General Electric Co., teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, has been laying off thousands of workers over the past year and shuttering manufacturing plants in the U.S. – this, despite the Fed’s $16.1 billion rescue package in the fall of 2008.
GE also has some interesting operational skeletons in its corporate closet…
GE Capital, along with several other very large, well-heeled fiduciary entities was charged and convicted in a major municipal bond bid-rigging scandal in 2012. GE Capital had been shaking down municipalities across America, and screwing the pants off hard-working U.S. citizens. On a large scale.
More from the trial… by Matt Taibbi, June 21, 2012 The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia | Rolling…
“The state’s first witness,
confusingly, was a CDR broker named Doug Goldberg… Right off the bat, in fact,
Doug Goldberg explained that while at CDR, he had routinely helped the cream of
Wall Street rig bids on municipal bonds by letting them take a peek at other
bids:
Q: Who were some of the providers you gave last looks to?
A: There was a whole host of them, but GE Capital, FSA, J.P. Morgan, Bank
of America, Société Générale, Lehman Brothers, Bear. There were others.
[snip]
Goldberg went on to testify that he repeatedly rigged auctions with the three
defendants. Sometimes he gave them “last looks” so they could shave basis
points off their winning bids; other times he asked them to intentionally
submit losing offers – called cover bids – to allow other firms to
win.
…… The broker went on to detail how he had worked with the GE executives
to manipulate a number of auctions.
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And several short years earlier, U.S. taxpayers were helping bail GE Capital out of a financial hole, courtesy of generous Federal Reserve emergency lending initiatives.
Excerpts from Bloomberg report: Bloomberg Nov 28, 2011
:
General Electric Co.’s GE Capital finance unit was the biggest
U.S. issuer of commercial paper in 2008. GE, the world’s largest maker of jet
engines and locomotives, turned to the Federal Reserve for emergency liquidity
after the market for commercial paper — bonds with maturities of less than 270
days — froze in late 2008.
GE Capital, which had $91.8 billion of CP outstanding at the end of September 2008, borrowed from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility from October 2008 through February 2009, with a balance as high as $16.1 billion, data show. Initially, a GE spokesman said the company borrowed from the program “to demonstrate our support for what the Fed is doing.” In December, GE Treasurer Kathryn Cassidy said the company was using the CPFF “primarily as a liquidity backstop.”
Peak amount of debt on 11/21/2008: $16.1B
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If the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve can firehose liquidity out to criminal municipal ‘bid-riggers’ like General Electric Co, in its time of need….
…then shouldn’t honest, hard-working U.S. citizens also be granted the same direct access to liquidity to restore financial health, across the board, at ‘ground level’ in America?
Answer: Yes they should.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
$75,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2021 (3558 downloads)