US Auto Executives Fly To DC Asking for Taxpayer Money in Private Jets and None Offers to Work for Significantly Less than their 15 or 21 Million Dollar Salaries, Much Less Fly First-Class (why not Business Class?) on a Commericial Airline

Absolutely time for them to go..without...any and all the perks they have become accustomed to.

I haven't read the article, but I think we are dealing with lots of personality flaws. I think they should given, not offered or asked for pay cuts to equal what their assembly line workers, and retirees had their arms bent behind their backs for.

If they don't, then let them sink, and let their stockholders deal with them. Its the stockholders that approved these wildly disperportionate salaries. Perhaps if the fold, they will be bought out by Toyota, or even TATA motors, they have much more sense than these idiots.

In other words, let them fly to hell in their corporate jets!

Folks, you are in the front row of an even more profound analogy. If you are a Christian and you are informed about judgment day, then think of these executives as satan's emissaries coming to bargain for all the souls in hell to get into heaven by the back door. This is what you are looking at.

Think of it, here you have these guys saying give us money or we will destroy the lives of over three million people. Isn't this exactly what satan would be saying to God about the billions of souls locked away in hell, and don't forget the misery that God would be inundated with when these souls are made to cry out in pain for added effect.

I think we should allow the devil to keep his ill gotten gains or losses as the case may be. There is one thing that we should do about the big three and see how they respond and that is challenge them to reveal to the nation the world what they have in R&D that would make them more popular than any one of the top Japanese car manufacturers. if they really have something they would not be coming by private jets with there tin plated gold cups.

I would like to add that part of why this nation is in this problem and especially this company is that we have kicked innovation to the curb and have aggrandized bean counters. The question i ask, how can one aggrandize bean counters when there are no beans to count? it is a no-brainer to kick these fossils to the curd as they have out served their purposes.

I think one new growth industry that we need to start looking at is innovations. Suppose instead of R & D being a part of a company like these three former giants,  that you have companies that do straight R & D pitching their innovations to companies. for example if a company designed a new ergonomic car seat that was better than what most cars have they could patent it and pitch it to any and every car company there is. The same of say an engine or even fuel then we would have a situation where instead of cars coming out with new body style every year with little innovation cars could have new internal innovations and the body styling would be the least of the problem. In other words car manufactures have become more fluff than substance and these former giants are the first to succumb to the inevitable.

So the other companies not just auto manufacturers should see this and realize that they could go the way of these un-evolved fools.

I would like to end by saying unless these CEO's are kicked to the curb without even their golden parachute and new proven innovative hands-on CEO's hired then this company should be closed and allow the surviving manufacturers to take up the slack. as for the workers and jobs, i am sorry to say that but the must realize that the government would be paying these guys to keep them in clover which would never work as in time the place would still close down only with more debt. we need to get back to brass tacks.

I am appalled....

Did you hear Wagoner, and others, say that the problem is all due to the current economic downturn?  He, and others, said that everything would be peachy if only credit was available.  He didn't say credit for whom, the auto buyer, or the corporation.  He was in denial of the last decade, or more, as Toyota and Honda, especially, took market share from his company.  He was in denial of the strategy to make high-margin SUV's, rather than cars that were more suited to our current market and economic conditions.  He went so far as to say that he was making cars people wanted, omitting that fewer and fewer people actually wanted the cars he was making.  It was BS, in other words. 

It is not possible to improve a business, or a person, without two things: a vision of the future state; and a cold, hard grasp of current reality.  Wagoner indicates that he has neither.  He, and his ilk, have milked Detroit dry, taking from it every last cent they could, leaving ruin in their wakes.  Now he can't stand to face what he has done.  I don't like the man. 

In the last week, I have heard and read a whole host of people who say throw the workers under the bus because of the management.  The workers are to blame, the management is to blame.  The solution is to take away or lower the salaries because everyone knows that lower wages fix all the problems...so let's do this.

The Congress and Senate is the CEO's of our country...let's have them work for a $1 a year.  They have ran this country into near bankruptcy with their poor decisions from the war to deregulation.  If they do not agree, then fire them.  No more golden parachutes(full pension and health care after 5 years)

All government workers make too much money and receive too many benefits.  It is time that the DMV clerks and road workers learn to live like the rest of us.  Let's do away with their pensions because that is why they are not more competitive.  While I feel for them and their families, the country cannot afford their greediness and I am sure we can find cheaper labor to perform their jobs by going to China or India.  There is a better answer than paying these people this high wages.

