I just wish the government would call a truce and say for the next month or so they would stop fiddling. OK- if they want to fiddle with making taxes lower and stop wasting money on you name it, I could tolerate that.

I have to say, however, that I don’t want them to fiddle with bond indentures and the wherewithal companies have to pay back their interest and principal. But I don’t want them to kill GE. At least until 2014.

I was talking to a retired utility executive not long ago, expressing my horror about the implications of cap-and-trade, and I got a surprisingly nonplussed reaction, like his former company would work through this, playing the game and crossing fingers. I think he hopes his defined benefit plan will survive, at least until the next few rate cases, assuming the fund did not own too many GM bonds.

Another question: what the hell is GE doing buying $1.2 billion of railcars? I know they make electric locomotive engines, but they are not in the railroad business. Could they be absorbing a committment their customers made?

There’s a novel somewhere in this story. James Patterson w/Speedmaster, co-authors?