This is why the government should stay out of private business — it shouldn’t be picking winners and losers
I wish blackhedd were still hanging around here to offer his fine insight, but even to someone of limited understanding like me it’s clear that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress are doing some huge favors for GE lately. We’ve seen lots of stories about how GE will make out like bandits under cap and trade. Here is a different area where GE is making a killing.
General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks.
At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government.
The company did not initially qualify for the program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.
What does this mean? Well you can compare and contrast GE Capital’s situation with that of CIT Group. CIT is much smaller but not insignificant. They did get a little bailout money (you know how things are when $2B is considered small), but GE now has between $75B and $100B of guarantees thanks to us taxpayers, while it looks like CIT is going to have to declare bankruptcy to try to survive.
You can google GE and CIT to see lots of comparisons. Some say hurting one big player hurts confidence in the other players; some say GE will benefit if a competitor is taken out of play. But there is no doubt that having Obama’s troops jump in on GE’s side has changed the game here.
It’s interesting how the world’s largest public company and the parent of Obama’s biggest TV cheerleaders (aka NBC News and MSNBC) happens to keep coming out a winner every time something happens in Washington.
Steve Maley
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
GE who is the parent company of MSNBC and NBC....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Saturday, July 18th at 10:44AM EST (link)which we all know is the private station of Obama who stands to make billion’s nearing the trillion dollar mark if Cap & Trade is passed they along with The Rev Gore and T Boone Pickens and a few other’s will without question become SICKENLY RICH on the blood, sweat and tears of American’s. GE took over this SCHEME from ENRON…the ENRON the left excoriated and hated and yet here is GE with the exact same SCHEME!
I certainly am a tad bit shocked that the leftist’s in the D party who live and die by attempting to kill big business (think protestors at the World Bank) are so blind to this huge takeover of our economy by a very select few and handed to them on a silver platter by a Democrat President.
It is fairly obvious that Democrat’s are the party of the select RICH! Republican’s are the party of EVERYONE GET RICH!
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GE is pushing the industrial wind turbine fiasco -
deevee Saturday, July 18th at 1:38PM EST (link)They bought the whole Enron scheme and scam.
GE Power Systems today – May, 2002- officially entered the wind power industry, announcing that its acquisition of certain assets of Enron Wind Corp. has been completed.
http://www.csrwire.com/press/press_release/25667-GE-Completes-Enron-Wind-Acquisition-Launches-GE-Wind-Energy
Industrial wind is a tremendous burden to rural America, the tax payer and the electric rate payer, there is no good coming out of this alliance.
Welcome to Corporatism, American-style
civil truth (Diary) Saturday, July 18th at 3:02PM EST (link)We see here an alliance between certain big businesses (and big labor (e.g. SEIU) is just another business in terms of its operating structure) and the government, in which the government funnels tax dollars and government contract to competitively disadvantage non-participating competitors.
In return, these companies provide the front organization for politcal support of the ruling (i.e. Democratic) regime in Washington, including money, foot soldiers, and advertising – all under the disguise of private support.
Over time, this corruption will spread as other companies/competitors come under pressure to join the ruling clique or be gradually destroyed – further reinforcing this government-big business marriage.
The difference between Corporatism and Crony Capitalism is the relative strength of the private and public parties – here in the U.S. the government is becoming dominant – hence Corporatism; were the private parties dominant, then it would be Crony Capitialism.
The greatest evil…is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern. -C.S. Lewis
http://www.gmsplace.com/
It's time to boycott General Electric and Co.
Britcom (Diary) Saturday, July 18th at 3:44PM EST (link)They have become a pariah. Shut ‘em down.
“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.” – Rollo May
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O'Reilly and Beck
johnCV (Diary) Saturday, July 18th at 3:53PM EST (link)are both onto this story. Although working from 2 different angles, they are really making the case the that GE is 0bamas concubine (or insert common street term here if you prefer).
Immelt has positioned GE to suck off the gov’t teat in as many ways as possible. He is far worse than a Ken Lay because he’s knowingly screwing American citizens to advance his corporate/political agenda.
I think this used to be called fascism.