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BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets
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Subject: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Maryrrf Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:28 PM This really takes the cake. "The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation's capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy...complete article HERE . This is outrageous. It's sick! There are some videos on the site that show the disgusting details. Use of the corporate jet by executives is 'non negociable' according to Ford, GM and Chrysler. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: olddude Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:35 PM Sure and the taxpayer will get to maintain it after we give them billions also and those guys could never be caught flying coach on a normal carrier makes me sick, but I guess they can get bailed out to make more gas guzzling cars that nobody wants since they never learned from the 70's |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:40 PM Hell, aren't all three of 'em in Detroit? Couldn't they have plane-pooled? |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Amos Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:51 PM Some people just don't get the concept, eh? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: GUEST,heric Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:58 PM I read elsewhere that their spokespeople claim it is a "safety" requirement. It probably would be unpleasant, if you were CEO of Ford, to sit next to someone who owns a Ford, but I wouldn't think it was actually dangerous. Perhaps they are morally or philisophically opposed to public transportation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: bobad Date: 19 Nov 08 - 09:10 PM They could have all carpooled and driven down in one of their products, but then again they probably didn't want to risk breaking down and missing their meeting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Rapparee Date: 19 Nov 08 - 09:12 PM They could have taken the train. Or a bus. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: GUEST,heric Date: 19 Nov 08 - 09:34 PM Since some don't or won't get the concept, how about this: megacorp bank or carmaker or whatever elects to take taxpayer bailout and drops the total annual compensation of all employees making $60K or more to 66% of their 2008 package, for the next two years. WHY NOT? |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Beer Date: 19 Nov 08 - 09:49 PM Or they could have got in their Model T's and taken a month two to get there. Or they could have went to the Airport and taken a plane first class or second class. Beer (adrien) |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: GUEST,heric Date: 19 Nov 08 - 10:10 PM 30% pay reduction with a floor of $60K, and no money allocated for lobbying hahahahahahaha |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 19 Nov 08 - 10:25 PM I think the compensation policy Ben & Jerry's had during their earlier days (before being bought by Unilever) should be a model for all corporations: The most the highest paid person in the company can make, is seven times what the lowest paid employee makes. If the lowest paid guy makes $10.00 per hour ($400.00 per 40 hour week) the most the president, CEO, CFO or whoever can make is $2800.00 per week. If he wants a raise, everybody gets one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: bobad Date: 19 Nov 08 - 10:32 PM For most of the past century, CEOs earned roughly 20 times as much as the average employee, according to the Economic Policy Institute, as quoted in The New York Times on Dec. 18, 2005, and again on Jan. 1, 2006. And also for much of the past century, there was nothing like the excesses within the financial industry that we see today, which enable its managers to earn almost obscene levels of compensation -- and then get favorable income tax treatment to boot. Today, however, average public company CEO compensation is 400 times that of the average employee. And thousands of senior managers in addition to CEOs are drinking at the same frothy trough, especially, as we have all just seen, senior managers in the financial services industry. [By contrast, the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average employee has remained around 22 in Britain, 20 in Canada, and 11 in Japan.] And with such U.S. exalted compensation, management has so elevated itself above average employees as to have become, in my opinion, a constituency unto itself -- and one that, to compound the inequity, largely sets its own compensation. http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/081105/244/i9zeb.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Peace Date: 20 Nov 08 - 12:27 AM Bastards. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Ebbie Date: 20 Nov 08 - 01:05 AM Interesting. Right after I read the first post here I turned on the television and they were televising the hearing on C-Span. Rep. Sherman hit hard. First he asked them to raise their hand if they had flown there commercially- and said, Let the record show that no one raised his hand. Then he said, Please raise your hand if you plan to sell the private jets and return home commercial, and - Let the record show no one raised his hand. He went on to say that he couldn't go home to his constituents and tell them that the auto industry has changed when they had clearly shown that they had not. Among other things he said that a five-year service contract means nothing if they go out of business and that customers are aware of that. He said he thinks it essential that each company put aside a few hundred dollars for each vehicle they sell, so that in the event they go out of business the customer has some recourse. He also said that he wants an assurance that each outgoing executive will receive not more than one million dollars per year that he has served, a figure that is to include ALL the perks, including money, options and bonuses. I wish I had turned it on sooner because they ended the televised portion when his turn was over. