Jack Welch on globalization

[snopes]

Comment: Did the CEO of General Electric actually say this famous quote?

"Ideally you'd have every plant you own on a barge" -- ready to move if
any national government tried to impose restraints on the factories'
operations, or if workers demanded better wages and working conditions

All kinds of websites say that he said this, but I can't find anything to
substantiate it.

[Bonnie]

Lou Dobbs's interview with Jack Welch, Chairman and CEO of General Electric, was excerpted for airing in "CNN Moneyweek," 02:30 am ET, 13 December 1998. (The following transcript was accessed via Lexis-Nexis.)

DOBBS: Jack, the -- no one -- very few people, I should say, have as -- certainly as widespread, as diverse a set of businesses and assets as does GE, as do you. Give us your sense about the economy in the year going forward and where you expect to see pressures, your outlook.

WELCH: Well, it's clear that the in -- deflationary pressures continue, whether it's copper hitting new lows, oil hitting new lows, almost every key raw material hitting new lows. There's clearly a mood of deflation in the air, excess capacity in all global markets, price compression in financial services offerings, margin squeezes. So there's real competitive pressure, and yet there are enormous opportunities at the same time. Japan is opening up its financial markets. We've made a number of moves, have a number more on the drawing board. We've never had a better opportunity to source in joint ventures around the globe, to be more competitive. Ideally, you'd have every plant you own on a barge to move with currencies and changes in the economy. You can't do that, but the job of a company is to be agile and to capitalize on these things, but it's a tough economy.

The transcript includes no further clarifications from Welch.

-- Bonnie