06StangAwesomecar

: Is there unfairness with Japanese automakers which can get much money because of the weakness of the yen? A: Well sure...but you know over time the exchange rates usually have moved, you know, back and forth and so somebody might be advantaged at one point in time but then you know that changes over time it's just that clearly we have been disadvantaged here for quite a while so it is always a legitimate concern. Q: So will it swing back the other way? A: You would like to see a kind of level playing field. Nothing like trying to skirt the question. he doent want to piss the Japs off. Why not tell it like it is, the Japs under value the yen, benifits them and screws us.

That is exactly how Ford runs. When I need to order a part to repair equipment it has to go thru SIX PEOPLE to be approved. What are they all that F-ing stupid???

Damn that was a great post. To bad more people dont see what you see. :beerchug: Any plans on taking gettelfingers spot..

Great post thanks.

Looks like things are off to a great start. DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Although NASCAR is expected to make an announcement this afternoon regarding the status of Michael Waltrip Racing, here is what FOXSports.com knows so far. http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/6474096 As far as Michael Waltrip and the No. 55 car are concerned, NASCAR vice president of communications Jim Hunter said lab results were not back and he "did not want to speculate" on what implications there would be — if any — of any penalties for Waltrip. The intake manifold was confiscated from Waltrip's Toyota after Sunday's qualifying.

Wow! great reply. Was that spelled correctly.

This article was published in IIE Solutions in February, 1996. Wow 1996 Are they still doing it this way? I am assuming yes.

This article was published in IIE Solutions in February, 1996. Are they still doing it this way? I am assuming yes.

The company did lie plain and simple, they promised all this work, up to 6000 employees, had us vote on a COA, guees what lies. Oh we have to do a Market studies now. We found 20 companies to give us quotes. Do you really believe we could ever be the lowest hell no. We could be doing it for free and it would still cost to much. I read the letter, there were 80 health and safety issues, all but 15 were resoved. A strike, the company would love that. Its just to late. Hey Ford Thanks you lying FUCKERS.

Its contract time, we can only show doom and gloom, they are such lying sacks.

