Executives of the big three car companies (Chrysler, GM, and Ford) are doing a lot of "desperate moves" in order to salvage the impending (or is it climaxing?) collapse of their companies. Turnaround plans were submitted to the US Congress in order to secure lucrative loans that will help them survive the present financial meltdown.
Part of their promise is to have their CEO's received a token $1 a year salary! Further, the CEO's will not anymore use their company planes to shuttle from their homes to the office. Instead, they will make use of hybrid cars that will take them 9 hrs. compared to just two hours of travel by plane. There were other suggestions all of which were to convince Congress to grant them loans.
I have heard of this set-up which was usually adopted by individuals who just wanted to serve. There are people who are only willing to share their time and talent without being compensated. For some, having served is already its own reward. In the case above, the question is, "Is this the case with the CEO's of these car companies?". So gracious of them! Are they for real? Probably not fully. The fact that they were doing it for the grant already revealed their intentions. Their intentions being that it will be temporary. Once they had recovered, they will be back to their previous situation and would recoup what they had sacrificed. "Nothing is free in this world anymore.", they might claim later.
What is this for us? A lot! If ever we are experiencing it, it is not only because we are being asked to shoulder their needed cash but more because we are not being compensated well for the use of our money. To explain, banks play the crucial role in this process. Almost everyone of us has savings in a bank. In exchange, banks give us interests for our deposits. In order to pay for those interests and gaining some more, they use all our moneys for investments, loans, and other income generating activities. This is where companies and government come in. They make their loans from banks. If their business is good, they usually obtain loans faster and easier. They repay the banks with interests once they complete their transactions and obtain payments. Then, they loan again and the process is repeated. Meantime, executives and owners profit from loaned money with only their time and effort (maybe some little cash too!) invested. We can see from this process that banks and industries rely so much on depositors for funds. If depositors will withdraw and abandon banking, almost all industries will be affected. What the US government is doing now in saving the present financial meltdown is to loan these industries with government money (read: money from taxes collected from the people). Of course, with interest! But, the companies are to profit more than the government and the people. From where do these companies get their profit? From the people also who are their clients...well, more or less!
With the world's crisis on global warming, we will be better off with less cars and fuel-consuming machines. Not that we should not anymore manufacture cars, but it is about time to find new alternatives and tap existing but set aside ones like renewable energies. I believe that the world has come to a point of changing its lifestyle. The way we are living and the rate we are going, the world will be devastated even before judgment day! Recent findings of economists reveal that the onslaught of global warming would be more than the devastation of World Wars I and II and the Great Depression combined! Billions of people will die of hunger, thirst, and diseases. The present UNFCCC in Poznan, Poland, is now finalizing a concerted action against climate change caused by global warming. Hopefully, we will have one by December 2009 at the final conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
But we have to do our share. We have to be sincere in our effort to fight global warming. Whether we receive a dollar or more a year, as long as we gear our efforts towards the goodness of humankind, we can afford it. But if we continue our merry-but-dangerous ways, dollar or no dollar, we are in for a rough ride. Worse, it will be a slow and painful death!
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