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kimbailey

real estate

Of all the 25,000 canceled flights, of all the customers stranded by United Airlines’ summer of delays and disservice three years ago, Gerry Nendick remembers the weeping woman trying to make a funeral.

The passenger’s sister had died in a traffic accident. She was desperate to get to the service in Pennsylvania. But her United flight out of O’Hare International Airport had been delayed once–a mechanical problem, the pilot had said. Now it looked like the replacement plane might be canceled too.

Tears streamed down the woman’s face as she appealed to Nendick, a United customer service rep who had spent two decades trying to solve passengers’ problems.

Hoping to plead the woman’s case, Nendick poked her head into the cockpit. The captain turned around and asked, “Who’s going to kiss me first? This flight is canceled.”

Fixing the smug pilot with a glare, she sputtered, “You go out and tell the woman who is going to miss her sister’s funeral how happy you are.”

Dubinsky promised hard-nosed tactics. Goodwin recalls that Dubinsky in one meeting repeated his oft-stated philosophy of negotiations. “We don’t want to kill the golden goose,” he said. “We just want to choke it by the neck until it gives us every last egg.” With United “awash in cash,” in Dubinsky’s words, he figured the goose had plenty of eggs to spare.

UAL filed for bankruptcy later on.

It takes 27 manhours to make a GM car… keep that in mind. All these are GM numbers so Chrysler made be different…

The short version is that President Obama is pushing absolutely staggering increases through the corporate and business tax systems. Direct taxes on business are, in general, inefficient and economically disruptive, but they are also peerless in their complexity, which means that few voters and essentially no reporters will make the effort to understand what is being done to them.

Trust me on this: something awful is being done to you.

HT: Glenn Reynolds

There, the business class ruled the country with an iron fist your years, plundering the country of its natural resources. People grew tired of the empty promises and the Horatio Alger mythologies.

So, apparently LindaC is an expert in bankruptcy law. I’m not, but watching about 25% of my net worth go down the crapper BECAUSE I and a group of lenders to a company gone bust (not Chrysler of course) are in a secondary position legally, I’ve become a bit more knowledgeable than the average Joe Sixpack is re: matters of law in such cases. I will be treated in accordance with bankruptcy law, the same law that should apply here.

The way it “works”, to use LindaC’s term is according to law and precedent — all related to the relative standing of creditors, shareholder investors, bond investors, suppliers, employees, and on down the line in the event of bankruptcy. OF COURSE Chrysler should have gone through “normal” bankruptcy proceedings. We knew that wouldn’t happen, though, didn’t we, because the special deal for the UAW, probably illegal from what I know of it, was bought and paid for by donated campaign funds.

Employees’ pensions are the result of their work at Chrysler over a period of years. True enough. But, LIndaC, the money I loaned did not fall out of the sky into my hands; I worked my behind off for 20 years with very little personal or family time, which I now regret, but it was my choice.

I had quite enough of an administration that ignored, bent, and otherwise perverted the law to take care of ITS friends and contributor from 2000 through 2008. I thought we were leaving that BS behind. Apparently not.

ps. I didn’t even LOOK at a non-US car when I bought my last two. One is GM and one is Chrysler. Next one will probably be Ford. I’ve tried to help the industry in that way. But this sweetheart deal, arrived at outside the law, stinks. I won’t be voting for Obama the NEXT time around and I won’t be buying Chrysler, either, even though I love my Pacifica.

Associated Press
updated 1:48 p.m. CT, Sun., May 10, 2009
DETROIT – For General Motors Corp., the task at hand is so difficult that experts say a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is all but inevitable.

To remake itself outside of court, GM must persuade bondholders to swap $27 billion in debt for 10 percent of its risky stock. On top of that, the automaker must work out deals with its union, announce factory closures, cut or sell brands and force hundreds of dealers out of business — all in three weeks.

“I just don’t see how it’s possible, given all of the pieces,” said Stephen J. Lubben, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who specializes in bankruptcy.

Here is the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30648961