[Iris7]

Building an auto ping list, let me know if you don't want on it.

The plot thickens. I am employed by a large corporation that makes vehicles.

[cynicom]

Close the doors and make their cars in China. Unions have ruined the companies. Dump their pension obligations on the tax payers.

[ARCADIA]

Is this when we nationalize their retirement plan? Who is going to bail out the US when we go bust?

[Tarpon]

Well you might want to pass on building better cars at affordable prices is a good place to start.

[mewzilla]

Please don't call the requests a bailout.

Snort. Shades of Louisiana.

[nyconse]

My husband works for GM in Doraville. I am sick of the auto company bashing that has gone on around here. Please ping me.

[Iris7]

Think you folks may like this one. Politics intrudes, and intensely.

[stocksthatgoup]

If Ford, the Ford family and its unions stopped propping up high taxing democrats and rinos, the ACLU, every 527 liberal group and cause, they would have the money to invest in the company.

[OldFriend]

Let Kerry get on the bandwagon. He can explain why it was a bailout before it wasn't a bailout.

OF COURSE IT'S A BAILOUT

[ken5050]

Please add me to your ping list.. thanks..

[apackof2]

I am employed by a large corporation that makes vehicles.

Ditto, add me to your list, thanks

[stocksthatgoup]

Following on the heels of a third-quarter loss of US$284m, Ford plans to cut 10% of its North American white-collar workforce. This would translate into 4,000 jobs being axed, the majority of which would occur in the first quarter of 2006,

[stocksthatgoup]

Even the "poorest" Michiganian to make the Forbes top 10 list, William Ford Sr., has a net worth of $1 billion. Ford is the family patriarch presiding over the Ford Motor Co. and the owner of the Detroit Lions.

If this guy can't manage to put a football team on the field, why should we trust him with taxpayer money?

[Piquaboy]

Yeah! We really need to pay for union workers health care. What a crock of BS.

[afz400]

Seems like the last time we did this (early 1980s) we imposed import quotas on foreign cars, which only increased the interest and demand for Japanese cars in the US. Ford and GM kept on making crappy cars while the CEOs pocketed millions. Japan reinvested their profits and started making large luxury cars that weren't gas guzzlers. Now it seems we have lost the large truck market it to them as well.
So Ford wants taxpayer money to start building hybrids? Guess what - the Japs have new non hybrid engines in the works that will make hybrids obsolete. We are such fools that it seems deliberate.
Why can't Ford and GM at least just steal ideas from Japan like they do to us? How can anyone make a more boring car than a Toyota Corolla? Answer - GM.

[nmh]

This is ridiculous!

Name ANOTHER business that SCREWS up and has OUR government bailing them out.

They deserve the SAME fate as other businesses that screw up - go out of business or sharpen up in business.

[kpp_kpp]

management of most companies (esp large enterprises) these days is "in it" for the money for themselves with very little interest in the long term viability of the companies they run or the community they exist within. they take $ (cash) out well beyond what should be rewarded for their work, the spend capital on things that are obvious (with just a tad of common sense) are not going to return, and yes they give some charitably -- for tax purposes not for charity purposes.

as the disease spreads that is what ultimately will bankrupt the U.S.

i am very pro-capitalist... i think small businesses are what keeps this country running. but big businesses and the associated unethical detachment from responsibility are what is driving this country into the ground (the gov itself being the biggest of big businesses).

[Dark Skies]

Of course being employed by a failing business is painful for families as well as creditors and investors. But what makes America strong is that good businesses are rewarded and poor ones are penalized.

All businesses must face the music. Otherwise, the buggy and whip industries would still be around. By letting the auto industry and its unions face the music, new opportunities will emerge to replace them.

By bailing them out, we are putting a failed system on life support.

While it may seem frightening, the capitalist system must be allowed to run its course. It is that system that provides the engine for jobs...not the U.S. government.

[RichardW]

I just bought a new Ford Escape Hybrid. Ping me.

[Cinnamon]

It's a Bailout

[glorgau]

The latest set of Ford ads with the family scion trying to be like Lia Iacocca are hilarious. When I saw those for the first time - 4 color, 2 page center spread in section 1 of the Wall Street Journal, I just thought "Wow, they must really be in trouble". The whole "quality is US" or whatever it's callled smacks of desperation and lack of imagination.