I want to like and respect Ford Motor Company Chairman Bill Ford, Jr. Really I do. By all accounts he’s a caring boss. He can admit mistakes. He wants to be green. He’s even from my alma mater. And it’s not his fault that he inherited his way to the top. But I’ll be withholding the respect as long as he keeps making nonsensical statements like his new claims that selling to and building in China will be the ultimate salvation of his sickly company. While jetting to China last week to inspect the new factories he is building there, Ford told reporters, “There’s going to be no market like China for us” and that “We’re barely scratching the surface....” Ford, who recently turned over his CEO job to former Boeing executive Alan Mulally, underscored his China-centric strategy by announcing that the company’s procurement of Chinese-made parts this year would nearly double from last year’s levels – $2.5-$3 billion versus between $1.6 and $1.7 billion. And he strongly suggested that Ford would be exporting cars from China to the United States sooner rather than later. It’s far from obvious, however, why Bill Ford has become so smitten with China. Yes, China will soon become the world’s second-largest national auto market (after the United States), and its huge population and economic dynamism practically guarantee further strong growth. And there is no reason to doubt that China will eventually produce quality motor vehicles for Western mass markets, as well as parts. Yet although the Chinese surely will buy more Fords in the years and decades ahead, and more procurement from China will lower the company’s production costs and improve the bottom line, Bill Ford’s expectations of the People’s Republic mirror those of Corporate America’s as a whole – a triumph of hope over experience. For starters, Ford obviously knows that he is not the only global automaker hungrily eyeing China. But he seems oblivious to the implications. Nearly all the companies that are beating him in the United States are facing him in China. Perhaps he and his marketers, designers, and engineers will find a window into the Chinese consumer’s soul that has eluded the competition. But the burden of proof clearly is on the optimists. The China market, moreover, is already saturated with automakers – largely because Beijing rightly views the sector as a key to industrial development and has subsidized production with all the devices it has used to foster other industries deemed strategic. The resulting overproduction will need to be rationalized because most Chinese-made vehicles aren’t yet up to export markets’ standards. When the shakeout comes, why would any sensible thinker believe that Ford – a latecomer to China whose market share is only 2.2 percent today – will be a survivor? In addition, Ford isn’t fully in charge of its own fate in China – and thus won’t reap most of the profits of its China operations. One of its two arrangements in the PRC is 30 percent ownership of China’s Jiangling Motors, which mainly produces trucks. Its automaking venture with Changan Motors started as a 50-50 deal, but last spring, Mazda purchased 15 percent of Ford’s stake. Ford holds a controlling (33 percent) share of the Japanese firm, but the deal nonetheless left Ford with a second minority stake in China. Nothing, however, exposes the illusory nature of Ford’s China expectations like comparing the China market it hopes to gain with the U.S. market it is steadily losing. In 2004, for example, Ford’s total vehicle sales for the entire Asia Pacific region plus Africa (407,000) represented only 11.23 percent of its North American (mainly U.S.) sales. For 2005, the Asia numbers looked better (13.5 percent of North American sales), but not spectacularly so. Ford’s latest quarterly report shows that Asia Pacific sales have risen to 17.6 percent of North American sales, but mainly because the latter have been falling. Perhaps more important, Ford’s Asia Pacific revenues have been an even lower percentage of North American revenues than sales have been – 8.38 percent and 9.47 percent for 2004 and 2005, respectively. For the third quarter of 2006, the gap between Asia Pacific and North American revenues was only slightly narrower, with Asia Pacific revenues totaling 10.39 percent of the North American figures. Trends in revenue growth itself, moreover, do not yield a slam dunk for a China-centric strategy, either. From 2004-2005, Asia Pacific region revenue growth of 10.77 percent did contrast sharply with a North American revenue decline of 1.97 percent. But so far in 2006, Asia Pacific revenues are falling faster year-on-year than North American revenues. Most astonishing of all, however, are the pre-tax automotive profit numbers. Ford made money on autos in the Asia Pacific region in 2004 and 2005 – but only $106 million combined out of total global automotive revenues that averaged $150 billion annually during that period. So far in 2006, however, Ford has actually lost $50 million in the region. Similar questions can be asked about Ford’s plans for boosting parts purchases from China and developing the PRC as an export platform. For example, Ford’s competitors are sourcing more from China, too, so it’s hard to see any strategic advantage emerging from this practice. Worse, treating China sourcing as a cure-all or near cure-all for Ford’s problems could reproduce the mistake made by the company – and the rest of the U.S. automotive sector – with its previous last, best hope, NAFTA. Sending manufacturing to Mexico did little for the competitiveness of any of the Big Three vehicle makers or any of the major parts makers – because they, and Washington, ignored all the global trade inequities they faced. Will simply replacing Mexico with China really work any better? Finally, there’s the devastation of Ford’s main customer base – the American consumer – that results inevitably from offshoring to low-income countries. The sales and revenue figures show that decades will be needed at the least for China to match America’s importance as an auto market. (The same holds for the rest of the third world.) Yet Ford doesn’t have decades to stage a comeback. At the same time, every American worker that takes a Ford buyout or loses a job in a procurement shift, or saves that job by accepting deep pay and benefits cuts, is one more worker who won’t be able to buy Fords with his earnings. So far, the company and U.S. economy have stayed afloat because consumption has been buoyed by an ocean of cheap credit – much of it supplied by the PRC. In fact, that’s by far the most important way that Ford’s future in any sense will be Made in China. No one knows when this credit windfall will end. What we do know is that the how and why will be out of the hands of Bill Ford, Alan Mulally, other Ford executives, and the rest of the American auto and auto parts industry – not to mention the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and Wall Street. http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_...sp?Prod_ID=2591

