Bailout or Layoffs
BREAKING: United Airlines CEO threatens big job cuts if company doesn’t receive “sufficient government support by the end of March” pic.twitter.com/uAqJuiXyQb
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) March 20, 2020
How should Congress react to the demands of United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz?
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz is demanding a bailout or threatens layoffs. How to respond?
1. Tell UA to go to hell.
2. Wipeout shareholders
3. Cut executive salaries to 0, options to 0, kill golden parachutes + #2
4. Bail them out as usualhttps://t.co/ECDVu2Gk6s— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) March 20, 2020
- Tell Munoz to go to hell.
- Require total wipeout of shareholders
- Require executives to cut their salary to zero, stock options to zero, and eliminate golden parachutes in addition to shareholder wipeout
- Hey, let’s bail them out.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Why do we care? That’s what we have unemployment and bankruptcy for. Let the Best run airlines survive, and let the worst run ones go broke. Then, in the recovery afterwards, the strongest ones can expand and hire more people. It all works out the same in the end.
Called extortion of the American taxpayer
Hey UA, thanks for stranding us in the Dominican Republic. Got a text saying flight was cancelled due to runway repairs! Bullsh#t. Delta to the rescue
Seems like we have two major problems here: 1) Irresponsible debt leverage and stock buybacks by UAL.
2) Government-enforced shutdown of huge parts of the economy.
We can’t ask the airlines to go bankrupt, Covid-19 isn’t their fault. However, I think the feds are going to have to provide emergency loans at 0% interest to the airlines and other businesses to bridge this crisis. Mish is also 100% correct in saying that airlines need to sell more stock and finance themselves, but this is a medium-term solution. For now, let’s keep businesses on life support; my friends and neighbors need to keep their jobs during this scary time.
I have a FlightAware tracker set up on my home network, which gets me access to a premium FlightAware account. Checking this morning I see no significant reduction in flights nationwide over the last month even though people are cancelling at an alarming rate. Why are they flying empty equipment? I work next door to Sardy Field in Aspen. Most of the private jets are gone but the regularly scheduled commercial flights are still happening. Sure, anecdotal (and I’m pretty sure Aspen Ski Co gives the airlines a kickback for every flight), but this is happening everywhere.
I think they are flying empty flights to keep their slots. In general they’re supposed to do that, and I presume the reason is to stop airlines from frivolously cancelling flights any time they feel like it. But it probably wasn’t intended for a situation like this.
I just cancelled flights for June. Delta kept 42% of the price for a flight that will never get off the ground. I feel SOOOOOooo sorry for the airlines. They ain’t hurtin’ yet.
Boeing and United were part of a monopoly with Pratt-Whitney the government broke up (in the 40’s or 50’s ?). Boeing and Pratt-Whitney are still monopolies, while UAL is a dominant market force. Boeing and Pratt have existing military contract work, so the government will most likely give them enough money to keep those activities afloat. I’m not sure if United has government contracts, but United may get enough relief to keep their infrastructure in place so an airline monopoly does not form.
Well they got my $250 re issuing fee that they will not refund to me for mileage points reissused when I canceled my flight during this epidemic, nowhere on their change fee policy did they mentioned that they were not redund the reissuing fee that’s associated with canceling with using mileage points, I didn’t even want my money back I would’ve been happy with the credit but didn’t have that option they just took to $250 from my credit card,very unfair practices..
Before it gets lost in the catfight, Anyone who wants to help can contact their political hired help and start raising hell about repealing 10B-18, the SEC bulletin that allowed the damned disgraceful, runaway cash poured into stock balance sheet manipulation since 1982.
If it isn’t done now as part of any deal, it never will be when the dust settles.
Reminds me of scenes out of Barbara Tuchman’s “Guns of August,” August, 1914 before the killing started, when it all could have been prevented had European “leaders” stopped strutting, swaggering and preening and worked to pull it off.
Our problem now is how to handle a pandemic that has caused an economic heart attack. We’re strutting about allowing as how our problem is imperfect management at United, and we just need to stand tall and kill United. There will be 20 million unemployed and socialists running a really shitty government if it happens before this is over. It won’t stop with United, they are only the opening gun if congress sits on it’s ass without getting a backstop in place while the revenue train is restarted.
5.A 90 day bridge note atop the debt stack.
