Jetting to D.C. To Seek Bailout $$ Lands Auto CEOs Atop Year's Dumb Moves Lists
By John O'Dell December 30, 2008
Automotive News ranks the maiden journey of the Detroit Big Three CEOs to Washington to beg for bailout funds as second on its list of the 10 top automotive blunders of the year.
But Fortune magazine, even though surveying things with a bit more detachment, puts that ill-fated trip at No. 1 on its list of the year's top blunders in all business segments.
We tend to agree with Fortune, which calls its list the "dumbest moments" review.
Having to go hat-in-hand to D.C. to ask Congress for help was bad enough, but to fly there in private corporate jets and then to have the gall to complain that you are running out of money - well, it takes a stunning degree of political and public relations naiveté to do that.
There are, of course, valid arguments for sending your top dogs out on private jets. They can work undisturbed while in the air, get to where they are going in the minimum amount of time, arrive fresh and clear-headed and ready to go to bat for the company, and get home and back to the grind without having to loiter at the airport for hours waiting for a scheduled commercial flight.
But if they had to fly, for Pete's sake, couldn't they at least have jet-pooled? Did no one in their PR departments warn them, or are they so full of themselves they just couldn't see how insufferably pompous they looked?
(If you are wondering, for its top automotive industry blunder, Automotive News picked the fact that GM and Chrysler waited until they were nearly out of cash before seeking federal aid. We think that was probably a wise move - it would have been difficult to persuade Congress to act while there still was money in the bank.)
Fortune wasn't satisfied with lambasting GM's Rick Wagoner, Chrysler's Bob Nardelli and Ford's Alan Mulally for flying to D.C. to seek an auto industry bailout.
For its second-dumbest business blunder of the year, it again picked on the automakers-in-chief, this time for choosing to use their companies' hybrid cars for cross-country drives to D.C. on their second, and ultimately successful, trip to implore Congress for a financial rescue.
That ranking we don't agree with.
It seems that Fortune's gripe is that Chrysler's Nardelli made the drive in one of the company's Dodge Aspen two-mode hybrids, a car that had just been ordered dropped from the company's 2009 lineup.
We think the three should have drawn straws and carpooled in the hybrid from the company run by the guy with the short straw, but we don't think that the trip rates as the second-dumbest move made in the business world last year.
Not even close.
LEAVE A COMMENT
Click here to comment on this entry.Flying on private jets is the least of the problems. Yikes, this is becoming a Roman tragedy. My biggest gripes are with Congress, who created the Fannie and Freddie monster, and were all smiles as they watched the banking sector prepare to set the house on fire.
One of the dumbest things around is dribbling out stories in a slide show format. Forbes does it too but I never page through them.
Fortune compiled their list a day early though. Chrysler is expecting $4 billion in bailout money but just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bunch of full page ads "thanking America."
Apologies all, we had a bad link for the Fortune article, but it has been corrected now.
The car makers get #1 for flying. The car makers get #2 for driving.
This tells me that the list, like much media, is only really interested in taking cheap shots. How about they take the time to do real journalism, rather than putting a list together over beers?
"Flying on private jets is the least of the problems"
Perhaps but it also shows they haven't a clue about the degree of the problem.
It never occured to them that this was a dumb move. The corporate high dollar lifestyle is so engrained in them that somehow it seemed OK to ask the taxpayer for billions while they haven't even taken a minor step to save money (like flying commercial).
That alone should cancel the bailout. It shows there is little chance the money will be used wisely to turn around the companies or save jobs.
I doubt very much the bankers drove hybrid cars to their hearings, for free bailout money. Furthermore, the bankers did not create value over their tenure, and still don't, and their "innovations" have brought our financial system to its knees, with Congressional aiding and abetting.
The Big Three, at the very least, manufacture valuable products at are increasingly competitive and innovative. Initially, I was against any form of bailout, but I am increasingly supportive of the underdog that actually manufactures something valuable, which is becoming a rare art these days. I could not stomach Congress telling these hardworking people how to turnaround a business, and don't get me started about the theiving bankers.
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