Chrysler plans $30 Million dollar bonuses for executives amidst bailout talks.

Simply unreal.  I cannot believe that companies these days are this stupid…. or maybe it’s the new trend…. “Oh I didn’t know our company didn’t have any money… but I got my bonus check for being a good little boy or girl and staying place at the company….”

Seriously?  The newest story is of Chrysler paying out $30 Million to top execs for get this… “staying with the company…”.  Now I don’t know about you, but having recently lost my job, I never saw a bonus for “staying with the company…”

The story unfolds over at Freepress.com and goes on to weave the tale on how the Automaker Chrysler wanted to make sure it “kept it’s people” after the possible sale of the company.

To me, it’s just absurd.  You have the auto companies pan handling for $25 Billion, and they have the balls to pay out these “perks” (Ha!) to these people who really… what do they do… are they worth that much money now as the company is tanking?  One would think that they aren’t doing that great of a job if the company is on the verge of asking for money.

Here’s a run down of the people that get money:

6 Chrysler execs get 7-figure retention pay

$1.89 million

Frank Ewasyshyn, executive vice president, manufacturing

$1.8 million

Frank Klegon, executive vice president, product development

$1.66 million

Nancy Rae, executive vice president for human resources and communications

$1.65 million

Simon Boag, president, Mopar/global service and parts

$1.63 million

Steven Landry, executive vice president, North American sales

$1.53 million

Michael Manley, executive vice president, international sales, marketing and business development

Seriously though, are any of those people worth keeping if the company is begging Washington for money?— Furthermore are they deserving of getting that money when the company can’t really afford it?

Unbelievable.

More after the jump.

In a strange turn of events, Mars Rover “Spirit” still alive.

So it turns out that last transmission that the Mars rover “Spirit” sent wasn’t in fact the last.  The Space Fellowship has a good read on what Nasa got back from the little guy, here’s an excerpt:

The solar-powered rover still has low energy, a condition worsened by a dust storm in recent days. Today’s communication confirmed that Spirit had received commands sent on Tuesday and that the battery charge had not fallen low enough to trigger a pre-programmed fault mode.

Callas said, “The baby is crying, which means it is healthy enough to communicate normally. Now we are analyzing the data we’ve received to determine what the next commands should be, but this is all good news.”

One comment I read on Slashdot (who also linked this article) was quite funny prompted by a user known as “NASA Auto” writes:

It rains and my stupid car won’t start. Their little rover can travel to a different planet, survive the cold, survive dust storms, etc and keep going. Maybe instead of bailing out the “big three”, we should dump all that money into NASA to make cars.

I’m willing to risk my safety on a metric to standard conversion problem for a car that will run.

Got a good chuckle out of that one.

More after the jump…

“Quantum of Solace” Movie review

If you know me, you’ll know I love movies.  By that admission, I sometimes (read that as “often”) nerd out and go see movies at Midnight.

007’s newest flick was no exception and while it was entertaining, the movie lacked a certain substance found in the first Bond reboot ‘Casion Royale’.

Anyways, here’s my review.

Quantum of Solace

The movie takes place roughly a couple of hours after ‘Casino Royale’ and goes full throttle from the minute you get the opening scene.  Won’t spoil the opening but it is fantastic fun.  Daniel Craig (Bond) in this one is more of the jaded Double 00 agent as he is still dealing with the hauntings of one “Vespr Lynn” from his previous assignment.  Bond finds himself bent on finding out the organization behind who killed her (Remember the dude with the eye patch at the end of the first one? Not to mention “Mr. White” ?) and bring those responsible for her death to justice.

What they find is a host of dead ends and loop arounds of which they’re unsure if they are crediable evidence at all.  Left to second guess who is good or who is bad, the plot navigates around these values and hosts many twists and turns.

One of the more amazing sequences in the movie is Bond fleshing out who all is involved in the organization.  Let’s just say it involves a huge Opera house and a conference call at the same time.  Brilliantly done and cinematically well executed.

Ultimately the twists and turns in the plots, double crosses and secret agendas to me anyways spoil the fun and imagination that the first one had.  After putting 2 hours into the movie…. the credits started rolling of which I actually said out loud…. “Wait…. that can’t be it… can it?”  So whether or not this is a planned trilogy (like Hollywood likes to do lately) or it’s just a lame attempt to shore up lose ends from ‘Casino’, this Bond film ultimately disappoints and doesn’t live up to the hype of a sophomore follow up movie.

Craig (Bond) still has a lot of ground to explore with James Bonds’ character and I hope the next movie is another 2-3 years away and focuses on a more coherent plot and characters.

I give Quantum of Solace a ** 1/2 out of ****

“…with Freedom and handouts for all.”

Ahhh the “Big 3″ auto makers.  Here’s my take on the situation we’ve found ourselves in.

Chapter 11 will allow them to do: (for more in depth look at how Chapter 11 works, go here )

Allows the company to:
-Wipe out existing CEO’s, upper management etc. and reduce overall running cost of the company for a brief time.
-Allows newly appointed people into those positions at less pay and more responsibility for making the company profitable.
-Will reduce (by default) debt that the company has and in essence “roll it up” into a manageable monthly payment ala “debt consolidation”.
-Gives proper leverage over the Auto workers Unions for them to have less power hell even be dissolved.
-Allows current employees to continue to work and continue to receive benefits until this is sorted out of which chances are, even IF they take a cut in pay or a reduction in benefits, they will still have a job.

-Gives the option of breaking up the current organization into smaller companies to compete better for profit.