Sounds like a few of the new posters here may be airline employees since they’re taking this bailout issue personally. They don’t seem to have the same sympathy for savers or any of the small/medium businesses that were engulfed in the last financial crisis, but apparently large corporations are sacrosanct. Calling this discussion “hate filled” made me chuckle out loud.
I’ll say it again- Boeing and United are the tip of the iceberg. Soon every CEO will be running to Washington with their hands out. Let’s say we bail everybody out again, it will be like 2008 only even pricier. We can keep this zombie alive for a bit longer, but what happens when the next crisis hits, probably in the next 5-10 years? Since our $23T of debt is not nearly enough, at what point do the debt loads become intolerable?
Capitalism isn’t meant to be bailed out repeatedly like this, nor is it meant to be run on ZIRP/NIRP. The pandemic isn’t the issue here, it’s that we intentionally set everything up to be fragile, secure in the belief that every TBTF corp will get bailed out again. We can’t even produce the cotton swabs we need to test people! Nobody needs to assess risk because the Fed and US gov are there to backstop everything. These bad habits will be our undoing, and if it takes some serious pain to force us back to responsibility, so be it!
I second that.
Ummm, I’m the one who called it hate filled, and I’m not an airline employee, but I do take it personally because I’m an American who is deeply concerned about his fellow Americans who are facing layoffs and job losses through no fault of their own. But you go ahead and “chuckle” all you want, man. In fact, get a good hardy laugh as you look around at all the the deserted malls, airports, streets, hotels, etc. This was not caused by corporate malfeasance, or irresponsible lending, or any of the other crap dreamed up by corporate haters who actually seem to enjoy the destruction of the American economy currently underway. Comparisons of this crisis to the 2008 banking crisis are malarkey. The US government is shutting down the economy for medical reasons. Argue over whether that’s necessary — I happen to think it is, but others have convincing arguments it isn’t. Either way, it’s asinine to say now’s the time to give government a seat on the boards of these companies. How would that have stopped this virus or prevented these hardships? I mean, the government didn’t stop it from getting here in the first place, how will giving it a seat at the table make it any different? Because THAT’s the issue this time around, not a failure to regulate, or irresponsible corporate governance. And (thank God) I am employed by a great company that is doing it hardest to keep its employees on the payroll and making access to healthcare more even affordable. I know that I’m fortunate — but I worry so much about these airline and service industry workers. What’s happening is heartbreaking and all you can do is “chuckle” as you dream up ways to shackle these companies at their weakest moment. What a drag.
Shouldn’t you be directing all this angst toward the Fed and the bankers who have decimated the American economy?
If you’re clutching your pearls over a hostile public reaction to yet another corporate bailout, your priorities are sorely misplaced.
I believe what everyone is saying is insane is that the CEOs and owners of these airlines are billionaires, but are asking for help paying their employees. Maybe they take some of their savings and pay them? Those of us who are small business owners are not getting bailed out. If I pay an employee, it comes out of my bank account.
If they want a bailout, let’s see the big wigs empty their bank accounts first.
There are too many little people needing help right now. I just can’t feel bad for billionaires right now.
tell Munoz to go back to Mexico.
Everybody on here smugly cheering on the United lynch mob may want to take a real good look at the P&L of the firm you draw a paycheck from. If it’s on planet Earth, chances are it’s management team has suddenly also gone completely to hell in the past two weeks.
What goes around comes around. Government has slammed the revenue door, all eyes need to be on how to open it quickly, not which tree to lynch United from.
They paid about 150 million in the 4th quarter last year alone. Payroll tax, fuel tax, gate tax, landing tax, takeoff tax, countless late departure fines. Where do you think that goes? You don’t seem to have a problem giving billions to corrupt nation’s bit for american workers you draw the line on them. Again you’re not properly informed and that’s not all your fault. You have so called journalists writing non sense. Even the title is total b.s.
150,000,000 @ 21% tax rate means 700,000,000 plus profit in the 4th qtr…yeah they need a taxpayer bailout.
You’re on complete bullshit. You claim to have all these principles but have very little knowledge on the subject you speak of. What happens then in a year from now if these airlines or Boeing goes out? Other airlines pop up? Just like that? How does freight move? What happens to the actual airports, who will bankrupt along with the airlines? The airports are asking for money as well. What happens to all the vendors that support the airlines, food, cleaning, fueling etc? You don’t realize how far this goes. But then again, principles right? Haha.
“What happens then in a year from now if these airlines or Boeing goes out? Other airlines pop up? Just like that? How does freight move? What happens to the actual airports, who will bankrupt along with the airlines? “
“You need us!” cries every leach since time immemorial.
