Ford sold MORE cars than TOYOTA in April!!!

Random Ramblings
41

I was reading a report recently on the commercial real estate market in Beijing and it said that they have overbuilt so much commercial space in Beijing that at current rates it will take 14 years to fill everything they currently have, and that is if they were to stop building anything new. That is just crazy.

I am not on either side of the Ford argument although I do have a question. A person that I work with is really touting Fannie Mae stock right now because it is so cheap. Can anyone chime in an opinion on that? it’s not like Fannie is going away anytime soon and they have ZERO material costs.

42

That is a very dramatic post FDJake - you should be on daytime tv! Loving this country does NOT mean falling in line with the socialist agenda, nor does it mean leaving the country. Quite the contrary, it will take a lot of people with common sense and real principles to rebuild this country after our little experiment with socialism finishes destroying the country. I’ll be here to help.

If this country sucks so bad and it's citizens are worthless, lazy, losers who don't want to work...

JUST GET THE F**K OUT!!!

Certainly, all of our citizens are not worthless, lazy losers who don’t want to work. However, the percentage of these deadbeats is increasing every day and Obama’s push toward socialism is dramatically increasing the number of these losers. Why work if The Chosen One is going to pay you to do nothing?

I’m not sure why you feel the need to be so dramatic? Do you really need to use the “F” word to discuss an issue?

Mike

43

Mike, that is just the liberal mindset… if someone says something they disagree with or can’t defend… the insults start flying or they try to distract with other things that are not pertainent… :rolleyes

With regards to Ford, I actually hope you are incorrect… time to rethink my investment… :shocked

44

Hey…Positive…

Speaking of talking around a subject…

How’d you make out with that termite infested flip you bought???

YOU NEVER TOLD US???

We’re STILL waiting to hear about it…

I hope I’m not distracting you…But this IS a REAL ESTATE WEB SITE and I would like to know what happened to the property you purchased to flip.

Let’s hear it…

45
I hope I'm not distracting you....But this IS a REAL ESTATE WEB SITE and I would like to know what happened to the property you purchased to flip.

Yes, this is a real estate web site, but this is the Random Ramblings forum and this thread is not about real estate. Why do you insist on harrassing people if they disagree with you? You’re entitled to your opinion and everyone else is entitled to theirs. You don’t need to use the “F” word or harrass people to make your point.

Mike

46

Mike,

Lets cut the cr@p…You didn’t like the responce you got…

That’s all it is…

You CONSTANTLY COMPLAIN about this country.

I’m tired of hearing it from you…If it’s that bad???

GO SOMEWHERE ELSE and LIVE…Then tell us how it compares.

Your advice for parents of 5 year old cub scouts was “tell 'em not to eat their medals.” How caring!!! How understanding of you…
But now your outraged over F**K being typed??? That’s and F folowed by a K with 2 ** in the middle!! I agree…that’s outragous!

ARE YOU FOR REAL???

I particularly enjoyed the following “sensitive Mike” quote…

“I wouldn’t shoot them, I’d just throw the deadbeats in jail. (bread and water only.)”

MIKE…The REALITY is this…

If you lived in CHINA RIGHT NOW and wrote the things you write HERE…

YOU’D be the one living on bread and water PAL…and that’s NO BULLSH*T. That’s REALITY!!!

Instead you live in a country where you can say what you want (no matter how ridiculus) and not have to worry about a knock on your door at night.

You’ve got it too easy MIKE…

WE ALL DO…

SOME of us just REALIZE it!!

Mike…I’ll leave you with this…

You have written what I consider to be the BIBLE for anyone considering real estate land lording. The book pulls no punches, cuts no corners, and is written so well I read it in ONE DAY!!!

I will ALWAYS respect your views on Real Estate.

Maybe we can BOTH be more positive in the future! :beer

47

Here’s a recent interview with Schiff…where he refutes the US/China co-dependence argument:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/30891419

-Mike

48

People, we just need to all think logically. GM, Chrysler, and Ford loose money on each car sold due to the democrat supported unions. Toyota makes money on each car sold until just recently experiencing it’s first expected loss in 70 years. Selling more cars for Ford means record losses and a quick path to bailout money.

The unions have brought the American companies to their knees and they always will be unless they move out of union states into right to work states, or if they are capable of fully automating everything to the degree that they don’t need anyone to build the cars.

