In The News

• GE CEO Immelt Declines 2008 Bonus – The Street
• TARP Reform and Limits on Executive Compensation- Race to the Bottom
• Soup-Kitchen Accounting for Banks - Dealbook
• No Easy Way for Banks to Actually Demonstrate Viability – Seeking Alpha

Comments

[L. Stevens]

Carl,
Don't you think that the pattern of common practice has been to shoe-horn in board members, as either a sweetheart deal, or merely cosmetic?
It seems that these boards are full of friends, retired military flag officers, politicos etc.
They are not about to focus on the behavior of those that put them on the corporate board to begin with.
It's just way too incestious...and probably won't change much.

[Steve K]

The Responsible One’s

Thank goodness for the responsible, accountable, hardworking American. If it weren’t for these people the rest of the United States would truly be in a dire predicament. I am one of those “responsible” people and quite frankly, I’m tired of being in that role. I have worked hard all my life, paid my taxes and have always lived within my means.

So how are the responsible in this great country rewarded? We get the patriotic duty of bailing out the rest of the country. Never mind that we didn’t give in to the emotional need for immediate gratification. Never mind that we didn’t take enormous risks involving other people’s money so that we could get huge bonuses. And never mind that we didn’t buy houses obviously out of our affordability range.

Not to fear though. Our elected government officials are looking out for the best interest of the people. That’s exactly why they turned a blind eye when things were clearly out of control on Wall Street. With Wall Street leveraging AAA rated, sub-par investments 30-to-1, it was only a matter of time before things would come reeling back to reality. But as long as Wall Street could make the public believe everything was rosy, the people would keep spending and pump up that precious GDP number. After all, consumer spending makes up about 70% of GDP in this country. Then there’s the mortgage industry. It should have been obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense that if you loan someone an amount far beyond their ability to repay with no down payment required to boot – they will inevitably default. Yet, there were veritable mortgage loan factories doing this very thing.

To add insult to injury, many on Wall Street banked hefty bonuses for 2008. This, in spite of making billions of dollars in bad investments and costing you and me potentially years of retirement funding. If you’re holding typical mutual funds in your retirement account then chances are pretty darn good you’re a stockholder in many of these nearly insolvent Wall Street firms. Oh, and let’s not forget – we just gave Wall Street another $350,000,000 to spend as they wish.

Yes, being responsible carries a heavy price. I’m proud to be one of the responsible ones, but not happy about the predicament we’re in. After all, I could be living the high life, splurging and having fun knowing all along that when things get tough, the government will be there with its army of responsible ones to bail me out.

To all the responsible ones in this country – please try to keep your job, keep working hard and continue paying your taxes, your government and the rest of the country needs you. Again!

[Trent]

Mr. Icahn,
I hate to say I told you so, but you are fighting a cause on numerous diversified fronts. I would like to congratulate the NYSE and their employees for the rendition of Gorillas in the Midst. To my surprise best supporting producer was CNBC, while individual investors continue to lose their hard earned money, those individuals cheer in the background like school children.

There's no wonder individual investors won't invest their capital and refuse to be taken advantage of while the prosperity robbers try to blackmail our Federal Government into catering to their will with unprofessional demonstrations of selfishness to fellow Americans. Not to mention our personal capital being lost, I appreciate the national display of (?) on television Thursday for all potential and existing investors to see.

I won't invest into a selfish natured market regardless of what protests the so called professional investors are enacting on Wall Street, misrepresenting their clients. The next shoe to drop will be biased individual reporters who were accomplices to the ponzy schemes we read about daily?

Individual Investors with a Brain Unite...God Bless America!

[Trent]

Good Morning to my fellow United Shareholders of America. I would like to congratulate those particular governors of a certain party for making a political choice of putting their states on a hunger strike. This just further proves the malicious lack of leadership/direction we have within this certain party. What a shame! Our government leaders are working hard to correct and protect the republic and we still have certain citizens sitting on the bank with their fishing poles. But oh well, more news at eleven.

As we experience unfortunate downturns across the country in the manufacturing sectors and consumer discretion we must all remember first and foremost that we are All Americans. These are times of Great Opportunity, what was that famous saying? Now is the time for all great men to rise....

1.) Big (3) stop allowing fellow americans to declare war on your collective bargaining unit employees as if they are the reason for your problems. It's totally unfair and only further attribute to your already deficiencies and will cause mistrust among labor and management when you exit these great opportunities. These were negotiated terms with numerous concessions for your future success not to mention the good news story of insurance/health benefits for retirees and employees. (It's OK to promote you have some of the best benefits in the World for your PEOPLE, we are Americans). Now lets get to work..

