GM to return two leased jets amid criticism

Boo hoo, you can hear them cry all the way home to their mansions (they have more than one).  These CEOs are used to the high life and don't see any reason to change or "give up" the perks they have become accustomed to.  They are happy to lay off workers, close a few plants and cut back on production but they aren't going to give up their royalties.  They are greedy, arrogant, selfish men who are not going to change their ways and certainly cannot be trusted to run a company.  Send them packing, their VPs to.

How do the folks in congress fly? Do they take private or do they fly coach? Anybody know the answer to that?

Here we go round & round.  Our government at work... just because the executive flew on their jets...has nothing to do with the business itself.  I fly charter everyone once in a while in order to meet my obligations...and sometimes due to security.

Our government does the same thing!!!!!  I bet this little blurp went on and on wasting the tax payers monies once again.

Now that I am out of work and have plenty of time on my hands, I propose driving them in my 1994 Chrysler LHS( great car .fits 5 comfortably).   Just pay for gas ( cheap) and for a room at the red roof inn.

    Please call me when you need service.

How about they each drive one of their most economical vehicles to DC? If they are concerned about perceptions, then I say put to practice what you are selling.

Yes you can!!!

These posts ae beginning to get amusing.  I would say most of the people posting have never managed a large company.   If you think there pool of much cheaper management talent out there to run these large companies start looking.  It is not available.  No one worth anything is going take on the responsibility with out a very large pay check

A corporate jet is not a perk but rather a much more efficent way of moving highly paid employees and not have them sitting in an airport doing very little. 

Now that I am out of work and have plenty of time on my hands, I propose driving them in my 1994 Chrysler LHS( great car .fits 5 comfortably).   Just pay for gas ( cheap) and for a room at the red roof inn.

    Please call me when you need service.

If commercial airport security is good enough form me it is good enough for them.  No bailout!  These guys had over 30 years to get their act together.....the foreign auto makers did and eventually out designed, out marketed and out sold us.

My "two-bits".  The management must go! (Sacrificial Lambs) Now.  Then;

1. Merge and consolidate the American car manufacturers big time.
2. Only two recognizable brands will remain, Ford and GM...goodbye Chrysler (to become part of them).  Ford has done the best so far.
2. GM is a mess! Eliminate Pontiac, GMAC, Saturn?, Hummer, Saab to start.
3. Unfortunately this will cost tens of thousands of jobs.
4. Perhaps these workers and others can be absorbed in the green/infrastrure rebuild.

Well it's a start anyway. Congress could learn a thing or two about cutting costs. Did you know they pay out 200 million a year for limo service in DC just to trot their lazy behinds around town ? None of these guys own cars ?

Multi-million dollar salaries and perks for executives who's company's fail on their watch.

sounds normal to me.  fire 'em all, let the economy sort them out.

More polotical grandstanding. There are very real resons for using corporate jets, not just for luxury. For most, at the top level, it allows for meettings and security that are not afforded on public flights. Add to that the lst time of sitting and waiting for a plane to meet your schedule. Not a great use of a persons time who is making (based on a a 40 hour week which most of them greatly exceed) $5000 per hour. To see the figures in the article that Ford spend $700,000 is a pittance for what can be accomplished on that travel. I guess the interesting part would be to see what all that flying would have cost commercially.

Our congressmen need to stop pointing the finger . While you are pointing one ther are 3 pointed back at you.

wait....what about this. When gas gets below $2., the government freezes the price, then raises it to $3.  They monitor the $$$$diff, and give that to the auto makers.  That way the bedeviling Satan that has helped accelerate the crash of the automakers can help in saving it.

Oh...and GM/Ford/Chrysler get 2 brands each, must product 2 electric/hybrid car models under 20K, and 2 4-door/4 passenger "sub-compacts" that get at or above 30/35 mph.

I wonder how many of the panelists are flown around in Private jets by lobbyist and sell their sole to the devil.  They work less than 150 days a year, vote life time pensions for themselves, tanked our country and we, like dummies, buy into everything they say.  Let’s let our manufacturing go away and if and when we have a way we can ask Japan, China and Russia build our tanks, planes and guns.  If they are not building the right cars then why do they sell well over 50% of all cars sold, if they are not attuned to EPA rating why does GM have more cars that get over 30 miles per gallon than any other TWO manufacturers.  Do some research on who stepped up and contributed to our country when 9-11 hit…not Toyota or Honda.

