GE cuts Dividend

Evidently integrity is now on the chopping block for some of the largest firms in America. GE cut its dividend today and the stock sold off sharply. The dividend should have been cut a long time ago when GE was first stung by the credit crisis. Immelt the CEO of GE has been saying for several months that their dividend was fine and that he would not have make the cut. On many occasions he was given the opportunity to come clean and start to take back his previous statements but each time he held the line while refusing to even consider that in this difficult financial climate drastic measures may have to happen to weather the storm. I don't know if he was just trying to mislead the public or whether he just didn't understand the company financial situation. If we can't trust the CEO to give straight answers about their companies it is going to be very difficult to get people to put faith back into investing for the long term. It is as if the CEO's think they are too smart for the common man or too arrogant to think they have to come clean about their companies in order to bring back investors. It is a sad state of affairs and the government showed us all today that they are ready to do exactly nothing about the situation as they allow citi to vaporize more tax dollars.

For some reason the administration thinks that it is OK to prop up these companies and pummel share holders whenever they decide to dilute share holders at any time. The massive loss of wealth is staggering and the current administration seems to think it is fine as the "change" is becoming business as usual. We allow the ceo's to lie to shareholders without recourse. At this rate their will be no investment income left to tax which will lead to more taxes on everything else. The massive amounts of money wasted on the financial institutions while allowing the CEO to all stay in place is having a drastic effect on investor confidence.

We will be the second coming of Japan if the administration does not clean up the financial system.