The mistake of taking President Obama's advice on business decisions

Charles Ortel:
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It wasn't "easy being green" for GE under Obama

Under Jeff Immelt from March 2009 through his departure in 2017, GE's directors, executives, and professional advisers evidently learned little from their "near-death" experience. Perhaps Immelt should have spent less time working with President Obama and more time on his day job at GE.

Early on, Immelt cheered the Obama administration's reckless attempt to stimulate the American economy by throwing almost a trillion dollars toward unvetted plans.

By 2011, after doling out hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to finance "infrastructure" projects that, in theory, were primed for action, Immelt and President Obama actually thought it was funny that "shovel-ready jobs" and private-sector incomes did not materialize as originally promised.

A full reckoning is overdue, especially if we wish to learn from mistakes made during the Obama years "managing" the economy – certainly in the energy sector, where commodity prices remain well under 2008 peak levels, the list of taxpayer funded failures is long.

Public appetite for another GE rescue?

Ignoring sums wasted rescuing GE during the first crisis and then supporting Immelt and the Obama administration's failed energy stimulus, will American voters countenance a third tranche of taxpayer aid for this fading component of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average if rising interest rates and increasing volatility provoke another crunch?

In 2008, too many smart people bought the lie that GE's non-financial operations would end up having sufficient strength to repay the FDIC if GE Capital defaulted on its debt obligations. Fortunately, GE Capital is now almost wound down, but unfortunately, stresses upon GE's once formidable remaining businesses are our present concern.

Should events close in again on GE in 2018, a large manifestly solvent entity may have to step in to save the day. The only entities that can move decisively and with the resources that may be required are our federal government or our central bank.

If the 2016 election taught us anything, it is that Trump Republicans, Independents, and Progressives have little appetite to rescue rich, politically connected cronies who stumble, particularly ones that have been supported for so long without learning from history.
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Solyndra was not the only bad investment in green energy.  The Obama "stimulus" was a bust at meeting its stated objectives and several of its projects quickly went into the tank.  A few are running into enormous costs that are likely to never be profitable such as the California Bullet Train to bankruptcy.  That there are still true believers in some of these projects demonstrates that they were faith-based and not projects based on sound economics.

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