A (not so) humble suggestion from Cessna and Las Vegas – if you’ve got it, maybe go ahead and flaunt it a little bit? As in, austerity is for people who don’t know how to run a business. If you’re on a failboat powered by hamsters and heading for a glacier, sure, maybe you should cancel your ‘junkets’ and shut down the corporate hangar. But if you’re not suffering right now, it’s a great time to roll with a little dignity.

Check out the Cessna Rise campaign:

We’ve all read the articles and seen the pundits portraying business aviation as needless excess, and those that use it as being out of touch with the realities of the day. We think it’s time the other side of the story be told, and that support be given to those with the courage to stare down the beast, and use business aviation to not only help their businesses survive the current financial crisis, but more quickly forge a path toward an economic upturn. We think it’s time to rise.

We have begun replacing our normal product-focused advertising with a new series of messages we call the Leadership Campaign. At this most challenging of times, it is vital a clear voice of reason be heard. This campaign is intended to provide that voice and, in so doing, salute those with the courage to rise above adversity and lead the world to a fiscal turnaround.

These new ads have been purposefully created to contrast the seemingly endless stream of misinformation surrounding business aviation with what we know instead to be true: That no one has ever saved their way into prosperity, and that there are few better tools for productivity and efficiency, than a well-deployed business aircraft.

Cessna, of course, is interested in saving their own bacon, as their parent company Textron has drawn down its credit line like it was going out of style, and will not likely be able to convert itself into a bank holding company and hit up the TARP any time soon.

Las Vegas, similarly, would like everyone to remember that conventions on occasion have an actual business purpose beyond putting all your bailout money double-or-nothing on red. In fact, their mayor is so pissed he’s demanded an apology from President Obama:

It was “outrageous” for President Obama to say that corporate executives from companies getting federal bailout funds shouldn’t be going on corporate trips to Las Vegas or events such as the Super Bowl, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says.

“He owes us an apology,” Goodman told KLAS-TV of Las Vegas. “He owes us a retraction.”

The mayor’s point: Cities such as Las Vegas depend on the travel and tourism industry, and the president could be driving business away.

The soundbite makes it sound like Goodman doesn’t even care whether firms coming to Vegas are receiving bailout funds or not, but they’re in pretty dire straits revenue-wise, so it’s not likely the source of the funds would be his concern – he’s got no love for his town having been singled out. For what it’s worth, there will be a LOLFed convention of sorts in Vegas next weekend, and LoLo and I will do our best to stimulate their economy, since our bank holding app has never been approved and we can do so without repercussions.