On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:34:52 -0500, "dave" >
wrote:

>Once ford cuts away the fat brought about by decades of union
>demands and managment excess, they will be back on track.
>Never be 1st but at least a viable competitor. I'm sure its
>gonna hurt a lot of people before it gets better.

Unfortunately, the only way to get out from under "all that baggage"
that they have been dragging around will be to declare bankruptcy -
which will have devastating and long term effects on the US economy.

You could head this off by having ALL the US based automakers (at
once), their investors and bondholders, their subcontractors and
suppliers, and the Unions representing all their labor forces
renegotiate their contracts and agreements now, while the companies
are still viable.

One of the stipulations would have to be that all the pension and
benefit liabilities have to be caught up on and the trust funds made
whole NOW, even if that lowers the wage rate some more.

Unfortunately, you aren't going to get them all to agree to this -
the unions still have the attitude "We won these rights through
collective bargaining, and we are going to keep them!"

Last I checked, keeping 100% of nothing still isn't a good deal.
Berating a dead horse helps nobody - first you have to stop the
beatings and nurse it back to health, then we talk again.

The bankruptcy wipes out all the investor equity, except for the few
privileged people that can use dodges like preferred stock or the few
secured things the BK court can't touch. Ford stock was once
considered one of the solid "Widows and Orphans" investments that
would never go away - not anymore... Any suppliers owed large sums by
Ford will be hurt, some could be put under.

All the current employees and retirees will be hurt, badly. They
can annul all the contracts, and use the leverage of "Sign the
contract we put in front of you, or we don't open back up at all."
This guarantees a workforce that really doesn't care whether the
company survives or not...

The health insurance and other benefits will go away or be severely
restricted, and the pension plans will go under and the (deliberately
long under-funded) pension liabilities will be dumped on the US
Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund - paid out of the General Fund which
will hurt the US Economy.

And when the PBGF takes over the plans, the retiree benefit payout's
drop a LOT compared to what was originally negotiated.

>The auto industry is NOW no different than any other job that pays
>you on performance. Make good stuff at a good price and they will
>I come. know easier said than done!

And there is a large lag time to consider - it can be several years
between when they start actually delivering quality products at a good
price that are also easy and inexpensive to repair and maintain over
the long haul, and when you can convince the public that it has really
happened, and that they won't backslide.

When you can change simple things simply - like swap the heater core
in any Ford vehicle inside of two hours, or get to all the sparkplugs
without disconnecting the motor mounts and lifting the engine
partially out of the car or cutting a hole in the firewall (among
other bonehead stunts they've pulled over the decades) - then I'll
believe that they've fixed the engineering.

--<< Bruce >>--