Tomorrow is a big day for Ford employees. The very future of the company is in the balance. Will it be enough? Will the OsMan keep his job, or will he finally have a reason to head east and strap on an explosive belt? Stay tuned, news at 11.


'Black Monday' looms over Ford's future

Ten plants, 25,000 jobs ride on Bill Ford's 'Way Forward' strategy to be announced Monday.

Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News
January 22, 2006


Ford Motor Co. workers already have a name for tomorrow.

"It's Black Monday," said Mark Mockaitis, a line worker at Ford's assembly plant in St. Paul, Minn.

Like workers from Wixom to St. Louis to Mexico, Mockaitis is anxiously awaiting Monday morning when Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Ford Jr. takes the podium in Dearborn to outline a massive restructuring plan he calls the "Way Forward."

As The Detroit News first reported Dec. 7, Ford will shutter at least 10 assembly and parts plants and cut at least 25,000 blue-collar jobs in North America over the next five years, according to people familiar with the plan.

The automaker also plans to cut 4,000 salaried jobs by April 1. The layoffs begin this week. Ford also will commit to reducing its number of top executives by March 1.

It's not only going to be Black Monday for Ford but for a lot of folks in the 'Market'.
Believe I might have made the first good call in a long time as I've shifted a lot into Bonds as of early last week *fingers crossed*

Who buys Fords and Chevrolets now, or Mercurys, Lincolns, Cadillacs, Chryslers, and Dodges? The tombstones in the auto graveyard now include Oldsmobile and Plymouth (remember them?). I think these cars are mostly bought by employees of the companies, rental car fleets (buying at near cost to the maker), and Pearl Harbor survivors who think it's treasonous to buy a Honda made in Ohio.

It's the SUV's that have made big profits for the Little 3 automakers in recent years. And SUV's get as little as 9 miles per gallon, and their sales have nosedived.

Have you tried to drive a GM rental car in the last ten years? Ergonomically, they are a nightmare out of the 1960's. Buttons that all feel the same, push the switch down to make the window go up, take your eyes off the road just to find a control button - you'd swear that the American designers have never ridden in a Japanese car. And while reliability has dramatically increased (thanks in large part to consumers who read "Consumer Reports"), the Americans have been breathlessly running after a moving target, so that a simple Toyota or Honda car seems to be unbreakable.

If I recall the announcement by Ford correctly, its North American operations still run at a deficit, and only the rest of the global operations generate profits. I'm in Thailand, and one of the rarest animals of all is the nearly extinct automobilus americanus. I've seen Rovers, Protons, Vauxhalls and Mercedes, but virtually no Fords besides a classic Mustang. But Thailand does have a brand new badge of car now: something called "shove-row-lett." It's not an American made Chevrolet.

I have used Chrysler minivans since 1991. I am currently using a 2002 T&C Limited, and love it! No problems. I find the workmanship to be superior, with the only weaknesses being perhaps the paint job, which tends to peel over time, and the transmission, which only lasted me 164,000 miles on my last one. I was hoping for 250,000.

Chrysler practically invented the modern minivan, and makes the best ones. I tried to get my daughter to buy a minivan or a station wagon, but she lives in one of these soccer mom suburbs (in fact, she IS a soccer Mom). They bought a late model Toyota SUV, and a very old Range Rover. She said, "Daddy, in this neighborhood, nobody buys VANS!" Yet, the first wreck she had was in our VW Microbus van.

I work out of mine, and still want luxury to go along with it. The T&C really fits the bill here. It looks sharp and has all the bells and whistles, short of a GPS system, which I would never use anyway. I used to teach map reading in the military, so If I can't find it on a map, I am screwed anyway.

But what I can get with this van, that I simply cannot get with any other vehicle is the most wonderful sound system out there. I chose to retain the origional sound system, since it is hooked up to my steering wheel controls and Infinity speakers.

But what I added was a 12" JBL subwoofer, with active crossover and 160 watt RMS into 4 ohms continuous amp. It is incorperated into one of my tool boxes in the rear, and is braced as a 1.5 cu ft enclosure. the sound is simply breathtaking!

Here is why. The distance from front to rear of the vehicle is about 11 ft. If you want to figure out how low you can go, you have to use some basic math. The speed of sound is approximately 1130 ft/sec, depending on elevation. Now, since a human can only hear about 1/4 wavelength, you can figure out how low you can go in the vehicle.