2.) Stop making your first line of defense layoffs and shedding products. That's a no brainer, Americans are used to that business 101 tactic.

3.) Review your existing product lines and how they correlate with the average household size, yearly cost to operate vehicle, quality/service metric, cost to insure the vehicle, maintenance metrics, etc. Review all past business strategies/performance data for possible information manipulation.

4.) After review of model tolerance/neccesity, make appropriate model reddesigns/eliminations to product lines to compliment your potential buyers. Stop making vehicles with the hope people will buy them with no significant viable reasoning other than uneducated buyers. Produce to the viable market's needs and neccesities.

5.) Review legacy models/reputation metrics and possible errors on some makes and models.

6.) Modify your plants to be capable of manufacturing numerous models on same product assembly line to compliment that specific geographical area. This will promote lean manufacturing, reduce cost of manufacturing, transportation/delivery cost, real time/neccesity manufactoring, consumer affordability, etc.

7.) Employee Empowerment/Education: Promote peer to peer management culture, the days of managers walking around with clips boards managing lunches, breaks, manpower, etc. are over. If you aren't a part of the physical manufacturing of the product, you are overhead. Mobilize your craft personnel to take ownership of their jobs, it will enhance employee ownership and optimize overall waste management. Reinvest in your craft personnel, the investment of employee development must meet the rewards...constant training, information sharing, mouse trap innovation, promote diversified teambuilding, departmental outreach programs.

8.) Mouse Trap Outreach; Review employee cost association to business metric. If it has an office, window view, fancy title, clip boards, staff meetings, etc. Do you need it? What cost is it to operate vs cost association to product? When was their last best Mouse Trap event? Once those questions have been anwsered cut the fat? If it doesn't sell, manufacture, develop and or value to cost control.. it's waste.

9.) Investor/Customer Outreach: Incorporate an environment of "Servitude Leadership", and Corporate Values. The investors and the potential consumers don't work for you nor will they be tempted to purchase your product because of percieved business metrics and philosophies. Sell/Promote your Business Metrics before you promote your product lines.

10.) Paradigm Boardmembers: Restructure your Board of Directors, if your boards aren't diversified and look like your customer base they have outlived their vision process. Recruit board members that are visionaries that have the time to physically manage the business and develop much needed direction...Trust But Verify!

11.) Support Outreach: Work with insurance companies, alternative energy entities, service locations to ensure your vehicles are affordable, remain affordable; keep ownership of your vehicles after the sell is made...From Plant to Driveway Packages. Consumers are becoming increasingly educated on Cost Association and Valuation Metrics.

12.) Develop a stimulus payback plan to the American People for their investment through the pricing of your vehicles not to the government! (Very Crucial) the government isn't the consumer and they have their own work to do as well with accountability.

13.) Remember Mr. Ford's Vision...That every American would be able to afford a vehicle. Not just purchase a vehicle but afford a vehicle.

14.) Terminate every individual that permitted you gentlemen to appear on Capital Hill unprepared! These are the same employees that you rely on to make numerous decisions concerning the future of your company? At least they're consistant...You Must Protect Your Boss!

15.) Thank Gettlefinger/UAW because they gave you your concessions to be competetive, he sat in support of your lack of a plan and lately has been the voice of American Pride and Sacrifice. We must declare a Truce with this War on fellow Americans, the unions aren't your problem please represent your service with Truth and Honor.

16....The insurance companies and the credit rating entities are getting a free ride off your products and strangling your ability to sell to the American consumers. But the same is for health care, I wonder why we don't engage these prosperity robbers/piggy backers?

I love this country that we live in and we must be careful to remember that we have a responsiblity to be caregivers and caretakers of fellow Americans. As a fellow American I see Great Opportunites through the dust of Confusion.

Mr. Icahn, I apologize for a second posting on the same subject matter but these are very crucial times in our history. If we're not careful individual investors will continue to lose their dreams and hard earned money thru common stock devaluation. Most of us aren't smart enough or don't have time allocated to invest in PUTS, Options, Short sells, etc., we're just fellow Americans trying to save for family structure prosperity, If we can't Trust and Invest in our American dreams and rely on our government for protection...then we have lost the spirit of Tea in the Boston Harbor.

[Ross]

Mr. Carl Icahn,
I hope and wish you all the greatest in spiriting Entrepreneurial thinking in executives across the country who have grown lax with risk avoidance. So in the vast areas that you have influence I wish you all the best in spiring on growth in industries and in media, film who we are as a diverse nation and what we stand for as a people from many walks of life, and that we should also not forget the greatest generation and the holocaust and the millions who died so that we might be here today, to have the hopes and dreams that like a fabric are what binds as a people in this American dream. Thank you for decades of good leadership...
Ross