[tripleblack]

Originally Posted by pcfrisch

FORD MOTOR CO. REPORTS $12.7 BILLION NET LOSS FOR 2006, THE LARGEST YEARLY LOSS IN FORD'S 103-YEAR HISTORY.

Not Good.

I had earlier predicted about $11billion, so they managed to accelerate the loss past my less-than-rosey projection.

Ford lost $5.8billion for the quarter, and saw sales sag almost 14% (or about $5billion). The loss was huge when considered as a cost per share - wiping out about 50% of the capital base of the stock.

For the first time, Ford is now technically bankrupt - they have a capital base of $14.9 billion, compared with a debt well in excess of $20 billion.

Ford is now projecting another year or two of similar losses.

Do the math. Either they turn this around NOW, or they are toast. They're operating on loans that are low-percentage wagers already. When the gamblers call in the markers, Ford ceases to exist except for their International divisions, which will be sold off to satisfy some of their debt.

Way Forward, Boldly Moved. Indeed.

[GT02]

Yes, once their debt exceeds their capital base, the Company exists only by the grace of the creditors. There were many companies that "failed" during the Great Depression only because the creditors became nervous and wanted out. They liquidated companies to get some of their return back.

[tripleblack]

Just finished some research on the parts Toyota is flashing around in their new ad campaign.

Thats a 10.5" gear set they're showing.

Those are 15" (may be upped to 15.5" according to one blog I read) brake rotors.

Seeing as how the venerable Ford 9" gear set had proven bullet proof for vehicles putting out 1000+ HP and torque for decades, the reasoning behind needing 10.5" gears (some commercial semis run this size gearing) is beyond me.

But there's no denying that Toyota has taken dead aim at the heart and soul of America's truck business.

They intend to offer the biggest, baddest, strongest trucks out there.

And I think they will.

Question will be, are capabilities you'll never, ever, in your wildest dreams, actually NEED be worth the extra money?

Of course, I would have never believed that giant pickups too tall for a tall man to see into the pickup bed (much less work out of it) would become the norm, either.

Chances are, Toyota WILL put the Fords, Chevies and Dodges in the shade.

Not good news for the American makers, who have been touting such statistics for years as selling points for their trucks.

[pcfrisch]

Originally Posted by tripleblack

Just finished some research on the parts Toyota is flashing around in their new ad campaign.

Thats a 10.5" gear set they're showing.

Those are 15" (may be upped to 15.5" according to one blog I read) brake rotors.

Seeing as how the venerable Ford 9" gear set had proven bullet proof for vehicles putting out 1000+ HP and torque for decades, the reasoning behind needing 10.5" gears (some commercial semis run this size gearing) is beyond me.

But there's no denying that Toyota has taken dead aim at the heart and soul of America's truck business.

They intend to offer the biggest, baddest, strongest trucks out there.

And I think they will.

Question will be, are capabilities you'll never, ever, in your wildest dreams, actually NEED be worth the extra money?

Of course, I would have never believed that giant pickups too tall for a tall man to see into the pickup bed (much less work out of it) would become the norm, either.

Chances are, Toyota WILL put the Fords, Chevies and Dodges in the shade.

Not good news for the American makers, who have been touting such statistics for years as selling points for their trucks.

As a laid off Ford worker (been laid off for 30 years now)
I am really going to hate to see Toyota taking over the truck market

[74stang2togo]

The problem right now is that Toyota is putting out one hell of a pickup... The Tundra was the best-driving pickup I drove last year when truck shopping, and of the eight I drove, the 2nd most powerful (behind a 6.0 Vortec Sierra 2500HD, more truck than I needed) The two things that kept me out of it???

1. The owners manual, while stating that the truck could tow 5,000 lbs. actually recommended against using the Tundra to tow.... no joke!!! Only one I found like that.

2. It's an import... that almost wasn't enough to sway me, I did buy a truck from a half-German company after all...

I actually went with a Dodge that was three years older for the same price as a BRAND-NEW F150(stripped down 4.2/5spd/FMRadio/AC, on clearance, during that whole "finance anyone" fest Ford threw last year)... why????

