Solution: Don't travel with 30 people. Any other fabricated assumptions you'd like to bolster your argument with?

 

Do you really believe that he went by himself? I know you're smarter then that. I will guarantee you there were all sorts of lawyers, advisers, etc. When you have to purchase that many tickets, and do it last minute, I'd be willing to bet it probably wasn't much more expensive, if at all.

I'm really sick of the media blowing things like this out of proportion. They should really talk about more important things.

 

Do I think he went by himself? No.

Do I think he could've gone by himself? Maybe. If I'm paying someone over 20 million a year to run my company, I expect them to have the ability to field basic questions when applying for a loan.

And if he didn't know the company well enough to answer these questions, maybe they should've sent someone that did.

Every day, plenty of very important people go to the airport and ride the same planes as anybody else to get where they need to be. They don't do it because their private jets are being detailed in the parking lot. They do it because commercial airlines are the best compromise of speed and economic viability in terms of long-distance travel.

They did not need to take private jets to panhandle for our money. And it is this exact same lack of sound decision-making that got them in this mess to begin with. Washington's point is that it would not be wise to loan large amounts of public funds to people incapable of responsible financial choices.

They might as well have showed up and said,"You know what's really cool? These solid gold matching briefcases we got on our way over here. Let me show you."

(I am off to take a short nap before work...I'm sure I'll have more responses to give later on today on my lunchbreak)

 

You're walking across the parkinglot at Walmart on your way to the bus stop. Some gray haired guy pulls up to you in his Ferrari, rolls down his window and asks if you can spare a $100. He states that his company isn't doing so well and he is afraid he will not have enough gas money to make it to the end of the month.

What would you do?

 

I wonder how many of the bank CEOs flew to Washington in private jets.

 

Let's see.....if my car and my gas was putting me in the financial position the American automakers are in right now, I'd want to conserve cash wherever possible. These fatcats are asking us to sacrifice OUR money, yet most of them seem unwilling to make ANY concession of THEIR OWN.
Oh yeah, and to the people who compare the CEO's travel to the president's/president-elect's.....even if the DRASTIC difference was explained to you, you still wouldn't understand.

 

If they were so inconvenienced by the flights, then they should have come in the night before like the rest of us do.

My company/ boss don’t care if I ride my Roller Blades to work, as long as I make it! The jet trip may have "only" cost 20K, but that could be health care for 3-4 workers for a year, or a base salary for a PT/ entry worker. When my home budget gets tough I dont just trim out some expenses, I trim ALL expenses.

I love GM cars as much as anyone else, they build my dream machines, but I can’t be blind to the fact that these guys looked like fools up on the stage yesterday blubbering and unable to provide any direction or a real concrete answer to any of the questions. Some very good questions were raised, especially in concern to their pay cuts (Alan from ford saying he wont, his is “fine”) and Rick when it came to “what if there is no turn around?” It’s apparent none of them support any type of Tax benefit to the buying consumer because they just want the cash today.

 

Exactly. How many "real" people (not politicians) were actually in favor of that bailout again?

Campaign contributions? There's another thing that should not be allowed.

Oh, and "The plane and the pilot are already paid for?" Uh, by WHO? How much does that all cost? By the way, those are rhetorical questions. Since those companies/corporations seem to be failing so badly, that they need US to bail them out, would it really be too much to ask for them to SELL THEIR **DDAMN PRIVATE JETS AND TRAVEL LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE? Or better yet, how about finding ways to minimize travel (i.e. teleconferencing)? It just shows the fatcats aren't willing to make ANY of their OWN SACRIFICES/CONCESSIONS to ensure the SURVIVAL of their OWN COMPANIES/CORPORATIONS. They'd rather fire/lay off a bunch of their workers instead. That's kind of like our government spending $12 BILLION/month and sacrificing American people in a place where we don't belong. I wonder how many of the congressmen have sons/daugthers in the military? Our government is no better than the fatcats in the auto industry/finance industry/etc. that give them fatcat campaign contributions. I say $h!tcan them all!

 

And, just to clarify my position a bit: I am not down on the auto industry. I still think a bailout is preferable to, say, a decade-long depression or having the Chinese end up owning GM. I am down on the buttheads running it.

Like I said in another thread, having an entire board and executive team of people who think, "Well, if this goes down I'll just get a job with General Foods or Johnson and Johnson" is not a recipe for success. We need people who care about *cars,* not just their paycheck.

And yes, it is *also* inexcusable that Congress didn't ask AIG and all the banks if they're going to give up their corporate jets. Hell, *if* AIG had been called in for a hearing, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd showed up in a chartered gold-plated A380 filled with hookers. To give companies that produce *absolutely nothing* a free pass like this is beyond insanity. They should have handed them a rope and said, "If you don't do it, we will."

 

Ford makes $30 million a year. Assume a 40 hour work week(which Im sure he works more hours a week than that.) that comes out to 14,423 dollars an hour.



Holy **** I wish I made that.

 

Since your argument is pretty much just a rant, I'll just say that the jet was paid for by GM. The pilot is on staff, getting paid to fly or stay home. The "profit" from selling the jet would be a rounding error on the balance sheet, and in no way change anything about GM's financial situation. Finally, people that run multibillion dollar corporations don't fly commercial, that's not an extravagance, it's a business necessity. They don't sleep or watch the in flight movie on these flights, they are constantly working, and a commercial jet would not allow that sort of "office on the go" environment. The only CEO's at this level that I can think of that fly commercially are CEO's of the major airlines, and all they do is kick out the first class cabin on whatever flight they want to be on, whether it's business OR pleasure.

 

He doesn't get all that yet.

 

Roger Staubach's on ours

 

I don't make a habit of it. It's something I only tend to do with the company in question is in front of Congress stating that it will likely become operationally bankrupt in several weeks and asking for a Treasury loan that it can't afford to repay under the current circumstances.

When your CEO is testifying in front of Congress, expect a bit of additional scrutiny - especially when the CEO in question was saying "all is well" back in July.

And you keep shooting off sarcastic replies instead of realizing that GM is being guided by people connected to industrial "giants" like Sara Lee and Eastman Kodak, 'kay?

 

Again, if that CEO's company MAKES A PROFIT and is SPENDING WITHIN THEIR MEANS, then so be it.
HOWEVER, these CEO's companies are on the verge of BANKRUPTCY.
I'd say in that case, maybe their time isn't worth so much, knowwhatimeanvern?