The Business Butterfly Effect

Last year in November, the heads of the 'big three' detroit automakers were in Washington begging for bailout money for corporations many see as being wasteful and irresponsible. To make perception matters worse, many of the executives flew to Washington in their corporate jets, drawing further attention to what people believed to be an elitist, overcompensated corporate culture. The event drew much attention in the media and congress pressed the issue by asking how many of the executives flew commercial (meaning commercial airlines like twa, american airlines etc) to the event. No hands were raised. They then asked how many of the executives were planning on selling their corporate jets. Again, no hands were raised. The issue spread like wildfire throughout the media with everyone from CNN to Canadian CBC vilifying the corporations.

Fast forward to 2009. Bombardier announced on Feb 5th that they're slashing approximately 1300 jobs from their workforce. The reason? You guessed it - decreased demand for business jets.