General Electric in the news again

It is bad enough that they did not pay any Income Taxes in 2011 (don't know about 2012 or 13 but I suspect not either). GE also moved its entire Medical Imaging division over to China -- the profits stay in China and are not taxed. Their CEO is BFF with Obama and has visited the White House many times. Now, the financial arm of General Electric (GE Capital Retail Bank) has decided that they will not loan funds to Gun dealers or manufacturers. Fortunately there is a wonderful way to deal with this. From Karl Denninger at Market Ticker:

Call For SHUNNING -- GE Capital Affiliates
I love a free market and the right to choose who do business with -- or not.

So it was with much bemusement when I read about GE Capital's recent "decision" to refuse to offer credit to firearms sellers and their customers:

This month, Glenn Duncan, owner of Duncan's Outdoor Store in Bay City, Mich., said he received a letter from GE Capital Retail Bank in which the lender said it had made "the difficult decision" to stop providing financing services to his store. Other gun dealers have received similar notices.

GE is at least the second big financial firm to retreat from the gun business following the school shootings, which claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults in December.

GE is a business that happens to be publicly traded but is not a government entity -- it is a private firm owned by its shareholders. It can decide it doesn't want to do business with people that sell or buy firearms. I've no trouble with that.

But GE Capital's decision may have rather uncomfortable consequences that eventually could lead its owners (that is, the shareholders) to decide that management needs to be fired and/or this decision changed. See, there are about a hundred million firearms owners in the United States. And GE Capital provides financial services for a whole host of companies in all sorts of lines of work. Some of that is internal financing and some external (that is, consumer-facing) financing, particularly for major purchases.

The company makes a huge percentage of their operating profits from that subsidiary too. In fact GE Capital had $11.5 billion in revenues last quarter (about a third of the firm's total) and roughly half of the consolidated firm's 4.1 billion in operating earnings! This is not small ball folks.

The firms affiliated with GE and involved in co-branding credit offers are companies we can choose to boycott if we, the people, disagree with GE Capital's decision. After all you are not forced to do business with someone who you think sucks big fat donkey -- and it doesn't matter one bit why you think that.

GE Capital has the absolute right to choose not to do business with gun dealers and their customers.

We the people have the absolute right to not do business with GE Capital and by doing business with those who are funded by GE Capital or who offer credit through it you are choosing to do business with them.

Who's on this list? Oh my oh my. Sporting goods companies, automotive parts and service centers, health care providers and more.

In essentially every case there are competitors who do not use or accept GE Capital Credit, and you can take 30 seconds before choosing to buy -- and choose a firm NOT affiliated.

So folks, head on over to the conveniently public list of companies and co-branded offers the next time you need to buy something, especially something expensive. As Santa Claus says "make your list and check it twice" -- and make sure you tell the losing bidders why you're picking their competition.

In a free market both buyers and sellers express their opinion of one another by transacting or not as they perceive the value of a given transaction to them.

GE Capital is perfectly free to take position that the value of those firms as business partners for such offers along with general financing is negative -- that is, the firm's perception of the cost is too high, and therefore they choose not to transact.

You, in turn, are perfectly free to assign the perceived cost of a firm attempting to harm Second Amendment Rights as infinite and therefore choose to take an extra 30 seconds to find a vendor who isn't affiliated with and generates business from a firm that does such things, just as GE Capital is doing.

And a big tip of the hat to Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man for the link. It will be interesting to prowl through the GE website and see who is using them. For the last couple years, I have avoided buying GE appliances because of their extreme crony capitalism. Now I have another reason...