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To: MoneyPenny who wrote (13545)	10/16/2004 2:38:31 PM
From: TH	Respond to of 116555

Money Penny, DORF, that is too funny! One of my favorite Ford stories take place back in the early 90's. I did a lot of business with the Kentucky plant where they produced Rangers and Explorers. At the time, this was the fastest production line in the world, at 89.5 jobs per hour. We were on a tour with the LAP plant manager and some bigwigs from one of my parent companies in Japan (I worked for a JV at the time). The plant manager is rambling on about how great Ford is, blah blah blah, and we walk up behind this UAW worker who is reading Playboy and eating a sandwich, ALL WHILE DOING HIS JOB. He had timed it so he could let the line advance two units, then he would jump up and double-time his nut-driver and then sit back down and repeat. Embarrassing as hell for that Ford plant manager. I checked back a few weeks later and that guy still had his job and was still doing it, but with a different magazine! 30 and out is mostly over. I'm not sure of the most recent details, but the days of stock matching and grade 8 millionaires are history. Ford and GM still have very attractive retirement plans, but nothing like the period from 1960 to 1995. Pretty hard to lose when Ford was matching your stock purchases. I have a family member who was set for life at 53. He went out and got a consulting job of sorts and double-dipped for the next ten years. Number of months that Ford projected an employee would live after retirement was incorrect. There was a time during the hard living 60's, 70's, and 80's where the average number of retirement checks was only 26 months. The pensions will sink them. Good Trading TH