Free Enterprise vs. National Socialism

Powerline:

General Electric, along with General Motors, is the prototype of Big Business in the Age of Obama. GE bills itself as the world’s largest industrial company; currently it ranks #4 in the Fortune 500, with revenues in 2010 of around $156 billion. All has not been well at GE, however. Since 2002, the company has laid off around 20 percent of its work force in the U.S., while expanding its overseas operations. And the company’s financing arm, GE Capital, sustained massive losses and had to be bailed out by the federal government: 

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. … 

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.

A consistent feature of GE’s symbiotic relationship with the federal government is that its greatest successes have been gained through lobbying rather than innovation.
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