Is the Canadian People's Car Co. (the CPC) going to be handing out dividends soon?

ROFL

Not very surprising........... ok not surprising in the least.

And so far as Ford goes? Manage your company well, create a product that people want to buy (the F series trucks saved that company IMO) and you will succeed.

Never a huge fan of big 3 products, but now the chance of me buying a vehicle from GM or Chrysler?

0

The market has spoken.

Those that can stand on their own will thrive.

Those whose future will be directed by bureaucrats will die.

The economy is bouncing back. Not all of us work for Ontario car manufacturers.

I've purchased many new and used vehicles in the past 30 years and 100% of them were manufactured by one of the "Big 3", with the majority being GM products (the most recent was an '09 Buick Enclave). In the early years, this was due to availability but later on, it was because I felt that we should try to support our domestic auto industry. After purchasing the Enclave in December 08 and then further funding the company with tax dollars, I can honestly say I'm done with GM. From now on, the only domestic vehicle I would consider would be a Ford and I surely don't feel any compulsion to support anyone. I don't get anything like the CAW and UAW perqs. If the auto company management wants to cower to those unions instead of running their companies prudently, they can have at it. I can't control how many tax dollars they get but I can control the little bit of disposable income I have left.

When I learned that the money given to GM and Chrysler in the US was mainly to shore up their pension liabilities and not for running the business and refining product lines it told me one thing for certain, never again will I buy one of their products. I will step over starving greedy union workers with an armful of food and feed a stray dog but they will never see another penny of mine.

Ford will continue to pull ahead as those makers firmly attached to the government teat become further controlled by political interests and whose products become increasingly expensive to market.

Eleven(11) new GM products in my lifetime - Now they can kiss my a$$

On Friday in Jarvis Ontario I chanced to see a 1961 Anglia in pristine, perfect original condition. This is a tiny four seat car with a minuscule Mickey Mouse watch motor. It was driving through Jarvis on #3 because it was too wheezy to keep up on the 401.

http://corrie.j.tripod.com/my105e/

The Anglia's proud owner assured me it was most likely the only one left in Canada, as they all rotted away by about 1968. Awesome little car for tooling off to the car show in 2009, terrifying death trap as a daily driver in 1961.

This is exactly what GM is going to come up with for its new O-Mobile, except theirs will be shaped like an egg. Or possibly a bar of soap.

Bar of soap jokes entirely appropriate for this situation.

Payment being received by the UAW for putting Obama in power.

anyone notice that GM dropped the pontac vibe ? as Toyota makes the identical matrix, I can see that GM cannot make any money on this excellent , in-demand product - in other words, they CANNOT compete - we have just flushed way too many billions down the black (is this pc ?) hole

ooof

One business commentator on the radio said that the Ford Fusion sold more cars than all of the Chryco models put together.

Ford also scored big time when they were smart enough to bring out the retro-look Mustang, with a total modern running gear.

Nice to see Ford benefitting from their vision.

I've bought Japanese autos since the 80s - never have looked at a North American car - my next new car (ca 2020) will very likely be a Ford, for a variety of reasons

I have a Pontiac Sunfire, nice little car, no major problems and it is 12 yrs old. What will be my next choice? Back to Ford, I would rather support a company that does not hold it hand out, looking for taxpayers money.

Bought an '09 Escape Limited a few months back, after deciding the luxury level was comparable to the 3-series Bimmer and the C-series Mercedes we also looked at, once you factor in future repair costs and the zero percent financing.

It joins an '01 Escape in the family, and replaces the '07 Honda Civic that wasn't practical for us.

(You can add a '97 Explorer and a '92 Ranger to my stable, but those have moved on to other garages.)

Anyways, this proves to me that I made the right choice in domestic vehicles.

scanoo, you will never see a Pontiac vibe again either. Or any Pontiac. That is one of the four GM brands that bit the dust. "ONLY" Chev, GM, Buick and Cadilac left now.

Heard on Speed last night that one of the big race team owners bought out Saturn. Roger Penske I think it was.

Social engineered vehicles. Cool.

