Dec 4th, 2008
A Marine, a Rocket Scientist and a Basketball Player walk into a room…
Congress was again visited by the Big 3 CEO’s this week. (i.e. the Rocket Scientist and the Basketball player – Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli doesn’t have a resume that lends itself to a distinguishing moniker, though his $210 million dollar sayonara package he received for being shooed out of Home Depot could possibly earn him the nickname The Platinum Parachuter.)
The Marine joined them (United Autoworkers President United Ron Gettelfinger), completing the lineup of the Frant(ast)ic Four.
It’s worth noting that the discomfited CEO’s ditched the private jets for this trip, opting instead to drive hybrid vehicles the 500 miles to Detroit. The move was a bold one given that Ford and GM are selling their corporate jets, thus enabling Nardelli to pick up Wagoner and Mullaly in the Chrylser jet so they could get in the jet carpool lane for the journey. But no, the jetpool was set aside this time around as these road warriors took to the actual road.
It would seem that using barely over a tank of gas for that leg of the trip created bright, spiral-shaped and energy-efficient lightbulbs above their heads, as the CEO’s admitted mistakes to Congress and vowed to focus on making smaller, hybrid and fuel-efficient vehicles. Hmm… why didn’t anyone else think of that?
While the Big 3 are now asking for more money – $34 billion dollars, up $9 billion from the last request – what they’re not asking for is a “bailout.”
What they are asking for: a “bridge loan.”
You say bridge loan, I say bailout, you say emergency aid, I say government handout…
OK, so it’s not that catchy. Tomato, tomato… yes, admittedly that’s better.
Let’s see what the dictionary tells us:
Main Entry: bail·out
Pronunciation: \ˈbā-ˌlau̇t\
Function: noun
Date: 1951
: a rescue from financial distress
Hmm.
Whatever you want to call it, the Big 3 CEO’s win a Fantasy T-Wearer Award this week, wearing the Jets for Sale t-shirt above. And they get an extra-special bonus Fantasy Bumper Sticker Award as well – may they all put any sticker pictured above on the hybrid of their choice. (Chrysler, you can put them on your jet too.)
If I am not mistaken as a pubicly traded company GM, and Ford are regulated by a “small” Government agency called the SEC. Now the SEC requires that company to form a Board of Directors, that Board who represents the best interest of the company, the share holders “common man, you, me” and acts as a liaison to the Government “SEC” that created it. The board then says gee if we are going to pay our CEO to run a global corporation we need to maximize the amount of work we can get from him, therefore he is required BY LAW to fly on a private jet so he is not wasting his time and our “the shareholders” money by sitting stranded in airport somewhere while he waits for his flight to take off, thus costing the people his wages to sit somewhere unable to make GM a better company..
Think about it, Do something about it, buy the best, buy American!
Oh how do you think Nancy Pelosi travels? or any of the Senators and Governors we elect? all on your tax dollars!
The problem is so wide spread now that no answer seems like the right or good one. I do however think that asking for an enormous sum of money to save your company’s while jetting around the country is a bit of a slap in the face.
We do need the “big three” to stay functional, but we as a people need to feel like we aren’t getting screwed in the process. Let’s face it, we have had enough of that over the past few years.
I am not claiming to have the answers, but we do need something to change. The jobless rates are soaring, people are losing all that they have worked for, and when we see these type of things continue, “fat cats” getting fatter or at least keeping their fat, we get angry. We feel forgotten. What will it take for this country to be strong again?
Thank the Lord that the price of gas is reasonable again! Now, if we could just get food prices to go down and jobs to increase, we would be okay!
I didn’t watch the hearings but I don’t understand why nobody’s asking Chrysler about the jobs they’ve shipped overseas to China. GM has invested billions of dollars in China and it the best-selling car in a country of a billion people who are just now getting rid of bicycles and taking to the roads. This country that already owns most our debt and we’ll probably need them to help us out of this mess, so why are our own automakers putting so much money back into the Chinese economy?
Move Amercian auto jobs BACK TO AMERICA before you go bellyaching to congress about job loss and its affect on our economy!
Auto-maker jobs in China. Wonderful. Now our cars are going to be toxic on top of everything else.
Mind the air-fresheners.
What could be done to convince the big corporations to move jobs back to America?