GE cut

The downgrade of GE has long been coming, and long deserved. Now it seems that the agencies will finally do something: see here for Reuters on Moody's warnings and here for Bloomberg on S&P.

As Jonathan Weil says:

The credit-rating companies say they’re cleaning up their act. That will be a tough sell as long as they keep saying General Electric Co. is AAA.

Given how much of GE is GE Capital, Weil has a point. The Egan Jones rating for GE is A-. 'nuff said.

Update. Felix Salmon is insightful on GE too, here. He points out that GE needed its own FED bailout, that GE trades wide (I'm guessing the CDS are at more than 300 today), that GE has more than half a trillion dollars of liabilities, and that GE's accounting need be less robust than it would have to be if it was a bank. I'd add in the lack of a consolidated supervisor for the whole group.