General Electric Quietly Received $340 Billion Bailout Money and Pays No Taxes

[Guest Fed Up]

How about following the bouncing lobbiests and lawyers in the GE bailout? How many lobbiests at what salaries were in Washington DC working on the GE bailout? How much money was poured into U.S. Congress campaign troughs? Which troughs received how much money, and then how did the individual representatives and senators vote or influence policy through committees? How many attornies and their law firms received how much money during the period immediately prior to the bailout decision? Which of the lobbiests and lawyers are buddies of Administration staffers?

How much more than the announced bailout is each one costing the American public?

 

Yahoo!'s Tech Ticker show earlier, pounding the table and calling for a fair value of $2 for GE shares. The analyst said he is very concerned with GE's extensive debt ($470 billion at the quarter ended March 31) in comparison to its tangible common equity of just $2.8 billion.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/artic...r-Charles-Ortel

 

If 2008 hadn’t been the year of Wall Street’s Armageddon, it might have been remembered as the year General Electric was revealed to be a financial company masquerading as an industrial conglomerate.

 

Like most banks and Wall Street firms, GE’s financial unit, GE Capital, was pummeled by the credit crunch, arguably threatening the venerable company’s survival.

 

Like other financial firms, GE weathered the storm, thanks in part to the government’s bailouts – last November GE Capital was declared eligible for TARP funds, thanks to its ownership of a small S&L in Utah. To date, GE Capital has issued about $80 billion of FDIC-insured debt through the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP, The Washington Post reports.

 

But GE is far from out of the woods, according to Charles Ortel, managing director of Newport Value Partners, an independent research firm. As of March 31, GE had $470 billion of debt vs. just $2.8 billion of tangible common equity, he notes.

 

Because of that high debt-to-equity ratio and a slowdown in its industrial businesses, “we only see downside” for the stock, says Ortel, who believes $2 represents fair value for GE common, which closed Tuesday just above $11.

 

When GE reports results on July 17, Ortel expects a "tough discussion over their numbers," predicting GE Capital's second-quarter results will be better than feared but the industrial side of the business will be worse than expected.

 

"I would not want to have [Jeffrey] Immelt’s job in the next few weeks trying to figure out how to explain where he is," Ortel says.

 

Two items worth noting here:

 

•Ortel first made a bearish call on GE’s stock (and a bullish one on its credit default swaps) back in August 2007, long before problems at GE Capital were evident to most investors.

•Neither Ortel nor his firm have positions in GE stock, but their research is sold to hedge fund managers and other institutional investors who very well might.

[Guest plasticdigger]

I hope the Americans wake up, all people must wake up. They controll us more and more. We must stop them and the rest of Wall Street and the medias.

 

Obama is a marionette of GE. He is more dangerous than Bush, because he looks smart and is a black cult leader (remember hitler)

 

Work together, get into connections and fight the power! we must stop then!

[Guest Enron Ex]

GE has just filed an automatic shelf registration with the SEC. Usually these are just normal operating procedures for companies as they have set times and they expire. But this filing is for Variable Denomination Floating Rate Demand Notes, to the tune of $12,000,000,000.00.

 

As with all shelf registrations, the securities may be offered separately or together in any combination and as separate series. Also, as with most of these automatic shelf registrations, no underwriters were named. As far as the USE OF PROCEEDS, these funds are to be added to the general funds of GE Capital and will be available for financing its operations.

 

The full prospectus is here on file with the SEC.

 

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/405...082s3sv3asr.htm

[Guest Ron_*]

General Electric prides itself on being environmentally friendly, as evidenced by the widespread ad campaign touting its "ecomagination." GE's Web site states it is "helping to solve the world's biggest environmental challenges." It should put its money where its mouth is -- by ending 30 years of combat with the government and environmental community and committing itself 100 percent to the challenge of cleaning up the PCBs that turned the once majestic Hudson river into one of America's largest Superfund sites.

 

Attorneys at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been shaking their heads over President Barack Obama’s choice of Ignacia Moreno to lead the Department of Justice’s environment division.

 

Moreno has actively defending GE in its battle over paying for the cleanup of a Superfund site against Justice Department attorneys whom she would be supervising, if confirmed for the post.

[Guest The Provocateur]

GE has set up a joint venture, Greenhouse Gas Services, that would be a major beneficiary of carbon credits. Carbon credits are the financial scheme by which companies would deal with the caps on carbon emissions that cap and trade would set up. If cap and trade passes, anyone that carves out a major portion of the carbon credit market, like Greenhouse Gas Services, would stand to make billions.

