The US auto industry is going the way of the steel industry and all other manufacturing. It will never be what it once was, it is only a matter of time before Ford becomes an acquisition. In every important way, they are too far gone. It's easy to know the numbers on the direct employee cuts but you all can't even imagine the SUPPLIERS and hundreds of thousands of jobs already gone there and continuing to vanish. This is all in my back yard here and ties much closer to home than you can imagine. The legacy of Ford is quite fantastic, mostly, but the future is completely hopeless. GM, not far off, but probably more hopeful. Sure, just uneducated opinions here, but they're not something I wouldn't put money on.

And with regard to the 'Kmart' rebound - that wasn't a rebound at all for investors. I had friends and family lose millions of dollars in stock because it all got zero'd out, unsellable. It did not recover, the stock that shareholders owned was essentially thrown out and new stock was issued. Sure, the company has made some kind of recovery but bankruptcy and fucking all of your payables will help with that. If you've ever been into a Kmart in the last few years, you'll see for yourself that it's a shit store. We have them all over Detroit here. It's not half the store or customer experience of a Target, Walmart, Meijers. Based on that I believe they have limited upside.

Brad

Ford Australia is also having some serious problems. The only cars they manufacture here are the larger family sized cars which run the bigger 6 and 8 cyl engines (remember AU isn't SUV/truck crazy). Petrol prices have been rising so customers are defecting to 4 cylinder models - which are not manufactured locally - and the resale value of the larger cars is plummeting. My father in law works there and he says that every few months a new redundancy package comes up as they try to reduce the size of their workforce.

People are mostly stupid anyway, selling a two year old 6 cylinder car at a horrible loss to buy a 4 cyl that is 20% more efficient isn't going to save you money in the long run.

Fuck Ford. They are a big untrustworthy company. They fucked inventors and small business people. They raped the environment. They gave us crappy inefficient cars while the Japanese sent us quality economical dream machines.

Ford got greedy with SUVs, and now they are crying the blues.

Hey Ford, fuck you!

:mad:

Unions are easy to blame.Doesnt Toyota gives their workers benefits and good wage? Its poor management, not keeping pace with the market and this stupid having doubles of models mercury and ford. Gm has the same problem with multiple brands of the same car and they are in trouble makes you go hmmmmm.

It isn't good for them

something to read:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/...t_32.html#more

That is because they are fucking clueless when it comes to making cars.

Does anyone find it ironic that Mazda is making a profit for Ford?

Everyone talks about the quality of American cars - or the lack of it. My first new car was a Mazda, and since then every car I've had has been a Ford. Since 1995 I've five Mustangs, one Escape, and one Explorer. Not once have I ever had to take any of these cars in for repairs.

their cars suck
their image is better in europe than it is in the us though

Then add more losses since employees were the only ones who bought the cars that were sold. :1orglaugh

50 over priced buckets

Ya on Kmart it wasnt holding onto your stock, it was buying it when it was re released where you would of made coin.

pretty crazy if u ask me!

the unions cost them some big trouble to add to it...