49

If that were TRUE then how do you explain MERCEDES, PORSCHE, VOLKWAGEN, and RENAULT (which OWNS Nissan)???

The Unions definitely hurt these companies. Some of the things in those contracts are completely insane. But the REAL PROBLEM with the BIG 3 was a COMBINATION of incredibly bad DESIGN, POOR QUALITY, and a complete LACK of investment in future engine technologies and systems.

The U.S. car companies got FAT building TRUCKS…They built JUNK cars for DECADES and because of that, Amercans FLOCKED to Honda and Toyota for extremely well made CARS… While people that wanted trucks purchased them from American companies…The Japanese STILL can’t crack the full size truck segment. Nissan is dropping the TITAN which was a flop…and Toyota hasn’t come CLOSE to selling the number of TUNDRAS they had projected. Toyota has laid off HUNDREDS at the Tundra plant in Texas because of LOW DEMAND for those trucks. Honda doesn’t even TRY to compete in that market.

It’s easy to blame the Unions. They definitely had their hands in the pot and DESERVE some blame, but when U.S. car companies built WORLD CLASS cars in the 50’s and 60’s those same Unions didn’t hurt those companies. In FACT, Union membership was at ALL TIME HIGHS at those plants during those very years.

BUILD A CAR THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT…And they’ll BUY THEM…LOT’s of them!!! Build a car that NO ONE CARES ABOUT…and do it for DECADES, and you get what the BIG 3 have NOW!!!

Some people here may be too young to know this…But believe it or not, in the 50’s and 60’s, CADILLACS were considered to be some of the BEST BUILT, BEST ENGINEERED cars on the PLANET!!! Japanese business executives imported these Cadillacs to Japan and were STUNNED by the quality of the cars. They became their prized posessions. Has anyone here actually DRIVEN a mid 60’s Cadiallac in the last few years??? I drove one about a week ago for a friend who was looking at 1965 Cadiallac Coupe Deville. That car drove like a dream…It was SHOCKINGLY comparably to a modern car, it stopped well, was whisper QUIET, and ran perfectly, Ice cold A/C, power windows, seats, ect. Those Caddies were 10 to 15 YEARS ahead of the competition in 1965. American car COMPANIES let that get away from them.

Ford is a PERFECT example of this…In the mid to late 80’s, the Ford Taurus OUTSOLD the Toyota Camry EVERY YEAR… That original Taurus was YEARS ahead of the Camry…But…Toyota continued to DEVELOPE the Camry. They upgraded it year after year. Toyota just kept making that car BETTER. Ford did the exact opposite. They let the TAURUS DIE…a car that LITERALLY SAVED Ford Motor company!!!
Ford spent NOTHING on it…NO ENGINEERING MONEY, NO UPGRADED suspensions or engines like Toyota was working on. FORD let that car DIE because the EASY MONEY was in SUV’S!!! SUV’s are VERY basic vehicles to build…No complicated PLATFORMS to engineer…Just a Body bolted to a frame…They’re TRUCKS…They put CHEAP V-8 enigines in them because the tooling for those motors had been paid off DECADES ago…

Toyota was spending MILLIONS developing VARIABLE VALVE TIMING, 16 Valve cylinder heads, new suspension systems and COUNTLESS other EXPENSIVE upgrades to those cars. Toyota was also spending money on a new vehicle that would be a GAME CHANGER FOR THE INDUSTRY…

The CROSSOVER!!! A small SUV styled vehicle that used a CAR platform.
Meanwhile Ford kept the Taurus EXACTLY the same…They used that same platfrom for 15 YEARS!!! While Toyota had THREE platform changes in that same time. No wonder the Taurus drove like SH*T compared to a Camry…It was a 15 year old design!!! The UNIONS didn’t design those cars or decide when platforms got upgraded. The COMPANY DID!!! Ford was selling all the EXPLORERS, EXPEDITIONS, and EXCURSIONS they could build. And…They were making a KILLING on them!!! Don’t tell me Ford didn’t have the MONEY for R&D because the PROFITS Ford was raking in during the SUV boom were in the BILLIONS…EVERY QUARTER!!! The money was THERE…The CHOICES weren’t made by MANAGEMENT!!!

Then it happened…TOYOTA introduced the RAV4 SUV. The timing couldn’t have been better. After YEARS of people moving AWAY from the Taurus and INTO Camry’s…Toyota now had an SUV styled vehicle that people who bought Camry’s LOVED!!! Then Honda hit the market with the CRV!!! Another SMASH HIT!!! And the big 3 had…NOTHING!!!
Those crossovers got 30 MPG, were GREAT in the snow, was easy to park, RAN FOREVER, and the BIG 3 got caught with their pants down…AGAIN!!!

