“Ford is in worse financial shape,” NO! They make it, then they take it away

Oct 8, 2007

Ford is well under way with its own copy of GM’s tricky script. The day after the GM-UAW contract settlement was announced, newspaper articles read, “Ford is in worse financial shape,” and “Ford may seek deeper cuts.”

Ford has been pretending financial trouble even though it has nearly 40 billion dollars in ready cash. Actually Ford Motor Co. has much more money than that. It’s just in other places. The company makes the money, and then they take it out.

For instance, depending on which of Ford’s various press releases one reads, in 2000 Ford Motor Company paid out a special dividend of somewhere between 10 and 20 billion dollars in cash and stock to the Ford family and other major stockholders.

Judge them by their actions – not their words

Ford in trouble? It has no trouble putting its private fleet of jets at the disposal of CEO Alan Mulally and his family and friends. It has no trouble paying Mulally 39.1 million dollars in cash, stock and perks for four months of work in 2006.

Judge people by their actions – not their words.