No, we actually don’t need you to that extent.
Again, you fail to make any points. The government is doing everything you listed. The government will be supporting these laid off workers as well as handling a health crisis. I don’t understand how you can be so short sighted. Screw the execs, yet if you don’t do anything be sure of one thing, those execs will keep their jobs, the workers will not. They will become defaulted mortgages, defaulted loans, medicare and unemployment dependants. You’re ability to grasp this is ridiculous. Airlines won’t be the only ones, they are just currently the hardest hit. Btw transportation includes more than people. A very large number of freight is moved by the big 3 airlines. You fail to articulate anything except for “screw execs”. What’s your plan?
Number 1 and #3
“CEO threatens big job cuts if company doesn’t receive ‘sufficient government support’.” This tweet/headline does not accurately or fairly portray the statement issued by United Airlines — and it’s a great example of how a biased media uses certain words to drive public opinion and gin up hate for its boogeyman of the moment, which right now, apparently, is United Airlines. The single word, “threatens”, misrepresents the CEO’s statement, distorts the truth, ignores reality, and exposes the author’s bias. And it’s highly effective at driving public opinion because look at the hate-filled uninformed discussion that has followed. This isn’t a threat — it’s a statement of cold, hard reality. It’s the truth. It’s a warning. It’s a call for action. But it’s not a threat. United Airlines didn’t cause this crisis. It’s CEO and corporate board didn’t cause it. It’s shareholders (which by the way are everyone from blue collar union members to office workers, and white collar executives who invest in 401ks and other retirement vehicles) didn’t cause this. And it’s employees didn’t cause this either. So all this talk about cutting his salary to zero (by the way, he’s already done that voluntarily), wiping out shareholders, and telling him to go to hell is nothing but division and hatred at a time when this country needs to come together, save every job we can, bailout the industries that are vital to the American economy, and set aside the petty class warfare, or we will have nothing left. And, honestly, how can a business network can be so anti-business.?
Time to call Munoz’s bluff.
No money should be given to United by government.
Let it go to bankruptcy and wipe out the equity holders.
The debt holders can take their collateral (airplanes and landing gates) and sell them to any buyers they can find.
Future investors will snap up airline assets cheaply and start a new airline (or resuscitate United). Most importantly, they will do so knowing that they will lose their entire investment if they run the company poorly, that they won’t be bailed out by the taxpayers.
LMAO here we go with our wishful thinking again. I have to admit this is beyond getting old.
Let the CEO go to hell. This is the time to set an example. If a company is unable to weather a crisis, liquidate it. No favorites and no exceptions. Isn’t capitalism supposed to work like that? Taxpayer’s hard earned money should no be wasted to save any corporation. As someone stated, new entrepreneurs will pick up the pieces and start newer better companies. Employees can apply for unemployment benefits and find new jobs. Give capitalism a chance to work.
For those who may have been in a cave since Christmas, or just not giving a damn and paying no attention:
This is not a September 2008 redo: It is potentially much worse. In September, 2008 when Henry Paulson demanded access to the taxpayer’s purse, the former head of Goldman Sachs was acting to bail his buddies who had hung bad paper in housing and pretended to have it underwritten by AIG.
The gravy train in a single sector, housing, had suddenly stopped because key facilitators suddenly, and in unison, stopped pretending they thought a key player’s overnight paper was good.
This time is indeed different. A pandemic has stopped the entire national economic revenue train. It can be restarted and it must be, quickly.
There is a drug combination that works extremely well, reducing deaths dramatically: Hydroxychloroquine and Azrithromycin. It’s been used successfully on thousands. We should isolate the older folks, like me, and use this drug combo to treat infected, but get the economy moving again.
United’s managerial competence is not the issue; economic death is.
Maybe but their reckless financial incompetence should not be rewarded. If they BK someone will step in to fill their place. It may be turbulent but in the end there should be more economically sound airlines filling the gap. Boeing also should go the way of GM. How else will anyone learn their lessons. Creative destruction is the free market solution. I am tired of socializing the losses while the elitists enrich themselves.
In a time of crisis you have the Boardhost fanning the flames of discord with stupid post rather than using it for the influence of helping the situation . What is Mish doing Trump , Trump , United , Number of test available , Number of layoffs dictated by the government and the fed trying to step in to soften the blow . Best one that proves this guy is clueless 9% of the US laid off !!!!!! Really the Government shut them down what the hell do you expect ?