A family friend who immigrated from England once let slip that he had worked on the the line over there at GM Vauxhall cars years ago building the Victor model. This brought out hoots of derision about the fate the badly made cars suffered when the Canadian climate and salted winter roads got at them after they were sold here. He told us that fact also had been looked into before exports had started and a study paper had said proper rustproofing could have been done at the factory for less than $5 a unit but was nixed. Sort of showed where the top priorities have always been at GM.

When Vauxhall credibility died here thanks to the Victor fiasco you could buy a brand new Cresta 6 at a dealer close out for less than $2000. And they were excellent cars made to sell for a lot more.

I spend considerable time watching this disaster at The Truth About Cars. The obozo supporters insist it will be better run than before*, and politics will play no role! Not at all! Then, when confronted with meddling like this, they fire back by saying that the government owns it, so it has a right to stick a hand in. They never see a contradiction in this.

* - they usually say it couldn't be worse. Actually, due to the demands of electoral politics and the uaw, i think it could be. At least GM was trying to be profitable, I have no idea what the current management will try to be.

Happy to say one of those Fords is mine. New f150 Lariat. Love it. First Ford I ever owned and it wont be the last. Not taking the bailout sealed the deal for me, plus they were far more aggressive in pursuing my business than GM or Chrysler.

Sgt Lejaune,

I had access to a '63 Victor in the early 70's.
Great little car, 3-on-the-tree, 4dr, 30+mpg
Got across the prairies to Jasper and back to T.B.
(after replacing the generator [yipes] and a battery clamp that shorted out on the hood!)

motoring was an adventure back then..........

I have spent 40 yrs. in construction. I have only ever bought and driven North American cars.
I am an economic nationalist. I find it amazing that so many people would spend their money on foreign vehicles. When you see how the Japanese companies are buying land in North America to build plants you do not seem to realize that they are simply repatriating the money that they have acquired to buy our countries out from under us.
If you replace high paying jobs with low paying jobs you are giving away the country to those who have no vested interest in our way of life.
The more money that is available for "discretionary" spending is what keeps our standard of living high. Lowering our standard of living is exactly what the "powers that be" are working hard to achieve. With the tax and scam legislation that is being enacted both in U.S.A. and Canada we will not have as much discretionary money available. This will make it far more difficult for ordinary people to advance their standard of living and we will all lose out in the long run. Just my opinion, of course.

Just one more reason why GM and Chryco are doomed - the BO administration will keep them on life support until 2012, but they will be DOA at that point. It is the financial equivalent of the Vietnam quagmire - America can build world class cars, but bureaucratic meddling guarantees it will fail.

(keep an eye on Penske-owned Saturn - they could rock things in the next few years...)

PhilK:

economic nationalism is a loser strategy. It makes the domestic manufacturers lazy. If you apply you rules to all products we would be eating bananas grown in a leamington greenhouse, and camaera made in vancouver. And we probabaly wouldn't because we couldn't afford them because we would all be so much poorer in that isolationist world.

And I would remind you that determining which cars have the greatest North aMerican content is very difficult to do - some toyotas and hondas have far more 'domestic' inputs than competing GM product.

Same here Erik. I've only owned two cars in my life, both were from Japanese manufacturers. I was looking at purchasing an additional vehicle from one of the North American manufacturers. After this garbage with GM, Chrylser, and the unions, I've decided that Ford is the only manufacturer I'm willing to give my money to. I'd imagine many others feel the same.

I live 2 minutes from a Chrysler plant and this what I see when I open my front door.......

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q315/metricmonkey/Pickemup.jpg

i can honestly say i love gm product's especially the corvette ....un fortunatley like most people i cannot in good concience rewards layziness,unaccountability,or incompetince ..i truley had no i dea how thuggish the c.a.w. was nor did i know that they used to make 65/hr putting lugnuts on a sunfire ...and even now 57/hr is way more than what i make ...and the liberals in ontairion and the cbc should be completley ashamed of themselves for airing all of this winy windbag ..ohh no what am i going to do i lost everything .....well 114k/ year and you can set your self up you deserve to be out of that job ...and i will from now on only bye ford product's or something else ...i beleive ford did the right thing and led the way ..and iti s way to bad that gm and chrysler were to week kneed to restructre the company ..what an embarassment.

