Re: Ford Posts Loss of $5.8 Billion, Worst Since '92

improvement, he added.

performance, Mr. Mulally replied, "There's no reason why we can't do this, so it's no pressure."

Don't bet anything but wooden nickels on that line of thinking. My opinion, and that's all it is, is my opinion, is that the Ford family wants to take the company private, drive the stock down and its cheaper to do. The worst thing for a company is board of directors and a ton of share holders more interested in short term stock dividends and ratings, than long term health of the company and the product. And public traded companies end up just that way. Whitelightning

I think Ford (and GM and Chysler) is in a lot worse shape than they admit. They only chance any of them have to survive is to get labor cost way down and improve quality. It will never happen in current structuring. They are kidding themselve (managemtn and Labor) if they think they can pull it off otherwise. Prices have reached critical mass and can no longer sell to support current costs and benifits. If they all could cut labor costs 30% or more they could sell vehicle 15% cheaper across the board and make a profit and boost sales but they seem to keep hoping that people will except pay more for their car than some did for a house 20 years ago. The worst is yet to come for them.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

You friggin idiot! How about you take a 30% pay cut and donate it to the big

1. Your pretty free with everybody else's money, put your's where your big mouth is!

they could sell vehicle 15%

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:46:30 -0400, "Roy" wrote:

Oh the real idiot speaks! You really are clueless but as usual shoot you mouth off about thing you hane no real understanding of. Currently

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

What made you decide to move your signature to the top of your posts?

How do you know what I know about or what my background is, or what I have a understanding of?

I'm waiting for you to take a 30% cut in pay! Well?

Now it is 70%? Make up your mind.

Oh while I have your attention. Nice one on the chevy group about the brakes. You are such a idiot.

your wrong there- how "bad off" can they be, when GM is #1 in sales units, and Ford is #3 ??

Toyota is number 2, gee, they must be worse off than GM then, aren't they...

stop listening to CNN and the gloom and doom liberal press- the American Big Three are alive and well.

If Ford "lost" 5.8 billion, and had 50 billion in assets, well 2nd grade math says, they still have 44.2 billion in assets. And that "loss" can be disputed, as it's an accounting loss, taking in wasting assets, depreciation, bad debts, etc. Lots of stuff they can write off and save on taxes with.

that's a lotta dough, pal !

Given your comments, it is easy to figure out.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Well, well, That has to be the first time you have answered a question! Now, how about explaining the brake info you posted?

The real culprit in all this is over-regulation by the federal government. All of the "safety" and "emissions" regs the automakers have to put up with are driving the cost of vehicles beyond the point where someone making an average salary can't afford one. I was just reading today that the average US family income is $34,500. The average cost of a new car is up around $22,000. By that token a new car costs 2/3 of income. And a lot of the cost is all this safety and emissions equipment. And the feds keep piling it on. I heard somewhere that in the 2010 model year all cars are required to be drive-by-wire with electronic stability control. By the time the feds are done regulating only CEO's and Senators will be able to afford a new car!

Mark

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:18:12 GMT, "Whitelightning" wrote something wonderfully witty:

I don't know if they deliberately drove down the stock in order to do so, but I do believe your right that the family would love to take the company private again for the reasons you've listed and many more. It would be great to be able to run a car company for the long term as opposed to short sighted return on investments & bond ratings. We actually get to see some really interesting products and some true research into alternatives.

I think Bill being a car guy really had something to do with some recent Ford products that did turn out to be successful. Without his input/control there might not have been much soul in the Mustang redo. We might have saw a four-banger econobox version instead of pretty closer to performance six as the baseline offering.

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:28:49 GMT, SnoMan wrote something wonderfully witty:

Without a doubt something has to be done to control labor & benefits costs. I really do think that the quality paradigm is a figment of Consumers Reports. I am more then happy with my Ford & Lincoln products from a quality standpoint. The only major complaint I have is the interiors still seem to wear faster then on my GM products, but that just maybe my perception.

I think all corporations in America are battling major costs in the benefit arena regardless if they are Unionized or not. Health care expenses are completely through the roof. My own organization has been experiencing double digit increases in premiums for a number of years now. Since our creation over two decades ago we offered no cost coverage to all our employees with only a small additional charge for family coverage. Four years ago we simply could not eat the entire increase in the premium and were forced to charge each employee $15 a payday for primary coverage with a $10 co-pay. This year that charge has risen to $45 with a $20 co-pay with the company picking up $417.00. You really don't want to know what family rates are.