Love America, Buy American.

The US does appear to have royalty: politicians, Washington insiders and corporate CEOs. The rest of us are just serfs to support their lavish lifestyles.

As for corporate leaders "needing" the big salaries and perks to take on the job, they apparently aren't very good at their jobs and need to be fired and in the unemployment line like everyone else. If they mess up, why would anyone think that they deserve a platinum parachute. 

 "A Chrysler spokesman said the automaker also leases or charters jets. He, however, declined to comment on whether the company was rethinking the use of private jets for executive travel, saying it was a “private matter.” The policy for Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli is not required to be disclosed because the company is not publicly traded."

Exactly why is Chrysler at these hearings if they are not a publicly traded company? They seem to want to keep things a 'PRIVATE MATTER'. So much for full and open disclosure...and were considering loaning them money - why?

So, GM is down to three jets? HOW inconvenient for them! Might I suggest to Wagoner to travel by donkey?

Ford's former CEO spent over $750,000 for private planes for himself and his wife and kids, and he only held the job four months.  Have the wife and kids got security issues too?

Chrysler telling Congress that their corporate jet policy is a private matter as they come asking for billions is the height of arrogance.  When (if - fat chance there, right?) Congress turns Chrysler down, it shouldn't offer any reason other than it too is a private matter.

As for the exec's being worried about a plane cancellation and missing their important meeting, welcome to what the rest of the world has to deal with.  Maybe if the exec's and members of the government (remember Palin flew her family around on the taxpayers dime) had to rely on what is euphamistically referred to as domestic U.S. airline service, the airlines tune of total indifference to the flying public would change.

Ah - lets all pick on them for their ridiculous bloated salaries for a while now.  Maybe it would embarass them into rethinking those too.  

If I had a nickel for every spin an exec. or politician had on a controversial issue, which by the way is just about everything, I would be able to buy a private jet.

They have how many private jets, seven?

And they still need my hard earned money?

BOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sitting here crying for them. poor ceo's. Bet they are so broke they have to brown bag their luch because those corporations cant buy their lunch anymore.

What a bunch of dickheads.  At least they could have arrived in one jet, but no, it's the mindset of the Hummer, Expedition, and Durango...gas burned....gas good...  If they don't want a pay cut, I'll take over GM, take the 1 mil a year and not expect bonuses and even fly first class and do better than these morons have done in product development.

I can certainly understand how the CEO's of GM, Ford and Chrysler can justify flying to Washington DC on private jets for security reasons. With the recent number of executive kidnapping victims reported from the general airport terminals in both Detroit and Dulles, I'd be scared to death to fly on a commercial flight myself!

Give me a frickin break... This is just another reason to fire these fat corporate pigs that don't understand what is going on in the real world. As much as I would hate to see all of their employees jobless, it's time to let the Big 3 die off on their own.

Upstate Farmer:

Typical Republican.  Lease?  Own?  What those CEOs and a few others here can't get straight in their unalloyed arrogance is that those CEOs are still wasting company money (notice it's not their money) while begging for ours.  They wallow in opulent grandiosity and live lavish lifestyles while the rest of us peons are sweating bullets wondering where our next paycheck is coming from.  They worry about keeping their own asses safe, while the rest of us worry about our lack of health insurance. 

We have so little money each week it's frightening our children.  They have so much money their children and children's children couldn't spend it all in heaven knows how many generations.

We send out resumes to two or three dozen job possibilities, while they worry about the state of their stock portfolios.  We're promised some dinky trickle down of money that somehow never seems to get here, while they get a tsunami every month, safe in the promise of their golden parachutes whether they nosedive their company or not.

Class warfare?  You bet!  And guess who it is that's winning the war.

Wagoner would travel by Donkey but they are all on the panel.

They could have flown 1st class on a commercial airline with a body guard if there is such worry over security, a heck of a lot cheaper.  It infuriates me they go ask for money, yet they are not willing to reduce their bonehead bonuses and overpaid salaries.

Those poor Executives now have to travel with the commoners!  Nothing is free anymore.  I guess you will expense out the snacks on your airline trip?  Why don't you ask the oil companies to foot your bill and bail you out; they obviously have been controlling you puppets for so long.  The government should liquidate all your assets for doing a poor job running these corporations!