$150 million of hurricane relief for Jamaica.
Hurricane Melissa has made landfall with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour.
Such magnitude that even a robust safety net might not be enough.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
This is Andrew Peach.
On the way the World Bank's vice president tells us how financial markets can help to address disaster risk.
Also today, 2000.
Flight delays and cancellations in the US as air traffic controllers are taken out by the government shutdown.
And a trillion-dollar pay packet for Elon Musk raises questions about executive rewards.
We're going to start in the US, where 2000 flights have either been delayed or cancelled because of the continuing government shutdown.
The impact that's having on air traffic controllers, who've either been working unpaid until now, started calling in sick, started to take other jobs, in fact, with devastating consequences on the aviation industry, which are only going to get worse as time continues.
The Senate is expected to vote again on a Republican proposal to resume government funding, although no one really expects the Democrats and Republicans to cooperate sufficiently for it to pass yet.
This is the reaction of some of the people in the Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.
I think the government should reopen.
This is an awfully long time.
And I don't understand if the Republicans have all three branches of government.
They've got a trifecta.
They just need to work this out and reopen the government.
Oh, and not so much concerns about our flights being cancelled, but more concerns about these poor people in America not being paid for the job that they're doing.
I think the shutdown is terrible and it's affected my travel.
And then I woke up this morning not knowing whether or not I could take my flight to California.
I had the added difficulty of the airline flight or the airline website being down and I couldn't determine whether I should even come to the airport.
Nobody want to travel and then you end up getting stuck.
So that's definitely a concern for a lot of us for sure.
Harvey Skolnick is a retired air traffic controller.
He says the current situation highlights the wider problem of a shortage of air traffic controllers.
I don't know what makes people think that after the shutdown is over that things will get better.
Things will only get better when we get a lot more controllers in the pipeline doing the work and a lot more competent controllers.
People can get a day off.
That's when things will get better and we're years away from that in this country.
Well, for the latest, I've just been talking to our North America correspondent, Nomia Iqbal, in Washington.
The major airports seem to be working pretty normally today on Friday.
But yes, there are so many flights across the US that have been cancelled.
And we're talking about domestic flights.
Obviously, here in the US, people fly like they're taking the train.
It's a normal way of getting around the country, getting home, getting to work.
But of course there are these concerns that These disruptions are going to get worse, especially after the transportation secretary said flight cuts could sharply increase by Thanksgiving, which of course is such a crucial day in the US.
I was at Ronald Reagan Airport earlier.
It's one of the main hubs here in DC.
There's still lots of flights coming in and out, but people were really nervous and kind of fed up as well.
They were just checking their phones, looking at the board.
Flights were delayed.
They had been shifted from one gate to the other.
But the interesting thing was people were also some of them like look, this is really bad, but we're concerned about the other impacts that the shutdown is having, such as food assistance.
So just to remind, there are many low-income families in America who rely on SNAP.
It's a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
And basically, that's been put on pause.
The Trump administration is going to use content contingency funds to pay at least half the amount of benefits that people usually get, after two federal judges ruled that freezing the payments was unlawful.
But you've got so much happening in terms of the government shutdown.
And of course, there are people who aren't getting paid the federal workers and air traffic controllers as well.
So all in all, things aren't great.
But I think the sense is from certainly people I was talking to, that it could get worse, as I say, especially going into Thanksgiving.
As things go on for longer.
It just sounds so mad from outside the US this whole concept of shutdown, where something as vital as an air traffic controller has the choice of basically volunteering to go and do the job unpaid, until the thing is resolved.
And now we've got people getting fed up with that and calling in sick and even going to find other work.
It is strange for people, the idea of a government not functioning.
But I do think this is what happens when you have two parties that are so...
Look, shutdowns have happened before, of course.
This is the longest in history.
It's certainly very polarizing.
You've got the two sides that are very entrenched in their positions.
That gulf is much wider now than ever before.
Of course, President Trump and the Republicans are blaming Democrats.
The Democrats are saying we're only going to help pass the bill if, if it includes an extension of health care tax credits.
But President Trump's also critical of Republicans.
He wants them to get rid of the filibuster.
And just to remind people what the filibuster is it's this sort of delaying tactic that blocks votes by basically getting people to talk until the time scheduled to vote expires.
So it's also seen as this negotiating tactic, forcing both parties to compromise.
President Trump basically wants Republicans to get rid of it and so that they can pass the bill by a simple majority.
But the problem is Republicans don't want to do that.
They don't want to give him what he wants, because if you get rid of the filibuster, it would help them in the short term, but it would come back to bite them if Democrats return to power, to power.
In the end, the longer this goes on.
The question is, do Americans believe that the policy goal that the Democrats in this case are trying to get is worth continuing the shutdown for?
Nomi Iqbal with me from Washington.
