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In his New York Times blog, "Conscience of a Liberal," economist Paul Krugman takes a shot at Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE and head of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He cites comments made during a "60 Minutes" interview as an example of "awesome cluelessness." 

The Immelt vs. Krugman run-in is an example of the ideological differences that are playing out in the Occupy Wall Street protests across the country.

"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.,'" Immelt told "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl.

Krugman questioned whether Americans and Immelt's U.S. employees should be rooting for GE.

"...GE isn't in any important sense an 'American' company. More than half its employees are overseas. I'm sure Immelt would claim that this is just what he needs to do to compete; but in that case, he can't have it both ways and also demand that we cheer for GE as an American champion," Krugman wrote.

Stahl asked Immelt about negative public sentiment toward corporations. "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," he responded. "They root for us, they want us to win. I don't know why you don't."

While Immelt said his employees should root for the company, he meant not just those in the U.S.  "I'm a complete globalist. I think like a global CEO. But I'm an American. I run an American company. But in order for GE to be successful in the coming years, I've gotta sell my products in every corner of the world," he told Stahl.

"If I wasn't out chasing orders in every corner of the world, we'd have tens of thousand fewer employees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, Texas," Immelt added. "I'm never going to apologize for that, ever, ever."

The majority of growth for GE is happening outside the U.S., and 60 percent of revenue comes from overseas, Immelt said. 

In his blog, Krugman offered a chart showing how GE's corporate profits have risen spectacularly, while GE employee wages have risen only slightly in the last decade.

Immelt said he is adding 15,000 jobs in the U.S., but many are $13 per hour jobs. "We have a range. When we go out and recruit, let's say hire 1,000 people at between $15 and $17 an hour, we get 50,000 applicants. So I think you've gotta start somewhere and ...but we want to hire more people," Immelt said.

Ultimately, Immelt said he is beholden to shareholders, not the country or employees. "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," Immelt said.

In the meantime, protesters are continuing their Occupy Wall Street vigils across the country, questioning just how motivated corporations are to win for America and job creation, and how dedicated the people in Congress and the White House are to resolving their differences on how to restart the economy.

Standard & Poors is warning that if the U.S. defaults on a $30 billion debt payment on August 4, the nation's credit rating will be downgraded severely from its long-held AAA to a D ranking.

S&P; managing director John Chambers tells Reuters news agency that, while it's an extremely unlikely outcome, such an unprecedented default on U.S. Treasuries could lead to the complete collapse of global financial markets.

"If the U.S. government misses a payment, it goes to D," Chambers told Reuters. "That would happen right after August 4, when the bills mature, because they don't have a grace period."

Chambers, along with the chiefs of the other two primary international credit ratings agencies, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, have expressed increasing concern that the failure of Democrats and Republicans in Congress to reach a compromise and raise the U.S. debt limit may have an adverse affect on global confidence in American securities.

Obama: GOP position on debt limit not "sustainable"
What's at risk if the debt ceiling isn't raised?
Senate may cancel recess after Obama scolding

As Reuters notes, however, only the S&P; has downgraded the outlook for the U.S. credit rating, with the agency saying there's a one-in-three chance of a downgrade in the coming two years.

Still, Chambers told the news agency he saw the likelihood of a U.S. technical default on a debt payment as "extremely low" - predicting Congress will find a compromise and raise the debt limit before the country is rendered unable to make payments, which Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said would happen on August 2.

Citing an anonymous source, The Wall Street Journal reported ($) on its website Monday that Citigroup Inc., spent a maximum of three weeks waiting to inform its credit card account holders of a security breach.

Citigroup hacked; Customer data exposed

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Updated at 11:44 a.m. ET

Companies wanting to boost their bottom lines might want to first improve the kind of service they provide their customers, according to a Consumer Reports survey released Tuesday.

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Adding insult to injury on the day American taxpayers are due to file their returns, a new report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group states that many of the biggest U.S. companies who took advantage of government bailouts or rely on government contracts regularly hide their money from the IRS in overseas tax havens.

Overall, the U.S. loses approximately $100 billion in tax revenues every year as corporations and individuals shelter their fortunes in foreign bank accounts.

