Detroit Bail-out

[GoodOlBoy]

This is the kinda crap I am talking about fabs.

GM Giving Up Two Luxury Jets After Begging Congress for $25 Billion Bailout

Message delivered.

On Wednesday, the top brass at Detroit's Big Three automakers got run over in Congress and the press for flying to Washington aboard luxurious private jets to beg for a $25 billion industry bailout.

Two days later, on Friday, General Motors Corp. announced that it is terminating the leases on two of its five private jets in an effort "to cut costs."

Only three jets to go. If this keeps up, can it be long before they'll be traveling in coach?

GM spokesman Mike Meyerand told FOXNews that, until recently, the company leased seven corporate jets. The automaker "got out of" two of those leases in September, and two more on Friday.

Meyerand said the three remaining corporate jets would remain at the disposal of "only the very top senior leadership."

Asked if it was not the use of such aircraft by the "very top senior leadership" that occasioned this week's outcry, Meyerand said that was for the media to conclude.

GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, whose round-trip flight to Washington reportedly cost $20,000 — about 70 times what a commercial airline ticket would cost — told Congress he expected GM would get between $10 billion and $12 billion from the requested bailout.

Joined by Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Alan Mulally of Ford, Wagoner told the Senate that a collapse in Detroit could cost 3 million jobs in one year and damage the economy in communities across the country.

Ford and Chrysler did not comment on their future corporate jet policies, but Chrysler confirmed that it does lease private jets, Reuters reported on Friday.

"This is a slap in the face of taxpayers," Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, told ABC News. "To come to Washington on a corporate jet, and asking for a handout is outrageous."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,456145,00.html

YA WANT A LINK! THERES A LINK!

$20k a round trip. Wow I feel sorry for him, hope he at least got peanuts on the flight. Only time I was in first class was when I walked though it to get off of a plane, but then again my poor wallet and me weren't going to beg for millions (or billions) of taxpayer dollars.

By the way I believe they SHOULD file for restructuring. Period. And if tax payers bail them out there should be a firing freeze on anybody in the company making less than Obama's $250K cap.

Otherwise I believe (nope just me believing no link for this one) they will take the money and do another hefty round of layoffs (which only seem to affect the workers)


GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

GOB,

The more I read about this, and the more the CEO's of these companies show what idiots they are, the more I am changing my mind.

It just feels so wrong to let 2 corporations that have been in the US for close to, if not over, 100 years, go down.

However, between reading about the Unions and reading about the CEO's, I'm almost sick.Both sides have run those companies into the ground, with absolutely no forethought about the their future or the company's future.

[RagingBullPa]

of the excess in upper management, in other words trim the fat, our company did that last year got rid of 25 execs in the front office, lots of flotsam and jetsam , lots of overpaid unknowledgable execs in the fields out there yea they got the sheepskin that says they are educated inho they can wipe themselves with itfor what its worth , the workers make the cars take care of them

[GoodOlBoy]

fabs, that is a sentiment I can understand. I hate seeing ANY US company that has been with us so long go under. I hate the idea of the job loss. And I hate it for the employees. But I feel like the execs will just take the bailout money, keep going like they have been, and lay off the workers we both want to save in the first place anyway.

GoodOlBoy

[LoneWolf]

been gone for over a week, and I against my better judgement I'll make one last comment and then I'm done with this.

1. Quit calling this a bailout for the big three. It is a bridge loan. Worked before, and one of the few times the feds ever made a profit.

2. Why is everone so upset about a "loan" to the big 3, and no one is bitching about the 700 plus billion we are "giving" to financials. Just today we shelled out 20 billion to Citibank.
Hmmm, don't remeber them coming up and having to testify.

3. How ironic is it for our elected "lifetime" politicos want a bussiness plan to look at form the big 3? My money says most of em wouldn't no a good one if it bit them in the %ss. And if they do, here is a novel idea, use it themselves.

[fabsroman]

Lonewolf,

#1 - I agree

#2 - I'm not happy with the $700 billion bailout either. What is utterly pathetic is that Citigroup recently bought up one of the ailing financial institutions and now they need a bailout themselves. With that said, about a month ago my wife and I put an offer on a house and it was almost impossible for us to get a mortgage approval and my crediting rating is 807 and my wife's is 784 and we weren't talking about any type of loan that we couldn't have easily afforded.

#3 - I think the entire "business plan" request is a stalling tactic, but I am still pretty pissed that GM had 7 private jets leased a year or two ago, and that they just reduced it from 5 to 3. I'm sitting here wondering why they haven't been reduced to 0 yet.

Here is my #4. I have seen some graphs of employee compensation of the Big 3 compared to Toyota and Honda employees in the states, and the difference is pretty staggering.

I'm on a seesaw here, swinging back and forth on the subject.

[Steverino]

Lonewolf,

I do respect your opinions on this matter. Here are some of mine. To your above post:

1. This so called "bridge loan" of 50 billion dollars would be consumed in the very first financial quarter of 2009 admitted by the very mouths of the CEO's themselves. What then???? This is why #3 (Affectionately referred thereafter as "The Big Plan" important- particularly to US taxpayers) is of such importance. BTW, the plan (we're being kind here) that GM, Ford, & Chysler revealed to Congress was an open-ended joke. This did work before for Chrysler, when Lee Iacocca was CEO and refused his salary and executive lunches during the crisis. You can betch your *ss Lee would have driven to Washington in a 'K' car for the hearings. Even Chysler had to jump through hoops (as they should) during the Reagan administrations bail-out plan.

