Ford Cuts Its Way to Success

Detroit, MI, September 15, 2006: Rather than manufacture quality cars that consumers actually want to purchase, Ford today unveiled its latest strategy: dismissing most of its employees to boost profitability. In a sweeping set of cuts, Ford aims to fire roughly 1/3 of its salaried staff - about 14,000 jobs - to save the company money. "Those morons obviously weren't adding any value to the top or bottom line", said outgoing CEO Bill Ford, Jr. "I think we can stick with the same basic designs and cut WAY back on engineering, marketing, accounting, and other non-essential labor while holding the line [a good Bill Ford pun] on producing the autos for sale at our retailers". Despite these cuts, executives (who apparently are NOT among those being fired) figure it will still take 3 years for North American operations to turn a profit.

Quite stupidly, the company did not decide to sell any of its credit arm, despite the recent success (in the stock market, anyway) that GM has had having sold half of its credit arm. "They copy everything else we do for cripes sake", said a GM executive who was laughing too hard for us to get his name. Thus, Ford Motor Credit will continue to experience higher borrowing costs due to its debt rating continuously cut below a "junk" rating. Ford execs are rumored to be scouring the waterfront for loan sharks eager to help this dilemma, despite the potential ramifications of such partnerships. Tony "The Hook" Delmonico commented that "I'd be more than happy to float some dough to the guys at Ford...assuming they pay me the vig I'm accustomed to". Our sources indicate that this would likely be near a 20% rate, translating to a new car cost of roughly $300,000 if it were to be bought on credit from Ford. This, along with the potential risk of having limbs broken if car payments are missed, is likely to put a dent in Ford sales going forward.