1. They still won't be starving exactly.
2. They are putting their money where their mouths are or 'accepting responsibility'.
3. So in a sense, and I don't often speak highly of US corporate bosses, they are setting an example which should fill a lot of this country's underperforming pie-guzzling monstermoggies with shame.
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Contrast with Phoenix Four.
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Par exemple, but they are not alone.
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Do you mean ´pour example´?
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errr, hesitantly rolling out my schoolboy French, you're both right. Par example, meaning by example, pour example meaning for example. Dunno which the French use, if either. Or it could be a reference to the Dutch band of course!
Who speaks proper French?
JH
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> Who speaks proper French? JH
I do actually. Par example does mean literally by example, but it's the normal expression for for example in everyday conversation.
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Merci Lud. And don't ask for much beyond that!
JH
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Sorry. As in, 'by (way of an) example'. Ponce ponce.
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Sorry Lud, you´re quite right. Par exemple is right. Pour example is Barchettaman french....
Apologies, red face this end.
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1. They still won't be starving exactly. 2. They are putting their money where their mouths are or 'accepting responsibility'.
Poor man is down to a mere milion $$$ a year. Easy enough to "accept responsibility" on that sort of money - he's still not going to have to worry for too long about paying the gas bill.
The main thing is that is distracts attention from the lesser-paid mortals, who will now have less of a buffer against the huge costs of US medicine.
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Nowheels,
yes, I'd like to squeeze by on a million - is that what he's down to? But be fair, they're giving up bonuses (and I should think so too!) and that's usually an awful lot more than the salary. The sad fact is that everybody gets a little less or no-one gets anything.
JH
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I thought that was what 'not exactly starving' meant, NW! More or less a gesture, I know, but remarkable contrast with some of the shameless brutes we read about in the papers.
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I thought that was what 'not exactly starving' meant, NW! More or less a gesture, I know, but remarkable contrast with some of the shameless brutes we read about in the papers.
Sorry Lud, I know what you meant. I just don't see that it's a big deal - the difference between $1million a year and $2million a year as rather academic. It's still not much to compare with Bill Ford, who is taking zero salary. But then he's got a few squillions of Ford shares, so he could probably afford to pay a few million for the pleasure of working. ;)
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But then he's got a few squillions ofFord shares, so he could probably afford to pay a few million for the pleasure of working. ;)
What an interesting thought. Perhaps someone should start a website for people who want to sell their jobs to these work-starved plutocrats.
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Have you ever volunteered to halve your income?
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This forum is bonkers sometimes. That posting was in reply to No Wheels.
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Have you ever volunteered to halve your income?
Yes, several times. I did halve it once, quartered it another time. What about you? :)
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The top man at Vauxhall went even further a few years back, no pay for a year. Now that is showing dedication.
JH
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Honourable exceptions I fear. And perhaps Detroit was twisting their arms?
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I find it odd that they report that managers will not be receiving bonuses - well of course not! They are not making any profit and not selling enough cars.
The truth is that the US motor industry has been appallingly badly managed for the last decade. Churning out vehicles that customers don't want to buy and under-investing in newer technologies (not just in the product, but in manufacturing technology too). Pensions and healthcare payments were always going to be there and were forecastable many years ago - they have now become a problem because the company isn't making any money. Ford is in even worse shape - 12+ years of continual declining US sales and market share about halved (down to around 15% I belive). How remarkable that Ford operations in 'Old Europe' are now subsidising the US operations and have done for several years. In fact I remember in the 1970's Ford UK were shovelling massive amounts of money back to Detroit to prop up the company even then. Imagine if that money had been invested in the UK.
These managers should be on proper performance-related pay and kicked out if they don't perform.
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I find it odd that they report that managers will not be receiving bonuses - well of course not! They are not making any profit and not selling enough cars.
Some people have a very strange idea of what bonuses are about.
When Barings Bank went splot, several hundred of the staff were reportedly miffed that they were not going to get their bonuses. It was hard to avoid the thought that if banking staff hadn't figure out that a company with no money meant no bonuses, they were probably in the wrong job to start with.
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Yes and No!
Barings went down because of Nick Leeson. The guys in the City, probably made a lot of money for the bank that year by working hard, but not enough to keep liquidation at bay. Not their fault and they would have liked a share of the profit that their own departmant had made. So they were miffed (so would I be), but realistic enough to know that they wern't getting anything.
BTW I think that all these suit wearing market traders in the City are a bunch of parasites, so have no sympathy except one can understand their annoyance.
--
Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Going back to the top, it's par exemple not par example.
If anyone cares!
Merci bien tout le monde.
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xileno said: "debate" - so here is my contribution:
it seems to me that some people are questioning whether anyone at general motors taking a pay cut is actually acting in an altruistic manner. or whether they have a real "egoist" motive behind their apparent altruistic gesture.
in psychology, this is referred to as "the donor would donate a resource if the vicarious enjoyment of watching the pleasure of others exceeds at the margin the donor's satisfaction from consuming the resource himself".
perhaps no-wheels too, when taking her half pay or quarter pay voluntarily, was being altruistic and at the same time taking an egoistic pleasure from her actions!)
the truth is that the overwhelming majority of human beings act in their own self-interest, and the debate above shows people's "politics of envy".
it is the same behavious whereby someone will justify why it is ok for them to use a large 4x4 car or any other car for that matter, but not use the least environmentally damaging mode of transport available on any given day. it is the same behaviour as a smoker justifying his/her right to smoke in a van or car or anywhere, and at the same time condemning the ciggy makers as unethical profiteering capitalists.
however, as demonstrated by some of the contributors above, the world's motoring industry has suffered because it has been deprived of this forum's best brains in business. in hindsight, all the ills of rover, gm, ford could have been avoided if these top business brains weere working in those companies rather than being wasted here.
so let the rational debate continue.
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One tiny detail missing in your contribution to the debate....your view of this individual's actions?
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> so let the rational debate continue.
I submit that a 'top business brain' is one that can work out that 2+2=4, with all that that implies.
The extravagant rewards given to a minuscule percentage of these geniuses are indeed a cause of envy. Envy is a not-very-attractive emotion, not a 'politics'.
Not all capitalists are especially 'unethical', but they are all profiteering. People with money who don't invest it to make profit are not capitalists, they are just people with money.
Contradictory views and feelings are part of the human condition. They are particularly apparent in addicts (e.g. smokers and drinkers) and, for example, devotees of that unnatural device the automobile, but really are universal. Only very young children don't understand this.
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