What kind of company had GE actually become? 

Although it still made real products that all of us recognized, from light bulbs to refrigerators, by far the company's largest and most profitable of its eight divisions was actually GE Capital Services, which routinely accounted for more than 40% of its earnings.

Originally set up to help customers finance purchases from dishwashers to aircraft engines, GE Capital Services took off in distinctly different directions. 

Among other things, it found that it couid take market share from banks without being subject to the same regulations and constraints.  Accordingly, it bought large amounts of distressed real estate in the early 1990s, when a regulated finance company or bank would have had to get non-performing loans and real estate off its books--and was later able to turn around and resell these assets at a substantial profit. 

Likewise, it was able to purchase voluminous amounts of junk bonds when these were at their lowest ebb. 

Acquisitions of other finance companies in Japan also enabled GE Capital Services to borrow money at near zero-percent interest from the Bank of Japan, then turn around and lend the money out to car buyers in other countries for enormous profits.

All these moves were, of course, perfectly legal.  All were clever in their own way.  And all made good money for GE.  But what kind of company did they reveal, at its core?

Was GE still the solid, dependable appliance manufacturer that used to claim that “Progress is our most important product?”  Or was it now based more on speculation, regulatory loopholes, and ad hoc gimmicks fueling a primary enterprise of generating perceptions? 

More disturbing, if this was going on at the most admired of American corporations, what did that indicate about the rest of our economy?