In 2009, President Barack Obama launched a major initiative against overseas tax havens with new tax laws, new reporting requirements and an army of 800 new IRS agents.

"I want to see our companies remain the most competitive in the world. But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens," Mr. Obama said at the time, according to the Washington Post.

However, today's report by U.S. PIRG reveals that the president still has a long way to go.

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As the death toll mounts and Japan continues to cope with the horrific devastation wrought by the recent earthquake and the resulting tsunami, the tragedy's economic impact is and should remain a decidedly secondary consideration for the Japanese and, for that matter, the entire international community. A consideration of how the catastrophe will impact the automotive industry, then, seems particularly meaningless and, relatively speaking, it is - so much so that this transportation reporter, who is partly of Japanese descent, debated whether to write one at all. Car companies, nevertheless, are crucial to Japan's economy and, indeed, they have become an ingrained part of Japan's culture. So perhaps there is some utility in considering how they have been impacted and what effect that may have on their customers here in the United States.

"I offer my prayers to all those who lost their lives ... as well as my sympathy to the survivors and their families," Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota, Japan's leading automaker, said in a statement. "[W]e will do our utmost toward the realization of recovery."

That realization of recovery will be a long road for Japan and may be as well for Mr. Toyoda's company and its automotive competitors. The quake understandably forced Toyota as well as other Japanese automakers to temporarily halt production. For Toyota alone, only a three-day shutdown meant foregoing the production of some 40,000 cars. As Christine Tierney of The Detroit News put it, "Japan's mighty auto industry is at a standstill".

As for the impact on American car-buyers, according to Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Michelle Krebs, more than two-thirds of Japanese cars sold in the United States are built in the United States - including 79 percent of Hondas, 72 percent of Toyotas, and 65 percent of Nissans - which means those companies' dealers in the U.S. will be "sufficiently stocked to weather a temporary disruption of imported models".

Although the shortages of Japanese cars in North America are not likely to be drastic, Edmunds.com Chief Economist Lacey Plache predicts that there will be an impact on sticker prices.

"I think the most likely outcome is that we will see new car prices rise," says Plache. "[T]here will be shortages on the Japanese cars built in Japan and sold here, thus driving up prices for these cars and putting less pricing pressure on their non-Japan built competitors".

One automotive market segment where supply will likely dwindle is hybrids, whose popularity in the United States is predictably rising along with climbing gas prices. "Japanese hybrids and small cars, with few exceptions, are produced in Japanese plants," explains Jessica Caldwell, director of pricing and industry analysis at Edmunds.com.

Even as they reel from the disaster themselves, all of the major Japanese automakers are donating millions of dollars as well as resources like power generators and other equipment to help with the recovery.

"With life the number-one priority, we want to do all we can to contribute to the relief efforts," Mr. Toyoda said in his statement.

Was it a big f'ing deal for the auto industry? Well, no, but it's pretty funny and, more importantly, it is a testament to the pitfalls of the instant digital communication that companies use to reach consumers in this age of social media.

"I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one knows how to f***ing drive," tweeted @ChryslerAutos, the official Chrysler handle, on Wednesday. The f-word was unfortunately fully spelled out in that hash-tagged denigration of Detroit and even if it hadn't been, mocking the Motor City seemed a rather odd tact for a carmaker whose new slogan, "Imported from Detroit", is meant to portend a comeback for a city that, along with American auto companies that inhabit it, has fallen on particularly hard times during the economic downturn.

Chrysler quickly deleted the errant message and tweeted that its account had been "compromised." As it turns out, the original profanity-laced tweet was sent out from Chrysler's twitter account by an employee of New Media Strategies, the company hired by Chrysler to help handle its social media communications. Chrysler said in a statement on its official blog that the person "has since been terminated."

"Chrysler Group and its brands do not tolerate inappropriate language or behavior, and apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this communication," said the Chrysler statement. "Furthermore, the Company has set in place appropriate steps to ensure that this does not happen again."

