GE's Immelt reduced to whining after homicidal rant from Jack Welch (GE)

A twofer. First, from Blogging Stocks, the headline story:

AP reports that General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) CEO Jeff Immelt did quite a bit of whining at today's shareholder meeting in Erie, PA. But he did announce one piece of news that might help GE's stock: GE will increase its planned cost cutting from $2 billion to $3 billion. Yet I think he's still smarting from Jack Welch's threat to shoot Immelt on GE's CNBC last week.

Immelt whined on two fronts: the tough economy and how his buying and selling of GE business units is not appreciated. Here's what he said about the economy: "We are in the toughest economy since 2001 and the worst housing crisis since the Depression. Banks have written off more than $250 billion. . . . Days of easy credit have turned into months of no credit at all. While I am confident about the economy long term, we could see even more difficult times ahead.">>>MORE

DealBreaker has the scoopage on the mood in Fairfield:

Cheaper Power! (Sorta).
Jeff Immelt: Ok, this gun thing with Jack is killing me. It's flashy enough and out there enough to make headlines, the story won't die and, while the phrase "If he misses again I'll get a gun and shoot him" is outlandish enough to be ignored if it came from any other personality, this is Jack fucking Welch here. Nothing he says seems crazy to the market. I'm so sick of everyone fawning over him. Look, I want some really serious ideas about how to address this. I want- hey. Wait a minute. Where is Linda?...

Originally posted April 23, 2008 (Jack had a fair chunk of his retirement tied up in the stock)