Mainly, if your executives are criticized for taking a private jet to Washington to beg taxpayers to bail out your ineptly run business, you should pretend to make a concession that really isn’t one, and pretend you’re not really making it:
General Motors said today that it is putting two of its five corporate jets out of service because the planes are not being used enough. The top three executives at GM, however, will continue to use the private luxurious jets for all of their business and personal travel, despite a flurry of criticism over the perk following an ABC News report this week…
“We’re cutting back very drastically on all travel,” said Tom Wilkinson, a spokesperson for GM. Wilkinson said the downsizing is “strictly in response to the planes not being used” and not a reaction to the harsh treatment CEO Rick Wagoner and others received from Congress this week after it was learned that the CEOs of all three big automakers flew to Washington on private planes to plead for public funding to bailout their ailing companies.
Of course not. What, just because that single act of corporate executive hubris might have ruined their big handout, we’re supposed to assume this is more than just coincidence? Shyeahright!
GM: Genuine Motives!
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Does the fact that I got the Wayne’s World reference mean I’m old, or just lame? I’m gonna go with a little bit of both.
What does it matter what machine one uses to travel by? If they had gotten there in a Toyota, I could understand the outrage, but an airplane? What make of car was it that took them to and from the airport? If it wasn’t Ford, GM, or Chrysler, then there’s a scandal.
Thanks to the attempted scandel with Palin and the private jet on EBay, it’s a little more clear the astronomical amount of money it takes to keep a private jet — let alone five of them. But why should the auto execs me any different? You’ve got Franklin Raines as one of Obama’s campaign advisors who made $90 million in six years at Freddie Mac just four years before its failing.
Maybe they should cut down to only one jet and then yell “shotgun” while racing down the tarmac… that would at least be a little entertainment for our money
If they had used a Japanese built car they would have been sure of getting there and not having it breakdown.
And how do you know the aircraft weren’t built in Brazil.
GM: General Motors. No wait. General Mo- Damn.
Patrick — Are you serious? I don’t know a whole lot about this situation but I do understand that if you’re asking for a giant handout of cash because you’re dead broke, you don’t go whizzing around in a private plane to do so. These things are expensive to own, maintain, and operate. If they want to play hard up, they really should’ve flown commercial. It would have helped their case.
In large corporations it is general practice to use a corporate jet because it reduces the risk of an accident to the CEO. It is also general practice to have each executive fly in a separate jet, the idea being that they all don’t die in the event of an accident.
For the record, Chrysler and Ford charter flights, not own airplanes. GM leases airplanes on a yearly basis for use. They can’t sell airplanes they don’t own.
When you saw that cute footage of Brad Sherman (D-California) ask the executives “raise your hand if you flew commercial” you need to consider what was happening there. Sherman KNEW before he asked “are you going to sell your airplanes” that THEY DIDN’T OWN AN AIRPLANE TO SELL. This guy represents California who has been trying to take down the automotive companies for years now, you wouldn’t see him treating a Silicon Valley executive that way.
Sherman is a politician playing politics. He was an attorney before entering politics and he’s been on the government payroll longer than he worked in law. He has a JD degree, not a business degree. He has absolutely no experience running a corporation, a business, a lemonade stand. He’s a politician who is sitting in judgement of 3 people who actually work for a paycheck.
And as I stated in the “Too Poor To Pay Attention” discussion, we’re not talking about flying one exectutive, we’re talking at least 1 executive, 5 staff and a security detail.
Security Detail? These executives have pink slipped thousands of people. They’re well known faces in this area, they live amongst us and shop in the same grocery stores. I see one VP every parent’s night at school. These guys have pissed a hell of a lot of people off in all this restructuring. Commerical airlines can’t insure their security during flights.
Plus I outlined previously that my husband, a mid level engineer has taken these “luxury” flights before. They’re not just for the hoity toity.
One example: the trip was 9 engineers and a whole cargo bay full of parts and testing supplies. If they hadn’t taken this luxury flight, and entire plant would have shut down. The engineering call came in at something like 9:30pm.
When quality control spots flaws, they shut the lines down until the problem is fixed. Then they run test batches on the new part to make sure it works. Sometimes they ship sample defective parts here, in this case the labs went to the problem source.
They CAN’T take commercial flights in these cases because minutes and hours are precious money. It’s impossible to commercially ship cargo loads of heavy metal in the time frame they have. The situation didn’t allow for my husband to drive 1.5 hours to the airport, stand 2 hours in line for airport security, wait for the next commercial flight, fly 3 hours, rent a car, drive an hour to the plant, wait for the shipping truck to bring his equipment… Minutes are serious money in these cases.
I know it sounds easy, get rid of the private flights and save money. But if it was really that easy, it would have happened long ago. People outside of Michigan don’t seem to understand that the easy fix money saving problems were done 5-10 years ago when they cut every perk imaginable. These companies are running leaner than ever before. Believe me, I’ve been part of a Chrysler family during the money bonfire years and during the starvation years.