But now we have an interesting TWIST to this story…It now seems that TOYOTA is having QUALITY PROBLEMS…It lost it’s AUTOMATIC RECOMMENDED STATUS from Consumer Reports due to THOUSANDS of motors that develope SLUDGING PROBLEMS at around 60K miles. The problem was so bad that Toyota LOST a class action lawsuit brought by THOUSANDS of owners. It seems that even for TOYOTA, being the NUMBER ONE car company in the world isn’t as EASY as it looks. I’m hearing the same thing from my Honda mechanic friends. (These are FACTORY TRAINED Service techs who have been working on these cars for 20+ years) THEY have noticed a CONSIDERABLE drop in quality over the last 5 years.

This is FAR too complicated and took FAR too long to develope to simply blame UNIONS for the problems facing the Big 3.

50

My Dad lived in Japan for a few years during the late 1960’s, early 1970’s, and he remembers visiting a Japanese “R&D” department. What they had was a common U.S. made table lamp sitting in the middle of the boardroom table. There were about a dozen engineers in the room and they were all discussing how they could make that lamp better. So, as Jake has mentioned, it looks like Toyota, Honda, et. al. were doing the same thing throughout the 70’s and 80’s with cars. Now though, it looks like the Japanese have been getting lax due to their success(es). Not to get too off course, but is it reasonable to say that the Japaneses/U.S. fluctuate in opposite of each other? i.e. as one goes up, the other goes down. Interesting…

51

I will continue to blame the unions. When a union has a company by the balls to the degree that they have forced them into becoming the worlds largest health care provider and largest purchaser of Viagra (GM) etc. there simply is no money left to develop the technology necessary to get to the top and still show the stock holders a profit. Remember, if they show no reasonable profit to the stock holders, they loose even more money as people sell their shares and their working capital goes to S**t.

Your intensive blame on management of the 3 is misdirected and you really should closely consider the full impact of the unions.

52

Or…Maybe you should closely examine the NUMBERS!!!

How do you explain the BILLIONS IN PROFITS the big 3 made during the SUV boom. The UNIONS had the same benefits then…Hell, they had MORE benefits THEN. They’ve now given back many of those benefits. But…even WITH THEM…It had NO BEARING on Ford, GM or Chryslers ability to generate MASSIVE PROFITS for their share holders. In 1999 Fords stock was at $36/share and the company was making more than $1 BILLION every QUARTER!!!

If the UNIONS are the reason U.S. car companies don’t make money, how do you explain this???

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/22/business/company-reports-ford-reports-stronger-than-expected-earnings.html

So much for your “NO MONEY LEFT” theory.

MULTIPLE points I outlined in my post are in this article. From Fords TRUCK and SUV profits to the RIDICULUS decision by MANAGEMENT to purchase a car company (Volvo) that they would eventually lose BILLIONS ON!!! It would seem that YOU might be MISDIRECTED in your understanding of the complete situation here.

The Unions bear their share of the blame, no doubt about that. But if Ford could make over $1 BILLION profit in SINGLE QUARTER in 1999 WITH those very UNIONS…SOMETHING ELSE CHANGED. THAT was the big 3’s complete LACK of investment in their PRODUCT. They had MORE than enough money. They CHOSE not to.

You can blame who ever you want…The REALITY is the BIG 3 Management did more to screw up these companies than ANY UNION ever could. That is a FACT.

The UNIONS didn’t instruct Ford to buy JAGUAR, or LAND ROVER or ASTON MARTIN or VOLVO…Every single one of those businesses LOST BILLIONS of FORD’s $$$$$$$…That wasn’t the UNIONS FAULT. It was the absolute STUPIDITY OF MANAGEMENT that caused this. Ford eventually sold EVERYONE of those companies at HUGE LOSSES!!! That’s AFTER they pumped BILLIONS and BILLIONS into each of them for DECADES. (Ford is expected to announce the sale of Volvo at any time… FOR $4 BILLION LESS THAN THEY PAID!!!)

