Being Fair To Ford

I don't know how it happened, but a reporter from the NY Times did sympathetic story about Ford's proud but desperate struggle to survive, on it's own two feet and do what it has to get it's costs and financial situation in order without major government handouts.

The problem is that now it faces two major domestic rivals and a world of other car companies in which handouts and bailouts are the norm. Most likely they will have to throw in the towel and dance to Obama and the Car Czar's crazy tune.

"That was when the car market crashed and the auto companies began burning through huge amounts of cash. A month later, Mr. Mulally was in the spotlight — along with G.M.’s chairman, Rick Wagoner, and Chrysler’s chairman, Robert L. Nardelli — during Congressional hearings on Detroit’s financial woes.

Mr. Mulally said Ford never intended to ask for federal help but needed to support the industry during its crisis.

“From Day 1, we had no desire to access the government money,” he said.

Ford parted ways with G.M. and Chrysler in December, when its two rivals effectively came under government supervision as part of their loan agreements.

Last month, the presidential task force forced Mr. Wagoner to resign at G.M. and began an effort to replace the company’s board.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ford, whose great-grandfather founded the auto company, and Mr. Mulally continue to pursue their long-range turnaround plans."

Give up Ford and learn the lesson Obama and people like him are teaching us all. Failure is the new path to success.

NY Times Liberal Say's Fascism Ain't So Bad

I said in recent posts that not all of our so called liberals are advocating pure "socialism", but rather something that could be better described as Fascism. Almost none have said so honestly, untill now.

A few days ago a NY Times writer-- wrote this

"In the summer of 1933, just as they will do on Thursday, heads of government and their finance ministers met in London to talk about a global economic crisis. They accomplished little and went home to battle the crisis in their own ways.

More than any other country, Germany — Nazi Germany — then set out on a serious stimulus program. The government built up the military, expanded the autobahn, put up stadiums for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and built monuments to the Nazi Party across Munich and Berlin.

The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn’t look kindly on collective bargaining. But Germany did escape the Great Depression faster than other countries. Corporate profits boomed, and unemployment sank (and not because of slave labor, which didn’t become widespread until later). Harold James, an economic historian, says that the young liberal economists studying under John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s began to debate whether Hitler had solved unemployment.

No sane person enjoys mixing nuance and Nazis, but this bit of economic history has a particular importance this week. In the run-up to the G-20 meeting, European leaders have resisted calls for more government spending. Last week, the European Union president, Mirek Topolanek, echoed a line from AC/DC — whom he had just heard in concert — and described the Obama administration’s stimulus plan as “a road to hell.”

The rest of his story painted a smiley face on an unspeakable evil that has killed millions and seemed to say we shouldn't be afraid of fascist ideas.

Perhaps the Czech Prime Minister has a better grip on reality and history after the hell his nation and Europe went through under both fascist-- and the Communist control. He knows the road to serfdom when he sees it.

Still think these people are Liberals????