Looking at the Financials of Financial Institutions

I'm still burning over my stupidity in holding Wachovia stock through its long downward slide, while Professor Bob (Paretta, U Del) coulda done his cash flow analysis for me in time to make a difference, if only I'd been nicer to him. (See my post of Nov 3.) Now, P-Bob is playing Santa with backward looks at Lehman Bros and GE, the latter at my request.
For Lehman, the red flags were there for all the world to see in their 10-K filings. The sage Dr P. counsels me that "sometimes regulation is not enough, common sense has to play a role too. Even a Grandmother running a candy store would understand you can't remain in business if your reported income is positive and your cash flow is more than 10x negative." That's my problem! I'm a grandmother without a candy store!
Well, anyway, on to GE. This case, he says, is more complicated, cause it's a mixture of financial and non-financial operations. He says "quality of earnings" dipped but recovered, meaning that cash flow was better, relatively speaking. Dr. Bob told me to check GE's latest quarterly results for '08, (and he gave good directions on how to do this -- which I will share in my very next blog). I can report that for the 9 months ending Sept 08, cash flow was same as previous year's first 9 months, but net earnings dipped. Does that mean GE is just super-honest, letting its earnings fall but continuing to rake in the cash? Or is all this analysis of the distant past (i.e., anything before October '08) completely irrelevant to the future of a given stock? Please, Dr Bob! Help!