Ford To Cut Up To 30,000 Jobs, Close 14 Plants

[Kramer]

http://wusatv9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=46149


Not sure if this is news or not, looked like it came out today.... pretty freakin crazy

[labbats]

This is on top of 10000 in 2005 and 30000 in 2002. viva la bam

[Diekan]

bye bye Ford - who's stock is about 8 dollars a share at the moment.

[Kramer]

man, were there people predicting this 5 or 10 years ago? or is this as much a shock to Wall Street as it is to everyone else?

this is just so crazy

[Phlegm]

man, were there people predicting this 5 or 10 years ago? or is this as much a shock to Wall Street as it is to everyone else?

this is just so crazy

The problems the American car companies didn't just happen overnight. These were brewing for a while.

[ClakarEQ]

Wait until GM starts thiers :\, although they are in better shape then Ford. They'll have to do the same soon enough

Both GM and Ford already said they'd be laying off folks by the 1,000's and closing plants as well.

Initially it was said over the course of 5 or 6 years, I guess Ford wanted to get the shit done and out of the way, hope GM does it more gradual(sp) like.

[Kramer]

The problems the American car companies didn't just happen overnight. These were brewing for a while.

um. i know that.

i am not suprised that it is happening. i am suprised by how big it is. which is what i meant. did anyone expect it to be this sweeping.

[Phlegm]

On another note, Toyota is going after the rednecks. They will be entering the Nascar Nextel Cup circuit in 2007.

[labbats]

So long as they use this chick for their advertising, I'm all for it.

[Tacks]

Oh crap I won't be able to get the Ford Festiva I've been dreaming about all this time.

[Zanchief]

Oh crap I won't be able to get the Ford Festiva I've been dreaming about all this time.

Car elitist~

[Kramer]

tee hee hee....

[labbats]

Taxx festiva stylez

[Phlegm]

Rainbow colors, you know what that mean don't you?

[labbats]

It just rained?

[Captain Insano]

Taxx festiva stylez

rooflz!!


I can't believe that ford is losing jobs?!

I mean between the NEW Mustang and the Fusion and 500 I'm fucking floored they aren't making trillions!

Whats funny is if you put a picture of say the Fusion's interior right next to say a Mazda 3's it's laughable how dated the Ford looks.

I think all Ford vehicles should be named Cleveland Steamer #1, #2 etc etc.

[Phlegm]

It's DaimlerChrysler turn. From Associated Press:


BERLIN - Automaker DaimlerChrysler said Tuesday that it would reduce administrative staff by 20 percent over three years, cutting 6,000 jobs and saving some $1.2 billion a year in a bid to make the company more competitive and profitable.

The company said in a statement that the cuts would come in such areas as accounting, auditing, personnel and strategic planning.

The new structure "should improve the company's competitiveness and make further profitable growth possible," DaimlerChrysler said. "The model is based on further integration of the company, focusing operating areas completely on their core functions and advancing cooperation."

The announcement came after a board meeting in Stuttgart.

At the management level, the cuts would amount to 30 percent of personnel, the statement said. The announcement came after a board meeting in Stuttgart.

The company also said it would reorganize the oversight of its commercial vehicles division, saying that it would be renamed the truck group and subdivided into a North American division including its Freightliner, Sterling and Thomas Built lines, and a Europe-Latin America division including Mercedes-Benz trucks.

Meanwhile, financial results from the former commercial vehicles division bus and van businesses would now be reported separately.

In another move, the company said its research and development activities and Mercedes division vehicle development would be under the combined oversight of Thomas Weber, a member of the company's top management board.

The company noted that the management board itself has shrunk from 12 to nine members with already-announced changes including new CEO Dieter Zetsche's decision to combine his duties with running the company's Mercedes group.

The DaimlerChrysler announcement came a day after Ford Motor Co., the second biggest U.S. automaker, said it was cutting up to 30,000 jobs and closing 14 facilities by 2012. Ford had previously indicated it was cutting about 4,000 salaried positions by the end of the quarter.

General Motors Corp., the world's biggest automaker, announced a restructuring plan in November that will shave its work force by 30,000 and close 12 North American facilities.

[Myg0t]

Yea we just got done talking about ford's and Chrysler job cuts in economics today -- scary stuff for the people who are going to get wtfcanned.

[Captain Insano]

It's only the beginning. Americans are dumbshits that have been crapped out of the stinky anus that is our education system. Smarter more motivated countries are going to continue to erode our status as an economic superpower while we continue to cater to special interest groups and work on the ungrateful lazy senior citizens next prescription drug benefit.

[Diekan]

Listen, there are two major causes for this entire dilemma. One, is the unions… they pushed and pushed for way more than they both deserved and needed. Secondly, it’s an issue of trust. I know we’ve been through this “Japanese versus American” debate before, but it’s pretty clear to me. Like a lot of you, I’ve owned quite a few American made cars over the years – and - they’ve consistently been pieces of shit.

Money is to hard to come by and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sink 35 to 40 thousand dollars into a car where I’m unsure if the piece of shit will last past 60,000 miles before it starts to nickel and dime to death with repairs before it finally blows the engine just beyond 100,000 miles.

Ok, maybe, just maybe, the American automakers have gotten their heads out of their asses and started to actually build RELIABLE cars. But, if you think I’m going to throw 40 grand at them to “find out” you fucking crazy. I’ve given the American auto industry chance after chance, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to take a 30, 35, or 40 thousand dollar gamble on them now.

