And It Begins - Ford to Cut 10% of Workforce

[davewindsor]

I said not enough of them. Otherwise, Ford's profits wouldn't be declining and they wouldn't be considering layoffs [[something a growing business with growing demand for their products doesn't do).

Did you just say a manufacturing company in 2017 "a growing business with growing demand for their products doesn't" consider layoffs? Are you living in communist Cuba? That's such a bad argument. Have you ever heard of automation over the past several decades taking away jobs in most sectors? New technology allows companies to do more with less people. Ford has made huge investments in technology and continues to do so. BTW Ford hired 15,000 factory workers between 2011 and 2015. With constantly improving technology, you don't need all those extra workers.

I
Several consecutive months of sales decline [[aside from the erreneous fleet dumping that took place in December to achieve another record year in sales), 100+ day inventories, a decline in SUV / Pickup Truck / CUV sales and declining production industry-wide are all pretty good signs, I'd say.

Proof?

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A year old article from the Motley Fool?

Yeah, how about a more recent article from a more reliable source...
http://www.wbrc.com/story/35134791/d...at-8-year-high

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...l-into-default

But, it's relevent unlke yours. Who gives a crap about whether Ally Financial does more subprime financing auto loans or has more subprime defaults. Why would it impact Ford if Ford can offer inhouse financing through Ford credit? Ford's inhouse financing also has much lower default rates. Your articles are not referencing GM and Ford's financing arms like mine did, but auto loan lenders as a whole.

FED fund rates were at all-time lows back in December 2015 [[0.25%). Since then, they're risen to 1%. Also, Janet Yellen has signaled that she intends to raise the rates further to around 2-3% between now and next year.

While historically, these are still fairly low interest rates, the fact is an economy that's only growing at less than 2% with virtually no wage growth and declining money velocity can't handle too much of a increase in borrowing costs.

The federal government is already running huge deficits. So, they are going to double to triple it to 3% to make it even more out of control. There's a difference between a threat and actually doing it. It won't happen.

I
The all-time low for oil prices was back in the winter of 2015-2016, when they fell to around $25/barrel and gas prices were around $1 in majority of the country. While $48/barrel is still fairly low, the fact is with OPEC extending its production cuts and the supply glut slowly balancing out, the trend in oil prices is upward. Once those prices at the pump start hitting $3/gallon [[and they're not far from that now), that will really turn consumers off from those highly profitable trucks that they've been buying like candy.

I highly doubt it with Iran entering the oil market and Trump allowing new offshore oil drilling that previous administrations adamantly refused. Even if they did, consumers would still buy Ford trucks because they have significantly improved the fuel economy of their trucks. Do you know the 2.3L Ecoboost F150 has a tow rating of over 10,000lbs? Chrysler needs a 5.7L Hemi 1500 to do the same. So, it would be more market share for Ford anyway.

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I didn't say any of that. I merely said you can't extrapolate future trends based solely on what happened in the past [[that's a textbook example of normalcy bias).

It's not a bias, but a prediction that's historically based. Have you ever heard the saying "History repeats itself"? If you ignore history, it will repeat itself. Giving into too many union demands is what got GM and Chrysler into backruptcy requiring taxpayer bailout loans in 2009. Chrysler keeps making the same mistake. Ford, wisely so, is preempting upcoming union talks by announcing layoffs, even though they are still quite profitable.