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Barry Finn Date: 20 Nov 08 - 01:28 AM Why would they want to travel by Ford. Consumer Reports, this month had them reported on recall. It seems that's there's problems with the cruise control which could be dangerous & cause accidents. When you can cruise in high fashon why cruise in a ford? To bad they counld make there cars as reliable like the slant 6's of yrs gone by. I had 2 slant 6's, you just couldn't kill them, they'd rot out from right under you & still they'd keep running, that's what saved Chrystler from going under that time around. Hint, build a car that's worth the money & don't build cheap just to get the repeat business, assholes And stop with the gas sucking SUV's, and yes I'd love to get into a small hybrid pickup, assholes. Barry |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: JohnInKansas Date: 20 Nov 08 - 03:29 AM In the case of GM, and probably for the others, a series of accidents in the 60s in which entire boards of directors all died together led to a stockholder DEMAND that no more than two members of the board can ever be on the same airplane, or in the same vehicle of any kind. While I can't say for sure that the other US auto makers have the same rule, similar retrictions applied at Boeing where Mulally, CEO of Ford, worked previously. Where such rules are enforced (for good reasons) there is little alternative to providing individual transportation when the big guys are required to travel. I see no "profligate waste" in the modes of travel used by these guys, for this meeting. For a meeting of the kind, it is unlikely that any of these CEOs travelled alone, and a usual contingent would include perhaps a half dozen board members and/or senior staff. Which of you would want to be the booking agent to get a half dozen people on separate commercial flights to assure that they all get there on time and can return to get back to business on schedule? While the airplane cited for the GM CEO is a fairly nice little puddle-jumper, a $35M jet is far from a "luxury aircraft" in my experience. It's about the minimum you can get with turbo engines and minimal IFR instruments, of any kind. While I'd guess that the plane used by the GM CEO has nice seats and pleasant upholstery, it's still a plane that a person of normal height has to crouch in to walk to the potty. Executive jets (and autos) commonly have communications equipment rivaling what's in Air Force One, and secure contact with headquarters is another DEMAND from the stockholders that additionally requires "special arrangements" for travel. As to building autos that the people want, GM sold more vehicles than any other maker worldwide last year, despite a rather poor market. And they're not the biggest employer, ranking FIFTH in number of employees among auto makers. (There are some outside the US, in case you haven't noticed.) GM offers more than a dozen (I think it was 16 or 18 for the current model year) models with EPA fuel economy ratings of 30 mpg or better. While there are some autos with higher ratings commonly used elsewhere, the "most efficient" ones common in Europe are mostly diesels that DO NOT MEET US EMISSIONS LIMITS and cannot be legally imported (or built) here due to regulations demanded by Congress and applied by the Administration. The auto makers are in trouble now because CHANGES MADE BY THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS AND IMPLEMENTED BY THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION have destroyed the banking industry, and lines of business credit previously available to them have been shut down. The LOANS that they are requesting quite likely will be repaid in timely fasion, and are no more than (probably less than) the lines of credit they would have used in the course of normal business had not the ADMINISTRATION AND REPUBLICAN CONGRESS caused the collapse of the credit industry. I have my doubts if the much larger "loans" (that look more like gifts at present) to banking entities are as likely to be repaid; but I see littel resemblence between the two cases. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Liz the Squeak Date: 20 Nov 08 - 03:59 AM Hell, if they all work in Detroit, couldn't they just conference call? LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: JohnInKansas Date: 20 Nov 08 - 04:59 AM Congress is the one demanding a face-to-face meeting, if I read my news correctly. But to answer your question more directly, NO, they don't all work in Detroit, especially if you consider the "support staff" they'd likely take along (albeit some of the support serfs would travel on commercial flights) for a meeting of this kind. Mulally (Ford) lives in Washington state and "commutes" to Detroit. ALL of these guys work in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere to maintain contact with suppliers and "business and financial markets" and are only "nominally headquarterd" in Michigan. A few (quite a few) years back even I did business with major GM divisions in Massachusetts, Washington, Illinois, Arkansas and Wisconsin - without ever seeing Detroit - shortly after I had the pleasure of John |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Rapparee Date: 20 Nov 08 - 09:25 AM They wouldn't all have to live in Detroit to have a conference call. I've got one this morning with folks in Vancouver, BC and Dallas, TX. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Maryrrf Date: 20 Nov 08 - 09:50 AM I used to work for a company that sold private jets. They tried hard to find a way to incorporate good economic reasons for the aquisition of a corporate jet into their sales pitch, but a corporate jet is so expensive to purchase, maintain and operate that there's no way they could pitch it as a cost savings in any way, even if you grant the fact that in one flight you can carry an executive and his assistants, and also the theory that they can conduct business on the flight and their time is so valuable. What usually clinched a sale for them was executive ego. Pointing out that so and so from xyx corp had purchased a new corporate jet with x number of luxury accoutrements - that was often the motivating factor and clinched the order. If we grant the fact that a corporate jet may be necessary sometimes I just think it was extraordinarily tactless to turn up in a private jet begging for money. If times are tough the executives are going to need to give up some of these perks. BTW they don't only get the use of the private jet for business, it's at their (and their wives') disposal for personal travel too. I'm sorry, but when their companies are facing bankruptcy I think they could have made do with a first class ticket. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: GUEST,heric Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:02 AM I can understand there are good reasons, but I also read yesterday that one of those guys works in Detroit and lives in Seattle, using the jet to commute weekly. Maybe that's the Boeing guy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Alice Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:05 AM Not even a first class ticket. They should sit in the back of the plane with everyone else. