Discussion on:

Ford's tremendous turnaround, complete

...when it was trading for about $1, and GM went bankrupt.

Your throwaway "As the companys European operations bear further economic distress, it couldnt come at a better time." shows you need to do some basically better fundamental journalism, research and fact checking. Ford's European operation is still hemorrhaging money, not 'bearing economic distress'.

They are basically closing even profitable and/or efficient factories, like the Van Works in Southampton in the UK, and the mid-range car plant in Genk, Belgium and shipping much of the work off to Spain where the can get away with paying cheaper wages due to the economic catastrophe there.

If Ford US pick up this trait, all Ford US manufacturing operations will be transferred to Mexico or Brazil.

Much of Ford;s distress was caused by them living the economic bu115hit dream of GW Bush and Clinton's era and instead of overhauling their core businesses, they pissed billions of dollars down the toilets into ill-conceived mis-adventures like buying Volvo Cars, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Landrover and creating the abortion that was autonomous business called Ford Premier Automotive Group.

So inept were Ford's Senior management that almost as soon as Jaguar Landrover were sold off after loosing billions, and for next to nothing to Tata Auto of India, they started making money again and are a star in tata's Global business portfolio.

Instead of talking about the bull$hit dream of Bush and Clinton, why don't you concentrate on eliminating the bull$hit that exists in your comments.

such as..............

Ford, Chrysler and GM were all guilty of it, as to an extent were BMW and Mercedes (anyone remember Daimler Chrysler) - all burned huge piles of cash trying to buy market share, instead of addressing the core problems (to greater or lesser extents depending on which company you are talking about) around quality, design, engineering, working practices, inefficiency, inept executive management - see Honda and Toyota for some case studies here on how to do it right.

The Ford PAG was one of the largest bonfires of shareholder value/cash ever seen, the likes of only has only recently resurfaced at again at RIM and Nokia.

Neither Bush, nor Clinton, were directly responsible for the crappy conditions of our car companies, but, the one company which opted to forego the government assistance, is now the one in a superior economic condition. Government intrusion into the market, is never fruitful or helpful, and eventually does more harm than good.

Ford passed on government assistance because they were in better shape, not the other way around. Ford management saw that a downturn was sure to come and made sure they had the liquidity to cope - proves nothing about the merits of government intervention.

You're right that who was President had nothing to do with it, though; the business culture just went insane, still hasn't fully recovered. The lesson of Ford is that if you plan for the future there's a better chance that you'll have one. Many in the business community are failing to get that.

you say that, I've got it wrong?!?

Ford didn't need government assistance, and opted to not get it when it was offered.

My other point still stands, and can't be disputed, that, when government gets involved in the running of a business, nothing good will come of it. Of the many "green energy" companies that big government, aka: Obama, assisted, 50 of them have been utter failures. GM and Chrysler are not going to recover from the basket cases which they've become, since, the same people that turned them into failures, are still running them, namely, the unions, through government forced restructuring.

So the Fed bailout of the US banks and AIG, and the Quantative Easing Policies are wrong, and they should have been allowed to collapse, taking the Global Economy with it...........

Not saying the blank cheque they were written is entirely right.

What the public want is some Banker jail-time for law-breakers and fraudsters.

Intrusion is sometimes necessary, but best avoided if possible.

Ford may be in a superior position to GM/Chrysler, but that does not detract from the fact that their SMT over the 90's and 2000's pi55ed $$billions down the toilet on their completely dumb-ass Ford Premier Automotive Empire, instead of addressing the core problems within the company so they would be in a better position to take on Toyota, Honda and Nissan. The Ford business re-engineering, now well under way, is about 15 years late IMHO. If they had started it in the 90's shaking out waste, bad practice, poor quality etc they would be a global rival to Toyota and VW and their peers.

Ford are between 5th and 8th largest manufacturer (depending on where you look) after Toyota, VW, GM, Hyundai/Kia, Honda and around the same as Peugoet/Citrown, Nissan and Suzuki

The truth is that this has been a dismal earnings season for all US multinational companies, and they all point to Europe as a major cause. Even GM has been hit hard by poor European performance ( http://www.ibtimes.com/general-motors-earnings-preview-european-losses-cutting-profit-855916 ).

In case you haven't been paying attention, Europe is teetering on financial collapse because of decades of government debt caused by massive social spending. Even Germany is beginning to feel the pressure because it cannot support the rest of Europe.

I completely agree with your assessment on the economic factors, and the European factors.

But, most of the blame for the conditions of "our" car companies, lies with them and with government intervention in their management, and with unions becoming the de-facto decision makers for them, and of course, the massive number of regulations that those car companies have to deal with, and, very importantly, the high taxes that those companies have to pay to uncle same and other local and state entities.

I am glad that the US car manufacturers are doing better, GM and Chrysler still have a ways to go before they are fully recovered. Ford seemed to have been better prepared to recover from the nastiest economic downturn; although they may have been preparing for a different scenario before the last recession.

You actually make it appear really easy with your image and writing presentation but I to find this topic to be really one thing that I think I might never understand. It seems too complicated and very huge for me. Im taking a look forward in your subsequent put up, Ill try to get the hang of it! I had newly opened ford falcon fairlane ea-eb-ed ellery. Thanks