Ford CEO Alan Mulally may be a Detroit “outsider,” but the former Boeing executive sure knows how to tow the Motown party line– especially when it comes to securing $25 – $50b of low-interest federal loans. “Speaking on the CNBC cable television network Friday,” Forbes reports. “Mulally said Ford built and sold the trucks because marketplace demanded them. ‘In the United States, Ford’s strategy was to focus on what the customers really wanted, and those were the larger SUVs and trucks,’ he said. ‘Fuel prices were low, the interest rates were low. It’s what the customers chose.'” Oh for Christ’s sake. What about all those consumers who didn’t choose pickups and SUVs? What about the executives’ responsibility NOT put all FoMoCo’s eggs (i.e. billions in profits) into stupid-ass basket case misadventures like Aston, Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover? I’m no Catholic, but Mually’s reframing of Ford’s former sins, his abject unwillingness to accept responsibility for Ford’s culpability in its current cash crisis, is not what I’d call proper penance. “Ford, he said, has a different strategy now that energy prices have risen, developing a portfolio that includes small cars already on sale in other parts of the world.” Great! So leave my tax money alone and get on with it.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
This is disappointing, but I suppose not surprising. After all, Mulally comes from an industry that is no stranger to government involvement.
‘Course, that company also has their ex-CEO in the clink if I recall correctly.
Feeling cynical…
Just what would one expect him to say? And still make good for those sweet porkdollars just dowm the line??
He is what he is. An executive with some political acumen
(full disclosure!! Got rid of my POS 2007 Ford Ka on to some dealer shipp (would never suffer the indignity on a fellow man) and got myselg a good´proper Renault. Feeling much better now, tks)
This is just getting annoying. If you supposedly have the resources to get yourself back on your two feet again (and more than enough pride), why would each and every single taxpayer have to help? And why SHOULD they have to? It’s not like very many of those taxpayers have shown much interest in buying their cars recently anyway. It doesn’t seem to make much sense. I hope the next president, or other lawmakers (where are they again?), end this game.
I don’t see how loans have to equal bailout, after all, the companies are going to be paying this money back to the government.
More to the point however, why is everyone here against the money going to Detroit? Yes, they did sort of paint themselves into a corner with the SUV boom while forgetting about cars, but now they are turning that around, so why not give them the cash to do it right. Toyota, Honda, Subaru, etc, all get assistance from the Japanese government, so why is it right for them and wrong for us?
The government has a duty to help out our companies, especially because government regulation has led to some of the issues being faced today. CAFE, crash test, pedestrian safety, emmissions, diesel particulates, etc, all of this regulation makes it extremely expensive to design and produce a vehicle. There are even taxes on imported vehicles, even if the US company owns the overseas plant that is builds that vehicle.
If the government wants to regulate the industry, it needs to accept some responsibility and step in when things get mucked up. At the same time anyone calling for Detroit to get out of this on their own, I am sure they could, if we just deregulated the auto industry completely and let the market decide what it wants.
Focusing only on Trucks and SUVs is not a bad business strategy. Diversification for companies is a great way to distroy shareholder value. CEOs are often too eager to “diversify,” hell that’s what got Ford into trouble (Jag, Land Rover, internet companies, junk yards, etc.) In fact what Ford is doing now is not diversifying. Instead they realize they have a huge automotive asset in Europe. They’re simply taping into what they already have. If Ford did not have this asset and were suddenly anouncing huge investments into cars, I’d say that would be a losing strategy.
…the companies are going to be paying this money back to the government.
If you believe that, then I have some land in Florida to sell you. Rather than pay it back, what they are going to do ask is blow it and then ask for more. $25b this year, $25b next year, and I’d bet they ask for another $100b within the next 3 years.
This makes as much sense as loaning money to a sibling with a gambling problem.
yankinwaoz :
This (bailout) makes as much sense as loaning money to a sibling with a gambling problem.
Yes, indeed! Or letting the other sibling, the one with the drinking problem, have “just one more for the road.”
I think that if the Big 2.8 want to get their loans then they should be required to go before Congress and allocute, the same way a perp has to allocute when accepting a plea bargain. None of this perfect storm nonsense. They should have to detail the long history of bad business decisions that led them to asking for a handout. If the companies cannot come up with a clear explanation of how they destroyed their businesss then they obviously won’t be able to fix them, no matter how much money they get.