October 9, 2011 7:39 PM

The Jobs Czar: General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt

Stahl: Is this something that's incredibly risky for you?

Immelt: In G.E., this is extremely low risk because we have good technology and we have scale. The crime for U.S. is when we don't do things like that. We ought to be percolating twenty $1-billion businesses all the time that can grow inside our system.

But even while he promotes American innovation, he's been accused of transferring technology to other countries as in his recent joint venture with China where a new GE computer system will go into a Chinese airliner that could eventually compete with Boeing.

Immelt: It's a way we can grow and it's approved by the U.S. government, it's in an important market around the world and it creates 400 jobs in the U.S.

Stahl: Let me be more specific, are we in any way giving the Chinese a technology that they didn't have before, that--that depletes our-- competitive edge in the future?

Immelt: --we give nothing. We-- own it. No look, you're afraid of China, I'm not. We see them as a big market, and a big opportunity.

One thing Immelt is promoting that the president did not include in his jobs package is lowering the corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent -even though companies like GE rarely pay that much.

Stahl: One of the things that GE and you get hammered for is how little taxes GE pays. It's not quite zero, but it's pretty low.

Immelt: You know, we've had an extraordinary couple of years. We wrote off $32 billion dollars during the financial crisis. I think we should have basically the same tax policy that Germany, Japan, the UK, everybody else has, which is a tax rate in the mid-20s and no loopholes. Zero. The US has the most antiquated tax system. And that means some people are going to pay more taxes, and some people are going to pay less.

Stahl: But I guess the big question for most people: would that create jobs?

Immelt: Look, that's a fair debate. You know, personally I think it's going to create jobs.

Stahl: But our companies are not spending. They're not investing in a way that would create jobs. And big corporations are sitting on billions and billions of dollars. They're just sitting on it.

Immelt: Companies should invest in the United States. It's still the world's biggest economy. And if companies just are going to sit on cash, they're going to lose. They're gonna lose because only the people that are going to invest their way through this crisis are going to win.

Immelt is also supporting a tax holiday for global companies to get them to bring back home more than a trillion dollars in profits they're keeping overseas. He says businesses would start hiring, even though they didn't when a tax holiday was tried in 2004.

Immelt: When it happened last time, it didn't.

Stahl: Right.

Immelt: So there's plenty of evidence that says that I'm not right about that. In other words, do I know how many jobs it's going to create? I don't. But it can't intellectually be any good to anybody to have $1.2 trillion outside the U.S.

Stahl: Shouldn't American corporations - don't they have some kind of civic responsibility to create jobs? No?

Immelt: My name is not above the door. I work for investors. Investors want to see us grow earnings and cash flow. They want to see us be competitive. They want to see us prosper.

He wishes the public felt the same.

Immelt: I want you to root for me. You know, everybody in Germany roots for Siemens. Everybody in Japan roots for Toshiba. Everybody in China roots for China South Rail. I want you to say, "Win, G.E."

Stahl: Do you not see any reason that maybe the public doesn't hold American corporations up here in the highest...

Immelt: I think this notion that it's the population of the U.S. against the big companies is just wrong. It's just wrong-minded and when I walk through a factory with you or anybody, you know, our employees basically like us.

Stahl: They do. I saw it.

Immelt: They root for us, they want us to win. I don't know why you don't.



© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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