The 4.2 is a weak-kneed gas hog, My dad had one in his F150 and I had to live with one in an Econoline for a week... ugh...
The 4.6 in the 2006 F150 STX I drove had gobs of power and torque (and SHOULD HAVE made that little shortbed a BLAST to drive) but that annoying little 1-2second delay between stomping the loud pedal and anything actually happening got annoying quick.
The 5.4 is a bigger gas hog than the 4.2, and doesn't fair well in power comparisons against it's engine class from the competition in power.

[tripleblack]

Originally Posted by 74stang2togo

The problem right now is that Toyota is putting out one hell of a pickup... The Tundra was the best-driving pickup I drove last year when truck shopping, and of the eight I drove, the 2nd most powerful (behind a 6.0 Vortec Sierra 2500HD, more truck than I needed) The two things that kept me out of it???

1. The owners manual, while stating that the truck could tow 5,000 lbs. actually recommended against using the Tundra to tow.... no joke!!! Only one I found like that.

2. It's an import... that almost wasn't enough to sway me, I did buy a truck from a half-German company after all...

I actually went with a Dodge that was three years older for the same price as a BRAND-NEW F150(stripped down 4.2/5spd/FMRadio/AC, on clearance, during that whole "finance anyone" fest Ford threw last year)... why????

The 4.2 is a weak-kneed gas hog, My dad had one in his F150 and I had to live with one in an Econoline for a week... ugh...
The 4.6 in the 2006 F150 STX I drove had gobs of power and torque (and SHOULD HAVE made that little shortbed a BLAST to drive) but that annoying little 1-2second delay between stomping the loud pedal and anything actually happening got annoying quick.
The 5.4 is a bigger gas hog than the 4.2, and doesn't fair well in power comparisons against it's engine class from the competition in power.

Toyota's addressing that towing issue with their new trucks. They're putting 10.5" gear sets and huge brakes in the suckers - they should be able to out-tow anything short of a semi if they build them right.

Cost, however, is a huge issue now. The bigs back in Japan want to up their already steep prices by about 20% on the new lines - while the marketing types in the US are telling them that selling base trucks at over $30k just won't fly. The reality will be somewhere in the middle - with prices up probably over 10%, and the new parts at first sort of lonely without all the supporting cast needed to match them.

A review I read recently had the new GM trucks compared to the new Toyotas, with hardly any edge to be seen. If they bring in the Toyotas at a price close to the American brands, it could be very bad news for Ford, Chevy and Dodge. The article said that they couldn't call a winner until they knew what price the Toyotas would bring to market...

[tripleblack]

GM has bet the farm (literally) that China will be their salvation. One of the reasons for GM's recent weak showing in the US has been their massive investments in China. Hard to spend the same dollar in two places at the same time!

The fun thing to remember is that the money spent in China essentially buys nothing.

The Red Chinese state owns all real estate in China. Period.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/b...0203-988649924

So a factory built by GM in China (or Ford - who is far behind GM in investing in China, but is showing clear signs of succumbing to the lure) is just a direct transfer of wealth, technology and equipment to the Chinese Communist Party.

The "sale" of real estate is just a legal fiction between three parties (with the actual owner always the Chinese government) that a house, farm, business or factory is now controlled by the person paying money to the prior sanctioned "renter". The term "owner" is incorrect, since the sole owner in reality is the State.

So if you review GM's annual report and see "assets" in China listed, be aware that they are NOT real assets such as can be counted on in most of the rest of the planet (Venezuela is going this same route, by the way). The huge companies GM has enabled in China (and which they control none of - they are allowed only minority partner status, regardless of whose name is on the product), are in turn the actual property of Red China.

GM is lying about this, as are all western corporations that do business in China. (And soon, Venezuela).

[74stang2togo]

It's going to suck for all of us once China has enough American-invested factories to seize all of them and defeat us once and for all without firing a single shot. Especially since soon Ford and GM won't have but one or two factories apiece here and dozens elsewhere including China.

I'm 100% convinced that's what China has planned, a triumph of communism over imperialism/democrocy/free-market by using those very things against their enemies.

[tripleblack]

Ford is far past the point where the bulk of the company lies outside the United States. They passed that point a decade ago when they started using their seed corn investment monies to build factories in India instead of Indiana, and to buy European marques like Volvo instead of maintaining American marques like Lincoln.

