Anybody else watch the news? Ford losing billions

[Mr 5 0]

Originally Posted by 1SVT2NV

Its the old theory make them think your weak when your strong. Do you think ford could afford to spend billions developing the ford gt if they were going out of buisness. or even cars like the svt cobra. ford has had the number one selling pickup 30 years running. dont believe everything you hear my friend. Ive worked for ford I know how things are going. Same thing goes for gm. its all hype. It pushes americans into buying domestic to protect our economy

Well, we're all entitled to our opinions but I have to disagree with this one. Ford sales are down 20% and their stock is shaky - but it's all 'hype'? That makes no sense. People buy cars and if Ford can't sell as many of their cars as Toyota, etc then they lose market share. That isn't hype, it's simply economics.

A new car - foreign or domestic - now costs an average of $29,000. A 2007 Mustang V-8 coupe has an MSRP of almost $26,000. and goes out the door for about $2,000. less, not including state sales taxes. I seriously doubt that any notable portion of the car-buying public is going to feel sorry for Ford (or GM or Chrysler) and start buying domestic cars that they don't really want and that take a good chunk of a years pay to purchase, out of sheer patriotism. That's ridiculous.

Ford truck sales are important but they have also fallen, as have SUV sales. Foreign manufacturers, mainly the Japanese, are making steady inroads on this particular market segment. As I stated in an earlier post, truck/SUV sales are only one portion of a large market and, alone, cannot save Ford, a company that hasn't made a profit for almost two years.

I don't know what kind of optimistic fairy tales (let's just call it 'hype') the company feeds Ford employees, who are likely to lose a lot of their cushy benefits in future Ford-UAW negotiations, but if I worked there, I would ignore the "we're just pretending to go broke to get sympathy" line and start looking for another job. But that's just me.