I'm rolling my eyes

Not sure if anyone is following this story, or even cares, but I have to comment on the current auto bailout.

A few weeks back, the world watched a common sense bailout of the United States financial world fail only to get another one passed by dumbing it down and removing the basic concepts of responsibility and honesty. The big cheeses from Ford, GM, and Chrysler, along with their pal from the UAW, decided to make a trip to D.C. to get their own piece of the pie. It looked so easy, right.

So they walked into the meeting, basically demanded their handout, and even had some numb skull politicians ready to sign the check; the most vocal being Nancy Pelosi. Some smarter politicians spoke up and asked for a better plan and for responsible decision making before handing out money. These smart fellers and ladies endured some name-calling, including Unpatriotic, but stuck to their guns. They even had the smarts to expose the extravagant private-jet travel the four men had used to come to the Capital as well as their overly inflated salary packages. When it was all ironed out the big cheeses went home without a check, embarrassed for their exposed selfishness and stupidity, and a formal request from Congress for better plans and an attitude adjustment.

Skip ahead to this week. All three of the men are headed back to Washington. All of them cancelled their private jet flights and made the trip in Hybrid vehicles. (In all fairness, the GM and Chrysler CEO's originally stated they would fly commercially and Ford's CEO said he was going to drive to D.C. in a Ford Hybrid vehicle. Showing their obvious out-of-touch lack of original thinking, GM and Chrysler quickly changed their plans and chose one of their own Hybrids to make the trip. So transparent.)

All of the men, as well as the UAW chief, are bringing with them new business plans, sales forecasting, more economical vehicle models, realistic loan repayment plans, concessions from the union, details of their monetary needs, and promises for more respect of the system.

Here's my problem... why now? Are these your actual plans or ones you came up with in the last two weeks? Did you change your mode of travel out of compassion for the planet and it's people or because you didn't like getting your hand slapped (or being outdone by your competitor's good idea)? Did you reprimand the employment bank (that pays laid-off employees 95% of their wage) because it's a horrible idea or because you don't want your industry to look greedy when under the spotlight? Wait, never mind; the answers are quite obvious.

Honestly people, this is grade school children behavior. They have behaved badly and are changing their ways only because they got caught. Those selfish, pompous asses walked in there with the assumption they would just be handed cash because they thought they were special. Of course we know the auto industry is vital to our country's survival. But at the same time we thought someone that big and that rich and that important would understand the brevity of their position and be responsible and professional with it. Turns out we were all wrong. These people can't even decide to make correct travel decisions without seeing what Johnny's doing and playing a game of copycat. It makes me want to vomit.

I have many friends and neighbors who work for Lordstown or in many of the markets that the auto industry touches. I'm not saying I don't care about them or their families. I'm not even saying I think a bailout of the big three is a bad idea. I'm saying we should reevaluate these men and the people that support them. If I or you don't do our job or what's best for our companies, we would get fired. These people get raises for the same actions. Where's the sense in any of that?

Not sure why I felt like writing about this, it's just been heavy in my head all week. The actions and reactions of these men make me sick and I wanted to share my distaste with you.