we can tell those stupid taxpayers that the economy is improving and if we repeat it long enough these suckers will believe". A joke. Total, joke.

And these CEOs get paid for attending the meetings: transportation expenses and per diem for their attendance, just like any other council, board, whatever, set up by President Obama. Per diem rate for Washington DC in February is $181. From March to June, the rate jumps to $211.

Here's the list of 22 members whom Ms. Hayley Tsukayama of Washington Post calls "some of the top minds and names in the technology industry". Top minds and names, people, remember that:

• Steve Case, former AOL Time Warner CEO

• Kenneth I. Chenault, American Express CEO

• John Doerr, venture capitalist

• Roger W. Ferguson Jr., President and CEO of TIAA-CREF, former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve

• Mark Gallogly, head of an investment firm

• Joseph T. Hansen, United Food and Commercial Workers international president

• Lewis "Lew" Hay III, chairman and CEO of NextEra Energy Inc.

• Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines

• Ellen Kullman, CEO of Dupont

• A.G. Lafley, former chairman of the board and CEO of Procter & Gamble

• Monica C. Lozano, CEO of Impermedia, LLC

• Darlene Miller, CEO of Permac Industries

• Paul S. Otellini, CEO of Intel

• Richard D. Parsons, former chairman of Time Warner

• Antonio Perez, CEO of Kodak

• Penny Pritzker, CEO of Pritzker Realty (and national finance chairwoman for the Obama campaign throughout his 2008 presidential effort)

• Brian L. Roberts, CEO of Comcast

• Matt Rose, CEO of Burlington Northern Santa Fe

• Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

• Richard L. Trumka, president, AFL-CIO

• Laura D. Tyson, former chairwoman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers

• Robert Wolf, president and COO of UBS Investment Bank

So.... COO of Facebook and Intel's CEO are the techies? I don't think Comcast or AOL qualifies as "tech" companies any more. And union bosses and bankers are ... top minds?

Let's take a look at some of the unfamiliar names on this list:

John Doerr is not just any venture capitalist, but he is a partner at none other than Kleiner Perkins that has funded, among many others, Google, Amazon, Intuit, Sun Microsystems, and whose partners include former US Veep AlGore of "global warming" fame, and former Secretary of State Collin "Saddam has WMD" Powell.

Mark Gallogly is a managing principal of New York-based private investment firm, Centerbridge Partners, with $5.5 billion total assets. The firm's focus is on leveraged buyout and distressed securities. In September 2010, the firm announced the acquisition of GMAC Commercial Finance. So, my guess is that this guy, who also worked for Blackstone Group, has been selected through his connection with Steven Rattner, Obama's former Car Czar. They seem to inhabit the same circle...

Lewis "Lew" Hay III, chairman and CEO of NextEra Energy Inc: NextEra Energy Inc is a renewable energy company. Obama's usual fantasy that the alternative energy industry will create tons of jobs...

Monica C. Lozano, CEO of Impermedia, LLC: Impermedia, LLC turns out to be a marketing firm whose "multi-channel marketing platforms help connect you with your U.S. Hispanic target audience with print, digital, mobile, events, and more". Ms. Lozano became CEO in April 2010, and she is a board member of Disney, the National Council of La Raza, and a director of Bank of America.

Darlene Miller, CEO of Permac Industries: Permac Industries, based in Minnesota, is a custom precision parts manufacturer. Seems like a sop to small businesses. Ms. Miller purchased the company in 1994.

Richard D. Parsons, former chairman of Time Warner, happens to be the current chairman of Citigroup. He is also a senior advisor at Providence Equity Partners Inc, a private equity firm with $22 billion total assets.

Ms. Penny Pritzker's family is from Chicago, one of the wealthiest families in America. The Pritzker family's prized possessions include the Hyatt hotel chain, Royal Carribean Cruise, and not-so prized possession of Superior Bank of Chicago, for whose failure the family had to shell out $460 million to avoid punishment for gross mismanagement. Ms. Pritzker received her MBA from Stanford University.

And Robert Wolf, president and COO of UBS, a Swiss bank, is a campaign donor and a golf buddy of Obama.

There are three others, according to the White House's website of the Council, and they are:

Ursula M. Burns, chairman and CEO of Xerox

Eric S. Lander, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

W. James (Jim) McNerney, Jr., chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of the Boeing Company

Lastly, lest we forget, the Presidential Council is headed by the august figure of Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, a real job creator outside the US.

Grand total of 26.

Bright, competitive future for the US, for sure.

(Kodak? AOL? Time Warner? Amex? La Raza? Labor unions? Banksters? Wealthy hedge funds? And this president thinks he will get re-elected. I guess he is right.)

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