While former GE CEO Jack Welch is making news with a new op-ed slamming President Barack Obama for his burgeoning enemies list and his lack of leadership skills, Jeffrey Immelt, the current CEO of GE, continues to be completely "in the tank" for Obama - even allowing the Obama nanny state agenda to alter its design for microwave ovens.
And this is NOT a safety-related design alteration. Instead, the new GE microwaves include an oddly named new "MyPlate" button, - designed by Obama's nanny-state meddlers in the Department of Agriculture - meant to encourage consumers to make healthier food choices.
ApplianceMagazine.com has the details:
Over-the-range microwave ovens from GE Appliances are now being equipped with a MyPlate button, allowing users to easily cook foods found in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) recommended dietary guidelines.??MyPlate, the federal government’s new food icon, was introduced in June 2011 by First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. It is designed to help consumers make healthier food choices by. It is intended to help prompt consumers to think about building a healthy plate at meal times and to seek more information to help them do so. Healthy eating information is provided at the new web site, www.ChooseMyPlate.gov.??The MyPlate icon emphasizes the fruit, vegetable, grains, protein, and dairy food groups.
Business Wire reported that GE “worked closely with the USDA to ensure the MyPlate feature in their cooking products is in step with dietary recommendations.”
GE has strong ties to the Obama administration, and Immelt, for example, is the president of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
A blistering commentary published by SeekingAlpha.com says the MyPlate button on GE's microwaves "provides a unique example of how dependent the entire company has become upon federal government's mandates, protections and subsidies for its revenue."
Noting that the purpose of the button is not intuitively clear to someone trying to use the microwave, SeekingAlpha comments, "We think a better explanation of the function of the 'MyPlate.gov' button has to do with GE's reliance upon government assistance for its revenue. We can't imagine what kind of detailed marketing studies or kind of high-level engineering analysis that might be performed by GE Appliance's non-outsourced 'human and technical innovation' staff that would ever suggest putting such a mysterious label on a button on a microwave oven would be a good idea.
"That leaves the most likely explanation for the button's very presence on a device that might find a home in millions of American households is that the suits at GE thought it would be a good idea because it would make somebody in the U.S. federal government happy. Because if your revenue depends upon making those people happy, rather than say, consumers, good product design sense is going to go out of the window."
SeekingAlpha says the inclusion of the MyPlate button on new GE microwaves "would also be an indication that GE has given up on the idea of exporting these particular units outside the United States. Because why would any potential consumer in any other country care about a button on a microwave oven whose mysterious purpose involves some sort of U.S. government web site?"
Obviously there's nothing wrong with eating healthy but do we really need the government enlisting our microwaves to nag us about it? Supposedly liberals are against government meddling in personal lives.
