{"id":3967,"date":"2009-01-13T08:30:51","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T13:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3967"},"modified":"2009-01-12T19:05:36","modified_gmt":"2009-01-13T00:05:36","slug":"ford-takes-the-high-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3967","title":{"rendered":"Ford Takes The High Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

…and finds the government stopped paving it, in favor of the low road.<\/p>\n

General Motors and Chrysler flew their private jets to Washington to beg for some cheese.<\/p>\n

Congress said “No.” George W. Bush said “Yes.”<\/p>\n

So they got it, along with all the “strings.”<\/p>\n

Ford said “No, thanks” and sent in their offense, announcing new energy-efficient and technologically-advanced\u00a0models and boasting of higher quality and industry publication endorsements.<\/p>\n

And now they want to kick some Detroit rear quarter panels. They want the Big Three to become The Big Ford.<\/p>\n

Company insiders say<\/a> the overarching goal was to separate Ford in the public mind from General Motors (GM) and Chrysler. As the crisis afflicting the auto industry has deepened, Mulally & Co. have gone out of their way to convince car buyers that Ford is stronger, greener, and more technologically advanced than those other guys. Executive Chairman William C. Ford Jr. sees an advantage if “people view us as a company that pulled itself up by its own bootstraps.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At a time when GM’s and Chrysler’s financing arms have been hard-pressed to make loans to potential buyers, Ford has been using television, online, and radio ads to remind the world that it has money to lend. And executives have been falling over themselves to promote Ford’s kudos from Consumer Reports<\/em>, which this month noted that of eight new Detroit cars it recommends, six are Fords or Ford brands.<\/p>\n

In a dismal fourth quarter, it notes, only Ford, Honda (HMC), and Toyota increased their market share among the top six carmakers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet?<\/p>\n

This\u00a0is why the President should have respected Congress’ and the people’s rejection of the bailout:<\/p>\n

But GM, in exchange for federal help, likely will swap equity for debt and may emerge with a stronger balance sheet. By taking the high road, Ford could find itself at a competitive disadvantage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

President Bush in one fell swoop turned the American automotive industry upside down by rewarding failure and inadvertently but predictably penalizing success. Contrary to President Bush’s assertions otherwise, in the long run you can’t protect capitalism by abandoning free-market principles; especially to this magnitude.<\/p>\n

GM and Chrysler should have been allowed to fail.<\/p>\n

Ford Motor may find this out the hard way thanks to President Bush. Our nation may found out the hard way thanks to the President-Elect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…and finds the government stopped paving it, in favor of the low road. General Motors and Chrysler flew their private jets to Washington to beg for some cheese. Congress said “No.” George W. Bush said “Yes.” So they got it, along with all the “strings.” Ford said “No, thanks” and sent in their offense, announcing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-socialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}