Citi Jet Purchase: $50 Million, 12-Seat Plane Despite $45 Billion Bailout

That's just disgusting. I can't believe the government will let that slide.
If they're doing it just to collapse, why not collapse before taking our money?
Just wondering.

So why didn't they just sell the jets when they needed the bailout money? Are those really that crucial for their business? Maybe they are but couldn't they have downgraded to something and still raise the same amount of money that they got in the bailout?

reply to post by PsykoOps


Good question.... I wish I had an answer for you. But still it's not as bad as the OP tried to make it.

I depends on what its used for. These big shot ceos do sometimes need to be fly half way across the world for meetings. Commercial airlines may or may not fly to where they need to go when they need to.

Did they already have a perfecty operable jet(s) in their stable. Probably. Did they need a new one? Probably not.

At the very least they could have bought an AMERICAN made jet, not a French one!

reply to post by drock905


Don't they have the internet?
they need to fly rather than make a conference call and have a webcam handy?

reply to post by solidshot


Its more like a 7 Trillion dollar bailout, but the amount really makes no difference since that money is constantly devalued due to the private illegal federal reserve printing endless amounts of reserve notes.

What is sick - is that they put this bail-out on the backs of hard working middle class Americans and then they go right in out and spend lavishly and disgustingly "right in front of our faces"!

Right in front of our faces they FLAUNT their spending and that they can do whatever they want without any accountability. We still have no clear picture where "our" money is going while they invest in gold as an alternative for when the bank notes fail and fix up their offices and homes!

Someone or some group needs to act now against this Corporate slave debt and their blatent disregard for the future of our Nation and our children.

Some of these out of control Washington protected corporate owners need to be strung up with a noose and left for all to see until real change is made!

[edit on 26-1-2009 by arizonascott]

I think a lot of people like to scream out when they hear the numbers thrown around. However one crucial thing to keep in mind is what are the real assets of American companies. People fail to realize that the major assets of these companies are American workers, who will naturally leave when they get better offers from foreign companies. To keep these companies alive they need to find a way to keep those valuable workers and a no-spending policy would have catastrophic effects on the American economy on short and long term.

Originally posted by David9176
Here's a good idea. Why don't we do something about the government about spending all of my money!?!?! This wouldn't have happened in the first place if they didn't vote for the bailout.

No, see, you've fallen for the trick. You fail. Let me point out your fallacy:

This wouldn't have happened in the first place if they didn't vote for the bailout.

No, this wouldn't have happened in the first place if we hadn't deregulated the entire financial/corporate machine. You've put the cart before the horse. You see the bailout itself as the problem, when in reality it is a symptom of the larger problem--that there are, effectively, no rules to this game anymore.

The bailout would not be necessary had these companies been prevented from bringing this upon us in the first place. Had the Sherman Anti-Trust Act been enforced, had these companies not been allowed to grow so big and inefficient at the same time they were gambling with moneys not their own, had they not been allowed to "branch off" into ventures they had no business getting into, then

NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE EVER HAPPENED.

To think that one side is the cause of this is absurd.

But true. Read some books not written by a right-wing mouthpiece sometime.

BOTH VOTED FOR THE DAMN THING. Oh...and look...we got even more coming. Great!!!

Because there's no other alternative. Think things are bad now? Let these companies fail outright, and we'll all be living on leftovers from the dumpster behind McDonald's.

Deficit in the 10's of trillions and this is the kind of garbage i read?

Welcome to the Eden of the Moneyed Elite.

If the government didn't push the banks to make these ridiculous loans the mortgage crisis wouldn't have happened.

Again, cart before horse. Read your history. The banks lobbied the government for permission to do this crap. Government went along with it for two reasons:

A. Because they saw the potential to help millions find a path to home ownership.

B. Because financial industry lobbyists backed a dump truck full of money up to their back doors.

GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.

Government is necessary. If anything, this crisis should illustrate that fact better than anything.

Every game has to have rules. Economics is no exception. If a football game has no rules, it's just chaos. Same with the economy. If there's no framework of rules it's anarchy and chaos. Sadly, the vultures that make up the financial Elite thrive on anarchy and chaos, and their slick marketers have convinced YOU, my friend, that the very government they themselves castrated is responsible for this mess.

I can't believe what i see anymore...trillions and trillions in debt and people want more of it.

No, fact is people don't know what else to do anymore.

Read Dr. Ravi Batra. He explains how our system of supply and demand has been usurped better than I ever could.

Oh no, citibank bought a jet. It's BS. But no where near the BS of the money wasted by our government every year.

Edit to add: The US deficit increases by 2.43 BILLION A DAY.

So end both wars, pull all of our troops out of the hundred-some-odd bases we maintain all over the world, change our military doctrine from offense (or, if you prefer, "Force Projection") to true defense and cut spending on the procurement of vast amounts of unnecessary hardware of questionable strategic and tactical value. Stop trying to be the world's police and stop using our military to prop up dictators friendly to US corporations while undermining democratically-elected leaders who are popular with their people because they don't knuckle under to us.

Wanna save money or not?

Originally posted by munkey66
reply to post by drock905

 

Don't they have the internet?
they need to fly rather than make a conference call and have a webcam handy?

Yes, they do. And there's some very good E-conferencing systems out there that effectively render the need for corporate jets moot.

