Your added insight doesn’t make me feel any more sympathetic to the workers. It is still a lot of money, and there are plently of folks who have neither insurance OR pensions included in their terms of employment.

The ‘Three’ arrived in Washington last week to plead their case for a strong future and their companies survival.

Would anyone in their right minds allow the airlines to fly these guys to the most important meeting of their lives? A meeting that could affect millions of jobs?

I have been burned buying a new “big 3″ car twice, I sold the first at 6 months and the second one needed a transmission overhaul, cruise control broke and the A/C went out right after the 36,000 mile warranty expired. The ABS brakes quit twice (once in warranty and once right out of) and the battery completely crapped out just before the warranty expired. That was in 1998 and my last U.S. car.

I saw a special about GM on CNBC a couple months ago where a UAW worker explained how in the recent past; “If buttons or knobs or whatever were missing that it was SOP to just ship the car”, us stupid americans would take it because it was NOT Japanese.

Still pretty damned good pay for an unskilled job anyone off the street could perform.

That’s obviously not the same thing as current workers grossing $73 per hour.

It’s a misleading statistic that certain folks have been pushing for a long time.

I am an entry level aerospace engineer (rocket scientist), and I make just over 1/3 of that. Seriously?

Chapter 11 for the Big Three is the ONLY answer. They need to get out of ridiculous labor contracts and start paying people what they are actually worth (a mere fraction of what they currently make).

Now, all they can do is beg for mercy while pleading the case that the world will end if we don’t pay up. I don’t know about you, but I have no problem letting them go.

As far as I can tell, the best thing they could have done for PR is to car pool to Washington in a Toyota Prius. Then, they could at least try to make the case they aren’t complete idiots.

What’s sad is that when (and I do think it is when and not if) the automakers get their share of the bailout, they’ll do exactly as the banks have done with the money: hoard it or use it to buy other companies and then lay off half their workforce to “save money.”
So the taxpayers who ultimately fund these bailouts get the double shaft. They get to see their hard-earned tax payer money go up in smoke AND lose their job.

Now that REALLY blows!

I personally am not buying this whole we will run out of cash thing. GM is huge – they can shut down production to prevent spending cash as needed to live on. My take is they want to keep moving ahead business as usual and tap the tax payer for the right to do so. Come on Nardelli…you were almost in Jeff Immelt’s seat (not that Jeff is setting th world on fire…just GE) can you not manage your statement of cash flows?

It might be relevant to recall that Chrysler has already received one government rescue followed by the senior officer broadcasting an ad, ‘If you can find a better car, buy it!’ It sounded so much like the grasshopper had learned something.

What’s of far more concern, though, is that these guys don’t get that they’ve screwed the pooch. (With the possible exception of Mullaly, who’s only been at Ford for a year.)

These guys think they’re doing a great job! That’s why Chris Dodd’s takedown was so fabulous.

Sure, if you’re making your company billions, you shouldn’t waste your time waiting for a delayed commercial flight in an airport where you can’t discuss confidential information. But if you’re losing billions every quarter, then maybe your firm benefits from your being out of pocket.

Betty.

My undergraduate training was in the physical sciences. The MBA pathway seemed the logical approach to financial success. I found the course work rather unintimidating…its technical basis undemanding and shallow. At certain points the MPA program (Masters in Public Adminstration)had a common nexus with the MBA curriculum….cost accounting tools…that sort of thing. As an outsider to either discipline, I was struck with a consistent MBA emphasis on the glorification of individual competition at any cost. Real cheesy gladiator Gordon Gekko kind of stuff.

This was the era of Druckerian ‘maximization of shareholder wealth’, a practical theory that, at least in my humble opinion, has been distorted to epic, and unintendented, proportions (an analog to the abuse of the term ‘enlightened self-interest’). The MBA student’s approach was consistently self-focused…while the MPA approach had at least a modicum of societal concern. And no, I did not become a public ‘administrator’ of any kind (so this post is not intended to be self-congratulatory). Turds exist in both ranks.

In short, are we seeing the fully realized embodiment of such attitudes in the corporate sector? Are the private jet transportation antics of the Detroit CEO business androids simply an obvious sign of the chasm that we have created through the worship of selfishness?

Bing, I apologize for any insults you may have suffered from my posts. You have long been one of my favorite authors (you successfully bridge several worlds in a most entertaining fashion). Your entertaining monograph regarding consultants remains one of my all time favorites.

In short, what are we going to do with this economic mess? How do separate the wheat from the chaff? Why does your blog give us such a pathetic little window to proof-read our entries so as to avoid looking like total asses? I don’t mind coming across as a total ‘blood-eyed’ lunatic, but at least I’d like to review my script in somewhat full text mode before posting.

Spokane says ‘hello’.

And while on the subject of imagination… think of the statement it would have made if these guys had carpooled down to DC from the Motor City? Since they are big shots, nobody would have blinked an eye if they had a hired man do the driving. It would also given them time together to come up with a good story to tell Congress and the American people.

Sadly, imaginations seems to be in about as short supply in Detroit as profits from car sales.

I quit my job back in April and though it hasn’t been easy, I am now representing myself in the free market. If I undercut the bloated prices of some of my former employers… well, that’s just the market in action.

In my view, from the middle of society, if a person needs to find someone to blame for all of their troubles in the world, they only need look in the bathroom mirror.

Preferably under a harsh and unflattering fluorescent light.

It does wonders for putting it all in perspective.