Q: This seems to all come down to reducing the reliance of the American economy on the consumer.
A: Look, I don’t root against the U.S. consumer. But the notion that consumers can spend more than they make—the crisis proved that’s bad practice. Consumers have to save more now. Already that’s taking care of itself. The savings rate is already up to five or six per cent. But that’s going to dampen the recovery. There are only so many ways you can grow. Either you want to have the government spending more money, which it can’t because it doesn’t have money anymore, or you have to drive business investment. And the thing that’s going to drive business investment is exports. In the end it’s arithmetic. A country like the United States can only have one destiny if it wants to preserve wealth, and that’s to be a high-tech exporter. The U.S. consumer has been the engine of growth since World War II. That’s probably not going to be true anymore.
Q: Do you ever worry that the phenomenal rebound in the stock markets and the V-shaped recovery means some of the urgency of the crisis has waned and made it harder to make changes?
A: I don’t think so. Unemployment is high. Personally, I think we’re in a new normal.
Q: People use that term all the time—what does it mean to you?
A: There’s going to be more volatility, slower growth, more intersection between business and government, emerging market leadership, financial reform and regulation. Those are the things we try to get our people focused on. If you imagine that every day is going to feel just like today, you’re going to wake up tomorrow with a smile on your face because you accept it. If you go to bed each night and say, “Dear God, please help me wake up in 2005, or 1997,” you’re never going to be happy.
Q: Last year you said that America had lost its confidence. Has it come back?
A: I actually think that America’s image in the world has dramatically improved. Inside the country we need to be able to take on some of these tough challenges like health care. Those have to be things we work together on, not divisively. We have to address education, wealth disparity, things like that. We need to raise our standards for ourselves, to invest more in R & D and solve some of these big social programs, and do a better job in bringing everyone with us.
Q: Do you see yourself as having a particular role in that, given your unique position as CEO of such an important company?
A: I’ve worked for GE for 28 years. 99.9999 per cent of everything I do ought to be about GE and I should keep my mouth shut about everything else. But there are times when we also have to be citizens of the world, and places where the company and I can help—we should do that. If we’re a long-term player, if we know how to make money in a country and for a country, and we’re committed to people around the world, we’ll be welcome in every economic cycle in every corner of the world.