Ford has lost its way. They are like the second cousin who you knew as a nice kid years ago, who's now a crackhead in and out of rehab every month. Ford has invested their seed corn capital in foreign lands - plowed their American fields with mismanaged salt - and are now wandering the streets lost and hallucinating.

Originally Posted by 74stang2togo

It's going to suck for all of us once China has enough American-invested factories to seize all of them and defeat us once and for all without firing a single shot. Especially since soon Ford and GM won't have but one or two factories apiece here and dozens elsewhere including China.

I'm 100% convinced that's what China has planned, a triumph of communism over imperialism/democrocy/free-market by using those very things against their enemies.

[tripleblack]

The French are at it again.

Now they've glued together a group of 46 nations to enforce the Kyoto Agreements and any other ecological rules they want to concoct. And when I say enforce, think "guns".

46 Nations Back New Environmental Body - EarthLink - Top News

Its pretty scarey - particularly with our own government tilting toward going along with the idea of "developed guilt". Its nothing less than the same old socialist class warfare writ large.

If you think California's emissions cops are a chore, wait until the econazis have their own international law enforcement arm.

A time will come when our own elected representatives will open us up to being arrested for crimes against laws created outside our Constitution. We're pretty close already, WITH a neo-con President.

Just wait until the NEXT regime takes power.

As a famous Communist once said:

"We don't have to defeat the capitalists. We have only to wait. One day they will beg us to take the power to bury them, and then sell us the shovel to do it with."

[napalmbomb]

Originally Posted by 74stang2togo

The problem right now is that Toyota is putting out one hell of a pickup... The Tundra was the best-driving pickup I drove last year when truck shopping, and of the eight I drove, the 2nd most powerful (behind a 6.0 Vortec Sierra 2500HD, more truck than I needed) The two things that kept me out of it???

1. The owners manual, while stating that the truck could tow 5,000 lbs. actually recommended against using the Tundra to tow.... no joke!!! Only one I found like that.

2. It's an import... that almost wasn't enough to sway me, I did buy a truck from a half-German company after all...

I actually went with a Dodge that was three years older for the same price as a BRAND-NEW F150(stripped down 4.2/5spd/FMRadio/AC, on clearance, during that whole "finance anyone" fest Ford threw last year)... why????

The 4.2 is a weak-kneed gas hog, My dad had one in his F150 and I had to live with one in an Econoline for a week... ugh...
The 4.6 in the 2006 F150 STX I drove had gobs of power and torque (and SHOULD HAVE made that little shortbed a BLAST to drive) but that annoying little 1-2second delay between stomping the loud pedal and anything actually happening got annoying quick.
The 5.4 is a bigger gas hog than the 4.2, and doesn't fair well in power comparisons against it's engine class from the competition in power.

Thats why I always have owned F 250'S THE LAST GOOD F150 was made in the late 80's. All you are buying now is a car with a bed, and a short bed at that! What good is a short bed? The Toyota may be a good truck but it still does not have the towing and STOPPING power of a full size 3/4 ton American truck.

[napalmbomb]

Originally Posted by tripleblack

The French are at it again.

Now they've glued together a group of 46 nations to enforce the Kyoto Agreements and any other ecological rules they want to concoct. And when I say enforce, think "guns".

46 Nations Back New Environmental Body - EarthLink - Top News

Its pretty scarey - particularly with our own government tilting toward going along with the idea of "developed guilt". Its nothing less than the same old socialist class warfare writ large.

If you think California's emissions cops are a chore, wait until the econazis have their own international law enforcement arm.

A time will come when our own elected representatives will open us up to being arrested for crimes against laws created outside our Constitution. We're pretty close already, WITH a neo-con President.

Just wait until the NEXT regime takes power.

As a famous Communist once said:

"We don't have to defeat the capitalists. We have only to wait. One day they will beg us to take the power to bury them, and then sell us the shovel to do it with."

I just watched a show on the Weather channel and according to Heidi Cullan(spell) WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!! The sky is falling and it is only the fault of the United States! All the other countrys around the world are just trying to live in harmoney with nature. I think I'm going to puke!
Oh by the way I see where New England and the upper Mid-West are having a heat wave.