“Those of us who shorted airlines, perhaps.”
Excellent crystal ball. The same can luxuriate in their good fortune tooling past unemployment lines with 10 million people in them.
Please don’t bring this crap to Utah
“3.Sell stock: Who would buy…you?”
Those of us who shorted airlines, perhaps.
Screw the greedy, incompetent airlines. Let them lay off as many as they like. No more bailouts, period. We can’t afford all this debt.
Please it is a drop in the bucket of the 23 trillion that we already owe that we will never pay back anyway .
United can go the way of Eastern, Midway, and Pan Am if they’re in such terrible shape. This game of TBTF has to end and it’s been increasingly obvious over the past 20 years that our easy money strategy isn’t working for the vast majority of people.
I’m sure many others will follow United’s lead, but a pandemic is as good an excuse as any to finally bring on the great reset. Let’s get this party started and do what we should have done in 2008!
So 500,000 people on unemployment don’t concern you? Clearly not, you’re calling it a party.
This bloated, corrupt system has wanted to crash for 12 years and we’ve delayed it with endless liquidity injections and artificially low interest rates.
We’re heading into a new, tougher phase whether we like it or not. Embracing it is better than denial and who knows, maybe we can create something better for humanity than this kleptocracy only a banker could love.
If people aren’t flying, airline employees aren’t needed. Neither are airlines. Compared to 150 years ago, there are plenty more unemployed farmers, and no longer existing farms, than that.
Only progressives are dumb enough to believe that thiiingz aaare aaaalways diiiiferent thiiiiiz tiiiiime. Don’t be one. Things never are. At least not since the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang.
#1,#2,#3 then bankruptcy. Poor management and shareholders should have been watching the hen house, not the foxes!
Fed enable corporate malfeasance has enriched CEO’s that cashed out on their bloated stock options. Now the time has come to pay the bill and who is asked to pay? The little guy through the slight-of hand of currency debasement. The “Great Enabler” is hard at work putting in the fix.
Mish, Is there anyway to know if the junk being put on the Fed’s balance sheet is corporate bonds issued for stock buybacks? Is this the new subprime that the Fed has wrought?
Not corporate bonds yet
To all of you talking tough on here:
How many business with 100,000 plus employees can take a 80%+ cut in revenue and survive? Second what is the first thing all the employees of these airlines will do when furloughed? They will get unemployment. You’re paying for it with taxpayer money regardless. None of you are on here complaining about how your taxpayer money is stolen and wasted by the government on a daily, hourly by the minute basis but now you act as if airlines are robbing you… SMH. I saw somebody say “I’ve been laid off twice and had to deal with it, let them”. Airline employees have been laid off in the recent past as well, they have dealt with it. What a big heart that guy has. You’re all entitled to your opinion, I just think many of you haven’t really thought about this, don’t know enough about it, or are completely misinformed.
Or people realize that the nearly $17T we spent bailing everyone out from 2008 didn’t actually help. We’ve created an artificial system where the rich skim off the Fed and everybody else can pound sand.
If we make the wrong choice and bail everyone out again, we’ll face another one of these existential crises again soon, probably within the next decade. The only difference is that the social mood will be even worse and we’ll have at least another $30-40T of debt on the books by then.
Privatizing profits and socializing losses simply doesn’t work and we already tried going down this road.
This is absolutely NOTHING like 2008. It’s not apples to apples. If you think by not doing anything you will avoid future crisis you’re dillusional
That’s great, I’m glad you’re principled. What does that have to do with the situation currently being faced? Are you saying that a perfectly run business can function at 20% and survive? This didn’t happen because of poor business, this happened because of an epidemic.
>>Are you saying that a perfectly run business can function at 20% and survive? This didn’t happen because of poor business, this happened because of an epidemic.<<
There’s nothing remotely “perfect” about how these businesses are run, which is why we’re in this situation.
The pandemic is simply the needle that popped this iteration of the bubble. It’s like Boeing wanting a bailout despite spending 96% of their free cash flow (in the last full decade!) on stock buybacks. Seemingly every major bank and corporation has been run with only short term profit in mind, and this mess is the result. We can’t handle a rainy day because nobody bothered to prepare for one.
Bankruptcy is the only fair and rational option. Global pandemic or whatever.
What do you think United would say about having to bail out a group of Americans who suffered from a hurricane?
How much tax have they paid in the last 10 years?