Now, what do you do when you've just been given a trillion dollar pay award?
Those bots are just dancing.
They have no wires.
Those are actual robots.
If you're Elon Musk, dad dancing with a robot seems to be the answer.
The richest man in the world could get much, much richer after a meeting in Texas at which the Tesla board overwhelmingly approved a plan to give the chief executive a trillion-dollar pay deal over a number of years if he hits new targets, including keeping Tesla's stock price rising with the goal of increasing the company's value to more than 8 trillion in a decade, selling 20 million vehicles with a million robo-taxis.
He also has to sell... a million robots.
Now someone who voted against.
This is Nell Minow, chair of ValueEdge, which advises large institutional shareholders on corporate governance.
She also personally holds stock in Tesla, but chose to give most of that away to charity last year.
Thank you for being with us, Nell.
Why did you vote against it?
It's ridiculous.
It's obscene.
And it's also fraudulent.
You just have to understand that, very unusually, His last two pay plans have been thrown out by the Delaware courts, which is why he picked up his office and moved it to Texas, where he could get a better deal.
He assured the shareholders that Texas had the same laws as Delaware, and then he paid lobbyists to get them to change the laws, making it impossible to file the same kind of lawsuit on this.
Then he delayed the annual meeting by six months and then he got this pay plan.
So you know he has really taken the level playing field and it's just about perpendicular at this point.
You must have seen something in him and the company in the first place, though.
Yeah well, I mean, it sounds almost silly that it was a year ago March, that I donated this stock to charity, because I thought he was spending too much time on other things.
Little did I know what he was going to be spending his time on. after that.
And I live in Washington so, believe me, I was very involved in watching what he was doing with Doge earlier this year.
You know, Yale University just issued a report saying that his outrageous political comments have cost the company a million sales, not a million dollars.
But a million cars were not sold because people just say I don't want to do business with Tesla.
And his peripatetic behavior his Side hustles in a million different directions make me think that when he threatens to leave if he doesn't get a trillion dollars, I'm fine with that.
But this is performance related, though.
He gets the trillion dollars if he manages to increase the value of the company to eight trillion.
If he really does manage that, then he'd probably deserve it, wouldn't he?
There's a big loophole.
There's a big loophole.
The pay plan provides that, in their discretion, the board can award him these payments even if he does not meet those very ambitious goals.
Now, the last time I saw that in a pay plan, it was a year before Lehman Brothers collapsed.
So take what you want from that.
Thank you very much indeed for being with us now.
Let's talk to Sarah Anderson, Executive Pay Expert at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Sarah, you've looked at all the issues around the bigger and bigger gaps between chief executives and their workers.
This is what you might call an extreme example.
Absolutely.
You know, at Tesla... median pay is about $57,000.
So if Musk gets his trillion dollars over the next 10 years, he'll have made 17 million times as much as his typical employee.
And I think when you send that message that your boss is 17 million times as valuable as you are, it does not tend to bring out the best in employees.
In fact, tons of research shows that these extreme pay gaps undermine morale and productivity.
And this pay gap, obviously, is completely off the charts.
I mean, Tesla's obviously had a lot of issues.
We heard some of them from Nell.
You wouldn't think that the fact that Elon Musk because he's is paid a lot was very high up the list of challenges that Tesla was facing.
Yes, they've got to take on EVs from China.
There have been concerns about Elon Musk's political activity.
The list is.
You know, you worked quite a long way down it before you got to.
Elon Musk is paid more than his employees, wouldn't you?
I just read the proxy statement where they lay out the case for this pay package, and it is surreal.
I mean they describe him as serious, singularly responsible for value at this company, and giving him this trillion dollar pay package is mission critical.
It's this whole crazy notion that it's just one individual at the top of a corporation who's single-handedly responsible for corporate value and the rest of you know.
The other 125000 people who work at Tesla are just insignificant little peons.
And I
This pay deal, of course, is going to just encourage CEOs at other companies to increase pressure on their boards to fatten their already fat paychecks.
And that's just going to perpetuate this fixation on lining their own pockets, rather than thinking of long term value creation.
And we've seen how that has led to outrageous behavior in so many ways to cut corners that might boost stock prices in the short term but put workers, consumers and even our broader economy at risk.
I was just going to ask you finally about the impact this has on the US economy.
If you've got one guy paid a trillion dollars and then other chief executives eyeing up big pay rises, what does that do to the economy?
It's going to keep us on this path of skyrocketing inequality.
That is not good for the economy as a whole.
I mean, Elon Musk is supposed to be creating all of these human-like robots and robotic cars and everything.
And who does he think is going to buy all that stuff in the long term?
If we're on this path of so much of our wealth going to a few people at the top and people at the middle and the bottom just being having their wealth extracted to funnel it up to the top,
And, you know, I also just want to make the point, I think this is bad for our democracy.
