General Electric and the Obama Administration: The Unholy Alliance

There's no doubt that the NBC universe of networks were and still are the most pro Obama networks. There were the bits of anedotal evidence. For instance, there was the infamous incident in which MSNBC announcer proclaimed that listening to the candidate Obama brought a "thrill up his leg". NBC reporter Lee Cowan admitted that "it's hard to stay objective" during Obama speech. This was an admission that anchor Brian Williams called "courageous". Then, there was the scientific evidence like this Media Research Center's, a conservative Media Watch Dog Group, study, during the campaign, that showed that the most bias network was in fact MSNBC. The same MRC ran another study four months after the election and found that the same MSNBC was again the most bias during his presidency. Of course, the White House is well aware of the benefit that MSNBC provides them as this clip shows.

The question is what if anything has NBC, or better yet their parent network, has received in return. Of course, there is no evidence of an overt quid pro quo. What there is evidence of is that General Electric, the parent company of NBC and MSNBC, is the beneficiary of nearly every policy that the Obama administration is trying promote.

1) Cap and Trade:

This now famous O'Reilly Talking Points Memo relayed a story first reported by the Washington Examiner. According to the story, GE has set up a joint venture, Greenhouse Gas Services, that would be a major beneficiary of carbon credits. Carbon credits are the financial scheme by which companies would deal with the caps on carbon emissions that cap and trade would set up. If cap and trade passes, anyone that carves out a major portion of the carbon credit market, like Greenhouse Gas Services, would stand to make billions.

2) The Bailout:

When the bank bailout (TARP/ TALF) was first created, it was meant to buy "toxic assets" from BANKS. Of course, right away the program was changed and simply gave money to the banks. Months later, the program was altered to include GE Capital. GE Capital is NOT a bank but a financial services company. TARP/TALF was supposed to go to banks to loosen up the credit market. GE Capital is primarily NOT in the lending business, certainly not consumer lending. The only reason that GE Capital qualified for a $20 billion bailout is because they happen to own two farily small banks in Utah. These banks do NOT amount to much of the overall assets of GE Capital.

3) Private Public Investment Partnership

This program started out as a $1 trillion program that would buy "toxic assets" from banks. In order to entice buyers, the government created rules that made it lucrative to be a buyer. For instance, buyers would only need to come up with one twelfth of the money. The rest would be lent by the government. The money would only need to be paid back if the investment turned profitable. The Treasury Department said it was looking for strong companies, that can raise private funds, and companies that have shown a history of managing money well. The very same GE Capital that only months earlier received a government bailout is now one of nine companies chosen to be a buyer in PPIP. According to Treasury, the Treasury Department received over one hundred applications. Yet, one of nine is a company that received a bailout.

4) Healthcare:

Here, GE has started a division called Healthymagination. Tom Daschle, President Obama's first pick as Health Secretary, is now on the board of this division. Here's how the company is described.

Healthymagination will be in charge of the national patient database, which is established in the stimulus plan. The reports show that GE with Intel Corp is investing $6 billion to improve and make healthcare affordable through Healthymagination.

Here's how another media outlet described it.

Like other health IT vendors, GE is planning a strong thrust into this field that will help it capture an optimal share of government spending on EHRs. Next year, GE plans to release a new EHR that will include clinical decision support features that it developed in partnership with the Mayo Clinic and Intermountain Healthcare. According to Immelt, broad adoption of this EHR would allow patients to receive the best care 90 percent of the time and could reduce healthcare costs up to 30 percent.

EHR stands for Electronic Health Records...

So, it may all be a coincidence but wherever there is an Obama program, GE is there to make a lot of money.