These corrupt behaviors of the Obama Regime is more suited for Venezuela, where Obama’s beloved fellow communist Chavez, does this stuff every day.
This isn’t corrupt at all. I’ve said it several times on here that my companies have huge investments in both shares of General Electric stock and derivatives that we were able to pick up at unbelievable prices during the meltdown.
General Electric did not cause any of the problems of the credit crisis, it took advantage of government guarantee programs but not TARP funds, and it is not a bank (although it does own an industrial bank, mostly for use with GE money, which provides private label financing solutions to retailers such as jewelry stores and furniture outlets throughout the United States).
GE has been masterfully managed throughout the crisis, Jeff Immelt issued billions of dollars in excess capital long before the bottom at attractive prices, unwound tens of billions of dollars in leverage in the finance division, and has a huge pipeline of projects for global infrastructure and energy investments. When the dollar falls as a result of the huge deficits the government is running, GE will make tens of billions in profits because it can transfer back its foreign earnings to the United States, pay down debt, increase dividends, and / or repurchase its own stock.
This is not an academic opinion. We’ve voted with both my money and the money of those who have an investment in my businesses.
They can pay Jeff $100 million a year and, frankly, he’d deserve every penny in light of the record he’s amassed at GE. In the past 5 years alone, the company has paid out dividends of $53,278,000,000 to shareholders on top of generating higher average earnings growth than the S&P 500 despite being larger than 99% of other businesses. He did it without engaging the risky behavior the banks did.
The only people that are upset with him are the idiots that were stupid enough to buy the stock at 50x earnings when he took over 9+/- years ago. That was their own fault. Just as when you buy a house, or a car, or refrigerator, it’s your own responsibility to calculate the value you are getting relative to the price you are being asked to pay. A 2% earnings yield (which is what a 50 p/e represented at the time) was one of the lowest in the recorded history. Anyone with half a brain knew it was a disaster waiting to happen and avoided the shares until the earnings had caught up. When they did catch up, they represented one of the greatest bargains I’ve ever seen.
You don’t punish the people who did their job right, worked within the rules of capitalism, and rewarded shareholders.