About two weeks ago, Ford Motor Co., the second biggest automaker in U.S. announced its plan to cut 25,000 to 30,000 jobs and close 14 facilities by 2012 as part of a restructuring designed to reverse a $1.6 billion loss last year in its North American operations.

This announcement raised a large amount of pessimistic and optimistic comments and point of views by industry experts and business press. After 2 weeks, it's still a hot topic within business media:

- I recognize that the job cuts and plant closures will be difficult, even though much of the downsizing will be done through retirement over the next several years; however, if Ford did not make such a move soon, everyone was going to be looking for new work. The move just reinforces the important principal of staying current with customer demands. If Ford had made this decision even 5 years ago, realizing that competition from Japan and Korea was drawing away buyers, then the impact would not have been as large. But they didn't. And many companies are in the same boat. They continue to operate on the same ideas upon which the company was founded - and eventually it will be too late to adapt and change. I still think that Ford has a chance, but the decision to trim the fat came just in time.

Beancounter BlogI would be very curious to see if these high executives dare increase their own salaries in the next couple of years. If they do, they obviously didn't have the company's best interests in mind. I know of a few smaller corporations that pull exactly this stunt currently. Really poor management, but unfortunately it's an insider's knowledge and not in the views of analysts. What I wouldn't give to be able to leak information like this.

LUX.ET.UMBRAIs GM actually losing that much money? I don't know and neither do you. The last time they pulled this, they made the same claim to justify moving their operations overseas and we didn't find out for months that they'd been lying and had actually made $$$11 BIL$$$ in profit.

Between Ford and GM, it would seem that domestic auto manufacturers are on the same road sneaker manufacturers like Reebok and Nike pioneered more than a decade ago: they're going to shut down all their US plants and move their entire manufacturing operation to Indonesia or Honduras or someplace so they can boost their profits by paying starvation wages to workers in Third World countries. In case you thought the Race to the Bottom that is globalized capitalism was over just because people stopped talking about it, this is proof it's still very much a major strategy in Corporate America.

ResistanceMy idea is we have to wait at least onemore month to see what Ford will achieve in the first quarter 2006. The thing is, even tough the situation is really tough, it's not worse than GM nightmare in 1992, so I personally think there is chance for Ford (and GM) to recover...