[10Ring]

GE had, as of late 2008, $139 Billion dollars of risky bad debt insured by the FDIC as if it was a simple bank savings account

You really believe that, right? Or maybe Bungalow Bill didn't explain it correctly.

(at that time, up to $100,000 was that limit for you and me).

Wrong again...the same program, for which you criticize GE's participation, also guaranteed your bank acount up to $250K.

GE paid over $1 billion to participate in the program. How much did you pay for the extra $150k in insurance?

[ConservativeMind]

You know, my bank and credit union pays me a slightly lower interest rate on my deposit while charging those they lend to a bit more.

I really don’t freaking see how paying $1 billion for that, if they did so, appropriately covers $139 billion of bad, unsecured debt, when their secured debt in the form of homes and other assets was so poor. How much worse is the unsecured stuff? We don’t know, but we know that it’s covered by the US government for a fraction of its risk now, thanks to the loophole GE widened to get all their bad stuff covered.