It is estimated that with the Jaguar/Land Rover purchase ALONE…Ford LOST $35 -$50 B I L L I O N in CAPITAL!!!
There’s your R&D money Pal!!! BOAT LOADS OF IT!!! Add the 1999 profits mentioned in the article above to the BILLIONS they BLEW On Jaguar & Land Rover and the TOTAL CASH Ford could have been sitting on would have been UNBEATABLE for any other company!!!
Don’t believe it???

http://blogs.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1015368_just-how-much-did-ford-lose-on-jaguar-and-land-rover

Show me how the Union takes the blame for that complete disaster. LITERALLY BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars were WASTED buying DIEING CAR COMPANIES. Imagine the vehicles FORD could have NOW if those BILLIONS were spent the way TOYOTA spent their PROFITS. This was a COMPLETE FAILURE OF MANAGEMENT!!! NOT UNIONS…MANAGEMENT!!!

In the article I referenced it mentions Fords bid for Volvo…Well they were the HIGH bidder!!! They paid $6,000,000,000 (Thats $6 BILLION) for Volvo.
Then they spent TENS OF BILLIONS revamping Volvos entire line up…RESULTS???

They’ll be LUCKY to get $2 billion for it now (Fords estimate NOT mine) and Volvo hasn’t turned a profit in YEARS.

The UNIONS had NOTHING to do with these decisions. They came STRAIGHT from some of the most inept managers to every set foot in Fords Headquarters.

Now the pendulum is begininning to swing the other way. Unions have made HUGE and HISTORIC concessions. The management currently running Ford HAS CAUGHT TOYOTA and HONDA in quality. That comes directly from CONSUMER REPORTS, not from me. Those UNIONS assemble cars just as the NON UNION Japanese companies workers do. So it’s obvious that being in a UNION isn’t affecting their ability to produce QUALITY CARS.

Like I said…You can blame anyone you want…I blame George Bush for EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG ON THIS PLANET!!! In my opinion he was THE WORST PRESIDENT THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER HAD or WILL EVER HAVE…and HE ALONE is responsible for the REPUBLICAN PARTY getting their @SSES handed to them in the election!!!

That’s who I BLAME…But that doesn’t mean I’m RIGHT!!!

You can blame anyone you want for the current situation…Again…It won’t mean your right. But…UNDERSTANDING what REALLY went wrong can give you EXTREMELY VALUABLE INSIGHT into the changes currently being made at these companies and the AFFECTS those changes will bring in the future.

Like…

ALAN MULLALY’s decision to sell EVERY SINGLE ONE of those CR@P companies they OVER PAID for in the 1990’s. Here’s an example of excellent management. Here’s some more…

His decision to obtain CREDIT when credit was available 2 years ago. He took a BEATING for this in the press. Now he looks like a genius.

His decision to go from 26 power train varients to 7 (like TOYOTA does) Lower cost, fewer parts, MORE MONEY available to IMPROVE those 7 drive trains in the future. Again…a page DIRECTLY out of the TOYOTA play book.

His decision to model Fords Engineering Division on the TOYOTA model. At TOYOTA mechanics at dealerships are REQUIRED to notify the FACTORY of ANY issues they see with a system or part on Toyota vehcles. These reports are sent IMMEDITAELY to Engineering and those systems are either fixed or REDESIGNED at the COMPONENT LEVEL or the supplier level. This drastically lowers the number of cars that get assembled with FAULTY components. This is EXACTLY how Ford has caught Toyota on QUALITY.

It HAS come FULL CIRCLE…That Lamp sitting on the Japanese executives table is now it’s a TOYOTA STARTER that sits on FORD Engineering Dept table!!!

And Yes…That’s EXACTLY how one goes UP as the other goes DOWN!!!

53

You’ve made me feel sooo sorry for those poor union guys that make $80 dollars an hour and they actually made a huge concession and said that we still want to get free Viagra on our premium health insurance but we will take a couple of bucks less an hour.

Reality is that an average guy that makes $15 an hour can not buy a car that was built by another guy who makes $80 an hour. Your extremely dated article from 1999 means absolutely nothing to me. It’s good that they made a profit back then. You are talking about the billions they made many years ago like it’s boatloads of cash but is that even a 10% return on the money spent?

I find it incredibly interesting how you point out a few management issues and have absolutely nothing to say about the Unions sucking the life out of the companies other than the undeniable fact that they are doing so.

“”“Like I said…You can blame anyone you want…I blame George Bush for EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG ON THIS PLANET!!! “””

I’m sure you do. All of the radical leftists blame Bush for everything on the planet. I agree that he overspent but he surely did not do it to the tune of Obama.

