Tag Archives: greed

Holy Mismanagement of Public Funds, Batman!

Posted on by

Incredibly, GM lost another $9.6 billion dollars in the last quarter.  Apparently it also set fire to $6 billion in cash, while it was negotiating for that $9 billion in government money.

What in the heck is going on here?  Does this seem insane to anyone else?  How do you spend $6 billion in three months, while at the same time begging with your hat in hand for $9 billion?  Thank god they kept the lights on, churning out crappy vehicles one after another.  They have been dealing with this for months now, and they still have only 6 vehicles out of 54 models available (54!) that even have hybrid as an option, and 4 of those are hybrid SUVs, like we need those somehow.  If this isn’t just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, I don’t know what it is.

Bravo, you guys are really burning up the carpet on this one.  I can’t wait to see how this all turns out, but the sad part is the folks that will suffer because this company can’t seem to pull it’s head out of it’s own butt.

Financial Restraint

Posted on by

As I scrutinize my gas bill and finally decide that yes, that’s just one month’s bill and they did in fact receive my last payment, this story on the New York Times makes me more than just a little sick.  It’s a bit on how these financial executives won’t be able to maintain their current “standard of living” if President Obama’s plan to limit executive pay goes through.  The plan is a good start at breaking a corporate culture that sees incredible pay and bonuses regardless of performance.  Of course the plan would only apply to companies that seek government assistance, but it’s a start.

Imagine for a minute that your expenses added up like this:

PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.
Mortgage: $96,000 a year.
Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.
Nanny: $45,000 a year.
We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.

To say that this is ridiculous is an understatement, it’s like winning the lottery every year, and thinking you deserve it.  Incredible.  Here’s hoping these guys hurt at least a little, although their perspectives are so warped it’s hard to imagine any real hardship from “scraping” by on $500 grand a year.