to Gord Tulk
I reject your arguments as being specious.
To say that "bananas grown in a Leamington greenhouse" is comparable to the apples and oranges type of debate. You are ignoring the idea that North American manufacturing is a viable industry and we cannot compete with the sweatshops of East Asia. You seem to be willing to ignore the the benefits of our system of Health and Safety enforcement as opposed to the conditions prevalent in China and Korea.
You're idea that Toyota and Honda have more "doemestic input" than G.M." still goes back to selling our country out to them. Globalization only benefits the companies that are willing to sell our nations to make a buck.
I don't have a problem with North American vehicles having less "domestic" content because I drive classic cars that have 100% North American content. I have not and will not drive a "Rice Burner".

last two rides were porsches....a 911S and a carerra...

alas i was T-boned last year ...pissed blood for a week but didn't join Elvis....

now i drive the auld woman's Geo...have no idea who makes it nor do i care....as long as it gets me to the salt mine and back on a daily basis...i do try not to think on my reduced circumstances....but i have dreams....not exactly nightmares but sad pining visions full of regret and remorse...

GM goes the way of the last socially engineered car. Volkswagon, some will see the irony others will fail miserably.

the bear, are you suggesting the USA is going the way of pre-WWII Germany?

What's the betting teh Government Motors follows the sorry history of british Leyland. Read chapters 3 & 4.

http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?wsindexf.htm

>When it was deciding where to build its new compact car, General Motors Corp. made a point of saying it would push politics aside

So how about Minsk or Pyongyang? They're both solid Dem support districts. I mean as long as we are not letting politics make the decision.

The most telling line in the article is "Anticipating higher gasoline prices, the cars will be "more and more toward the sweet spot of the market" when they roll off the assembly line sometime after 2012".

So BO will keep his promise to "bankrupt" oil companies and the result will be similar for the average family. What they don't say in the story is that these will be the only cars people can afford to drive in 2012, so we are confident they'll sell.

And yes Phantom you are right, these cars are the proverbial "soap on a rope" and the GM dealership is the common showers. Unfortunately there is no Squirrel Master to protect our virgin a..es.

In my driveway right now I have an S10 Chev, a Pontiac Sunbird and a GMC Seria.
Don't like wealfare bums.
These are the last GM's I will ever own.

It is good to reward the company that is not in your pocket. Ford appears to be a prouder company than the others who are managed by professional CEOs with only money on their mind. Whereas Ford, is a family whose name is on the product and whose family are part of management and are share holders.

I have always like the family business.

Let's see Obama fire a Ford executive.

Phil K:

Please tell me the make and model that you drive. The fact that you drive "classic" cars - which i presume means very old models means that you are not involved in the new car market. IOW you do not practice what you preach - you don't buy new cars of any make.

My bananas example is valid. Economic Nationalism is a form of protectionism. All things being equal buy local, but to discriminate against foreign product when it is either cheaper, better or both is in the long-run harmful to the local producer. And as for the 'sweatshops' argument - unless BMW's Tennessee plant is a sweatshop by your definition, then the non-big three plants in North america prove that argument to be false.

Globalization is agruably the greatest thing that has ever happened to mankind. It in the space of 30 years has lifted more than 2 billion people out of abject poverty and more than a billion up from poverty to a middle-class or better standard of living. To argue against it is to desire that these billions suffer a miserable fate and make those in the first world less prosperous from a purchasing power standpoint (which is the only really relevant metric).

To Gord Tulk
To use a plant in Tennesee as an example of a sweatshop is again mixing apples with oranges. The workers in Tennesee are covered by the applicable health and safety requirements of the state which are not used in foreign countries. Show me proof of the 2 billion people lifted out of poverty and the 1 billion who have been lifted to middle class or better standing.
Your argument about globalization is simply opinion and I find it similar to the "Science is settled" that we hear from the Gore-Bull Warming promoters.

Watch for the Obozocrats to punish Ford somehow; loved the 5 liter Mustang I had during mid-life crisis.

This from chapter 4 of thmy previous link:

A partial nationalisation of BL was proposed by Ryder, whereby the National Enterprise Board would allocate large sums of money over the next four years in order to guarantee the company’s survival. Existing shareholders would only be offered 10p per share for their holdings with a nominal value of 50p - this was down from a peak of 80p in the post-merger euphoria.