Divide the 1130 by 4, to get the quarter wavelength, which is 302.5. then divide that by the 11 feet length of the vehicle and you come up with 25.68 hz. That is how low I can go and still hear it. And the enclosure is so rigid that there is absolutely no distortion or rattling. It is awesome! So much so that I have to keep the amp on "2" out of "10" and cut down the bass on my receiver to absolute zero gain. It still tends to be too much some times.

Now that is another reason why I love my minivan.

Beautiful car, sound system, etc. But getting back to the point - playfully - what size is the engine, and what's your gas mileage?

It's a 3.8 litre engine, which is bigger than my last one, which was a 3.3 litre. I only get about 18 mpg on the open road, and about 16 mpg in the city. The last one got me almost 22 mpg on the open road, and a strong 18 mpg in the city.

I have learned to keep my trips organized and don't scoot around as I once used to do, so I don't spend any more on gasoline as before.

Also, I shop on the internet more than I used to do. It's cheaper and keeps me off the road, and out of more danger. In truth, I would grocery shop over the internet if it were possible. Seriously!

BTY, getting off track, I also have a special line in installed into my head unit, that allows me to play Mp3 players, portable CD players, etc, out of the car stereo. I don't like that quality coming out of the Mp3 playere, so I am going to get one of those nice Sony Portable CD players that will also play Mp3 CDs. Then I can really have all my music at my finger tips.


Oh, one other wonderful thing is the ease of getting in and out of the van. I sit up high enough to see the road well, and I simply can't stand getting in and out of regular passenger cars. YOu have to practically be a contortionist to use those things.

My 82 year old mother loves the T&C so much that she is going to get one too. She bought a 2005 Buick last year just after having one of her knees replaced. She hates it, for the same reason I do, and now that she just had her second knee replaced, is going to go out and pick up a T&C, once he is able to move around better.

Really, JohnL, that's not bad mileage, although you can't brag about it nowadays. I had a couple of fullsize Ford Country Squires with the 390 engine. Driving flat out across the high desert of Mexico, fully loaded, it would try to upshift at 90mph! In town, it got about 10, on the highway maybe 14.

And we're getting back to the topic: some reasonably large American sedans are geared at the drive axle to have excessive overdrive. When I borrow my buddy's sedan, or rent one, I can get 30 mpg on a midsize car, on the interstate. That was unheard of 20 years ago.

Having said that, however, I'll repeat that the drivers of the USA are not ready for teeny two-seat econoboxes with 60 horsepower and 68 miles per gallon. They're too spoiled for that.

I get 69 miles per gallon in MY Honda, but it's a 150cc sportbike.

There is more to it than that. Most people do not like the idea of being the first person at the scene of the accident. Also, once the accident has occurred, the idea of being buried, bug and all, does not leave one with a sence of accomplishment.



If economy is your "bag", then you may be on to something. I listened to Clark Howard, on his radio show, talk about his little scooter, and I can't fathom anyone willing to mount up on something that fragile, slow, and vulnerable to elements AND careless drivers. I can honestly say from experience, that jumping out of airplanes is far safer than what you are doing.


Of course, in Thailand, if everyone uses those things, then there are not many big automobiles to worry about.

My only defense about motorcycle safety in Thailand, in my case, is that I have the fastest, most controllable two-wheeler made in Thailand. But it's very, very dangerous.

We're not disagreeing, are we, John L? Bush can't be serious about energy dependence (very little oil comes from the Arabian countries now, anyway). He's a failed oilman himself!! I don't see the Presidential staff running around in small cars, and Air Force One isn't economical. They still want to open the Arctic wild lands for oil exploration, but the tar sands in the USA and Alberta are a long way from being commercially viable. It was all just rhetoric, and I don't understand why his speech writers even bothered, since it doesn't make "Green Party" folks vote Republican.

Ford Motor Co., which only recently made an SUV (I think the Expedition) that weighed in at around 6,000 pounds. Perhaps their answer is the "Escape." But General Motors seems closer to the grave. They can't sell enough cars at a decent net profit margin, to fund their retirement plans.

I believe that you have this backwards. They are unable to keep up with the retirement/pension funding in order to make their sales of automobiles profitable. That is their real problem. GM AND Ford are two of the biggest Welfare states in the world, and both are failing.

Here, [ulr=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901385.html]read this article by George Will.[/url]