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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (69958)	9/19/2006 4:15:00 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

my interpretation when i first heard that report was that it was F's attempt to unshackle itself from ALL of its union labor contracts

To: ild who wrote (69958)	9/19/2006 11:50:46 PM
From: TH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Hello ild, Ford is not planning to close all of its factories. Ford, like GM, knows that only a percentage of union and salary workers will accept the buyout offer. After the buyout window closes, Ford will make final decisions about which plants to close and probably work with the union to move remaining workers to staff the remaining open plants. As they are trying to reduce overall headcount even at the plants that remain open, this may not be a difficult task. The mood inside Ford is not positive. The white collar workers know that they are exposed to cuts until March 2007. If they do not meet the 10K target reduction of white collar workers by accepted buyouts/early retirement, more headcutting will result. The cuts this past January were painful, with some departments being told, "cut 20% now". Many skilled people were gone overnight. My business was/is active on three projects at Ford. One is currently in production and two are in development. My best guess is that the two that are in development as advanced engineering validations are going to fall into the abyss. There will not be enough people to advance them internally and those that remain will not be willing to roll the dice on a new and "risky" process (which is quite absurd, as the main "new" process we are promoting has been actively used in Europe for more than 17 years). Now that "Bug Eyes" Bill Ford Jr. is done steering the ship into the rocks, maybe Ford will get some real direction. Growing grass on the roofs of your factory was a stupid Bill Ford Jr idea that epitomizes the short-sightedness of Jr. Why didn't Jr. really embrace alternative energy powertrains and attack conservation from a meaningful perspective? Answer: Jr is a member of the lucky sperm club and dumb as a brick. Kinda like our president. Even with the new plan, Ford is acting like a loser. How good is a business model that is planning to lose more market share and bleed massive amounts of cash for two more years. Then again, maybe this is the best of all possible worlds for Ford at this juncture. GT TH