Citigroup bows to pressure, cancels 7X order

Flight International ^ | Jan 27, 2009 | John Croft

[Yo-Yo]

Global financial services company Citigroup today cancelled an order for a Dassault Falcon 7X business jet to be delivered later this year as pressure mounted from the US Congress and even the White House.

The action is an about-face from the company's staunch defence of its order on Monday, telling news outlets that the purchase of the $40 million long-range business jet would proceed. Citigroup last year secured $45 billion in aid from the US government to continue operating amid the financial meltdown.

Key critics of the deal included Michigan Senator Carl Levin, whose home-state automobile manufacturers shed their corporate jets and flight departments in exchange for government financial aid late last year. Levin had threatened to have the US government block the 7X purchase.

[bronxboy]

Most likely I will be laid off...as for my attitude...I don’t like people who substitute name calling for discussion. So take you ‘hope’ and stuff it.

[bronxboy]

So it would seem.

[bronxboy]

I know. I don’t get it...how can they justify allowing bailed out banks to get trillions and think the banks should spend it on salaries, bonuses, decorating, planes and who knows what. While the little guy who loses his job and is in danger of losing his home is a deadbeat who deserves whatever happens.

[Safetgiver]

the financials caused this mess.....Sorry. The government caused this mess.

[dennisw]

Buying a plane stimulates the economy.

if you dont understand that, GFY.

Wall Street is still smoking the crack pipe if they think bailout funds will pay for executive jets. They can f'ing lease one
Score PR points for the 0bammy team
Your kind of dumbness ushers in the age of 0bama socialism

Actually blame Wall St because most of these thieves are Democrats and Rush repeated that yesterday

[bronxboy]

I know...the innocent banks were forced at gun point to leverage 60-1. Citi was forced by the government to use 49% of their profits in bonuses and salaries to the top execs and the CEO. The government forced them to run their companies into the ground. Sub Prime revealed this problem...and contributed to it in a minor way. The money spent there is not even as much as was given to AIG. Look, I do not excuse the banks...they caused this. How can anyone ever trust Wall Street either. There is no way to value anything.

[bronxboy]

This is the worst thing the banks did...we will get socialism as a result of high unemployment...these thugs paved the way for it with their irresponsible behavior.

[aruanan]

Remember when the Democrats put through the big luxury tax because, they said, the rich folks could afford to pay it, and ended up hurting all those non-rich people who worked for the companies manufacturing all those luxury goods?

When will people realize that relativism in politics is as bogus as relativism in morals or logic. You can't take non-A and say it's the same thing as A because to you non-A is the same thing as A. Socialism and tyranny are not the same as free markets and liberty. Saying that the former are just as good as the latter doesn't make them so, the fervent belief of socialist tyrants notwithstanding. In reality people have long voted with their feet for centuries to give the lie to this. As C.S. Lewis pointed out in The Pilgrim's Regress, the action of eating doesn't make ingestion of food equivalent with the ingestion of non-food because food nourishes.

If we have gotten to this point in history and supposedly well-educated people still believe that socialist tyranny is the better way to go, it's only because they're ignorant of history (or don't care because they believe they'll have more power to exercise in a socialist tyranny) and those voting them in are equally as ignorant (and no wonder there, considering where the bulk of them have been "educated" for the first 12 grades). This, combined with a belief that it's okay to benefit themselves by using government power to take property from others for their own use (the sins of envy and theft). We find ourselves in exactly the same situation that the Founding Fathers found themselves in. Well, actually, in a worse situation than they were in because our tax burden is many, many times heavier; our loss of liberties is much greater; and we haven't had their equivalent of the Great Awakening to prepare their spirits for action against oppressive government. The only thing that keeps people from recognizing this is their historically high standard of living that came from the system now being strangled to death by a majority of their own elected representatives.

Another good quote by Lewis especially apropos to Barry O and the Democrat Socialists:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

[Canedawg]

Too bad you and the others missed the satire of it all.

[dennisw]

the financials caused this mess.....Sorry. The government caused this mess.

Blame the Feds and parasites such as Frank and Dodd and Franklin Raines.... 30%
Also include GW Bush and Chris Cox in that 30% for not regulating derivatives and short selling

Blame Wall St anarchists about 70% and most of them are free wheeling Democrats
Wall St is Manhattan dufus! Ground zero for libs

(yeah I know lots of Wall St is not literally on Wall St. But that's where Merrill, Lehman, Citi were and others)

[dennisw]

Thanks dawg! Then I got my thoughts out anyway

[dennisw]

This is the worst thing the banks did...we will get socialism as a result of high unemployment...these thugs paved the way for it with their irresponsible behavior.

We have lots of real capitalists in America and they are in Silicon Valley, on Main St USA, they are GM and Ford no matter how much they blew it. Capitalists are Americans who make useful tangible items. These financial manipulators on Wall Street are no capitalists. They have been 100% parasitical the last 8 years. They have done nothing useful and have made things much worse via mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps
They spent their time scheming how to destroy American just like the litigation lawyers. Both being only parasites

Financial firms are useful to a sound economy in theory...And were so in the past for America

[Canedawg]

No problem.

A little off-the-wall satire is good for my ODS.

;-)

[bronxboy]

I agree. I work for GM...at least for a while...will probably get laid off. However, I will root for the big three regardless of my employment situation. The companies that make tangible goods can pull us out of this depression/recession...the banks how will they do us any good...more credit default swaps and fat bonuses? As for Wall Street, I am darned if I can figure out how to trade because there is no way to independently audit companies anymore, and the truth is not in them...emotion drives Wall Street these days-not the bottom line.

[dennisw]

A little off-the-wall satire is good for my ODS.......

ODS-—>>> Oppressive depulsive syndrome

[Earthdweller]

Ask for a handout, expect chains with it.

[dennisw]

I agree. I work for GM...at least for a while...will probably get laid off. However, I will root for the big three regardless of my employment situation. The companies that make tangible goods can pull us out of this depression/recession...the banks how will they do us any good...more credit default swaps and fat bonuses? As for Wall Street, I am darned if I can figure out how to trade because there is no way to independently audit companies anymore, and the truth is not in them...emotion drives Wall Street these days-not the bottom line.

Here is what I posted about Iceland and the same applies to the United States. The way it looks we will hit bottom and will then start digging ourselves out of that hole by hard work at real endeavors that will not be credit fueled. Because money will be limited except for those who have patrons in the Federal Government

.Iceland is FILLED with geothermal heated greenhouses. They will do just fine

Their huge fish resources plus green house vegetables can supply much of their diet
Iceland was poor after WW2 but worked itself up via the fishing industry
It can start at the bottom and repeat this but lots of guys will have to get used to physical labor

Iceland is a very solid nation
Blame the banksters for their problems ..same as the USA

[dennisw]

I wish you best of luck on your own personal situation....

[Non-Sequitur]

Can the manufacturer sue for breach of contract?

No, there are outs in the contract. Citi loses it's deposit unless another buyer can be found.

[bronxboy]

Very good point...I agree completely. I am an engineer...hope my talents can be put to good use in rebuilding this country and earn a living at the same time...being laid off is scary...I told my wife, I had thoughts of suicide (make it look like an accident)in order to make sure my family at least had insurance money...she read me the riot act. We are not weak, pitiful people...we can and will get through this together as a family. We will do exactly that. Sometimes it takes more courage to keep on living then to give up-certainly the easy way out.