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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (442229)	12/23/2008 1:48:11 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575914

I suppose it depends on your definition of "close". Labor is supposed to account for 10% of the cost of the vehicle. Which puts it in that ballpark. There you go, changing the subject again. We were talking about whether there is enough variability between product lines that a $10B loss by Ford implies that they're losing money on every F150 they sell. He says it doesn't, I say it does. He claimed it doesn't because the F150's R&D amortization is nil. I say that while it is likely the F150's R&D is less than some other vehicles because of the number sold, it isn't enough to make the vehicle profitable when sales tank and fixed operating costs are, well, fixed. They're losing money on every vehicle they sell. That might not be the case if they were losing ONE billion, but when they're losing TEN billion, every vehicle is generating a loss at the margin. I have not followed Ford or studied their financial statements, however, I believe from eyeballing various media accounts, the financial statements will bear out what I'm saying.