The government has not changed with the time, they have not innovated nor were they able to see into the future so let's pull our tax money and see if they can make it on their own.  They will fail or achieve...that's the capitalist way.

Do you blame the government workforce for the bad decisions made by the Congress and President?  Do you worry about their pay and benefits and since the government is in such debt feel that they should take pay cuts and benefit cuts?  Sure, let's blame the workers and not the management.

Down with all DMV, road workers, IRS, police, firefighters, military because their greediness is responsible for the state of the country.

You want to talk of corporate waste? Too many companies throw time away at staff meetings trying to come up with great sounding mission statements- One that you know will never be fulfilled! They should have been spending time improving the bottom line. My dad shook his head at this in his day, now I have in mine!

In America, I didn't think the boards would pay you several million dollars a year plus benefits, including fringes like access to private jets, just to run the shareholders corporations down into the ground - and then get bailed out by the taxpayers.

I guess I was wrong. Maybe this is not America, maybe it's Russia or some European socio-economic country. I simply woke up another place this morning. Yeah, that's gotta be it...

They are not GM. They are rented suits. Fire them and the bloated boards and get some new blood in there that doesn't owe their first born to big oil.

Greed is a helluva drug!

Have you read Romney's comment?. Very interesting.  From the NY Times Wednesday.

November 19, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
By MITT ROMNEY

Boston

IF get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like . Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the , said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was a candidate for this year’s Republican presidential nomination.

Don't you know that flying commercial is just so Classe Moyenne? Puh-leeze.

What self-respecting, multi-millionaire-bordering-on-billionaire would subject themselves, their wives, mistresses, children, and pals to commercial airlines these days?

I mean really people......the wife of a CEO just cant jump in her Bentley and drive herself to the local mall to shop she has to jump in the Leer and go to Pairs, New York, Milan, London, Japan.

How are us groudlings balk at this.

The big 3 are no better that the financial institutions. The pan handle the government for our tax dollars to assist them with selling us inferior products and the banks that are still raising the fees and gouging us at every turn with our own money, and want more of our money to do it with. The line should be drawn in the sand.

The solution seems simple to me.  Fire the executives, period.  Then bail out the auto workers... not the industry.  Then let's retool the factories to build automobiles that are safe and efficient thereby putting people back to work. 

The whole issue of a bailout may prove to be more complicated than just handing out funds to the manufacturers. I read this article and it stopped me in my tracks. Have a peek...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/business/economy/18car.html?scp=1&sq=leyland&st=cse

Are we throwing good money after bad?

This is what is so wrong with corporate America, abuse in excess and waste in difficult times. Just like the AIG people, they partied after they were handed the check. Let them go broke and file Chapter 11, the court will decide their fate.

It is corporate executive greed that is has this country teetereing on ruin. Will America survive, yes she will, will we come out of this at some point, yes we will. But will many millions of lives suffer and come to an end, yes they will.

Corporate greed, the lust to be the biggest, the baddest, and the most exploitive has seen the export of multi-millions of American jobs, the explosive cost of fuel, the crash of the housing marke, and the leadership on capitol hill has been fascilitating this through these companies PAC organzations kickback schemes. We have a government for sale.

AIG in particular should be signaled out, why were they bailed out? Would their fall have dominoed as predicted, did Bear Sterns? What will happen when GM and Ford fail? Millions own these cars, and depend on their company service sector? What about their employees who will also be pushed out in to the jobless sector?

We cannot take anymore of the multi-million dollar salaries from CEOs for doing nothing, ignoring trends, pushing cost ineffective gas guzzling cars, and other products down peoples throats while ignoring the signs of limited resourcs and environment. This country is about to crash, I blame it on the long running governemen who was supposed to protect the public interest. Nevermind that the Democrats were in office 8 years ago, the Republicans had their chance and blew it as if the money supply was monopoly and could be manipulated at will, with the American consumer and tax payer footing every bill.

Now with a new government fixing to come into power, its time to make sure accountability standards are in place, who is watching the watchers? Obama must not be elected to a second term if his policies prove failures over the next 4 years, however he deserves an opportunity now.