They've got no one to blame but THEMSELVES. Years of producing sub-par pieces of shit and letting overly greedy unions get the better of them have finally caught up to 'em. So sorry - bye bye Ford... bye bye GM...

[Phlegm]

From Allan Sloan of Newsweek:

Jan. 24, 2006 - It's almost enough to make you laugh—bitterly, of course. Here was Ford Motor Co. announcing yesterday that it had cut 10,000 jobs last year and that it will cut up to 30,000 more. But shedding jobs at muscle-car acceleration rates didn't stop Ford from pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars courtesy of the American Jobs Creation Act.

No, I'm not making this up. Right there, on page 2 of one of its news releases yesterday, Ford said that "repatriation of foreign earnings pursuant to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 resulted in a permanent tax savings of about $250 million."

Hello? How can you simultaneously cut jobs and benefit from the American Jobs Creation Act? Welcome to the wonderful world of Washington nomenclature.

Ford, understandably, declined to expand on its news release. But my calculations indicate that Ford last year brought into the United States about $850 million of profit that it had earned overseas but did not have to share with the Internal Revenue Service.

Let me hasten to say that I've got no problem with Ford bringing this money home. Ford is battling for survival, and every $850 million helps. It would have been remiss not to have taken advantage of the idiotic legislation that Congress adopted and that President Bush signed despite objections from his Treasury Department and Council of Economic Advisers.

My problem is with the legislation, and especially with its misleading name. Companies don't add jobs based on one-time chances to repatriate money from overseas.

Congress should thank its lucky stars that federal truth-in-labeling laws don't apply to names it accords to legislation, because almost every dispassionate analyst agrees that the American Jobs Creation Act didn't create jobs in the United States. The only possible exception: short-term paper-shuffling positions added to allow companies to produce documents that let them qualify for the tax break without doing anything differently than they'd have otherwise done it.

In case you've forgotten, this law gave U.S. companies a one-time chance in 2005 to repatriate profits made overseas and pay only 5.25 percent tax on them rather than the standard 35 percent.

It was a tax holiday, and the biggest celebrators were pharmaceutical and tech companies that had traditionally kept tons of profits overseas. But Ford saw its chance and took it.

Despite dozens of pages of regulations issued by the Treasury Department to restrict use of the money to uses approved by Congress, the whole thing was unenforceable. Money, you see, is what economists call "fungible." Any dollar is like any other dollar. Ford, for instance, could use its $850 million of repatriated profits for a permitted use such as buying equipment, freeing up $850 million for other, non-approved uses.

American Enterprise Institute fellow Phillip L. Swagel, formerly chief of staff of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, told my Post colleague Jonathan Weisman last August that "you might as well have taken a helicopter over 90210 [a Beverly Hills Zip code] and pushed the money out the door." That's a memorable quote—and a dead-accurate observation.

I suspect that when the Treasury finishes analyzing its corporate income-tax receipts for 2005, it will discover that a significant part of last year's surge in collections stems from this one-time tax break. Companies took advantage of it because they prefer paying a small tax today to possibly paying a higher tax tomorrow. It's the same kind of thing car companies do when they make car-loan terms longer. They add sales today but at the expense of sales tomorrow.

I hope that Ford returns to prosperity and begins adding U.S. jobs again, the way I hope that General Motors and Chrysler do. But the Ford example shows how nonsensical the name American Jobs Creation Act truly is. The bottom line: When you see a piece of legislation carrying a name that sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true.

[Captain Insano]

why add jobs here? Americans are poorly educated and in the auto biz if you have to hire someone it means union.

I would keep my cash overseas. Fuck that shit.

[Phlegm]

Bush weighs in on Ford and GM problems. From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. should develop more appealing products rather than look to Washington for help with their heavy pension burdens, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

In an interview Wednesday, Bush said he had not talked to the struggling companies about their finances but hinted that he would take a dim view of a government bailout of the top two U.S. automakers, the newspaper reported.

"I have been very reluctant -- I'm mindful of the past where at one point in time, a predecessor of mine was faced with that same dilemma," Bush was quoted as saying. "I would hope I wouldn't be asked to make that decision."

Asked if he had spoken to GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner or Ford Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr., Bush told the newspaper, "Not about their balance sheets."

"And I haven't been asked by any automobile manufacturer about a bailout," he said.

Asked if the government should take any pre-emptive action, Bush was quoted as saying, "I think it's very important for the market to function." Bush suggested that he felt optimistic about the companies' prospects, according to the newspaper.

Ford and GM have said they would close plants and cut tens of thousands of jobs. Competition, particularly from companies based in Asia, soaring health care and pension expenses and production costs have increased financial pressures on the unionized companies.

The newspaper said while neither GM nor Ford has sought a bailout, they have dropped hints they would welcome government help in areas such as coping with rising health care and pension burdens and the high costs of developing fuel-efficient vehicles.

According to the newspaper, Bush suggested that one way automakers could make more appealing products was to promote cars using alternative fuels, a topic he plans to mention in his State of the Union address next week.

Bush said in the interview that U.S. automakers could find new market share in the competition to sell vehicles that run on alternative fuels.

"As these automobile manufacturers compete for market share and use technology to try to get consumers to buy their product, they also will be helping America become less dependent on foreign sources of oil," Bush told the newspaper.

[Diekan]

1. Get rid of the damn unions.

2. Cut the pensions back / reduce their health care payouts.

3. Regain consumer confidence.

[Jay]

What was that documentary about this happening with the GM plant in Flint Michigan.