Trouble is it's difficult for these "hard-working" execs to bet a million bucks a hole playing a round of golf, get coked up and f%$# a limo full of hookers from halfway around the world once the actual business is concluded. It's also harder for them to travel to child sex slave havens like the Dominican Republic when they have to take commercial flights and have their movements tracked like the rest of us "little people". It's all about separating themselves from society so they can revel in their overinflated senses of self-importance.

Corporate jets are toys, nothing more. Not that I wouldn't love to throw a Citation X around just once...

[edit on 1/26/2009 by The Nighthawk]

reply to post by Riviera


I'm sure you didn't mean that literally.
But, how are you at training geese? know what I'm saying?

The ATS community is a collective mind and when we see these crooks buying a $50 million dollar jet at a time like this, it's our duty as a community to spread this information as fast as possible to your government and to mainstream news facilities so we can have the rugged pulled out from under these pricks.

They always cut the guys at the bottom line ... cut 1000 jobs at $50 K a year there goes the $50 mill .... now these people cant pay their bills and the debt perpetuates even further ... more for closures, more homes auctioned well below value more bank debt.

Store these e-mails in your contacts and flood these guys when the time is right ... only through our efforts can we as a collective mind squash these guys in their tracks.

MEDIA CONTACTS

www.rense.com...

FIRE AWAY!!

[edit on 26-1-2009 by jpvskyfreak]

While I cannot take the side of any of these big companies that are in so desperate "need" of these bailouts, I will comment on the aviation industry as related to private jets. Ignoring what purpose the jet will serve, ignoring whether or not there is an actual need for the jet, looking only at the finances of it they are smart to continue on with the purchase.

Many of the top manufacturers have backlogs, anywhere from 6 month to 3 years. The longer the backlog the more value the completed jet has. There are actually companies who order new jets and sell them immediately upon taking possession of it. They make millions on each plane doing this. Airplanes are not like automobiles. They generally only go up in value as long as they are maintained properly.

Now lets look at the other fact here, they are selling two jets. That means they will probably be cutting jobs of at least a couple pilots, possibly ground support. And if they already have two planes that means they already have the necessary ground support equipment so no additional cost there. They have consolidated an existing department within their company. That consolidation more then makes up for the cost of the new aircraft.

And chances are pretty good that the jet was payed for long ago, perhaps about the time they ordered it, months or years ago. So again, I don't support these crazy bailouts, but this company(and many like it) are totally making the right moves in their aviation department.

reply to post by jpvskyfreak


That's just it. They cut the jobs at the bottom for the middel class American's, and then demand we bail them out because they want to continue lavishly.

So the middle class guy gets cut, but his taxes are still used to fund the Elite guys that laid him off.

Sick! Like a huge slap in the face - to all of us!

[edit on 26-1-2009 by arizonascott]

Edit so as not to advocate a crime.

I HOPE IT CRASHES DUE TO MECHANICAL ERROR, FOR WHICH NOBODY IS AT FAULT.

[edit on 26-1-2009 by mattifikation]

reply to post by The Nighthawk

No, this wouldn't have happened in the first place if we hadn't deregulated the entire financial/corporate machine.

I agree. But what i was referring to was the actual bailout money supposedly going to the a jet. If you want to go to back to where it all started...then yeah deregulation definitely played a role.

But true. Read some books not written by a right-wing mouthpiece sometime

I haven't read any books written by a right-wing mouthpiece. I'm guessing you'd like me to read some books written by a left-wing mouthpiece though. I do not see it as Democrats/Republicans. Both sides cross the lines of their so-called ideals/agendas and vote opposite of their majority.

Again, cart before horse. Read your history. The banks lobbied the government for permission to do this crap. Government went along with it for two reasons:

Give me some links please. I know you have them. I've seen information stating the opposite.

Government is necessary. If anything, this crisis should illustrate that fact better than anything.

Limited government is necessary. I do agree on regulation. Companies should not be allowed to get so large that they "cannot fail."

So end both wars, pull all of our troops out of the hundred-some-odd bases we maintain all over the world, change our military doctrine from offense (or, if you prefer, "Force Projection") to true defense and cut spending on the procurement of vast amounts of unnecessary hardware of questionable strategic and tactical value. Stop trying to be the world's police and stop using our military to prop up dictators friendly to US corporations

I couldn't agree more with this.

Well, I threw up a bit in my mouth after reading this...

and once again, nobody will do anything about it, people need to stand up to the government, but we are all sissies, we are going to take it, because thats how americans are, america USED to fight in the past, but now america is a bunch of sissies, all we are is talk, we will whine about it, and continue with out lives. We will keep paying the government, .... we will get cornered more and more, and yet we will still not do anyting about it....

WE ARE PANSIES!!!!

reply to post by BugByte

Wake up! Any normal person would either sale both and buy hours on a plane until the company was solvent, or sell one jet and net 27 million.

Don't worry though our politicians have our back. unfortunately they are just telling us to bend over and grab our ankles.

We only have ourselves to blame and can only pull ourselves out.......we can not depend on any of the politicians.

Starred and Flagged. Take a good look at that! Then decide how royally you have been screwed!

That really doesn't surprise me though. What really surprises me is how the American people just keep lubing up and taking it every time.

Ballsy ain't they?

Let's just hope Obama and his administration don't let this slip by!

President Barack Obama Bashes financial Giants for Squandering Bailout Funds; Vows Crackdown