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: olddude Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:16 AM My point, they can have all the perks and jets and toys they want, they just CANNOT ask the taxpayer to pay for it, the guy struggling to keep his own house, the single mom, the old people. That is what it is all about. Shit, have anything you want companies, play whatever games you want. But when you sink you sink period. You keep the profits, have the high life, ride the high horse. When it fall apart, go to the taxpayer expecting them to pay for it. The single mom working 2 jobs, the guy trying to pay for his kids education, the retired couple trying to scrape grocery money together. Make them pay for it. It doesn't matter we have sick people with no health insurance, people losing their homes, an economy that is bankrupt. As long as you get bailed out so you can continue to use your luxury jet and penthouse apartment. Just like the banks, probably get the year end tens of millions of dollar bonus for doing such a stellar job. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Jayto Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:23 AM I worked in the US automotive industry for 6 years. That was before GM demanded lower prices (irrationally low prices) that led to our plant shutting down and moving to Mexico. Over 500 of us were laid off and our jobs outsourced. This is just another show of arrogance in the same vein as the AIG getaways. I heard an estimation that gas alone would cost $20,000 round trip from Detroit to Washington. I wish I was that broke. The CEOs keep saying how bad things will get if they do not recieve the bailout but they can't say how good it will get if they do recieve it. Are they going to do anything different? I think not. They didn't before when the Government helped them I really don't expect them to now. They sliced benefits and closed factories (US factories). They also crucified thier suppliers to the point many shut down. I do not feel sorry for them because it is thier own arrogance and stubborness that have created the mess they are in right now. I know of at least 3 suppliers in my area that are on the verge of shutting down right now. They have been for about 4 years and I am shocked they still have the doors open. They have been raped and pillaged by the big 3 now it is the big 3 that are crying to the government after ramsacking all the smaller suppliers almost to the point of exstinction. This is the same sense of entitlement and arrogance that is embedded in the minds of CEOs across the US today. It is poisonous as we are all seeing. Let them crash I say something new and improved will arise from the ashes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Maryrrf Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:43 AM Well you know if they guy lived in Seattle and took a job in Detroit - shouldn't he just have moved to Detroit??? |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: GUEST,heric Date: 20 Nov 08 - 10:45 AM More than the jets, it burns my shorts that we can give them struggling taxpayers' funds, and have them use that money to spend 28.8 million dollars again next year to continue lobbying Congress for more of our money. The lobbying trade groups are predicting a banner year next year. Think Congress is going to fix that for us? |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: GUEST,heric Date: 20 Nov 08 - 11:07 AM That may be a little insensitive, mary. To understand where he's really coming from, you've got to fly a mile in his John Lobb shoes. It would change your perspective. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Big Mick Date: 20 Nov 08 - 11:56 AM FACT: US auto exec's make 22 times what their Japanese counterparts make, and 17 times what their European counterparts make. Yet despite this disparity, they have consistently made poor decisions, as opposed to those same counterparts. Example: Investing heavily in SUV's as opposed to the hybrid technology that Japan invested in. FACT: US autoworkers earn about $39.00/hr total package. Japanese autoworkers earn 30 to 40% more, and German autoworkers earn $49.00/hr total package. So much for the idea that it is the workers pricing themselves out of a job. MYTH: CEOs create jobs. They create shareholder value. They have supposedly made the U.S. economy the strongest and most competitive in the world. The facts are that fewer and fewer jobs exist in the US and they offer meager pay and fewer and fewer benefits. And as to the shareholder value, well, just take a look at your 401(k) balance. All this in a time when average CEO pay rose from about $40.00 for every dollar the employees made (1960's) to well over $500.00 for every dollar the employees make now. Do you know anyone working by the hour whose pay rose over a 1000% in that same time? Forbes magazine, a right wing management magazine, reported that the average exec saw their pay rise 54% last year. The facts are that beginning with Reagan, The Great Communicator, the dismantling of a century and a half of progressive legislation began. This legislation was aimed at protecting the working class, and enhancing their quality and safety of life. It was aimed at creating the best education system in the world. It was aimed at creating the finest standards of public health, the safest and most productive workplaces, and a vibrant economy. It had its flaws, but that is what being a progressive is about. It is about tinkering, refining, and constantly looking out for the public good. It is about creating a balance between the rights of capital and the rights of labor. Congratulations, America. I hope that Kool Aid was the flavor you liked. This industry needs a bailout. 10% of the jobs in this country are created by it. But without strings????? I don't think so. You can retain private ownership, but if you want the bailout, we get a stake in the decisions on the business model. That is no different from any other investor, now is it? Mick |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Little Hawk Date: 20 Nov 08 - 06:24 PM Very well said, Mick. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 'Big 3' CEO's - Private Jets From: Bobert Date: 20 Nov 08 - 06:35 PM Ditto, LH, on what Mick said... I tell ya' what... Henry Ford woulda blown his own head off before askin' for one dime from the governemnt... Face it, everyone in the developed world makes more money than our working class... Yet, year after year our working class's productivity outpaces other developed countries which leads to the question... ...if our working class ouproduces it competitors and is paid less then why the mess??? Well, I'll tell you "why the mess"... It's because management has got its collective head up the stockholder's posteriors and thinks that it's only responsibiluty is to them... Not the country... Not to their employees but to friggin' stockholders... Well, in the words of Dr. Phil, "How's it workin' for ya'll???" P.S. Where Walter Ruther when we need him the most... B~ |