Precisely what those "appropriate steps" were became clear on Thursday when the automaker announced that it would not be renewing its contract with New Media Strategies. "This company is committed to promoting Detroit and its hard-working people", Ed Garsten, Chrysler's Manager of Social Media, said in a blog post.

"[W]e appreciate the challenges Detroit faces in reclaiming its place as a vibrant, world-class city. Inside Detroit, citizens are becoming even more proud of their town, and outside the region, perception of Detroit is rapidly improving," Garsten explained. "With so much goodwill built up over a very short time, we can't afford to backslide now and jeopardize this progress."

Well-said, Ed. And whoever that now-former New Media Strategies employee is, it's safe to say he or she isn't LOLing.

Carter Yang is a Washington-based producer for the CBS Evening News. He covers the White House, aviation, transportation, and homeland security.

New York, NY - There are now 1,210 billionaires, up 214 from last year, according to Forbes' annual ranking of the world's richest people. The billionaires have an average net worth of $3.7 billion, up from $3.5 billion in 2010, and a record total net worth of $4.5 trillion.

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates maintained his second position on the list again this year, behind Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu. Gates finished 2010 with a net worth of $54 billion.

Helu, maintained the top spot for the second year in a row, finishing with $74 billion. The telecommunications and business magnate added a whopping $20.5 billion to his net worth last year.

Christy Walton, heiress to the Wal-mart fortune, was the highest ranking woman on the list, finishing last year with a $26.5 billion net worth.

Asia now reportedly has more billionaires on the list than Europe, with 332 for the former and 300 for the latter. However, Moscow is home to more billionaires than any other city in the world, with 79. The United States continues to have the most billionaires, with 413.

The following is a list of the top ten richest people in world, according to Forbes, with their name, net worth, primary business, and country.

1) Carlos Slim Helu; $74 billion; Telecom; Mexico

2) Bill Gates; $56 billion; Microsoft; United States

3) Warren Buffett; $50 billion; Berkshire Hathaway; United States

4) Bernard Arnault; $41 billion; LVMH; France

5) Larry Ellison; $39.5 billion; Oracle; United States

6) Lakshmi Mittal; $31.1 billion; Steel; India

7) Amancio Ortega; $31 billion; Zara, Spain

8) Eike Batista; $30 billion; Mining, oil; Brazil

9) Mukesh Ambani; $27 billion; Petrochemicals, oil and gas; India

10) Christy Walton; $26.5 billion; Wal-Mart; United States

For the full story on all the world's billionaires, visit Forbes.com.

Bill Gates won't occupy the top spot on the world's rich list when Forbes magazine releases its annual ranking Wednesday, according to multiple reports.

The Microsoft founder is expected to finish second place, but not because of any faulty financial planning - Gates has donated $28 billion - nearly a third of his wealth - to charities through the foundation he runs with his wife, Melinda.

Mexico billionaire Carlos Slim is expected to lead the way, with Gates following him. Investor Warren Buffett rounds out the top three, according to reports.

Watch 60 Minutes' report on Bill Gates giving away a fortune above.

The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the Mazda vent.

Mazda recalled some cars because of where the spider went.

In what may well be an automotive industry first, Mazda is recalling 52,000 cars because of the potential for a vent line to be clogged by -- you guessed it -- spider webs. (Yes, really.)

"A certain type of spider may weave a web in the evaporative canister vent line and this may cause a restriction in the line," warns the official recall notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. If a spider does weave its tangled web there, it could prevent vapors from escaping the fuel tank and "eventually result in a crack, potentially leading to fuel leakage and an increased risk of fire."

The recall applies to 2009-2010 model year Mazda6's. Back in October 2009, the automaker examined a Mazda6 with a crack in the fuel tank and, lo and behold, found a spider web in the vent line.

"Our subsequent investigation revealed that a spider web caused a restriction in the canister vent line," Mazda informed NHTSA in a letter dated Feb. 25.

Owners of the midsize sedan will need to take their car to a Mazda dealership where a special valve designed to "prohibit spider intrusion" will be installed.

Mazda says no fires, accidents, or injuries are known to have been caused by this insect-related issue. No word yet on rumors that fire ants may have been involved in Toyota's recent unintended acceleration recalls. (No, not really.)