And don’t talk about the employees, local buss or contractors tax contribution.
How many tax breaks have they been given?
They paid about 150 million in the 4th quarter last year alone. Payroll tax, fuel tax, gate tax, landing tax, takeoff tax, countless late departure fines. Where do you think that goes? You don’t seem to have a problem giving billions to corrupt nation’s bit for american workers you draw the line on them. Again you’re not properly informed and that’s not all your fault. You have so called journalists writing non sense. Even the title is total b.s.
For one I and almost everyone else do not support giving billions of dollars to other nations, much if not all of which immediately goes right back to obscene large American corps. (welfare/warfare)
Operating costs are just that. No buss deserves recognition for paying the operating costs themselves.
And $150 million sounds like a lot but how much did they spend on the share buyback Ponzi scheme that was doomed to fail?
Also, I’M AN AMERICAN WORKER!!
So are the 100,000 workers you’re demanding be put out of work. Come on man, you have to have something better than that. The mountain you think you’re standing on is a crater of hypocrisy.
$150 million @ 21% tax rate? that means they profited $700,000,000 plus in the 4th qtr? yeah they need a taxpayer bailout.
Wrong! Look it up, it’s available to the public.
What a great example of you have reaserached NOTHING, but have such a firm stance.
A “perfectly run” business would have put aside earnings from the rich years, so it could weather the lean ones.
No dividends, no executive bonuses, no share buybacks over the past 12 years, just stuffing Gold in a vault. Then they would be in a position to survive a downturn, while being able to pick up the assets of less perfectly run competitors for pennies on the dollar.
UA obviously is very far from a perfectly run business. Instead, it is a value destroying blot.
Again I wouldn’t argue it’s perfect. No business is. If iPhones could possibly expose you to covid19 and apple was in trouble it would be because apple runs it’s business poorly right? I would have no choice but to agree with you if this was completely self inflicted but it’s not. It’s a very costly thing to operate an airline. You could have profits for the past 10 years saved and you’re not getting through a crisis like this. Demand will be back up prot as soon as September or October.
The goal of America, is not to ensure maximum longevity of corporations.
A changing environment, requires flexible means of deploying scarce resources. There’s nothing wrong with organizational entities which worked at one point, going bankrupt once they are no longer utilizing capital efficiently.
Bankruptcy is not some sort of bad thing. Nor even a symptom of some universal “failure” of anyone involved. It’s just a mechanism for redeploying capital, once it becomes obvious that current deployments, are no longer working optimally. Nor even minimally satisfactorily.
The focus needs to be on lowering the frictional cost of BK itself. Make it quick, easy, widely available and final. Shorten the period of limbo. Give current owners, creditors and other promisees a day or three (or maybe six in the case of Walmart or Aramco) in court, make a final decision, distribute what’s there and move on.
Bad behavior should never be rewarded. It’s not complicated. The executives, shareholders and employees have to suffer the consequences.
I feel bad for the employees but I have quit good paying jobs on principle, it sucks but I don’t regret it.
One situation, everyone thought I was a whiner and “didn’t understand how the public sector works” when I quit. About 9 months later my old supv. was on the front page of the local newspaper for theft and impersonating an officer. They should’ve listened to me.
As I said in my own reply to my own post, it isn’t just THEM – it’s EVERYONE. We are ALL affected by this thing.
And I don’t care if it’s my own company having to go bankrupt. If they made stupid decisions, or if the demand for our products has dried up and we have no savings to get us through the hard times, they deserve to go bankrupt.
As of right now, there is nearly ZERO DEMAND for the products and services airlines provide. And the reality is that demand for those products and services may not recover for a year or more.
The solution for any other business whose demand has disappeared and who doesn’t have a nest egg to make ends meet is the same as it’s always been: bankruptcy.
Ready? Go!
As for the bit about unemployment, I would rather have all their former employees on unemployment than give the entire company a bailout.
And I have a heart. You want my help? Ask me personally and I will do what I can to help you personally. But if you and your friends show up at my house with guns and demand that I help you, well that’s going to be a different conversation.
And make no mistake – government doesn’t have money – they take it from people who do. And if you don’t give it to them, they show up with guns and take you to jail.
So when you go to government and ask them to bail you out, you’re asking them to use those guns to take money from your neighbors and give it to you.
So spare us the bullshit.
You Clueless , You talking about the same Government who is 23 trillion in dept ? They would have been bankrupt a long time ago if they didn’t print money endlessly.