[Guest Munster]

This says it all. The Federal Reserve is Good Ol' Boys Network.

 

Jeffrey R. Immelt is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Class B Board Director elected by member banks to represent the public.

 

Jeffrey R. Immelt was appointed chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the General Electric Company in 2001. Previously, Mr. Immelt served as president and chairman-elect of General Electric from November 2000, when the company’s board of directors selected him to succeed John F. Welch. From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Immelt had been president and CEO of GE Medical Systems.

 

He began his GE career in 1982 and has held a series of global leadership roles in GE's plastics, appliance and medical businesses. He became an officer of GE in 1989 and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997.

 

He serves on the boards of two nonprofit organizations: Catalyst, devoted to advancing women in business; and Robin Hood, focused on addressing poverty in New York City. Mr. Immelt was named the Financial Times ''Man of the Year'' for 2003.

 

Mr. Immelt holds a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard University.

 

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Lee C. Bollinger is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Class C Board Director elected by member banks to represent the public.

 

Lee C. Bollinger is president of Columbia University in New York City and a member of the faculty of the Law School. He became the 19th president of Columbia University in 2002. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon and Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Law Review.

 

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Denis M. Hughes is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Class C Board Director elected by member banks to represent the public.

 

Denis M. Hughes, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, joined the New York State AFL-CIO staff as political director and assistant to the president in 1985.

 

In February 1990, he was appointed to the position of executive assistant to the president. In this capacity, Mr. Hughes was responsible for the coordination of the Committee on Political Education and legislative programs, as well as the overall policy and development of the staff departments within the state federation.

 

Mr. Hughes was elected president of the New York State AFL-CIO 1999. Following the September 11th tragedy, Mr. Hughes coordinated labor's successful efforts to secure $20 billion in federal funding to help rebuild New York City and New York State.

[Guest Guest]

Obama's economic advisory board

 

Members of the board to be announced: Austan Goolsbee as staff director and chief economist; William H. Donaldson, SEC Chair, 2003-05; Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president and CEO, TIAA-CREF; Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO, UBS; David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University; Mark T. Gallogly, founder and managing partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P.; Penny Pritzker, chairwoman, Pritzker Realty Group; Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE (parent company of NBC News); John Doerr, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; Jim Owens, chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc.; Monica C. Lozano, publisher & chief executive officer, La Opinion; Charles E. Phillips, Jr., president, Oracle; Anna Burger, chairwoman, Change to Win; Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer, AFL-CIO; Laura D'Andrea Tyson, dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley; Martin Feldstein, professor of Economics, Harvard.

[Guest Bill Harold]

Here is a great New York Times article:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/business...lectric.html?em

 

The company’s net income fell 47 percent, to $2.9 billion, down from $5.4 billion a year ago.

 

The finance business was the biggest drag on G.E.’s results. Its operating profits fell 80 percent, to $590 million, down from $2.9 billion a year ago. And revenue in the finance unit, which includes home mortgages in Britain and private-label credit cards in the United States, declined 29 percent, to less than $12.8 billion, from nearly $18 billion.

 

G.E. has moved to strengthen the finance business. It said leverage, or the ratio of borrowings to equity, is down to 5.6 to 1, compared with 7 to 1 a year ago. And borrowing in the short-term commercial paper market is down to $50 billion, from $72 billion a year ago.

 

A new uncertainty about G.E.’s finance business was raised last month with the Treasury Department’s initial plans to overhaul the financial system. One recommendation, aimed at companies with large financial and nonfinancial businesses, would require G.E. to shed its big finance unit.

 

G.E. executives said the company would fight the proposal. “We are really committed to GE Capital,” Mr. Immelt said.

 

The company’s television network and movie studio unit, NBC Universal, also hurt the quarterly results, with earnings off 41 percent because of charge-offs and falling television advertising.

 

The impact of economic stimulus programs has not yet been evident, Mr. Immelt said. “We’ll see benefit from the global stimulus in the second half of the year,” he said.

[Guest Amy]

This video will get you angry of NBC/General Electric. They are out-of-control...

 

Sending weapons technology to Iran that kills our soldiers. I am shocked.

 

[Guest Roxbury]

Is Federal Electric (GE) above the law by profiting from Obama's legislation?

 

[Guest Fedup]

Despite reporting over $5 billion in profits from its domestic operations, General Electric paid nothing in income taxes. "In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. How do they get away with this?