This isn’t a company throwing money to the wind anymore; it hasn’t been for quite some time.
Just remember, when you’re watching this stuff on the news: Who is asking the gotcha questions? Who is calling these companies dinosaurs? Who is telling these businesses that they’re making the wrong products, the wrong technology, the wrong decisions?
Is it businessmen and engineers who are elbow deep in the relevant technology?
No.
It’s smarmy politicians with a 19% approval rating and a host of green-energy lobby money in their back pocket.
Whew, I’m a little tired after that rant. Time to take a nap.
Well, since these guys have run their respective companies into the ground, I don’t think it’d be any great loss if they were all in the same plane in case there was a tragic accident.
Which guys are you referring to Snap? Were these guys really the ones who ran their companies into the ground?
Wagoner, GM has been with his corp the longest.
1977-81 GM, Mid level Treasury (not a decision maker)
1981-84 Treasurer of GM Brazil (profitable but separate from GM North America)
1984-87 Executive Director GM Brazil (profitable)
1987-88 VP Finance GM Canada (separate from GM NA)
1988-89 VP Finance GM Europe (very profitable, not GM NA)
1991-92 President GM Brazil
1992-94 Executive VP & CFO GM NA (now you can start counting his years at the helm)
1994-98 Exec VP & Pres NA Operations
1998-2003 President & CEO
2003- Chairman & CEO
Wagoner’s chance to run GM into the ground didn’t start until 1992, 16 years ago. Except that GM was a behemoth before he got to the board room, selling everything from real estate to solar panels. Under Wagoner, GM has been divesting itself of extraneous non-auto companies since he started.
Now let’s look at Nardelli, Chrysler
1971-88 Engineer, General Electric
1988-91 VP Tenneco Inc
1991-2000 Engineering Director GE, Jack Welch protege
2000-07 CEO Home Depot
2007- CEO Chrysler
So Nardelli’s chance to ruin Chrysler has been 1 year 3 months. And please, totally ignore the fact that Chrysler was completely torn to pieces by the Germans and sold off as scrap to Cerberus.
Cerberus brought Nardelli in as chief despite his ousting from Home Depot. Why? Because Nardelli was a total bastard at Home Depot. He was rude and ran roughshod over anyone who wasted money there. He was the kind of guy they wanted at the helm, even if he isn’t a teddy bear.
Mulally, Ford
1969-92 Engineer Boeing
1992-94 VP & General Manager, VP Engineering, Boeing
1994-97 Senior VP Development, Boeing
1997-98 Senior VP, Pres Space & Defense, Boeing
1998-2006 President & CEO, Boeing
2006- President & CEO Ford Motor Company
So Mulally’s chance to screw up Ford has been 1 year 2 months. Ford is actually not in serious trouble yet. They can wait out this storm and have a very rich family behind them willing to bail them out if the market gets too bad. But Mulally knows that if GM goes under, it’ll drag Ford with it, so that’s why you see Ford at the congressional table.
Do you still believe that these are the guys personally responsible?
I’m not picking on you Snap, it’s just that the whole country has been sitting there making fun of these guys and the companies they represent. As if the problem was a simple matter of ousting three executives and making one electric car. It’s not.
These problems stem back to the beginning of Japanese imports in the 1970’s. Executives way back then made some bad choices. They set some bad goals for their companies and they were slow to change (30 years of slow). You can also thank the U.S. government for stepping in and making things harder at every opportunity. And don’t forget the unions who this past week said they didn’t see “any reason to make any concessions on wages or pensions.”
But heck, we need scapegoats so let’s crucify these guys; ‘cuz their rich and too damn old to marry any of our daughters. Let’s do it now, and make it really bloody, please.
I’m sure Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and their congressional squad of nitwits will do a much better job of building cars Americans really want to drive. Just like they took care of our economy.
I can’t wait.
Sounds like Minnow is on GM’s payroll. These execs knew in ADVANCE that they were going to DC, so the “emergency” planning was not in effect. They were not flying 9 engineers with engineering parts to DC to plead for money, so that argument is null as well. Let’s think of another good excuse….
Julie, are you paying attention? Minnow’s husband is a GM engineer. Her point is that the leaders of the Big Three are being made into scapegoats by politicians and the press, just because they came to Washington and asked for help. I don’t see Bob Willumstad or Win Bischof getting called on the carpet by House committee chuckleheads – and they’re getting $ billions of our dough, with (thus far) no benefit to their respective companies or the economy.
Yep Julie. I rake in the big bucks posting pro-automotive comments on celebrity blogs.
I suppose your town only rents the firetruck after they get a 911 call, right?
You do? How do I get THAT job. I like cars.
Maybe Pasta, if’n you’re nice to me, I’ll fund your first Suicidal Dogs album…