Posted on 11/19/2008 7:33:33 AM PST by Dukes Travels
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
All they have to do is take their companies into bankruptcy and emerge as much stronger competitors. They could get rid of outrageous benefit packages and high legacy costs. While it may hurt a lot, the future would be much brighter for the current employees than going out of business entirely.
Given the choice of lower pay and benefits, or no pay and benefits; the rank and file will accept the fact that their compensation has been skewed to high for decades.
They are begging to the LIEberals and they will get everything they want in January.
The “hearings” are just a prerequisite to the vote giving them everything their nasty black hearts desire.
HAHA! that would be sweet...
(I was also a member of another union when I worked for UPS one summer... hated that one, too.)
However, there is one very clear difference in those two: Government IS the employer for teachers. They are NOT the employer for auto workers. If GM wants to fund their pension funds, that would be appropriate. Where do you think teacher pension funds come from, if not government?
That being said, I'm virtually NEVER for increased taxes. I AM for funding teacher pensions sufficiently. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.
Government sticking to their responsibilities, and staying out of our lives as much as possible otherwise, is generally my default philosophy.
(Also, teacher pension funds are not taken from federal receipts, as far as I know.)
NO Bailouts.
LOL!
Maybe he should sell his company jet on e-bay and fly coach.
Private jets are a must for people that attain a certain level for many reasons.
- They constantly receive death threats. Security for public figures frequently intercept wackos that try to get close to these people.Going through public airports will incur increased personal protection costs (in people and logistics) and will be more dangerous to the executives and the public.
- These people work in excess of 16 hours a day. Their time is extremely valuable. They constantly have to deal with issues such as future company plans, strategic and tactical decisions, law suits, personnel issues, as well as their usual personal issues. This testimony alone probably took them a week of work to be prepared to answer questions appropriately. It would be a gross dereliction of their duties to the shareholders if they wasted the many hours required for check-in, security, baggage claim and flight delays.
- The entourage that travels with them, lawyers, security, assistants, financial people and the countless numbers of laptops, and boxes of paperwork they carry is staggering. To try to get that through security would be madness.
- This entourage continues to work with them on the plane. It would be impossible to do this on a commercial flight. Most documents they view in preparation for this testimony is secret, none of them could even take it out of the briefcase during the flight, as the danger of losing it or someone else seeing it is too great.
It's true that Sarah Palin sold the jet up in Alaska, but as a candidate she flew private charter. It would have been sheer lunacy and a severe abrogation of her responsibilities had she done otherwise.
Posted before I saw yours, but had the same thought . Sell the dang plane and fly coach. Save your own company with your own money!
Give ‘em a taxpayer funded hankie to cry in.
That’s it!
Crush the UAW in Chapter 11.
If money can’t buy arrogance then I don’t know what does.
they should have driven to DC in one of their fabulous cars from their respective companies.
If you spend some time with the names of these 3 guys on opensecrets.org you will find that they mostly donated to republicans and the usual champions of the auto-industry (Levin and Dingell)
I couldn’t care less about their private jets or their staff’s comfort concerns....just don’t expect me to pay for corporate WELFARE for their poor decision making.
Until they dump the UNION dead weight, they will never be able to turn a profit against foreign competition. I did not support the Wall Street welfare bill either for the same reasons even after they used the “bailout” for luxury cruises.
the UNIONS and the LIEberals they always donate to every election.
I wonder how much of a pay cut executives are going to take in order to save the company.
I don’t have a problem with that.
Apparently they wanted to actually get there.
LOL.
the powertrain warranty should be good to at least DC
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