"The Current Good Fortune of General Electric"

With a little help from a team of executives and outside attorneys, including Rodgin Cohen, chairman of the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, GE is cashing in big time on the "bank rescue". Cohen has his fingers in nearly every bank rescue deal around.

Recently, the apparently power hungry Cohen was being vetted for a top Treasury position, until it became obvious that he had a better shot at making it to Treasury if he had represented Bernie Madoff and Charles Manson, and got them both probation, instead of working on deals such as:

Wells Fargo-Wachovia, PNC-National City, Toronto Dominion-Commerce, Bank of New York-Mellon Financial, Regions-AmSouth, Wachovia-Golden West, Wachovia-SouthTrust, Chase-Bank One, First Union-Wachovia, U.S. Bancorp-Firstar,Wells Fargo-Norwest, Wells Fargo-First Interstate, Chemical-Chase, First Union-First Fidelity, Key-Society, NationsBank-C&S, and Bank of New York-Irving as well as numerous other acquisitions. In cross-border and non-U.S. transactions, he was engaged in Banco Santander-Sovereign, Mitsubishi UFG-Morgan Stanley, Barclays-Lehman, Mitsubishi UFG-UnionBanCal, Standard Chartered-American Express Bank, Goldman Sachs-Sumitomo, Allianz-Dresdner, UBS-PaineWebber, Credit Suisse-DLJ, Société Générale-Paribas, Dexia-FSA, Mitsubishi-Bank of Tokyo, Credit Suisse-First Boston, Royal Bank of Canada-Bank of Montreal, and acquisitions or divestitures by Barclays Bank, National Westminster, Midland Bank, Lloyds Bank, Bank of Ireland and Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino. He has also worked on a number of major cross-industry and private equity acquisitions, including JPMorgan Chase-Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch-BlackRock, J.C. Flowers-Sallie Mae, Mellon-Dreyfus and NationsBank-Montgomery, as well as acquisitions in the insurance industry, including Anthem-WellPoint and Manulife-Hancock...

He has also participated in the resolution of most major bank failures, including Washington Mutual, Continental, First City, Southeast, Franklin National and Bank of New England and, at the recommendation of the Federal Reserve, the Ohio thrift crisis.

Cohen also worked on regulatory, law enforcement and internal investigations of financial institutions for matters involving ABN AMRO, Bank of Montreal, Banco Popular, Bank of New York, Fifth Third, First Horizon, IDB, KeyCorp, Mellon, Mitsubishi UFG, Royal Bank of Canada, Standard Chartered, Sun Trust, Wachovia and Wells Fargo.

In short, he delivers when you need to get inside the government. And, boy, does he deliver. Reports, Propublica:

GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company's massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liqudity Guarantee Program [2], or TLGP. The government's actions have been "powerful and helpful [3]" to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December