What is another 10 billion to United compared to the 23 trillion dept they have run up?That is a rounding error . Our government is and has been corrupt for a long time .
See the counties surrounding DC they are richest in the country . They don’t serve the people they are parasites they suck the blood from the people
There’s obviously a long line of people on here standing in line to piss on United. If it were just United, I might even join you. However, thanks to 11 years of bubble-blowing, it’s quite likely your firm is somewhere in the long list of firms in dire straits as well.
There are only three ways to raise capital:
1.Earn it…from operations. That’s obviously out.
2.Borrow: They can’t, every loan committee on the planet gets religion at the same moment, as usual, in times like these.
3.Sell stock: Who would buy…you?
Take’er down, Sam, and they will.
All avoidable if the coming train wreck can be sidestepped. It can.
Bingo you are correct and thank you for bringing reason to the board . Mish board who I have highly recommended over the years is looking for click bait . I mean really unemployment numbers when the gov has shut down almost all business ?
Who gives a ****** . I feel sorry for Utah . Trump caused the virus
America have few, if any, ownership nor organizational structures worth saving anyway.
It has some airplanes. They won’t go up in smoke regardless. Just the debt against them. BK simply wipes out debt. Hence makes operation under new owners and management more efficient. There is no real economic loss. Just a rearrangement of ownership and a write down of unsustainable debt.
“However, thanks to 11 years of bubble-blowing, it’s quite likely your firm is somewhere in the long list of firms in dire straits as well.”
Correct and all the more reason the pain should be spread FAIRLY which by definition means the government stays out of the process of picking winners.
By the way, bailing out United is penalizing every competitor that has been stockpiling cash for a rainy day, foregoing the glory of stock price inflation and who are the best suited candidate for acquiring United’s assets. United’s business won’t go away, just more properly conducted by another entity. The layed-off people will eventually get their jobs back, but with a new employer – an employer more skilled than their former which is what America is (supposed to be, at least) all about.
Bailing out companies and bailing out the stock market punish the prudent. If the prudent are continually punished, eventually they will stop being prudent out of necessity. Is that the country we want?
The choice really is moral, considered this way.
I’ll buy the planes for $10 if noone else outbids me.
And being such a bleeding heart generous guy, I’d even let Fauci use them as he sees fit, until he no longer feels a need for them anymore.
After that, I’m sure even a comparative idiot at airline management like me, can find a way of getting a positive returns out of an entire fleet of jets acquired for $10.
My best laugh of the day ! Mish community wanting to give more power to the government who is 23 trillion in dept and is going to bail everyone out with monopoly money . Fools show there selves in crisis . Now I could by into a law that would require hourly representation on the boards
What does the bailout consist of anyway? Low cost loans? Free money?
Money is never free. What bailouts consist of, is someone else paying. Details beyond that, is just irrelevant obfuscation.
I vote #1. Even better, the government should offer the bond holders expedited bankruptcy proceedings.
I feel like being correct so I will guess #4. Because that’s exactly what will happen.
We need our airlines and we need our oil companies . We need to do what we can survive this, whatever this ends up being . What the hell is wrong with Mish and his community ? You may want to tip your fed ex drivers ,UPS and postal guys because them and the truckers are your life blood right now . What is wrong with you people ?
What would happen if the truckers decided it was to risky to go into New York or SF ?
We need to keep all our critical companies a float till we get through this then we can sort through it and take action . I am so disapointed in Mish
Bankruptcy works just fine.
United, you are not above the process.
Sell the shares you bought back over the past 10 years. Cut your expenses.
That’s genius! Check the stock market before you type your comments
Naw, he’ll get a deal from Trump…and then layoff the people anyway. Will get a nice bonus out of it, then quit
Yes.
Easy to guess their intentions … once you start thinking like a criminal.
I missed the threat part entirely. It looked to me like a CEO making a statement and giving a heads-up on a move that, if executed, will the opening move in a massive downsizing of the US economy:
“My revenues are suddenly down 60%. Since I’m a public firm and can’t print money, I intend to act decisively to get my expenses in line with my new revenue stream, beginning April 1st.”
If we have a cure in hand that works, and I think we do, now would be a good time for congress to get off it’s ass and drive both the cure and a ride-through bill.
The small business owners I know have already sent their people home; They can’t print money either.
I believe it became a threat when they went public with it.
no bailout. let them go to bankruptcy.
