NEWS: Man Happy to be Example of Everything Wrong with America

POLITICS: Man Happy to be Example of Everything Wrong with America

Alan Mulally has been CEO of Ford Motor Company for a whopping four months. It’s not an easy job but he has a great attitude and a decent attendance record, so the company has decided to reward him with $28 million. It is great to see someone get paid for a job well done.

Ford posted a $12.7 billion dollar loss in 2006. Currently the company is moving ahead with plans to close plants and cut more than 30,000 jobs. But that’s the bad news!

The good news is that someone is getting rich!

Pretty nice of them to help the fella relocate. Moving is difficult and can be costly. How the hell was he supposed to pay for the move to a new state when he has that gap between paychecks as he switched jobs? It was the right thing to do.

Mulally also used company jets for personal trips at a cost of $172,974. Ford “required” him to use their jets for security reasons. Wink, wink. Mulally’s wife, children and guests can also use the jets at company expense without him being on the flight. Ford did not disclose how many trips his family or guests took without him.

Now Mulally will be totally motivated and will have the drive to get Ford out of the massive hole it is in. The previous CEO, Bill Ford, Jr., did not receive any pay, bonus or stock grants until the company turned a profit. Look how that turned out.

Ford, GM and Chrysler are about to start negotiations with the United Auto Workers union for labor cost savings when the contract ends in September. Giving Mulally $28 million should help Ford prove to the union that it is serious about turning the company around. And talk about a morale builder! Well done, Ford, well done.

FearTheReaper will be appearing at the San Jose Improv April 13-15.

Convincing a CEO to come to a failing company isn't cheap.

if only ford had made all their vehicles hybrids instead of just the escape dumbasses......

i wouldn't take a hybrid if you GAVE it to me, it doesn't even come close to meeting the needs i have out of a vehicle.

and Joliegh hurt my feelings. I only buy fords.

I mostly only buy used vehicles, it's amazing how many people use vehicles as a status symbol then trade them in with so much life left in them.

But anyway, i would of taken the 7.5 million signing bonus, shown up everyday drunk until i got fired then live on unemployment. (and i would still be making more than what i make now)

Another man happy to be an example of everything wrong with America.

Damn right. It's all about getting paid.

But hey, there is an enormous demand for the top tenth of 1% of talent in management. At least for the 28 million, the CEO puts in an honest days work instead of acting in a movie, or throwing a ball, or putting on clothes

Being a CEO must be awesome its like this little cross-company club where everyone wants to give each other ludicrous amounts of money without regard to profits.

sue me for being a little glib.

You have to burn fossil fuels to recharge hybrids. They pollute just as much as regular cars. Good for the gas mileage, but there's really an underlying problem that needs to be solved.

Ford wouldn't have to pay people so much to work for them if Detroit could get its shit together so anyone would actually want to move there.

I personally think that all senior management positions should be paid to the tune of 30% salary / 70% commission. Basically, the company does well, they do well. Just a bit more incentive to getting the company to be profitable. I have had to work off comission before, and believe me, you work your ass off to get every last sale that you can. It's a good thing I'm a good salesman, or I'd be broke.

And one last thing, while some are talking about hybrid cars. IF you really wanted to reduce pollution in major cities (namely New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, etc.), why not try replacing taxi's with these?

http://www.theaircar.com/

WIth a bit of tooling around for trunk capacity, you could easily replace most of the conventional taxis in these major cities with these cars that have almost no pollution (except for the pollution generated by the air compressors while filling the tanks). Basically, it runs on compressed air. In the basic model, a full tank will keep it going about 250 miles, up to 50 or 60 mph (my kph to mph math may be off).

Yeah, but the problem in a situation like Ford is that there are other massive problems with Ford, and the company is likely to tank even with the best CEO. If the company wants to make it worthwhile to attract top talent who will be willing to risk their reputation, they have to offer a straight up cash and perks right off instead of stock which may be worthless.

For example, since you are a salesman, would you be willing to take a commission on selling products nobody wants to buy?

Another problem is that many companies seem to have put way too much faith in the ability of a CEO alone to turn a company around, and have cut corners on every other kinds of hiring in order to be able to offer large compensation packages (often ones that are not tied to performance) to CEO's.

Case in point, Alan Mullaly was never CEO of Boeing, but still has been credited with making that company more profitable.

This is only the tip of the iceberg! Airline CEOs get big money too, while their sector crashes (no pun intended)! Think of all the jobs they could save if the CEO would give back their bonuses!

When I hear stories like this it make me mad!

When I grow up, I'm going to become a CEO. I'll switch my major to "Entitlement Issues" and then I'm set!

Not to mention that just a few years ago they cut 75,000 manufacturing and service jobs.

A new CEO isn't going to solve Ford's problems, and attracting one is not a valid reason for shelling out that kind of money while cutting tens of thousands of jobs that directly impact the consumer. If you have more employees in the manufacturing end, then they'll turn out a higher-quality product, and more service employees will better serve the consumer. Both of those things will build customer satisfaction and encourage repeat business.

Ford is losing money because of mismanagement and waste at the top, not the bottom. But instead of correcting the actual problem, the upper management all give each other hand jobs and send one hundred thousand workers to the unemployment office in order to save money.

Wow, that's a great analogy that totally fits the situation. There's a startling similarity between a salesman, who a-typically would be depending on commissions to pay his bills and feed his family, and a corporate CEO picking up a 7.5 million bonus just for signing his name. You really hit the nail on the head.

I want people like you to have your own country where you can all suck off the Free Market at your leisure. That way, the rest of us don't have to be held hostage as morons like you carry water to serve as apologists and empower this generations' robber barons. You can all live happy together, you and your kind espousing the difficulties of sitting on your ass in an office paid for with a legacy education and thanking the 1% for making the sacrifices necessary to be disgustingly rich, and they can thank you in return by opting to crack open a bottle of KY instead of punching through your brown eye bone dry.

That way, the rest of us can enjoy the only small comfort we have when we read vile shit like this, railing on the interwebs, without having to endure the helpful lectures from people like you. We get it, we're all fucking Marxists.

Well, speaking for myself, I am a fucking Marxist, actually.

I know there is a major difference. The CEO has skills that are far more valuable and in-demand than the salesman.

Why does my stomach flip every time I read one of your posts? Oh, right. I'm a Commie. I keep forgetting that, for some reason.

If you like me, you'd probably love my cousin who works for blackwater.

The steakhouse? I love that place

Wait, what's wrong with a CEO being paid alot of money? He's doing a job, and people have decided to pay him for it. He may be doing his job badly, and he may not be worth his salary, but that is between him and his colleagues. Why does anyone else think his pay-packet is any of their business?

$28 million for 4 months' work? At the same time as the company is laying off 30,000 employees? You think that doesn't warrant a critical comment?

Are you kidding me?

I'm in charge of a multi-billion dollar company, therefore I should make as much as the person working on the factory line.... right. Ok. Sure. Business is about making money. Get over it.