Money at this scale translates into massive political power, and the paid package that the Tesla board put forward in no way restricts Elon Musk's political activities or even really requires him to keep his focus on Tesla.
They actually acknowledge that he's got these side hustles, as Nell Minow put it, and and that's going to continue.
So you know, their justification for making him a trillionaire was supposed to be to keep him focused on Tesla, but there's not much in this pay package that is going to stop him from being free to wield his excessive power over our political system.
Sarah, thank you.
Sarah Anderson, Executive Pay Expert at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Chris Lowe is Chief Economist at FHN Financial in New York.
Chris, thank you for being with us.
Give us your take on the two stories we've covered so far the situation with no air traffic controllers, or a limited number of air traffic controllers, and then Elon Musk's pay.
Well, yeah, the air traffic story, of course, is tied to the government shutdown situation.
I think it's remarkable there are any air traffic controllers showing up considering they have not been paid since September.
But There are certainly fewer, and the lines are longer at security.
And finally, Transportation Secretary has ordered flights to be canceled.
At the moment, it's 4% of national flights.
That's the equivalent of a big storm.
But by Friday next week, it will be 10%.
That's something we've never seen before.
Hopefully it puts pressure on Congress to work out a compromise and get the government open, get these guys paid and back to work.
As far as the Tesla story goes, I think the really remarkable thing is this pay package was approved by a majority of shareholders, and it was actually a fairly large majority.
The reason is, those shareholders are pleased with the notion that in order to get that trillion-dollar payout, they Tesla has to meet certain performance goals, including a significant rise in share value.
Stay with us, Chris.
This is World Business Report with Andrew Peach here on the BBC World Service.
The World Bank has confirmed that Jamaica will get the full 150 million payout from its catastrophe bond the maximum possible after hurricane melissa.
The funds should get to the government in jamaica within days now.
The payout is pretty modest compared to the estimated cost of the damage six to seven billion dollars but in an exclusive interview jorge familiar, the world bank's vice president, told us it still plays a critical role in jamaica's disaster recovery strategy.
A good disaster risk management strategy has multiple layers right and relies on multiple instruments to help countries recover from disasters.
Now, it is also a fact that, at times, natural disasters are of such magnitude that even a robust safety net might not be enough.
Countries that are well-prepared tend to have funds set aside, and then they seek availability of credit lines in case of a natural disaster.
Jorge Familia speaking to us a little earlier from the World Bank.
Live now to Milton Walker, head of news at the Jamaican Gleaner.
Milton, how is this news of this £150 million going down in Jamaica?
Well, it's money that...
Good evening.
It's money that the country obviously needs.
It will certainly take care of the immediate needs.
We're going to need a lot more.
This comes along with an insurance facility, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility CRIF, which makes a record payout of just over 70 million US dollars to Jamaica as a result of Hurricane Melissa.
The government also made provisions in the budget that for a contingency fund of 33 million US and about 6 million US for disasters.
So those are funds that are available, but there are also, I think, a 200 million US dollar line of credit from the World Bank, which is available to the government, along with other options that the government has.
But certainly for the immediate needs, we will have funds that we can draw them on quickly.
At least some of it's going to be accessible quickly, which is crucial.
From what you're seeing on the ground, just give us a sense of how communities are coping and the very beginning of rebuilding, I guess, is starting.
Yes, indeed.
I was in Falmouth in Filoni on the north coast, which hasn't been too badly.
It's certainly when you compare it to St Elizabeth and Westmoreland, and people actually had started to rebuild, put on roofs there.
One of the challenges, I think, with that is that some of the roofs that are being restored are not going to be able to withstand the hurricane.
But, of course, there's a cost to put on a proper roof.
And, you know, you can understand that someone just needs to put on a roof.
But certainly the relief efforts has picked up pace considerably.
Far greater amounts of relief.
Roads have been cleared so more trucks can deliver aid convoys in.
Along with dropping relief packages in some remote mountainous areas which are simply not accessible yet by road or they've been cut off because there's been a massive landslide or a breakaway.
There have been quite a few of those where parts of the road have simply collapsed.
So there's no possibility of vehicular traffic just now.
But the scale is massive.
We're talking several hundred thousand people who need relief, certainly for the next few months.
The prime minister spoke yesterday that there will be a time pretty soon I suspect maybe by December where they'll move from giving out relief packages immediately, vouchers where they could go to stores or DIY hardware stores to get materials to cope, to rebuild.
Yes, I was just trying to get my own head around the various pulls on this.
You've got the absolute urgent need that people have now to have basic shelter.
I mean, you've got some money, but you also need to build in resilience against this kind of thing happening again, as you say, to put a proper roof on.
Who tries to coordinate all of that?