What most Americans don`t seem to understand is this is the message that they have brain washed into people. We are worth it but you aren`t! You don`t need a union, we will take care of you! Well after we are done helping ourselves!

Failing that we will take the jobs overseas to help ourselves! To Mexico to help ourselves! Stagnant wages? No healthcare? No clue why? Because too many have been helping themselves!

I saw that one of the auto companies issued a statement it was corporate policy for security reasons for them to fly on their private jets.  But a Senator (Joe Biden) can ride public trasportation from Washington to his home in Delaware?

One of the reason Washington is like it is, too many politicians want to be like and listen to these people.

If you really want to stick it to Big Business, we all need to pull together and stop buying! Do we really need that new car in the garage? Do we really need that 50 inch flat screen tv on the wall? Don't buy into their "easy credit ripoffs". We need to get back to basics folks.

How do the AIG executives get from place to place?  I bet they don't fly commercial.  We spent over $100 billion on saving AIG and that was a give away not a loan. 

The automakers are asking for a loan.  I agree that they have been poorly managed but I also think that it would be absolutely crazy tp let them fail.  There are way too many jobs at stake.  I say fire the CEO's and give them the loan they are asking for. 

Chapter 11 is not a viable option.  GM, Ford, and Chrysler do not make sweaters, they make cars, with long term warranties.  Nobody will have any faith in a car with a 100,000 mile warranty from a company that is in bankruptcy.

America needs to build cars.  We need to keep the jobs that we have.  I read yesterday that Canada is going to help them.  They haven't disclosed how much yet but I can't believe that Canada is ahead of us on this.  We should be ashamed of ourselves.  Taking the risk of putting milions of people in the unemployment line in the middle of a recession is the dumbest thing that I have ever heard.

The question becames can America afford the big three to fail at this historic economic time?

If you think that was outrageous, check this out.

Ford CEO Mulally's corporate jet is a perk included for both he and his wife as part of his employment contract along with a $28 million salary last year. Mulally actually lives in Seattle, not Detroit. The company jet takes him home and back on weekends.   http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6285739&page=1

That would come to about $40,000 every week.

All I can say is DUMB and DUMBER. If AIG executives were dumb enough to celebrate bailout by treating themselves and spending half a million dollars, these three proved to be dumber because they wasted money by flying chartered planes before even they were considered for bailout. No clue how these people become CEOs.

 I recieved this as an e-mail...How about this...I will support your company by buying another one of your products in the future if you can scrape your own sh*t off the ground.  I already gave you $22,000.  If you used it to fly in your private jet and not to keep your company running, too bad.  I also have a GM mastercard (many years)...what did you do with the money from that...I was never late on payment.

Please read the part where they have made it easy for me to contact my senators and represenatives on their behalf.  Take the dollar deal...and I may consider a loan!!!  What did you think???  I am not part of "we the people" you are begging for the loan?.............................................................................

Dear.....

You made the right choice when you put your confidence in General Motors, and we appreciate your past support. I want to assure you that we are making our best vehicles ever, and we have exciting plans for the future. But we need your help now. Simply put, we need you to join us to let Congress know that a bridge loan to help U.S. automakers also helps strengthen the U.S. economy and preserve millions of American jobs.

Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.

The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.

The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:

• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers
• Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk
• U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion
• The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billion

Discussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.

Please take a few minutes to go to , where we have made it easy for you to contact .your U.S. senators and representatives Just click on the "I'm a Concerned American" link under the "Mobilize Now" section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.

Let me assure you that General Motors has made dramatic improvements over the last 10 years. In fact, we are leading the industry with award-winning vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8, GMC Acadia, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Saturn AURA and more. We offer 18 models with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better — more than Toyota or Honda. GM has 6 hybrids in market and 3 more by mid-2009. GM has closed the quality gap with the imports, and today we are putting our best quality vehicles on the road.

Please share this information with friends and family using the link on the site.

Thank you for helping keep our economy viable.

Sincerely,



Troy Clarke

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I must add a P.S. to my post...I love my GM truck and the dealership (people) I purchased it from are very good to me...treat them well...they are part of the reason I bought my truck.  Get over your greed and find a solution.