Sounds familiar??

once upon a time i was a somebody...a player....i had a presence and a certain gravitas cause Porsche is a sweet running lookin ride ...only 3000 rpm and 85 mph...with 3600 more rpm to the red line....

now?..... i'm just a drone...a lemming....a cipher....a frickin commuter......and this frickin Geo doesn't even have a radio....

that's why i have these reves of regret...of something tangible yet hidden that is lost to me forever...

blub....

I don't own a Ford but many of my neighbours work for the company so I hope they suceeed. What most of the posters fail to realize is the only reason Ford did not resort to assistance is because they mortaged the farm before the credit crunch hit. They have not taken the money...yet and are holding their breath that there is recovery soon in the auto industry. Don't be so quick to laud management.. the same bunch that bought Land Rover and Jaguar.

puddin' n pie...

yup, right down to the over printing of money.

PhilK :

You should look at buying from lower paid international workers as a form of charity if it makes you feel better. German and japanese autoworkers are paid and benefitted pretty much the same as americans and the productivity numbers don't lie - non-union workers in the us and CDa can compete with the rest of the world.

As for the billions lifted out of poverty - go look up the per capita incomes of just China and India today versus 30 years ago - there's a couple of billion worth right there. And then add in korea, brazil, russia, thailand and a few dozen other places. On a purchasing power basis they are vastly better off - not mention most have access to power and clean water whereas 30 yrs ago they didn't.

PhilK, pick up a copy of Lomborg's the skeptical environmetalist.

He covers what Gord is talking about very well, Part 1, Chapter 1, Things are getting better.

it sounds like you guys are buying into demand economy bullshit...

just allow genuine free trade to happen and things will improve naturally...

not overnight of course as you well understand...but eventually which is as it always has been...from dickens working in a bootblack factory to only India having bootblack factories...from India at 300 million population 40 years ago to one billion today because of the yanks and their hybrid seed green revolution...

patience...calm...prayers if you think they will be efficacious....remember history hasn't ended...

and ponder on the thought that being a 'poor' person today in the west usually means you're obese..

what would dickens think of that ?

a revised Dotheboy's Hall..

"please sir...can i have less?"

Ford's performance had always been underestimated. Granted that GM outsold Ford in most years since 1949--however just on the Chevrolet passenger car line. The F-Series Ford pickup outsold Chev and GMC pickups combined time and again!

Bear, you're not far off, if at all, time will tell. The parallels are numerous and I just wonder if starting another war to cover his numerous mistakes is in the works as well, wouldn’t put it past him.

The handwriting is on the wall. It's only a matter of time until the UAW/CAW calls a bitter and pointless strike against Ford, because Government Motors Sr. and Jr. (aka GM and Chrysler) will see their sales bleeding badly due to consumer distrust. If need be, Obama will give the marching orders for the strike, but I believe the UAW will have it figured out for themselves.

Look for some rumblings around early October.

My dad was a GM man and I have have always been a GM man , no longer ,done with GM, finished, Go Ford!

Mercedes Benz just had their best six months in Canada EvEr. The flight to quality is on.

Joe Citizen said: The F-Series Ford pickup outsold Chev and GMC pickups combined time and again!

Check the sales figures (Google is your friend) and you will find that at least in Canada, the reverse of what you said is the truth - Chev/GMC combined sales have been more than Ford's on the pickups for a LONG time.

Maybe GM management is saying, privately, "to hell with it. The feds have been trying to drive us under since the '70s, so we might as well go down the tubes on their dime."

Crotchrocket..... you are right. Forders fail to add Chev and GMC together.

As for GM, IF and a big if, the gov forces GM to build North American Prius' type cars I'm done with GM. But with GM unloading all their liabilities by selling all the good stuff to new GM, they cannot but make money if allowed to operate as a business in a competitive free market. GM product is good product. If I won the lottery I would have Chevy, Buick and Cadillac product in my driveway. Corvette, Camaro, Impala, Malibu, Silverado, Enclave, CTS-V, Escalade, all world class, I don't care what anyone says.

The bail out sucks, bondholders got raped. The gov is either delaying the inevitable or are truly trying to save the companies. I hope successful is the word - over time it will be worth it if the gov divests.

As for Ford, they are into a $30B line of credit negotiated over a year ago pretty deep from what I have read so I hope they can keep out of Obama Finance and the bullshit that comes with it.