Everybody knows that the loss of huge portions of their home U.S. market to imports has decimated U.S.-owned automakers Ford and GM (as well as Chrysler, which is no longer U.S.-owned, but shares many of Detroit’s biggest problems). What everybody doesn’t know is that literally dozens of U.S.-based manufacturing industries have suffered the same kinds of losses since the late 1990s. The clear bottom line, as revealed by the U.S. Business & Industry Council’s latest annual survey of domestic manufacturing’s competitiveness: The United States is a military superpower, but is steadily becoming an industrial also-ran. The Council’s new study of import penetration in the manufacturing sector shows that 111 of 114 U.S.-based industries examined lost customers to foreign-produced goods between 1997 and 2005. From 2004 to 2005 alone, import penetration rates rose for 83 of these sectors and fell for just 31. The industries chosen, moreover, are exclusively the kinds of high-value, capital-intensive sectors that make up the industrial and technological backbone of any advanced economy. Lower-value, labor-intensive sectors that were long ago overwhelmed by foreign competition, like apparel and toys and low-end consumer electronics, were not included. In many cases, import shares of these critical U.S. manufacturing markets surged dramatically. Between 1997 and 2005, 26 of the 114 industries studied lost 50 percent or more of their U.S. sales to foreign-produced goods, including pharmaceuticals, computers; telecommunications hardware; navigation and guidance equipment; broadcasting and wireless communications equipment, and motor vehicle power train and transmission equipment. Eight more sectors lost nearly half their U.S. market to imports to imports during this period, notably tires; switchgear and switchboard apparatus; and commercial and service industry machinery. From 2004 to 2005 alone, import penetration rose by 15 percent or more in 14 sectors, including industries such as semiconductor production equipment; aircraft engines and engine parts; and telecommunications hardware. As a result, as of 2005, imports represented at least 50 percent of sales in the United States of 24 of the 114 industries studied, such as telecommunications hardware; heavy duty trucks and chassis; and broadcast and wireless communications gear. In eight more industries, imports have captured between 60 and 69 percent of the U.S. market, including autos; environmental controls; and aircraft engines and engine parts. And in six sectors, imports control 70 percent or more of the American market, including machine tools and electric resistors and capacitors. If current trends continue, imports will account for the majority of U.S. domestic sales in sectors such as electricity measuring and test equipment; X-ray equipment; turbines and turbine generator sets; laboratory instruments; and construction machinery. Rising import penetration in American markets means that U.S.-located producers are flunking the most important test of competitiveness – winning and keeping customers. It’s true that American manufacturing output has been growing since the 2002 recession. All this means, however, is that domestic manufacturers are receiving some of the new business created by the unsustainable debt-fueled growth on which the nation’s prosperity increasingly relies. Their foreign-based competitors, however, are meeting even more of this new demand. When the debt tide recedes and growth slows, these surging foreign producers are likeliest to be the survivors. Just as revealing, surging imports are already replacing and depressing U.S. production throughout domestic manufacturing. Between 1997 and 2005, output actually fell in nearly two thirds of the 53 industries where import penetration is highest or grew fastest, and stagnated in many of the rest These import penetration figures are especially worrisome because the American market is the market in which U.S.-based manufacturers should do best. After all, they should be most familiar with local tastes, and they face no trade barriers at home. If domestic industry can’t even defend its home turf, how can it hope to compete abroad? The import penetration data also show that American manufacturing’s woes even extend to the high-tech sector, supposedly the nation’s best hope for future prosperity and an area of natural advantage for the United States. Yet some of the biggest losers of home market share in recent years include such mainstays of the so-called New Economy as semiconductor production equipment, electricity measuring and test equipment (critical for all high-tech manufacturing), telecommunications hardware, navigation and guidance devices, and pharmaceuticals. Of special importance, the import penetration rate numbers make crystal clear the limited significance of devaluing the dollar – portrayed by analysts from the outsourcing-enamored National Association of Manufacturers to the labor-supported Economic Policy Institute as a near cure-all for solving America’s trade problems. Obviously getting exchange rates right matters, and currency manipulation by foreign governments in particular must be offset by Washington. Yet America’s domestic industries have lost shares of their home market whether the dollar has been relatively strong or relatively weak. Between 1997 and 2002, when most analysts agree the greenback was way overvalued, import penetration rates for the 114 industries studied combined rose from 24.49 percent to 30.80 percent – an increase of 25.76 percent, or an average of 5.15 percent annually. The following three years were a weaker dollar period. Nonetheless, the combined import penetration rates for the sample industries rose from 30.80 percent to 34.52 percent, an average annual increase of 4.03 percent. So maybe exchange rate policy eventually could enable domestic manufacturing to regain lost market share at home – but only by cheapening the dollar so dramatically as to trigger numerous major dangers to U.S. and global economic stability. Why are such critical U.S. industries faring so poorly? Two major failures of U.S. international trade policy bear much of the blame. First, Washington has done a terrible job of combating numerous predatory trade policies, ranging from manipulating currency values to handing out illegal subsidies, pursued by other major trading powers, precisely to gain industrial supremacy at America’s expense. Second, too many U.S. trade agreements since NAFTA have encouraged the export of too much America-based manufacturing production and knowhow. These agreements were sold as levers for opening up new foreign markets for U.S.-based industry. But their chief supporters knew all along that they would be most effective as outsourcing agreements. They would help U.S.-owned multinational companies supply their existing American markets more profitably from new, state-of-the-art manufacturing bases they would build in foreign countries. As a result, USBIC’s latest analysis makes clear, the great expansion of U.S. foreign trade that Washington began to encourage starting in the early 1990s has been a raw deal for most U.S.-based producers. Not only has America-based industry been shedding domestic market share the entire time – as revealed by more limited data going back to this period. Most of the growth registered by U.S.-based manufacturing during the 1990s economic expansion – widely touted as a time when American industry staged a remarkable competitive comeback – came in high-tech hardware. Today, of course, nearly all observers admit that this sector had turned into an unsustainable bubble. Its explosive growth had nothing to do with economic fundamentals, and indeed never should have occurred. The core manufacturing sectors suffering these mounting losses at home lead the U.S. economy in productivity and innovation, generate America’s best-paying jobs on average, and undergird the nation’s security. If imports’ growing domination of American industrial markets is not reversed soon, scores of these critical industries could be pushed past the point of no return. http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_...sp?Prod_ID=2648

