Comments on: Detroit Wakes Up To Reality. Ish.

By: ajla

ajla — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:05:50 +0000

Busbodger:

Yea the “Despite its reasonably competitive small cars” line about Ford threw me off too.

Mazda isn’t included in Ford’s sales numbers, and RF was not a fan of the Focus as he personally reviewed it and gave it 1-star. The I-4 Fusion is pretty good, but is that really “small”?

There is the decent Volvo C30, and Ford has some good small stuff in the pipeline, but right now their product portfolio doesn’t seem much better for this market than GM’s.

By: yankinwaoz

yankinwaoz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:30:21 +0000

The distinctive portrait art in the WSJ is called Hedcut and was invented in 1979 by Kevin Sprouls. Noli Novack is one of WSJ’s current top artists who continues Sproul’s work. To date, no computer or Photoshop filter has come close to being able to produce a Hedcut. They are hand drawn.

By: mikey

mikey — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:28:24 +0000

Rday:Workers recieving 95% of base pay untill the next contract?In real money its more like 65%.
a huge chunk of which come from government run unemployment funds.

Lets not forget people that the while blue collars at
GM have seen thier numbers slashed.GM still carries its bloated management workforce.

By: joeaverage

joeaverage — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:21:41 +0000

You mentioned Ford’s cars – plural. Beside the Focus, what other small cars does Ford North America sell? You consider the Fusion and cousins to be small cars? For me they have always been mid-sized cars. Like an Accord.

Me thinks it is time to start classing cars based on weight, horsepower or interior volume or something…

I guess I would say a Fusion is small parked next to an Excursion. My cars look like toys parked next to one of those.

By: brettc

brettc — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:12:52 +0000

Hey, leave the 2.8 alone. There was no way they could have accounted for the fact that at some point, high dollar amount loans given to people that don’t earn enough income to repay them could go bad. And it’s also impossible to predict that gas would shoot up in price “unexpectedly”. Gas prices always go down, everyone knows that!

All of the Detroit companies get what they deserve after turning out so many shitmobiles for so many years. It’s just too bad that the low-level workers will suffer the most. It’s nice that mainstream news is finally clueing in that these companies are in severe trouble. Katie Couric even reported on it last night. She apparently doesn’t know how to use a GPS, but she knows that Detroit is going down.

By: Redbarchetta

Redbarchetta — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:06:03 +0000

I was wrong, they sure look like engravings. Stippling is a pain in the butt, she’s really talented, I hated it in school.

By: Richard Chen

Richard Chen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:52:28 +0000

@Axel: a team of artists, currently led by Noli Novak. NPR Story on Noli Novak WSJ headshots article from the Smithsonian Institute

By: Robert Farago

Robert Farago — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:36:23 +0000

Redbarchetta:

If Rick was replaced what could his replacement really do at this point? Don’t get me wrong I think Rick should have been sacked yesterday, but it’s sort of like replacing the captain of the Titanic while they are taking on water, it’s a little too late. Fritz is just an accountant just like Rick so how would that change anything.

And that is the really scary part. Fritz Henderson is a Wagoner clone. Both former CFOs. Both GM apparatchiks. Both colluding on the current strategy (whatever that isn’t). While I got plenty of respect of Henderson’s number crunching abilities, his failure in Europe proves that no bad deed goes unrewarded in RenCen.

By: mel23

mel23 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:34:27 +0000

Does someone hand-draw all those pencil sketches of people in the WSJ, or do they have a computer effect to do that?

I don’t know, but they run one of W quite often that looks a lot like Alfred E. Neuman, at least to me.

By: Redbarchetta

Redbarchetta — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:30:06 +0000

Axel that would be considered a plate engraving like GW on the Dollar, but I think it’s just a computer program that converts an image into an engraved sketch.

Even if they stole Al from Ford for some obsene amount of money, what could he really do at this point?

By: Rday

Rday — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:27:02 +0000

I think Wagoner is a very bad executive but he has kept his job for a long time. And really, is there any executive that can make the necessary cuts at GM. I mean like they have to pay laid-off UAW what 95% of their base pay until the next contract negotiations. Can’t imagine any company agreeing to these terms, yet all of detroit did. It will be a miracle to me if any of them can survive with this ‘fixed cost’ overhead type system.

By: Axel

Axel — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:07:09 +0000

WSJ: Can Teflon Last for GM’s Wagoner?

Does someone hand-draw all those pencil sketches of people in the WSJ, or do they have a computer effect to do that?

By: Robert Farago

Robert Farago — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:59:43 +0000

Richard Chen:

“D.28″ Heh – typo, or prophecy?

Typo. Text amended.

By: Richard Chen

Richard Chen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:44:30 +0000

“D.28″ Heh – typo, or prophecy?

WSJ: Can Teflon Last for GM’s Wagoner?

By: Rix

Rix — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:39:46 +0000

As soon as I saw this headline, I flashed to

Eminem’s “Lose Yourself’:
“He’s choking, how everybody’s joking now
The clock’s run out, time’s up over, bloah!
Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity”

Also, I would note that the WSJ had an article today that was highly critical of Wagoner and basically asked why he still had his job, and why the board let him have his job.