What’s more, GE Capital had such an extraordinarily large collection of assets, many of which were fairly liquid—a loan here, an equity stake there—that Jack became increasingly confident that when he told Wall Street analysts he was going to hit a certain earnings number for the quarter, he could do it—knowing that, if need be, he could always sell some of the assets in the GE Capital portfolio to make up for any earnings deficiencies on the longer-cycle industrial business for which GE had become justifiably famous. Above all, Jack subscribed to the idea that if he told Wall Street that GE
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