[tripleblack]

Originally Posted by napalmbomb

Thats why I always have owned F 250'S THE LAST GOOD F150 was made in the late 80's. All you are buying now is a car with a bed, and a short bed at that! What good is a short bed? The Toyota may be a good truck but it still does not have the towing and STOPPING power of a full size 3/4 ton American truck.

This just changed. Toyota is putting 10.5" differentials and 15" brakes in their new Tundra trucks. Makes the Ford 9" look wimpy, and the brakes are rated for huge towing loads. All the data isn't in yet, but it looks like Toyota has leap-frogged their American competition (again).

Of course, this doesn't change the hit on the 06 and older Toyota trucks.

[tripleblack]

Originally Posted by napalmbomb

I just watched a show on the Weather channel and according to Heidi Cullan(spell) WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!! The sky is falling and it is only the fault of the United States! All the other countrys around the world are just trying to live in harmoney with nature. I think I'm going to puke!
Oh by the way I see where New England and the upper Mid-West are having a heat wave.

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, Europe experienced a very warm climate. Average temps were 3 degrees Celsius higher than today (ie, they were about where the climate-nazis are screaming they will be in about 100 years from now). If those 10th century folks had SUV's causing global warming, they were pulling them around with oxen!

This global warming occurred due to the long term cycle the sun goes through - and which has been happening since before the dinosaurs were running things. Lots of evidence indicates we're in the middle of a similar warming spell, for similar reasons, that will last a similar amount of time.

This curent Kyoto scheme is all a political campaign to attack capitalism and the western democracies who have achieved the highest level of industrialization.

There is little doubt that global warming IS affected by the presence of a technological human civilization. But to say that the human race is outright CAUSING global warming when clear evidence shows that it is a normal function of the universe and has been occurring with great regularity forever is a lie by omission!

What no one is doing is QUANTIFYING the contribution made by humanity vs, say, the sun.

One of the things most alarming folks is the fact that a warmer planet will result in higher sea levels. By the next century, the oceans might be a meter higher than today as a result of ice cap melt.

OK. Assume I am standing with one of these socialist slobs arguing this point on a wharf in New York. I turn and spit into the ocean and then say:

"I am a human being. I have just "contributed to the ocean levels rising". This is an objective fact. So: Does this mean that I am responsible for ALL of any future increase?"

Saying that man is partly responsible for ANYTHING without quantifying it is idiocy. That we should dismantle our civilization and transfer our wealth to countries like India and China who are NOT treated by the Kyoto Accords in the same fashion as are we would be a similar idiocy.

I live in the Smokey Mountains. This is a name given to the region by native Americans thousands of years before white men and their infernal machines arrived on the scene. The "smoke" is a natural byproduct of local weather patterns, termperate rain forests, and the mixture of plants and weather. Fast forward a few millenia, and the pointy-heads from the EPA test the local atmosphere and discover, lo and behold, we have a higher-than-they-like level of ozone. No more road building for you, Metro Atlanta, and you have to monitor all your newer cars to make sure they meet emissions.

Idiocy, of course. Every human being in North Georgia could commit suicide today, and the Smokey Mountains would care not a whit, and the ozone levels would remain too high to meet pointy-headed guidelines determined by bureaucrats located far away.

[napalmbomb]

Originally Posted by tripleblack

This just changed. Toyota is putting 10.5" differentials and 15" brakes in their new Tundra trucks. Makes the Ford 9" look wimpy, and the brakes are rated for huge towing loads. All the data isn't in yet, but it looks like Toyota has leap-frogged their American competition (again).

Of course, this doesn't change the hit on the 06 and older Toyota trucks.

The advantage that American Pickups have over the Japanese is the avalibility of parts (replacment) such as brakes,alternators,bearings etc. and the price. Go and price a water pump or a throw out bearing for a Toyota or a Nissan compared to the Ford or Chevy. Im sure it has somthing to do with quanity. Plus you can be any where in North America and find those parts.
If I need to replace my pickup it will be with another F250. And if I hit the lottery it will be the King Ranch Edition