General Electric

General Electric (GE) is the legal name for GE Aerospace, one of the major aircraft engine manufacturers in the world.

At one time GE was an American conglomerate, one of the largest and most important businesses in America.

History

Thomas Edison established the Edison General Electric Company in 1890. Edison's company and the Thomson-Houston Company combined in 1892 to form the General Electric of which most Americans knew.

During its heyday, General Electric produced a wide variety of electrical products designed for home use by consumers: lamps and lighting, large appliances (such as stoves, refrigerators, washers, and dryers), and small appliances (such as fans, toasters and toaster ovens, and hair dryers). It produced industrial equipment such as locomotives, aviation engines and parts for both commercial and military customers, and medical equipment such as sonograms. It also at one time owned NBC Universal, which operated the NBC television network, CNBC, MSNBC, the SciFi Channel, USA Network, the Spanish language station Telemundo, and Universal Studios. And, it was a major player in the private finance industry.

General Electric was the last company listed in the original Dow Jones Industrial Index of 1896 to be removed from it; in July 2018, GE was replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance (a pharmacy chain operating in the US and the UK). It also had an unbroken streak of no dividend cuts for 119 years, until

Downfall

The actions of numerous CEOs such as Jack Welch and Jeffrey Immelt would ultimately lead to GE's demise.

Under both Welch's and Immelt's direction, GE shipped tens of thousands of good jobs outside the United States. As Head Of Obama’s Jobs Council, Immelt guaranteed American joblessness would remain at the highest levels. Welch was known for his sayings "automate, emigrate, or evaporate" and "if you aren't number one or number two in your business, you should exit it".

Eventually, GE would sell its small appliance division to Black & Decker (known for power tools), its large appliance division to Haier, its legendary lighting business to Savant Systems, a majority stake in NBC Universal to Comcast (and would ultimately sell its minority stake to them as well), its credit card businesses to Capital One, and its locomotive manufacturing operations to Wabtec (which does business as GE Transportation, having the rights to use the GE name and logo).

This would leave GE involved in three lines of business: aircraft engines, healthcare, and energy. In November 2021 GE announced it would split into three separate companies: GE Aerospace (which would remain the legal successor to General Electric, and hold the rights to use of the name and the legendary logo), GE Healthcare (spun off in January 2023), and GE Vernova (its energy business, which was spun off in April 2024).

Criticisms

Immelt was blamed for supplying equipment to Iran while Iran was funding the deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq. Iran is on a terror list prohibited from doing business with U.S. companies.

Immelt continued to refuse to step down as CEO even as he is responsible for driving down the value of GE's financial holdings.

The MSNBC channel is known for fake news and slander, the Air America of television. Also, a channel that is a cheerleader for Obama and routinely hides the administration's bad news from the public. MSNBC under Immelt's leadership is pure Democrat Media Complex, partisan driven—propaganda channel.

Immelt's General Electric announced that it will use embryonic stem cells provided by Geron Corporation for the purpose of testing toxic effects of drug treatments.

A book by Henry Paulson says Immelt begged for government bailouts at least four times. Fox Business analyst Cody Willard says that at the same time Immelt was asking for bailouts, he was telling investors that "[w]e [GE] have had no problems with our own commercial paper [loans]." Deceitful financial statements are in direct violation of SEC rules.

See also

• Thomas Edison
• Electricity
• American Inventions
• Westinghouse
• Three Mile Island
• Rosatom