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.
As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP. The government’s actions have been “powerful and helpful” to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December.
GE’s finance arm is not classified as a bank. Rather, it worked its way into the rescue program by owning two relatively small Utah banking institutions, illustrating how the loopholes in the U.S. regulatory system are manifest in the government’s historic intervention in the financial crisis.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR2009062802955.html
GE is not only real cozy with the White House, but it owns NBC and MSNBC, two of Obama’s lapdog media outlets. Immelt also violated the trade embargo with Iran—by taking advantage of corporate loopholes and offshore bank accounts— to the tune of $270 million. (http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/when-a-bailout-isnt-a-bailout/)
This is graft, pure and simple. The corruption, taxation without representation, and power grabs by the Obama regime makes Tammany Hall look pale in comparison.
I would say that the Department of Justice should investigate this shit, but then Eric Holder is the same assclown who dimissed a suit against the Black Panther Party’s voter intimidation tactics, and besides, he’s in Obama’s pocket as well.