The Big Three Stooges flew down to DC on their corporate jets to ask Congress for $25B.
GM CEO Rick "Moe" Wagoner, Ford's Alan "Curley" Mulally, and Chrysler's Bob "Larry" Nardelli testified before the Senate Banking Committee, predicting dire straits if they didn't get the money.
My thoughts:
I realize here are good reasons for using corporate jets, but in this case, their PR folks should be canned for allowing them to fly to DC in their private jets. I suspect no one even thought to suggest that they take commercial flights. To me that shows how out-of-touch these magnates are. Scott Simon on NPR said it right - they should have all piled into a hybrid and driven themselves down to Capitol Hill. Trouble is, none of the Big Three Stooges' firms makes a hybrid. Hey, couldn't you guys have jet-pooled? [Read this piece from the Vancouver Sun.] They came down without a plan on how they would spend the $25B. That omission speaks volumes. Duhhh...Perhaps that is part of the problem, guys. The Big Three Stooges have dragged their collective feet on new CAFE standards and the building of fuel-efficient small cars, hybrids, etc. Toyota and Honda have left them in the dust on hybrids. The Big Three Stooges want the money not necessarily to retool and take their respective firms in new directions, but to help them get out from under their oppressive legacy costs. So there is no assurance that the money will "save" them. [Note: health care reform, anyone?] In fairness, we shoulder some of the blame. The Big Three Stooges would not have kept producing 3-ton Hummers and other gargantuan SUVs had the American public not kept buying them. But we did, and the automakers were happy to keep making the high-profit vehicles.
"Mini-cars make mini-profits." -- former Ford and Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, when asked why Detroit did not build more small cars
"...because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." - Charles E. "Engine Charlie" Wilson, former GM CEO and Secretary of Defense, when asked during his confirmation hearings if he could make a decision contrary to the interests of General Motors
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