Thanks a lot Jack Welch. He essentially took Thomas Edison's venerable, century old, producer of quality consumer electronics, appliances and industrial generators and aircraft engines and turned it into a 'player' in the derivatives and speculative games of global finance. He gutted the culture of innovation, long term research and investment for short term profit spikes without any kind of product or consumer focus.
The corporate culture of GE became one of fear, backstabbing, downsizing and conformity to immediate results with massive payouts to executives in stock incentives; with no planning horizon further than the next quarter or year.
GE Capital has now been chopped up and sold off beginning in 2015. But GE has been unable to rebuild its reputation. It seems likely now the entire corporation will be sold off piecemeal to 'maximize shareholder value' and will simply disappear int the next few years. OId Tom will be spinning in his grave.