Bailed-Out Wall Street CEOs Still Leasing Private Jets

In November, Big Three automaker CEOs were ridiculed by Congress for taking private jets to Washington to plea for a federal bailout. Subsequently, the CEOs quickly curbed their jet travel.

Wall Street execs seem not to have learned the lesson. In a House Financial Services Committee hearing today, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) asked bailed-out bank CEOs if their companies still “own or lease” private planes. Only one (Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankenfein) out of eight did not raise his hand:

SHERMAN: I’d like you to raise your hand if your company currently owns or leases a private plane. Let the record reflect that all the hands went up except the gentleman from Goldman Sachs. Gentleman, we know that it’s extremely expensive to operate the planes. You could sell them and generate capital for your company, and that capital could be used to repay taxpayers immediately.

“The big show of not buying one particular new plane flies in the face of how you are really flying,” Sherman scolded the CEOs, likely referring to Citigroup’s recently

scrapped plans

to take a $50 million corporate jet.