“”“and HE ALONE is responsible for the REPUBLICAN PARTY getting their @SSES handed to them in the election!!!”“”

Sorry, but not HE Alone. His popularity was a low 35%. Congress’s popularity was 8%!!! And who were the 3 final people we picked as presidential candidates? 3 Congressmen.

“”“His decision to model Fords Engineering Division on the TOYOTA model. At TOYOTA mechanics at dealerships are REQUIRED to notify the FACTORY of ANY issues they see with a system or part on Toyota vehcles. These reports are sent IMMEDITAELY to Engineering and those systems are either fixed or REDESIGNED at the COMPONENT LEVEL or the supplier level. This drastically lowers the number of cars that get assembled with FAULTY components. This is EXACTLY how Ford has caught Toyota on QUALITY.”“”

There is a little more to it than this with Toyota. For example, on my American made Toyota Tundra, I paid $2,500 extra for a warantee that will last for 100,000 miles instead of the 36k or 3 years thing. I get every single penny of the $2,500 back after the 100k if I DONT use the warantee. So what do you think I am going to do unless there is a catastrophic problem?

54

That guy making $15/hr must work in one of your BELOVED right to work states!!! Or better yet maybe WALMART!!! (nope can’t be Wally world, they only pay $10/hour)

YOU stated the American car builders HAD NO MONEY for future model developement because of the UNIONS. I SHOWED YOU BILLIONS in PROFITS they HAD. But those PROFITS don’t line up with your THEORY that there was NO MONEY because of the Unions…There WAS money!!! BILLIONS and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!! But…

MANAGEMENT DECIDED to flush those profits down the Jaguar/Land Rover/Volvo TOILET!! Those are FACTS… IF Ford management had simply NOT PURCHASED Jag/LR/Volvo that company would be sitting on an estimated $50+ BILLION in CASH…RIGHT NOW… and that is asumming they made NOTHING on that money in the ensuing 10 year period!!! THAT’s where the relevance of those 1999 PROFITS comes into play…GET IT??? I REPEATEDLY said the UNIONS shared in the blame. Paying a Union worker $60/hour to CUT THE LAWN is INSANE!!! The JOBS BANK was INSANE!!! Buying VIAGRA for these dopes was INSANE!! But it doesn’t change the FACT that without the DISASTEROUS BUSINESS DECISIONS made by MANAGEMENT Ford would be a MUCH stronger company today.

Oh…and you might just NEED that $2500 EXTENDED warranty!!!

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/01/toyota_sludge_settlement.html

I’ll throw this one your way because I’m feeling GENEROUS today and honestly don’t want to see you have any problems with your new TUNDRA…

Make SURE…You use ONLY SYNTHETIC MOTOR OIL in that TRUCK. The SLUDGING PROBLEMS TOYOTA is having are WIDE SPREAD, they are NOT contained to just the models and engines outlined in that settlement…The use of Synthetic motor oil greatly reduces potential sludging problems. Your TUNDRA engine is the same motor that LEXUS uses in their V-8 vehicles. Lot’s of piston slap problems with those motors too. Google TOYOTA PISTON SLAP and check it out.

I’m not knocking Toyota…You purchased a REALLY GOOD TRUCK that should last you a LONG TIME and will hold it’s value. HONESTLY…If you’re going to keep the truck for any length of time MAKE SURE you use synthetic oil. I would also have a TOYOTA DEALER do those oil changes. Toyota screwed a lot of people who had their oil changes done at independant shops. I know the law says you can take your car anywhere you want for service. But take it from someone with 15+ years experience in the car business…If you just spent $30K+ on a New Tundra…

Take it to the DEALER for the oil changes. If you ever have a problem they can’t say it was YOUR FAULT!! :beer

And George W. Bush is to blame… for EVERYTHING :bouncemulti :banana :dance

55

That was an interesting article but for older Toyotas. I also have a fleet of Toyota Tercels and Corollas for one of my companies and I love them. Most of them are in the age range of those listed in the article but I have never had a problem. We use regular oil but do change it every 3-4K miles. Many of the cars have 200K plus miles and are still running very well. And to top it off, low income people drive them and beat the ever loving crap out of them.

We have had a number of GM cars prior and they were pretty much dead at 150K. Our Saturn was the worst.

