An item caught my eye today saying Ford earned $6.6 billion in 2010, its highest profit in more than a decade. U.S. sales jumped 20 percent last year when an improving economy lifted demand for the company's F-Series pickup trucks. Ford was the top-selling brand in the U.S. Revenues rose 3 percent to $120.9 billion, and it was also its best performance since 1999 and second straight annual profit.
The reason for my interest was that I'm pretty sure Ford was the only U.S, automaker to decline government bailout funds, preferring to try to work out its problems on its own. At the same time, I've seen items here and there that the wonderful Japanese cars and trucks lately appear to be falling apart, with what seems like more recalls than sales. Maybe they're falling back on the same kinds of plans they used after Pearl Harbor. As I recall, they blew that war too and decided to leave us alone after Hiroshima.
Of course, the US being the good guys, after we convinced our enemy in WW II that surrender was their best route, we turned around and rebuilt them, economically and otherwise. And to show their everlasting gratitude they underpriced everything we showed them how to produce, and then figured out if they couldn't bomb us they'd try to buy us with their profits. But, unfortunately for them I guess, in the long run they have a problem they just can't seem to overcome -they don't seem to really be very good at anything at all.
In any case, the Ford turnaround demonstrates once again that if you leave businesses alone, and let them do what they know how to do, they'll generally do quite well. But on the other hand, no matter how much government funding you throw at the real world, if you let Sam become involved you lose. Because no one in DC has a clue as to how the business world works, unless they've come from there themselves. I think that's pretty clearly evidenced by government debt approaching 15 trillion dollars and unemployment still at more than 9%.
So, with Ford's performance as an example of how to succeed on your own if you really want to, just try to imagine what the economy would look like with no government interference of any kind at all. We'd likely have booming businesses everywhere we looked, and the only employment we'd find would likely be inside the Beltway.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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