It's $25 Billion, Senator. I'll Be Waiting in My Gulfstream

Without $25 billion in federal bailouts, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford may go out of business with "catastrophic" results on the U.S. economy, GM CEO Rick Wagoner told Congress.

Yet Wagoner, Ford's Alan Mulally and Chrysler's Robert Nardelli all flew to Washington to beg for bailouts on corporate jets.
Wagoner flew on a $36 million luxury, G4 jetliner. The trip from Detroit cost GM, which is burning through its cash like wildfire, $20,000. Wagoner could have flown first class commercail for a mere $837.

Mulally's jet is included in his $28 million compensation package. He doesn't actually live in Detroit, by the way. Ford flies him back and forth to his Seattle home on weekends. At company expense, of course.

And while we're on the topic, American International Group, which is getting $150 billion in its federal bailout, still operates a fleet of private busines jets.

Nardelli flew to the hearings on a business aircraft, but since I trashed him in my last post, I'll leave him alone on this one.

What does this show? That the big-time C-Suite still doesn't get it.