Fritz Henderson flies at his own expense on Northwest.. GM’s CFO Flies Home to Florida on His Own Dime autonews.com By Jamie Lareau Jan. 18, 2007 When Ford Motor executive Mark Fields announced today that he would stop taking the company jet for weekend trips home to Florida, I remembered a conversation I had with General Motors' Fritz Henderson. Henderson, GM's CFO, also jets to Florida on weekends to be with his wife and daughter. We chatted about it one night over dinner at a restaurant in the Renaissance Center in Detroit. Fritz is one of those globe-trotting executives who has had a succession of assignments in South America, Asia and Europe. Through it all, he has kept a house in Miami so he would not uproot his family. When he moved to Detroit as company CFO in 2005, Henderson kept his Miami home so his daughter could go to high school there. He found a condo in Birmingham, Mich., to live in during the week. Over appetizers and wine, Fritz described his grueling schedule of early-morning meetings, late-night sessions and twice-a-month stampedes to catch one of Northwest Airlines' Friday flights to Miami. What? Huh? Did you say Northwest Airlines? I paused in shock. I said, "Fritz, you're a vice chairman of GM. I thought it was company policy that all of GM's vice chairmen had to fly the corporate jet -- even for personal trips." Fritz paused and smiled slyly. He's a finance guy. He calculated that one round-trip flight from Detroit to Miami on a corporate jet costs GM about $50,000. That doesn't add up at a time when the company was cutting 35,000 jobs. "One flight is equal to the salary of one job," he said at the time. "So I figure that I can fly commercial and save one job each time I do it." That night, I called my mother and recounted the story to her. Her response was simple: "I like this guy. He's a good guy." I had that conversation with Henderson nearly a year ago. A call to GM confirmed that Henderson still flies commercial and pays for his ticket out of his own pocket. This year, Fritz's frequent flier miles might taper when his daughter graduates from high school. The family plans to move to the Detroit area, where Henderson grew up.

Hey Nap how do you do this????

Trust me lots of people dont like the money I make and I am not a CEO. I am not saying all CEOs are bad, but when a company is tankin, and they are still raking in millions , while talking away benifits, pensions, no reinvesting in the company or only investing in lower cost operations overseas, then I have issues.

You cannot be a autoworker or a Uaw member or a American, you are one f-ed up person. I bet you have NO problem with what happened a Enron either. I bet you think Steve Miller is great, bet you have no issues with Bethlaham steel either, another company Miller destroyed. All you do is bash the small guy, Ford., the Uaw. Go back to your Yoda site .