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html

[Guest LAW]

The President should speak up against this.

 

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 3/25/2011

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

 

Q GE in 2010 made more than $14 billion in profits, $5 billion here in the U.S., and yet GE paid no taxes last year. Given that the CEO of GE is the head of the President’s Competitiveness and Jobs Council, I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on their paying no taxes last year, as opposed to probably every single person in this room.

 

MR. CARNEY: I hope so. But the -- look, Jake, I’ll just tell you I don't know about this specific company’s balance sheet or its tax returns. But I --

 

Q It’s on the front page of The New York Times today.

 

MR. CARNEY: But I can -- I’ve read the story.

 

Q Okay.

 

MR. CARNEY: I’m saying I don't have my own assessment to make of it. But what I will tell you is that the President has said that he is committed to corporate tax reform, and he wants to do that because it will improve our competitiveness. And he believes that one of the ways to do that -- the way to do it is to -- you can lower the rate if you -- and still bring in the necessary revenue if you remove a lot of the loopholes and other aspects of it that make it complicated, that give companies fits and also make us less competitive in the process.

 

So he’s committed to corporate tax reform because it’s right for growth, it’s right for job creation, and he will have that conversation going forward.

 

Q Does it bother him?

 

MR. CARNEY: I haven’t spoken to the President about this, but he is bothered by what I think you’re getting at, which is that Americans, I’m sure, who read that story or heard about it are wondering how this could be. And one of the reasons why it could be -- again, not addressing the specific company because I don't know independently about that -- but it is part of the problem of the corporate tax structure that companies hire armies of tax lawyers to understand how it works and to take advantage of the various loopholes that exist that are legal in order to reduce their tax burden. And he thinks that in the name -- for the purpose of greater competitiveness and job creation, we have to address our corporate tax structure.

 

Q Well, if in the name of competitiveness and job creation, the President feels we have to address our corporate tax structure, why appoint to the head of the Competitiveness and Jobs Council a person who is now the poster child for using the system to get out of paying taxes?

 

MR. CARNEY: The Job Council and Competitiveness Council is designed for just that, and he has brought together a lot of voices on that and he wants to hear the opinions of every member of that council. And we have said, with regards to questions about other members who’ve been appointed, that the President obviously doesn’t want to counsel the people who agree with him on every issue -- he wants to hear diversity of opinion. In the end, the decisions that are made about which policy to pursue on corporate tax reform will be the President’s decision and his policy. So I think that addresses that question.

 

Q But is there a perception problem at all for the President? He says he wants to take on this issue and yet --

 

MR. CARNEY: He very much wants to take on this issue.

Q This is the second year in a row I believe that GE didn't pay any taxes, and yet he appoints the CEO to the head of his Competiveness and Jobs Council.

MR. CARNEY: I think the issue, Jake, is --

 

Q Does that not feed a cynicism that the American people might have?

 

MR. CARNEY: No, because the President is very committed to addressing this issue.

 

Q So much so that he puts the CEO of GE at the head of his Jobs and Competitiveness Council?

 

MR. CARNEY: Look, I think -- Jake, we can do this five or six times. But he is committed to corporate tax reform. He believes that -- one of the reasons why he addressed it before this story came out, or stories -- is because that this is not an unusual situation; that the tax code is complex, it’s filled with loopholes, and other pieces of it that make it possible for corporations to reduce their tax burden. And it’s not good for the companies in terms of their competitiveness and potential for growth, and it’s obviously not good overall for job creation in the United States. So that's why he wants to address it.

[Guest LAW]

 

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Heather Zichal, 3/30/2011

 

 

Q General Electric made $5 billion from its U.S. entities, $14 billion worldwide; seems to have paid little or no U.S. corporate taxes, depending on who you believe. They're right now asking 15,000 unionized members of their workforce to accept significant cutbacks. They've cut their workforce in the U.S. by a fifth since 2002. Jeff Immelt is obviously the chairman -- or the head of the President's Council on Competitiveness and Jobs. Does the White House associate itself with that type of corporate stewardship in the sense that Immelt is its leading avatar or representative to the corporate world?

 

MR. CARNEY: Well, I would say that membership on the Jobs Council, as the President made clear, is not decided by agreement on every issue. It is not -- the whole point of the Jobs Council is to get outside advice, to help the President -- to generate ideas for the President to consider ways by which he can increase American competitiveness and create jobs.