All of you have undoubtedly heard of the three automotive CEO’s from GM, Ford and Chrysler that have flown themselves down to Washington DC in each of their Corporate jets to sit before congress requesting bail-out money for their respective sectors.
You can all sense the irony.

The policies of their respective companies state that the CEO’s have to fly in corporate jets for safety concerns. What safety concerns? What makes them different then the rest of the population. And, who would really know what they look like?

Now, I can understand corporations leasing jets for the benefit of their employee’s. Since 9/11 Intel have frequent shuttles between their major facilities from speaking with close friends that work with the company for the benefit of the employee’s. Well, this was the case in 2003, not sure if this is still the case today. Anyways, the idea here was to save valuable employee time by not having them wait in airports for a couple hours prior to their flight. This would even make sense for companies such as GM to lease jets if numerous employees have to travel to remote locations for conducting automotive testing.

However, what I don’t understand are three CEO’s, traveling between major cities when there are cheaper more viable options by using first class airfare with local airlines. It just doesn’t make sense.

Now….on to the actual topic of bailing out the automotive sector in the United States. It would help if Americans actually bought their own products. Right now, Japanese and European collectively have the edge in the market place. Japanese cars are more economical, priced competitively without compromising interior luxury. Will the bailout actually help. Well, I am not sure. The Big-Three were sent back with a task to provide a business plan on how they will return to profitability. For starters, this is easier said then done, but not impossible.

Hopefully, the financial think-tanks at the big-three will come up with a plan to avoid bankruptcy and survive the financial difficulties of today. Is it possible? Yes. Will it be difficult? Yes. The American automotive sector can only survive if people start buying more of their cars and in order to do that, they need to be competitive with the world market. Today…they are not competitive in my eyes.

What do you think?

Paul