Predator GE: We Bring Bad Things to Life
If the Justice Department wants to get serious about investigating financial fraud by Wall Street big boys, it ought to drop by the White House and interview Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric. Immelt is chair of President Obama’s jobs and competitive council, where he strategizes about how to revive American manufacturing. In some other places, only thirty miles from the White House, Immelt is known as the subprime foreclosure king.General Electric preyed upon low-income minorities—people of color and immigrants—with notorious subprime mortgages designed to fail. And fail they did. GE Capital’s mortgage subsidiary originated some $700 million in housing loans to families in Prince William and Manasses—high-cost, predatory loans of which $218 million wound up in foreclosure. GE, well known for its inventiveness, pioneered online loan origination in which borrowers did not have to prove they had any income. Naturally, they were charged sky-high interest rates and sold weird mortgages with variable rates that went up but never went down.