General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) will miss its earnings forecast by 6%. GE now estimates that its third quarter profits will range between "43 cents to 48 cents a share, less than its previous forecast of 50 cents to 54 cents." GE cited "difficult conditions in the financial services markets" for its decision to stop its stock buyback program.

The good news -- if it can be compared -- is that this latest downward guidance would be less in percentage terms than its first quarter earnings miss of 14%. That was when GE reported 44 cents a share, compared with the 51 cents that analysts had expected. That unpleasant surprise spurred former CEO Jack Welch into a homicidal rage. With its stock trading 58% below its all time high of $58.50 back in September 2000 and down 41% from the $41 it traded at when Jeffrey Immelt took over as CEO, I am beginning to wonder how close GE is to going the way of Lehman Brothers.

The thing about GE is that it gets 40% of its pretax profit from financial services. But it also sells stuff like jet engines, power plants, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines and TV advertising. Unfortunately, many of these big-ticket items depend on healthy growth in infrastructure spending by countries like China, India and Middle Eastern oil producers.

The New York Times reports that General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal invested $894 million to secure the broadcast rights for the Beijing Olympics and it expects to earn a $100 million profit. The Times also quotes CEO Jeff Immelt as saying that the benefits to GE are even greater -- including "$700 million worth of services it is providing for the Games and its long-term relationship with China, where it does more than $4 billion worth of business."

How did GE make a profit on its Olympics investment? The Times reports that it was lucky that no big protests or press censorship marred the games. And it negotiated with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to schedule popular competitions -- such as swimming and gymnastics -- to coincide with prime time slots and to including much more Internet and on mobile device events streaming.

The Games have attracted enormous audiences. According to the Times, "the Games have drawn an average audience of about 30 million a night on NBC itself, millions more on NBC's cable channels, 30 million unique visitors to NBC's Olympics Web site, 6.3 million shared videos from the coverage streamed on the site."

As a General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) shareholder, I am not happy with the loss of 32% of my capital under the current CEO. The previous two CEOs -- Reg Jones and Jack Welch -- have changed GE under their reigns. Thanks to the fall of Communism, many countries -- such as China, Russia, India and others -- are investing over $1 trillion in their efforts to bring their people into the 21st century, according to the Courier-Journal. Thanks to its Infrastructure unit -- which provides jet engines, power plants, locomotives and other products -- GE is well positioned to take a big share of that opportunity.

Today's GE earnings report confirms that. The infrastructure unit boosted its revenues 26% to $17.5 billion in the second quarter of 2008 and its segment profit climbed 24% to $3.2 billion. Unfortunately, that outstanding performance was masked by all the other flotsam in GE's portfolio. Now, according to Reuters, GE stock -- which had been up 2% in premarket trading after meeting its 54 cents a share outlook for Q2 earnings from continuing operations -- is down 1.3% due to a forecast of flat to down third-quarter profits at GE's finance units and an uncertain outlook for capital markets.