But to generalize GE as a case study is still incorrect. They are an atypical example. We can find any metaphor we want, cite one or two example companies like

But to generalize GE as a case study is still incorrect. They are an atypical example. We can find any metaphor we want, cite one or two example companies like GE (and it was bad company management not the fact that they were in finance that sank them IMO — I was a customer of theirs and they were so poorly run), but it won’t make up for more than a century of the practice working across most major industries without problems. I’ve read several books about the GE failure and am widely aware of the problems, but disagree with the mainstream analysis. Nobody wants to pin it on the management but they deserve the criticism. Read * Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric* if you haven’t — it’s worth the time. Don’t you agree that narrowing down the argument that financing your own product is bad because GE took themselves out with a finance division becoming too critical to their business and then blowing up their business with poor management choices to be overly specific as an example? Broadly, private financing works, and works well.