2. The fundamental difference here is that the original intent of the 700 billion dollar bailout was for federally backed financial institutions to begin utilizing the money for American consumers to free up the credit crunch in housing, business, and auto lending practices; not for free enterprise businesses . Obviously, this has now been diverted. Don't recall seeing Citibank having the financial balance sheets repeatedly over time that the US automakers have had. We have seen a domino effect in the failure of financial lending markets. We do not seem to see this rampant in the automobile industry with other non-US auto manufacturers. This is also the reason that Congress wants a detailed plan. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all suffered as well in this economic recession but they are no where in the same financial straits as GM, Ford, & Chrysler.

3. Couldn't agree more with you on this one!

[GoodOlBoy]

LW we are not bitching about the other bailouts and loanouts because that was not the topic at hand. Post a topic on bailing out credit card companies and watch me lose my mind. Talk about been rooking people for decades. The big 3 are alter boys compared to citibank and other credit card companies.

GoodOlBoy

[Lilred]

I dont blame any one particular thing fer the B3's problems...but a bad combination.
Fer one, the union's (UAW) been round since the 30's...it worked great back then...till everybody started gettin greedy.
Their cars was sellin good, till "somebody" introduced the wide world of imports to the US..and us goober Americans bought the crap out of em....cause we were greedy...
They quit makin em as good as they used to cause....the AUW and the execs were.....greeeeeeedy.

Should we let em fall on their own sword?
Maybe...but yet again....it's at the expense of the regular joe tryin to make a livin...and not just the UAW either.
Hubby works at a Chrysler dealership. They're layin off people left and right. He is lucky cause he is the alignment fella fer the whole "superstore" which is Chrysler, Honda, & Subaru.
Honda & Subaru is the only thing keepin his paycheck comin.
That there, freinds and neighbors, sucks.
I hate relyin on some other dat-blamed country to keep us afloat. Where is there American patriotism? We can do it our dam selves!
Where is American pride?
Remember when everybody was pushin "made in America"?
Well it failed..miserably.
So, we all done it to ourselves by bein greedy and yet again the regular joe is the one to suffer fer it....

I'm gonna put me on some green tights, get me a longbow and start stealin for the poor and all that...lol

[GoodOlBoy]

Dunno bout the rest but I reckon I could stand to see ya in green tights. . . . .

GoodOlBoy

[Steverino]

Good to hear from you Lilred!

How's your little darling doing?

As I seem to recall in the 70's, the first Japan imports were generally referred to, (at least in my neck of the woods) as "Jap Crap." The Datsuns, Toyotas, & Hondas were small little rust buckets and not the most reliable.

Then came the gas crunch in 72-73 and folks began seriously looking at foreign automobiles (including the VW bug, Rabbit, etc) and trading in their large "boats" with big block V8's.

In the 80's and especially the 90's, The Big 3 basically churned out the same cars, on the same chassis platforms (save an emblem badge, plastic grill cover or some other purely cosmetic effect) to distinguish amongst the model offerings. The foreign competition, spent the money of retooling and listened to the consumer, churning on completely redesigned automobiles every few years. Big 3 didn't do this. The average American said, now why in the world why I buy a new model when it looks exactly like my three year old model sitting in my driveway?

Another thing happened: The foreign competition started to get pretty good products out too. Folks soon started to talk with their friends and neighbors about how many miles their particular flavor of Yin & Yang was getting to the gallon. Oh, did I happen to mention that it also has 170K miles on the original engine and tranny? Yep, all I do is change the oil nowadays. Not the most comfortable car to ride around in, I mean, compared to my Buick Electra 225 but the thing just runs, and runs, and runs. I'm saving $65 a month in gas and don't have the huge periodic maintenance expenses either.

Meanwhile, whilst all the above is unfolding, the UAW union is squeezing management for higher benefits, most noticably, pension benefits. Sacrifices are made in other salary pay areas for workers for the promise of longer term retirement benefits. Management figures out that his profit/earnings ration is higher having some foreinger in another land assemble a door panel for 1/3 the cost as here in the US and voila! This effectively puts and end to the US automobile. The Big 3 went from foreign components to full sub-assemblies in their plants. This further eliminated jobs.

As the years rolled by, Big 3 has almost caught up in some areas to the quality of their competition, but the word has spread like wildfire for the past decade about the virtues of the foreign automobiles and the foreign competition has grabbed more than half of the available market share. Consumers will pay extra for what is perceived as a superior crafted quality product.

There are many, many other parts of this story as you are all aware but this was by and large how things played out around the Midwest US.

[RagingBullPa]

"Rice Burners", now they are higher priced than the american cars,and made just as crappy can't say american made most of them have factories here now, what ever happened to "Remember Pearl Harbor ", the all mighty dollar everyone including the unions all wanted more this is what they got, all wanted a piece of the pie they got it allright right in the snoot, we have no one to blame except ourselves for letting it happen, whats the old saying screw me once shame on me , except we keep getting it

[Lilred]

Hey there Steverino!
Lil Lilred is doin great ty..she is startin school next year do ya believe it??? Dam I'm old...lol
And ya summed it up way better than I could..that's what it seems to me too.

Ragin bull, will I regret askin ya what exactly is the Castle Doctrine?? lol

[RagingBullPa]

part of the homeland security package, a person's home is their castle and yu have the right to defend it using force if necessary, in other words shoot first ask questions later policy, its explained in wilkepedia just about the same way the only ones who are protected from you are the law enforcement officers you can't shoot them if they are performing their duty in coming into your domain

[Steverino]

'the only ones who are protected from you are the law enforcement officers you can't shoot them if they are performing their duty in coming into your domain.'

Even if they are Janet Reno and you're not hiding an illegal in your broom closet???