Well, the government is the agency and we have an Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management.
And that department has just been put into the office of the prime minister.
And there have been some criticism of the government for that.
And they've appointed or seconded a senior army man to head that organization.
There was an acting executive director.
The government felt the organization was not effective.
And so they've put it under the office of the prime minister with a new leader.
The army's also been tasked with doing quite a bit in terms of distributing aid, removing the medically challenged persons from the various towns and villages, as well as from hospitals which have been badly damaged or, in the Black River's case, been destroyed.
Now they've been Two field hospitals, well, one in Black River that's set up and up and running.
The Spanish government donated another one, which will be put in Falmouth, because the Falmouth hospital has also been badly damaged.
And the health minister spoke of putting one in eastern Westmoreland to deal with the emergencies there as well.
Milton, thank you very much.
That's Milton Walker live with us from Jamaica.
Back to New York and Chris Lowe, Chief Economist at FHN Financial.
We've got one of these surveys out.
This is the University of Michigan looking at consumer sentiment in the US.
What's it told us?
Well, consumers not in a good mood.
The survey found that people think current conditions of the economy is really the worst in several years, going back to the pandemic.
The reason is that Prices are high.
People are tired of high inflation, persistent inflation.
And then in addition to that, they're beginning to worry about job availability.
That's something that has caught the eye of the Federal Reserve as well.
Several Fed officials talked about jobs becoming increasingly hard to find.
It is also related to AI.
There are billions Big companies in the US announced layoffs in October.
According to a job search firm, Challenger Grey and Christmas, the total number of announced layoffs was 153000.
That's the highest in October in 20 years, and it has affected consumer sentiment in a big way.
Chris, thank you very much indeed for being with me.
Chris Lowe from FHN Financial. from New York.
Let's stay in the US.
And in fact, let's go back to the subject of the government shutdown 38 days in.
Meet one government tax lawyer from Washington who's keeping busy in an unusual way.
He's using his time on furlough to run a hot dog stand, and he's doing it wearing his office suit.
Let's find out why by talking to Isaac Stein.
I loved the idea of running a hot dog stand as a little boy when I was six or seven.
Then when I was in grade school, there was an event where at the elementary school gym.
And so at that event, they had a concession stand.
I think the intent was that each boy on the team would spend a half hour manning the concession stand.
But I had way more interest in the concession stand.
And I got so much energy from connecting, hanging out chatting, just making small talk and learning about people's day to day.
I knew that I wanted to do this later in life.
So In June I made the decision.
I'm just going to go for this and actually set up the hot dog cart business.
And I was fully permitted by the 23rd of September and I started selling that week.
And then I was doing my full-time office job and then also selling on Fridays and weekends.
And then on October 8th, when the shutdown happened, what changed for me was that I had the time to now do this full-time.
Hopefully at some point this will get resolved.
So what happens to you?
Do you go back to your job or do you continue what you're doing?
My plan is to go back to the office job as soon as possible and then continue to operate the hot dog stand in the way that I intended it to operate, which was as a side project.
How do you feel about the shutdown in general?
I have no comment on the shutdown itself, but I can say that myself, all my colleagues, colleagues and other furloughed federal workers who have come to the hot dog stand,
A very unified sentiment is everyone just wants to get back to work and keep serving the American people.
I'm sure you come across a lot of people even just talking to you at the hot dog stand and you're swapping stories.
Oh, absolutely.
It is a functional hot dog stand, but most of the intent is as an art project.
And part of what I'm trying to do in a very small way is is create a space where people can just hang out chat, swap stories and just have fun.
I've been really overjoyed seeing people have organic conversations and just talk to each other in the line.
Because unfortunately, I can only steam six buns at a time.
So there's been a bit of a line.
Isaac Stein talking to Leanna Byrne.
Everyone's multitasking on this programme.
We've got a tax lawyer running a hot dog stand.
We've also got Nell, who we were talking to just a minute or two ago about corporate governance.
But Nell, I know you're also a film critic.
So let's just end the programme with a quick word about the Gremlins franchise, because there's another movie coming out in 2027.
That's right.
And, you know, the Gremlins have never really left us.
There was, of course, the first sequel and the animated version.
But I think that it is time for another Gremlins movie.
A lot has changed in the world and we could use that kind of excitement and satire.
43 years since the original, though.
So it's what you might call a slow burn franchise.
Yes, except that the cartoon show is still very successful.
I attended a panel with them at San Diego Comic-Con this year.
It was wildly enthusiastic.
Nell, thank you so much for being part of our programme today.
There's more online at bbc.com slash news.
Much more about Elon Musk and his trillion-dollar pay packet there, bbc.com slash news.
From me Andrew Peach and the whole team on World Business Report, thanks for being with us here on the BBC World Service.