I see the biggest one on this forum chimed in! He got caught, now he is doing the right thing. They dont need anymore negative crap.

Here you can have a rational debate most of the time, over there Yoda does no wrong period, all article are made up and anti-yoda propaganda. Kinda like you! I have never said Ford/Gm havent had issues, go ahead try to find me saying that.

Hey Mr Toyoda lover, the topic is, Sludge Judge Comes After Toyota, not Ford, and the differance of 100 compared to 3.3million, see the problem yet, so go back to your Toyoda site and suck up more bullshit. Remember, it took a JUDGE , Yoda didnt do this out of the kindnest of there hearts. And go read the complaints, your saying 3.3 million people didnt take care of there cars??? you need to sell your tools and do something else.

Is there a link to this???

yes the rogerjesse guy, polk guy are f-ed up people . I to had to comment. Must say though it is getting hard to defend Ford/Gm. Toyodas time is coming , heck it really already has.

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%...089&vmode=1 Check it out. Some of the most stupidest people I have ever read. These people have every excuse under the son for there beloved Toyoda. This site seriously bashes the domestics, and the auotworker, and the Uaw, or anyone that even owns a domestic. Good site to raise the blood pressure.

99% PURE LIES.

:D I thought it was a pretty good article, I figured Bec would post, didnt say to much about the article though.

I wonder what he drives now??? Ford CEO Cancels Order for Lexus All Associated Press NewsDEARBORN, Mich. (AP) - Ford CEO Alan Mulally said he respects Toyota and its luxury brand, but that he canceled his order for a Lexus after taking the top job at the U.S. automaker. He said traveled to Japan last month to meet with Toyota executives just to show his appreciation, and not in an effort to bring the companies any closer. Mulally, who took over at the nation's No. 2 automaker last year, said Wednesday he deeply admires the Japanese automaker for its manufacturing processes and product development strategy. Mulally called Toyota "the finest machine in the world, the finest production system in the world. So we went to study with the master. I really wanted to connect with each of the manufacturers in the industry and to do it quickly," said Mulally, who was hired away from aircraft maker Boeing Co. by Ford Motor Co. Reports that Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Fujio Cho met in Tokyo with Mulally at the latter's request had sparked investor hopes about a potential alliance. Mulally squelched that speculation again Wednesday, saying manufacturing methods -- along with safety engineering, fuel economy and environmental issues -- are topics that all automakers discuss with each other. "We have so many things in common as an industry that we can work on together," he said. Ford on Wednesday reported an 8 percent drop in U.S. sales last year compared with 2005. But it was able to hold off Toyota after Toyota's sales surpassed Ford's for the first time in July and again in November. Ford lost $7 billion during the first three quarters of 2006 and is in the midst of a major restructuring plan to shrink its factory capacity to match lower consumer demand. Mulally said the automaker still expects to return to profitability by 2009, aided not only by shedding jobs and closing factories but also by bringing new products to showrooms more quickly. Dearborn-based Ford is on track to meet its goal of having 100 percent of its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury lineup represented by all-new or substantially reworked vehicles by 2010, Mulally said. "Our recovery here in North America is going to be product-led," he said. Another goal for 2010 or shortly afterward is for Ford to match the efficiency levels of Mazda Motor Corp., said Derrick Kuzak, named last month as head of global product development. Ford owns one-third of Mazda. Mulally, Kuzak and Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, said Ford's painful recovery will be driven by new products brought to market more quickly. They spoke to reporters at a private dinner that featured a briefing and question-and-answer period. "Despite the numbers, it (2006) was a year of incremental progress for us," Fields said. "It's like building a house. We built the foundation last year. But you don't see the house. You see a hole." Ford's top management also is making slow progress toward changing attitudes, the executives said. "The culture at Ford Motor Company is, `God forbid you ask for help -- it means you're weak," Fields said. Mulally, a Kansas native who spent 37 years at Boeing, said the Detroit automakers' signature event -- this month's North American International Auto Show at Cobo Hall downtown -- will be the first one he has ever attended. "I'm really looking forward to it," he said. "I don't know whether I'm showy enough for the show, but I'm going to try to do my best to represent Ford." ___ http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/...48&GT1=8921