Originally Posted by
porciuscato
Kirby is a vacuous panjandrum, who completely ignores compounded returns and default risk.
Suppose Tom (or United) had invested that $500,000 in UAL bonds in 1990. That would be worth around $29,000,000 today(!!). Anyone buying United bonds or a United flight pass was taking a huge risk that United might declare bankruptcy and the investment would be worthless. This is underscored by the fact that UAL debt was trading at a lofty 12% at the time.
I haven't calculated the value of Tom's flights, but I'd bet they're not much more than $29,000,000-- and actually could be a lot less.
I've enjoyed our relationship for many years -- don't believe any of the negative stuff here about Tom -- he and his family are truly great people....
Bottom line: Tom provided cheap financing for United when the debt markets were reluctant to; I'm not even sure Tom made that savvy of an investment considering the returns on alternatives and the possibility he could have lost the entire cost of the flight pass. He could have stuck his $500K in the S&P 500 and made $20 million with a fraction of the risk. Kirby is either being disingenuous or he's too ignorant of basic finance to understand this.
There is one other major inaccuracy in the reporting about the Walmart cards -- Tom only did that once a year -- at Christmas -- and those cards were only given to UA employees as a thanks for the amazing service they gave us - I know this because he asked me to contribute as well.... Kirby suggesting Tom flew all those miles for gift cards is just wrong....
I've known Tom and his family a long time -- don't believe all of the things you hear on the internet -- Tom and his family are great people.....