We pay a decent local wage, but no where near what people at the local Ford plant (which will be closing next year) make for similar jobs. Their health care plan also covers a lot more then ours does as well and offers a lot more benefits with a more comprehensive dental plan. However, later next year all of our employees will have a job and the poor guys & gals over at the Ford plant won't be working there. I hope they find something, but it won't be making $70,000 a year for putting on door handles.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:46:30 -0400, "Roy" wrote something wonderfully witty:

Well seeing as the majority of us who are employed pretty much see 30% of our wages go to the man, when the big 3 ain't paying taxes were left picking up the slack.

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:32:29 GMT, SnoMan wrote something wonderfully witty:

The issue with the automakers & the airlines is a different economic model. The don't have to run an entire plant just to make one run of cars, but they do have to run a flight if it isn't fully booked. The Airline business is very capital (fixed asset) intensive. The variable costs per passenger is pretty small.

When auto sales slow down they can idle a plant, cut back shifts, layoff workers. When planes are flying at less then capacity its a bitch.

However, I agree with you that something has to be done to control the escalating labor costs facing domestic automakers. Hyundai must be making a small fortune on its vehicles because I know they don't pay their workers at the same level as us. I personally haven't seen that big of a price differential between their cars and domestically produced Big 3 ones. Perhaps I'm missing something.

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:10:48 -0400, "Roy" wrote something wonderfully witty:

Well if I was a Ford Assembly Line worker at a plant facing closure I think I just might take a 30% pay cut as opposed to a 100% one. So I go from making $70k to $49k a year to screw on door handles. Its still better then food stamps. (BTW those are real numbers as a guy I used to work with went on with the plant three years ago. We still keep in touch. He was making about $32k a year as an industrial mechanic when he worked with me.)

The Norfolk Va F-150 plant is closing sometime in 2007. Ford claims that it costs $300 per unit more to make a F-150 at that plant then any other one making F-150's. The plant is old, not as highly automated as some others and not worth the capital investment even though it makes Ford's best selling vehicle. Do you think that labor at that plant got together and said "Ok for the sake of our jobs will reduce labor by $305 per unit to make us the cheapest plant making F150's"?

It could have been done, but it would have been unprecedented. Union labor working with management to cut production costs and save jobs. Perish the thought.

On 25 Oct 2006 09:00:18 -0700, "Nemisis" wrote something wonderfully witty:

It isn't just but other things that the Feds have mandated that large employers must have as well. Workers Compensation, Unemployment Taxes, Social Security Taxes, Health Insurance, the list goes on. On average it is safe to assume about another 33% over and above salary in additional costs for each employee. So the Bubba making $34,500 is costing the company $45,885.00.

On the other hand poor Bubba isn't seeing his $34,500 because the Feds & the State are chewing away from it at the other end as well. Same story for Bubba. He's got to pay Social Security taxes, FICA, State Taxes, Medicare, Health care, Sales Taxes and his list goes on. Usually again to the tune of about 33% so when all is said and done his $34,500 magically turns into $23,115 which is right about the price of a new car. Bubba can't freakin win.

Yet, it costs a lot to design a vehicle and retool a auto plant.

Plus, both airlines and car makers had a lot of overhead costs with pensions and health care.

They can cut back the number of planes that they fly or fly smaller planes (or atternatively, other airlines can fly smaller planes).

Really? I see what you mean. There are fewer and fewer cars on the road and fewer and fewer cars sold every year. Families have fewer cars than ever before.

In real life, more often, there are families with more cars than drivers.

Actually, adjusting for inflation, is the cost of a car more or less than it was say 30 years ago? Actually, about 0.2% more for domestic cars. Then, also adjust for the fact that cars last longer no than 30 years ago. So the price of a car has actually been falling when adjusting for inflation, decreased maintaince and increased life-span.

You can always by a used car without airbags, antilock brakes or other safety equipment.

Requiring drive by wire in 2 1/2 years? Are you nuts? No one does than now. It will take more than 2 1/2 years to bring that on. It might be that some cars will be drive by wire, but not more than a few.

Jeff