Ford CEO - Americans need to “get back in love” with small cars

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by jpd80

I’d put it to you that the Government of the time knew exactly what it was doing,
massive exports of coal, iron ore and gas to major partners like Japan, Korea and China
Imports of finished goods back from those major trading partners meant that Australia
were well in the positive. FTA with Thailand was supposed to provide low cost vehicles….
LOL, WTF happened there? Thinking deeper, those Thai finished goods was a way of
eliminating all those pesky unions and businesses that continually looking for tax breaks
and offsetting losses against revenue. Clearly, they didn’t care about the loss of business activity
here and the impact on whole communities.

Everywhere I used to see manufacturing plants, I see warehouses or storage tanks in place of refineries..


You need to understand that Ford Australia doesn’t call the shots with head office,
it’s a constant battle of justifying why they should even exist and all Ford cares about
in todays world is selling the most profitable mix of vehicles. So yeah, we are fortunate
that buyers are embracing Ranger and Everest in record numbers but yes, the on going
disappointment is how Ford fails to leverage low cost production in China to deliver
all the other vehicles it should be selling…..It just seems like it’s cheaper and easier to do nothing
and take the low hanging fruit…

I don't think it was about eliminating unions, its not like the AMWU had significant influence and control over anything, sure they had some influence in our manufacturers but its not like the CFMEU and its stranglehold over the VIC Government through funding one of the major political parties and control over all its infrastructure projects.

Some of it would be driven by ideology but its short sided thats left us in a huge mess.

I'm aware Ford Australia doesn't call the shots but they can also kick, scream, jump up and down and have a sook constantly - but they don't.

The only time they'd make an effort to fix some of the problems is if Ranger and Everest supply was threatened.