No, the $15 an hour guy is very typical for both right to work states like where I presently live in VA but also union states like Connecticut. As you probably know, most small businesses are not unionized. So, don’t try to act like union states have great wages across the board. This would be a lie for you to even act like that was true.

I was at one point in time right after college (15yrs ago), a union member. I worked for UPS and was a $14 an hr Teamster. Well, take their profit out of my check and that $14 quickly diminishes.

So what union are you in? RU one of those $80 an hour assembly line people. I sure would like to be. I could do a mindless job all day and have boatloads of extra cash to invest in real estate.

I am surprised that when you decided to list a few problems of the unions you only listed 3, 2 of which I already said. I think you are highly focused on management and are really uncapable of seeing that someone geting $80 per hour to do assembly line work is way too much. So pay them well and give them $20 an hour. That would be fair. Or go over the top and pay them $40 an hour like Toyota does. They will live in the best neighborhoods at $83,000 a year.

But $166,000 a year for doing assembly line work is outrageous.

Again you go back to a time where they made a little profit which they are in business to do. I want the answer to my question. Does their profit equal at least a 10% return on the trillions in expenses they have each year?

56

Here’s your answer!!!

There’s not a car company on PLANET EARTH that makes a ROI of 10% annually.

Here’s your PROOF…

http://seekingalpha.com/article/22864-toyota-a-lesser-known-stock

Notice the DATES on these numbers…2006…When CAR SALES were at ALL TIME HIGHS and profits for Honda and Toyota were at never before seen levels.

Even during this BOOM Honda’s ROI was just 8.00% and Toyotas was 8.24%. So even the NON UNION Japanese car companies couldn’t put up the numbers you implied FORD should have. And those ROI numbers were taken during THE BIGGEST new car sales boom in U.S. HISTORY!!! If you look at Toyotas 5 year ROI in 2006 it drops to just over 6%. It’s CURRENT ROI is (NEGATIVE) -3.99%!!!

Here’s some more reading for you…As you’ll see HUGE wage cuts HAVE BEEN APPROVED at FORD.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123662654608974841.html

I agree with you that there was HUGE WASTE and GREED on the Unions part. 100% TRUE…In the article I attached it mentions Ford paying $3 BILLION to workers who did NOT WORK (The “jobs bank” which the article confirms is now GONE)…That’s CRAZY…But it’s also a FRACTION of the $60+BILLION management BLEW on companies they would eventually SELL AT A LOSS…That REALLY hurt Ford.

MANAGEMENT put that company in the position it’s in today. The DECISIONS THEY MADE burned through over $60 BILLION in CASH. If that money had NOT been BLOWN on LOSER foreign car companies, Ford would be on par with Honda and Toyota as far as CASH ON HAND goes and have NO DEBT.

That’s a FACT proven with hard NUMBERS.

57

“”"Here’s your answer!!!

There’s not a car company on PLANET EARTH that makes a ROI of 10% annually.

Here’s your PROOF…“”"

Thank You!!! YOU JUST MADE MY POINT. A low but respectable amount of return on an investment is 10%. And none of them made 10%! So all of these billions they “blew” was money in profits that was expected by the shareholders. Please, you need to consider the impact on a company that isn’t making money. The shareholders sell their stock and then they are making even less money.

Look at the big picture! Now if you came back with results that they had a 12% return I may have agreed with you that a couple of the billion they had in profit could have been spent on redevelopment of new technology but when you are barely trying to show the stock holders you are a good company for them to make some money on than there has to be a profit.

fdjake, They are not doing this for fun as Obama may think. This is business and they are trying to actually make money. A decent return would be fair.

The same reason you are in real estate. Why don’t you be a nice guy and give your tenants free rent for the next year to make up for all of the amortization that you have had over the years while they pay off your houses for you? You are the evil rich landlord and you shouldn’t be making those kind of returns on your property.

58

This all started because you REFUSED to blame management for their OBVIOUS destruction of a once GREAT COMPANY. I SHOWED you where the money went. It’s undenyable.

I also showed you that even NON UNION car companies couldn’t put up the returns you say are “respectable” and you go into an OBAMA rant?

Spoken like a TRUE BUSH REPUBLICAN!!!
Don’t pay attention to what your SEEING…Listen to what we’re TELLING YOU!!!