Send Munoz and anyone else signing on to the demands to prison for their threats.
Cut all executive and board compensation to $0 and kill all golden parachutes … all the morons who got themselves into this mess with all their share buybacks.
Offer nothing except a loan to be paid back with 100% of any profits from operations and stock sales going forward.
Take or leave it.
GM went to the government to get a guarantee for their warranties. People would not buy the cars because they were worried the company might go out of business. It was OBAMA who forced the collapse.
“People would not buy the cars because they were worried the company might go out of business”
Companies like that should go out of business. Wipe the debt and promises, firesale the factories and knowhow to someone who can possibly make better use of it.
Obama forced the collapse, sorry not true GWB was in office when this happen, you need a history lesson, the Obama administration was responsible for the bailout of GM, CITI and many more, just a reminder that Sanders was against the Bank Bailout.
I am not a fan of DMC or GOP, but I am a fan of the facts.
Not true Obamanation forced GM into BK and screwed the bondholders who would have normally been first in line to be reimbursed. This violated the law as it was written at the time. Also countless GM suppliers went BK because GM didn’t have to pay them for work already done.
Who knows, five smaller Boeings might be better than one mammoth Boeing? Boeing goes bankrupt. Entrepreneurs move in, pick up the pieces cheap. New industries emerge. Give competition a chance.
That sounds good in theory but I don’t think the end result will be what you think. The economy is so distorted by the black swan event and the feds incompetence that free market capitalism principles probably wouldn’t work.
The best way to undistort it, is by way of leaving it to free people. Not slaves toiling to fund some five year planner’s self serving fantasy about how it should be done.
Remember mcdonnel Douglas? Do you have the slightest clue what it takes to develop an aircraft certified to carry passengers? It’s not a car or a bicycle.
This is a no-brainer. United has access to the same solutions as any other company would explore when it needs capital: they can sell shares to increase equity, or borrow in the capital markets. If UAL is liquidated, another company will buy their assets. Staff will find other jobs. Life will go on. This is competition.
Omg! It’s so simple! I can’t believe nobody but you thought of that! Oh wait, every stock is down some 80-90%. Nevermind, you’re wrong
No, he’s not.
America don’t need United Airlines.
It may need airplanes. Those won’t go up in smoke if UA goes Bankrupt.
To the contrary: Rapid Fire BK, asset firesale and debt write off, makes whomever picks up the planes for a song fifty, a much more competitive airline: Much lower debt service, and no other legacy costs not narrowly operational.
The only people benefiting from any bailout, are not the people operating the bailed out entities hence doing something productive. But instead, just the leeches who own the current mismanaged waste, or who lent them money, or who are collecting above market wages and benefits from keeping the mismanaged, overlevered, useless zombies alive.
Now that thats settled what about Boeing more importantly. They need to be forced into BK and then the govt can do the loan package for the newly formed company with compensation and stock buyback provisions. Seemed to work ok for GM at least so far.
Fuck them.
They aren’t threatening the “government”, they are threatening us. Government doesn’t have money sitting in a bank somewhere to give them. That money comes from taxpayers one way or another.
If their company doesn’t have the resources to weather this, then the shareholders made poor choices and didn’t prepare.
I feel badly for their employees but their needs aren’t a mortgage on the future earnings of taxpayers.
I’ve been laid off twice in my life and dealt with it both times. They can deal with it as well.
And the physical assets of the company aren’t going to magically disappear, they can be reallocated to someone who might make better choices in the future.
And let me add one more thing.
EVERYONE is affected by this. It isn’t just the airlines or the theaters or the restaurants. It’s ALL OF US.
Given that reality, what kind of a grade A douchebag do you have to be to issue a veiled threat like that to your neighbors?
“Give me the money or my employees get it!”
Seriously?
1, 2, 3.
These from guys are criminals who make us ride in the sky like cattle.
There will be a line of buyers lined up down Pennsylvania Ave when they hit BK.
As for the threat… what a selfish asshole. After he lined his pockets with buybacks instead of creating a cash position like Apple and Google… he’s the one who F’d his employees.
Stock buybacks on free money from the Fed lining the pockets of executives will be the take-away lesson for Americans from this economic mess.
We need to go back to Glass-Steagall and making company stock buybacks illegal.
Tell Munoz to go to hell. The only thing the federal government should do for buss or individuals is try and keep the “playing field” fair and level..no discrimination or monopolies…or lobbying aka legal bribery.