[Fyscat]

bump for later reading

[uncitizen]

Unions are taking out another of America's oldest corporations (the entire industry for that matter).

[Willie Green]

The author of this article has an antiquated perspective of the global automotive cartel.
GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Toyota and Volkswagen are the transnational giants of this cartel.
Most other automotive companies are merely puppets with incestuously entangled financial ties back to one of these Big Five.
The annual revenues of these transnational corporations exceeds the GDP of many developed nations. As such, their financial influence corruptly distorts and dictates national policies to the detriment of citizens those governments supposedly represent.

[Hatteras]

I do hope they can hold off until after they build my 2004/5 GT Ragtop...

[Petronski]

As though the government woudln't bail them out....sheesh.

[q_an_a]

I did not read all the FACTS this man presents, but he said Nissan is a por second to Toyota. I wonder where he puts HOnda. Then he forgets that the Tauras seems to be in the top three or four cars sold and that Fords truck and SUV business piles the cash into the company, so what is wrong has something do do not with sales or market share.

I'd say that this kind of thinking could rank up next to my weather man.

[js1138]

Oddly enough, success in the automobile industry is determined by producing cars people want to buy -- and buyers are not always completely rational. Chrystler was bailed out, but had the good fortune to get a CEO who saw the marketing trend. I can't think of a Ford product I would buy. Heck, I have trouble thinking of a Ford product, other than its trucks.

[smalltown]

Nonsense. Consider the source.

(The Bear's Lair is a weekly column which is intended to appear each Monday, an appropriately gloomy day of the week. Its rationale is that, in the long '90's boom, the proportion of "sell" recommendations put out by Wall Street houses declined from 9 percent of all research reports to 1 percent, and has only modestly rebounded since. Accordingly, investors have an excess of positive information and very little negative information. The column thus takes the ursine view of life and the market, in the hope that it may be usefully different from what investors see elsewhere.)

[P.O.E.]

My wife wants us to buy one of these:

But I'm Buying American this time around.

[Dog Gone]

Ford's problem is that the CEO is a leftist wacko. It was doing pretty good until he took over. Leftists ruin businesses. See Loral and Time-Warner.

[gcruse]

Too many heated adjectives in the article. I don't trust the expertise of people who feel they need hot rhetoric to make a point.

[Dan from Michigan]

Jaques Nassar is a major reason for Ford's ails.

Good riddance to him.

[newgeezer]

In the recession that began in 2000, and was delayed through 2002 in the automotive industry by aggressive "zero percent financing" deals and very low interest rates, the eventual sales downturn is likely to be severe, perhaps as severe as in 1978-82.

On the upside, this should give the used-car market a chance to rebound. Since the mfrs. have been selling their new ones so aggressively, used car prices have been weak.

[Thommas]

... the rise of the ugly, dangerous and catastrophically fuel-guzzling sports utility vehicle, after all, was the result of a fuel efficiency standard mandated by government, from which SUVs, as "trucks" were exempt.

Ooooooooooh! What a gratuitous slap in the testicles this statement conveys. I thought I bought my SUV's because they carried people (my kids, parents, boy scouts, soccer & basketball teams) safely and efficiently.

It is interesting how the enviro propaganda slides into so many otherwise informative screeds.

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

I've owned two Fords and they were both TERRIBLE vehicles. I'll never own another one. I hate to say it, Freepers, but I take solice in NOT buying American Vehicles. My experiences have been less than fantastic and my foreign vehicles (Nissan Sentra, Hyundia Sonata, Volkswagen Jetta, Mazda Miata) have all been very reliable.

The only exception if my Fiance's Escort ZX2, but it happened to have been manufactured on the Mazda line outside of the United States.

Blame it on the Unions, or whatever you will, but I've been done with American cars for years. I added Daimler/Chrysler to the list when they gave money to Je$$e Jack$on. I added VW when Germany started to speak out. I guess I'm stuck with Japanese and Korean cars, now. =) If things get any worse, I'll be riding a bicycle.