It OBVIOUS you were COMPLETELY UNAWARE that the ROI in the automobile business is low. Just as it’s obvious you have NO IDEA how that business really GENERATES those returns. The examples I gave you were JAPANESE CAR COMPANIES…You know…The ones you LOVE because their NON UNION??? So what your telling us is TOYOTA and HONDA “BLEW” money that belonged to shares holders because they didn’t have a “respectable” 10% or greater ROI???

That last paragraph makes absolutley NO SENSE what-so-ever.

Believe it or not…It actually takes YEARS to DEVELOPE new technologies. That’s VERY important in this case because it all leads back to
1999-2000 when FORD was sitting on NOT $1 billion, NOT $2 BILLION, but $75 BILLION in CASH…They were paying their SHAREHOLDERS a 7% annual DIVIDEND too (see THAT’S what companies that MAKE MONEY DO) and the STOCK was at $36/share. Ford shares holders were VERY HAPPY people at this time. Then MANAGEMENT, lead by then Ford CEO Jack Nassar screwed up.

At that point FORD MANAGEMENT decided to go on a FOREIGN CAR COMPANY BUYING SPREE!!! It was to be called THE PREMIER AUTO GROUP. It would eventually consist of Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover, and Volvo. Management looked at it as a way to compete with BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus.

They spent almost $50 BILLION on Jaguar and Land Rover ALONE…The end result was 10 years later Ford sold both companies. By that time LR/Jag had over $60 BILLION of FORDS money poured into them. And what kind of RETURN did Fords MANAGEMENT get on THEIR investment???

They sold LR/Jag… a company that cost them $60 BILLION…for…$6 BILLION :banghead :banghead :banghead

That buddy…Is called a GIANT SCREW UP BY MANAGEMENT…In FACT the screw up was so BIG JACK NASSAR was FIRED!!! It seems that I’M not the ONLY one who thought MANAGEMENT had screwed up. The BILLIONS Ford spent was GONE…It COULD have been USED to DEVELOPE NEW TECHNOLOGY, NEW MODELS, HYBRID VEHICLES, and CROSSOVERS Like Honda and TOYOTA did…

But MANAGEMENT BLEW IT!! Eventually Aston Martin was sold AT A LOSS too. Volvo is next to go and it too will be sold at a LOSS.

Buddy…I’ve been BUYING FORD STOCK for the last 2 years!!! There’s NO ONE HERE who wants to see this company MAKE MONEY more tham ME!!! I’ve spent YEARS studying this case. Everything is falling into place now. Ford is about to put up sales numbers that will BLOW away WALL St.

How do I know this??? Very simple…

Auto sales are always reported as a comparison to LAST YEARS numbers. We are now approaching summer. Do you guy’s remember what OIL did last summer??

It went to $147/barrel. Gas was at almost $5/gallon and car sales COMPLETELY S T O P P E D…

When they compare LAST summers sales numbers to THIS summers, we’ll see SUBSTANTIAL INCREASES…I’m not saying we’re out of the woods yet…But I do think Ford’s current $5/share stock price will look like a BARGAIN in a few months. IMHO

59

LOL, I set you up to prove my point. :smile I love doing that! We all know that the automobile manufacturing business is not profitable. Hopefully you didn’t just figure that out. It looks like you made some really smart decisions with your Ford stock :eyecrazy

“”“It OBVIOUS you were COMPLETELY UNAWARE that the ROI in the automobile business is low. “””

60

If your “set up” was to prove you have NO CLUE…MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

I thought it was diabolically BRILLANT when you lured me in with the following quote.

“when you are barely trying to show the stock holders you are a good company for them to make some money on than there has to be a profit.”

That’s POETRY man…PURE POETRY…You should send that straight to the WALL STREET JOURNAL!!! The writing style is…AHH…really SPECIAL. :shocked
Is English your first language or are you an INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS EXPERT??? Maybe you were a BUSH SPEECH WRITER!!! He sort of TALKED like that.

MY GOD… DID YOU NOT SEE the EARNINGS Honda and Toyota put up in the chart I linked???

They made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN … P R O F I T S!!!

But YOU knew ALL ALONG it’s NOT a PROFITABLE business…Yep, your TOO smart for me, I give up :rolleyes

“It looks like you made some really smart decisions with your ford stock.”

If you consider being UP 400% on 25,000 shares since November a good decision…

A completely agree :biggrin :biggrin :biggrin :biggrin But STAY TUNED…The fun REALLY starts in a few years.

Stick with the OBAMA Bashing and the Republican party line…You don’t have to PROVE any of those points.