The real unfortunate thing is who looks after the "old" GM with the old factories and discarded names when it goes under, the taxpayer again?

"The handwriting is on the wall. It's only a matter of time until the UAW/CAW calls a bitter and pointless strike against Ford"

Which is exactly why I sold my Ford stock.

Despite the fact I believe they have good products (I drive a Fusion) and the potential for a great future, having the gov't as their major competitor means that all (stockmarket) bets are off.

Having CAW/UAW strike against them is just too likely a bet - put them out of business and the 'domestic' market belongs de facto to Gov't Motors.

Another scenario might be having Gov't Motors doing all kinds of research and development in advance of new gov't mandates and then having them sprung on Ford in too short a timeline for them to effectively compete.

Once the gov't gets involved in the marketplace there is no way one can invest with any confidence and we're now seeing millions of investors sitting on the sidelines - which is a huge drag on the economy in and of itself.

Crotchrocketcowboy:

Got to Youtube, enter Ford vs Chevy vs Toyota vs Dodge. Enlightening video!!

In global sales, VW is the king!! As for Canada, we account for a very small portion of any company's gross revenue, however I do believe that GM WAS number one in pickups for a few years.

After we pay fines for breathing out Co2, or a life tax. The manificent State will chip us all
for gas eruptions.

If the Cult of enviroment encourages by State fiat the ownership of car company's. The Plebs will soon, just be allowed by the entitled. To drive lawnmowers with plastic bubbles.
To them you are the enemmy.
JMO

It's called fascism people. Look it up. All we are missing is a charismatic leader whose fanatical followers use his personal symbols rather than traditional national symbols... err wait a minute.

PhilK: "You are ignoring the idea that North American manufacturing is a viable industry and we cannot compete with the sweatshops of East Asia."

I am used to people contradicting themselves over the course of an argument, but I rarely see someone do it in a single sentence. Which is it, Phil? Is the NA industry viable, or can't it compete with East Asia? And if your answer is "It's viable behind trade barriers", all I can say is "Mr. Smoot, meet Phil Hawley".

Ford, Canada, is attempting to obtain the same labour agreement Gm, & Chry. signed (under Go'vt.) duress. CAW isnt interested as agreement they have goes to 2011. U.S. UAW costs now are much lower for Ford than in Can. Used to be CAW wanted pattern agreement- not so now.

Ford workers just voted in and signed changes to their contract with the company. http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-03-09-ford-uaw_N.htm I doubt you would get the rank-and-file to vote for a strike now, and I believe that would be necessary for a work stoppage, no matter what the union/Obama might want. They have a two-tier contract that pays way less to newer workers. New hires will get paid less than people making Japanese cars down South.
Moving production from Tennessee to Michigan just sounds nuts to me. Any outfit that would do that will soon go broke.

I am just sick of this crap. I was very close to buying a new Denali. Not gonna happen now. I never liked the Fords because they are too high, and IMHO, that design was the cause for the rollovers, not the tires. I guess I will look at the Nissan Titans.

tim, you may want to do a bit of research on that Titan before you buy.

I'm proud of Ford but I think they are staring into the abyss. We see the market reaction to the tyrant thug Obama's takeover of GM and Chrysler and we think all is well.

It's not. The Obama government will set all sorts of rules that will benefit "their" company to Ford's detriment. So far it is obvious that people are flocking to Ford and rejecting Government Motors which will ensure horrific losses for GM. Will those losses be covered by taxpayers once more? Yup, the taxdollars will be shoveled into the big Democrat/union slush fund. It's the criminal Chicago way.

I am looking forward to the next round of contract negotiations with the UAW. Will the UAW target Ford, ask for ridiculous wages and benefits, and then strike against Ford when they refuse to pay up OR will they negotiate with themselves, grant themselves massive (taxpayer backed) entitlements, and force Ford to accept the deal? Either way spells doom for Ford.

Can anyone see a different way that these negotiations can play out?

Yeah, they don't make the model I thought anyway. I guess I will look at the Sequoia, which is probably what I was thinking of in the first place.

Hey Joe Citizen, what part of "free country, none of your fracking business" was it that you didn't understand?

You're supporting fascism, doofus.