The speech Alan Mulally of Ford should have given congress on Dec 2. (unemployment, statistics)

[ottomobeale]

Good afternoon “gentlemen”.

Well, you certainly gave me food for thought. And, in fact I had one of those few times in a lifetime moment of clarity. You see, I was working on “the plan” to help fix some of the problems at Ford, as if I had been doing nothing since Sept 2006 when I took over. I realized something. This loan is the wrong track.

I realized I came begging to the same guys who threw $700 billion at the banks and OVER-RODE a presidential veto! to give PROFITABLE farmers over $300 billion. By the way the bank guys ALL arrived by private jet and all made money that makes my Ford pay look like milk money.

The bulk of the problem is two fold. My labor costs are near twice my competitions and the very guys you gave $700 billion to without much whining have pretty much tied up all the credit. Toyotas sales went down even further than mine this month. But Toyota does not have to pay laid off workers to sit and play scrabble all day and they get to give normal deductible health insurance to their workers.

You harp about errors we made 5 years ago. Not seeing the rise of the crossover and the fall of the SUV. Welcome to 2004! Talk to my predecessor. You whine we make pickup trucks. Well take a look at the top selling vehicles. WHOA NELLY. Why it’s the F150! Now who the **** do ya think makes that lil gem? Must be Honda because I cant make anything that sells.

BTW Toyota blew billions trying to break into that market. Pickup buyers are among the most loyal customers. Pardon me for loving them back. It’s a sign of devotion when a customer buys a Calvin peeing on my competition’s logo sticker for the back window glass. Oh and #2 is the Chevy pickup.

I have to deal with the past every day. The V6 Fusion has slightly fewer defects statistically than the V6 Camry. Yet what sells better? Sigh. Here is the JD power statistics showing the number of defects by company. Note I am a single point behind Honda. Your aunts friends baby was eaten by a Taurus story is anecdotal. Your example from 1992 is distant history. Yet I still get to hear I make crap.

Yes I missed the boat a few times. The Euro Fiesta is on its way only now and the Euro Focus should have had a simultaneous launch here. It’s a great car. My bad. It will get here in 2010… perhaps. More on that in a minute.

In short, this is no longer fun. I get the inquisition on my travel habits while the head of my labor monopoly who is part of the problem gets a Monica Lewinski from you. I pulled Boeing up but at Ford I have to fight the economy itself. I cant do that. I honestly thought we would be been near profitable by this coming year. NOONE is profitable when their sales are down by a third and noone wants to buy a car because they fear for their own jobs.

Effective Jan 2, 2009: I quit. I will help hand over the reigns to whoever is chosen by the bankruptcy judge, and sure, Ill do it for a buck.

Now you can give Ford WAY more than the 9 billion I asked before. It will simply be in the form of taking over the pensions and crazy *** health insurance we provide for retirees. It will be in the form of unemployment. Any bets on whether Michigan hits 20% unemployment?

Have a day.

[GregW]

Good speech. Too bad nobody has the balls to give it to our Congress critters. As I said elsewhere the government should buy enough stock in the big three to provide cash during the transition and get some people on the boards of directors.

IMHO - The Congress should have listened to the bankers and after they pleaded their case, told the bankers that, as they had created the situation, they could deal with it. Then they should have arrested all the cheats on the way out of the Capital for aggravated fraud and grand theft while appointing the last honest accountant on the planet to figure out the mess.

[ottomobeale]

I read somewhere the bankers used a ton of the bailout to buy their own stock instead of writing off bad assets. Dunno if its true.

Anyway. Perhaps they do need to do bankruptcy rather than bailout. I worry it will take out (as in chapter 7) darn near all the tier 1s and 2s which employ FAR more people than the big 3 themselves.

Sometimes all choices stink. Unemployment is now 6.7. Did MI go officially over 10% this month?

[OC Investor2]

Originally Posted by ottomobeale

Good afternoon “gentlemen”.

Well, you certainly gave me food for thought. And, in fact I had one of those few times in a lifetime moment of clarity. You see, I was working on “the plan” to help fix some of the problems at Ford, as if I had been doing nothing since Sept 2006 when I took over. I realized something. This loan is the wrong track.

I realized I came begging to the same guys who threw $700 billion at the banks and OVER-RODE a presidential veto! to give PROFITABLE farmers over $300 billion. By the way the bank guys ALL arrived by private jet and all made money that makes my Ford pay look like milk money.

The bulk of the problem is two fold. My labor costs are near twice my competitions and the very guys you gave $700 billion to without much whining have pretty much tied up all the credit. Toyotas sales went down even further than mine this month. But Toyota does not have to pay laid off workers to sit and play scrabble all day and they get to give normal deductible health insurance to their workers.

You harp about errors we made 5 years ago. Not seeing the rise of the crossover and the fall of the SUV. Welcome to 2004! Talk to my predecessor. You whine we make pickup trucks. Well take a look at the top selling vehicles. WHOA NELLY. Why it’s the F150! Now who the **** do ya think makes that lil gem? Must be Honda because I cant make anything that sells.

BTW Toyota blew billions trying to break into that market. Pickup buyers are among the most loyal customers. Pardon me for loving them back. It’s a sign of devotion when a customer buys a Calvin peeing on my competition’s logo sticker for the back window glass. Oh and #2 is the Chevy pickup.

I have to deal with the past every day. The V6 Fusion has slightly fewer defects statistically than the V6 Camry. Yet what sells better? Sigh. Here is the JD power statistics showing the number of defects by company. Note I am a single point behind Honda. Your aunts friends baby was eaten by a Taurus story is anecdotal. Your example from 1992 is distant history. Yet I still get to hear I make crap.

Yes I missed the boat a few times. The Euro Fiesta is on its way only now and the Euro Focus should have had a simultaneous launch here. It’s a great car. My bad. It will get here in 2010… perhaps. More on that in a minute.

In short, this is no longer fun. I get the inquisition on my travel habits while the head of my labor monopoly who is part of the problem gets a Monica Lewinski from you. I pulled Boeing up but at Ford I have to fight the economy itself. I cant do that. I honestly thought we would be been near profitable by this coming year. NOONE is profitable when their sales are down by a third and noone wants to buy a car because they fear for their own jobs.

Effective Jan 2, 2009: I quit. I will help hand over the reigns to whoever is chosen by the bankruptcy judge, and sure, Ill do it for a buck.

Now you can give Ford WAY more than the 9 billion I asked before. It will simply be in the form of taking over the pensions and crazy *** health insurance we provide for retirees. It will be in the form of unemployment. Any bets on whether Michigan hits 20% unemployment?

Have a day.

I would pay the pittance left in my 401(k) to see this actually happen