Daniel Mitchell did a commentary piece over @ CNN regarding this…. brilliantly put IMO.  To paraphrase one of the examples of the Big 3 Bailout:

“…It’s like giving an alcoholic the keys to the liquor cabinet…”

which if we’re being honest is all this is.  The people in Washington are actually thinking about using more of OUR money and wrapping it up and putting a big bow on it for the greedy CEO’s at GM, Chrysler and Ford so that they can have a bigger payout after they leave the company and live more lavishly once the they are forced out and quote “retire” from the business.  It’s this type of none sensical thinking that has gotten ourselves into this mess in the first place with the AIG bailout (don’t even get me started on that…) then Fanny Mae and Freddy “Please can I have another $1,000 bill” Mac…. it’s unreal to think that yes folks…. We have spent over $3.45 Trillion dollars on these “needed” companies and what type of return have we gotten on our investment?  And yes you read that right…. $3.45 Trillion.  Let’s see what that looks like:

3,450,000,000,000,000,000

Gotta love those zero’s huh?

So really, after the “Big 3″ we’ll have the Credit Card companies come begging for money, Cities are already lined up to take some money, the Airline companies AGAIN will ask for MORE money…. when does it end?

I’m sick of these men and women in Washington not living on a budget like I do.  The inflation that they’re creating for us later on and our kids— and their kids…. is just amazing to me and grows worse each day.  So who will draw a line in the sand and finally step up for what Americans want?

More later..

First planets outside of our solar system found…. No Aliens yet…

I know I know, disappointing right? No LV-426…. well, who knows.

CNN is reporting that Manua Kea Observatory (in Hawaii) has found planets outside of our solar system.

Snippet:

“After all these years, it’s amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets,” said physicist Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

“The discovery of the HR 8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate detection of another Earth,” he said.

None of the planets is remotely habitable, scientists said.

Even though… that is pretty insane. To read more on that… click here

More after the jump….

So you don’t have a Nintendo Wii yet… well you’re in luck….

Sam’s Club (aka Costco) is having a sale on Black Friday (yes folks, that 16 days from now) on the Nintendo Wii’s for $224 with the following:

“Family Bundle” includes the console, three Wiimotes, three nunchuks, Wii Sports, Mario Super Sluggers and King of Clubs Mini Golf.

So get out there and start waiting in line will ya?

Ron Paul chiming in on the state of the Republican Party

Being an independent and having supported Ron Paul during this election after the folies of both McCain and Obama, this is a very interesting read into not only the Republican party, but the Nation as a whole.

Short excerpt:

Since the new alignment of political power offers no real change, we will remain on the same track without even a pretense of slowing the growth of government. With the new administration we can expect things to go from bad to worse.

Opportunity abounds for anyone who can present the case for common sense in fiscal affairs, for protection of civil liberties here at home, and avoiding the senseless foreign entanglements which have bogged us down for decades and contributed so significantly to our fiscal and budgetary crisis

So while I’m not as fearful as some Republicans on the road we’re heading down with this new White House, new Senate and new House majority, I think it will be more of the same, with different people pushing different agendas.  I honestly don’t think that even 80% of the promises that have been born on the campaign trail will make it to fruition during Barack’s first term let alone a second term.  Skeptical? You bet.  Am I the norm of people that are skeptical of where this country is headed?  Don’t know for sure.  Time will tell.

May we not forget our Veterans

For new and old….

Thank you for our freedoms we enjoy.

Thank you for putting your lives on the line for mine.

Thank you for risking everything for this great Republic.

…Thank you for never quitting.

Stay the course and our thoughts, hopes, dreams and prayers are with you all.

Day 4 of benig jobless…..

Got a chuckle out of this one.

Submitted to 11 companies thus far…. still keeping my fingers crossed.

Just finished reading: “Searching for God knows what” – Don Miller

I’m sure some of you probably know the name of Donald Miller and yes he is the fellow Portlander that wrote “Blue Like Jazz”.

I’ve read ‘Blue Like Jazz’ and loved it.  I think it’s one of those books that you read and it makes you realize that you’re in the ‘kiddy pool’ of your faith… but I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself.

To those who know or don’t know…. Yes I’m a Christian— Yes a Baptist at that…but seriously, what is in that label?  Those words used above seem to describe lately the political demo graph of what a geo-political Republican movement of “Evangelical” conservatives are… right?  The same type that are the people that are against homosexuals, against abortion, against drinking, cussing, sex, etc etc…. right?

From my point of view—- I am none of those.  Being a follower of Christ, I would say that it boils down to a relationship rather than a religion.  Weird huh—- but I’m the type of person that would rather have a cup of coffee with anyone out there and learn about their life story and hear what struggles they are having then to argue with them on whether or not they are wrong and I’m right.  Quite frankly I think the world is full of those people and I’d rather not be lumped into that category with them as they go on their crusade to proving themselves right.

So what is Don’s book about?  Well it’s about some of the above that I talked about.   It’s about moving beyond the shallowness (in part) on how we view/handle [in part] our relationship with God.  If you say that one that is “religious” by the fact that they have a certain theory/idea that they ascribe to, I would call that a person of a religion rather than a person of faith.  One part that is towards the end of the book that struck me was that *most* (when I say most… I would say greater than 51% being the majority) of the people that attend a church today would say that they probably life by some sort of moral bounds— or a rule set of sorts.  What I find interesting is I find myself thinking within those boundries more often not.  Now don’t get me wrong…. I think all people do it— I’m just taking a certain percentage of people that attend church on a regular basis and if you asked them if they believe their morality depends on certain right and wrong rules… you would get a resounding “yes” back from them.  (remember, I’m one of them)

So where do the pieces fall?  I’d like to say somewhere in the middle.  My hope and prayer is that people you know… even me…. move beyond the stereotypes, live life alongside everyone in the fullest way we can.

The book is a great follow up to ‘Blue Like Jazz’ and quite frankly— shakes you up a bit but in a good way.

More later.