Why Not a GE Breakup?

Perhaps a wholesale breakup of General Electric Co. isn't such an improbable idea after all.

The industrial conglomerate has lost $100 billion in market value this year as investors came to terms with the dawning reality that GE's businesses don't generate enough cash to support its rich dividend. It's also now clear that years of streamlining didn't go far enough as challenges of dumpster-fire proportions at its power and energy divisions overshadowed what were actually pretty good third-quarter health-care and aviation numbers.