Ford has offered it fantasy plan to Congress. Congress should just say NO. Among the hundreds of problematic statements made by Ford management in this bizarre document there is one that that is a true shocker: Ford stated that money received from taxpayers must be subordinated to other debt. Specifically, if things don't work out, Taxpayers are next-to-last in the line of creditors waiting for repayment. Ford says that Senior Secured debt held by certain creditors would automatically fall into default status if Taxpayers were granted higher status in the credit structure. This is true. Standing in the Credit Structure is handled this way. But that alone is enough reason to let Ford solve its problems without help from Taxpayers. Aside from this troubling reality, the entire Blue Oval Plan is nothing more than Promises, Promises. Worse, these promises are based on expectations of rising vehicle sales. The Plan was written cautiously enough that it did not project sales of Ford vehicles over the next several years. The only numbers were total number of vehicles expected to sell in the US. What do we learn from the total sales estimate? Not enough. How many Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans, BMWs, Subarus, etc will sell? Of total vehicles sales, what percentage will Detroit get? In the 1950s, the figure was 95%. Today it's roughly 45%. The trend is bad news, and nothing in the Ford Plan will change the direction of the trend. By the way, has anyone in Detroit thought of hiring some of those Honda and Toyota managers to repair the damage? Has the UAW shown a real willingness to Save the Industry? NO. Hence, there's no chance that a capital injection today will do anything more than delay the inevitable Chapter 11 filing. One more point. Based on statements in the Ford Plan, members of the Ford Family still receive dividends on their special class of stock. That means they too would get free money from Taxpayers if this capital injection plan were adopted. Yikes.

STARFIGHTER, I see you are a Conspiracy Theorist. A nutty one. You clowns never understand that your scenarios always add up to nothing.

Ford, GM and Chrysler need cash coming in from two directions: First, the companies want a big pile of dough right now to pay operating expenses. But, as we know, paying Detroit to build more cars than the market demands makes things worse. Detroit also needs more car buyers. It looks like only 10 million or 11 million vehicles will sell this year. Detroit appeared shocked at the news. Why? Because it started the year believing 15 millin vehicles would sell. Whew. Big error on somebody's part. I suppose The Big Three will blame some college intern for the error. They'll say something about the bright kid they hired who had degrees from Harvard and MIT and knew everything about cars before he got to high school. They'll say they thought he was the Bill Gates of Cars, so they asked him to estimate sales for 2008, and, hey, the poor kid got it wrong. What can you do? Anyway, the other money source Detroit needs -- desperately -- is the money coming in from buyers. But who has credit today? Can anyone with a Credit Score below 700 get a car loan? Bottom line: Detroit is desperate to see credit given to people who are bad risks. Those are the people who were taking No-Documenation Subprime Loans for the last several years. Well, where are they today? What lender is going to give them money now? Detroit is desperate for a new population of deadbeats and near-deadbeats to buy cars. Otherwise, the only people prepared to purchase vehicles are those who are likely to buy Hondas, Toyotas and other names that are not domestic or owned by The Big Three. With people losing jobs left and right -- 12,000 layoffs at ATT, thousands more at other companies -- where are the buyers? Out of work. That's where.

Ford has offered it fantasy plan to Congress. Congress should just say NO. Among the hundreds of problematic statements made by Ford management in this bizarre document there is one that that is a true shocker: Ford stated that money received from taxpayers must be subordinated to other debt. Specifically, if things don't work out, Taxpayers are next-to-last in the line of creditors waiting for repayment. Ford says that Senior Secured debt held by certain creditors would automatically fall into default status if Taxpayers were granted higher status in the credit structure. This is true. Standing in the Credit Structure is handled this way. But that alone is enough reason to let Ford solve its problems without help from Taxpayers. Aside from this troubling reality, the entire Blue Oval Plan is nothing more than Promises, Promises. Worse, these promises are based on expectations of rising vehicle sales. The Plan was written cautiously enough that it did not project sales of Ford vehicles over the next several years. The only numbers were total number of vehicles expected to sell in the US. What do we learn from the total sales estimate? Not enough. How many Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans, BMWs, Subarus, etc will sell? Of total vehicles sales, what percentage will Detroit get? In the 1950s, the figure was 95%. Today it's roughly 45%. The trend is bad news, and nothing in the Ford Plan will change the direction of the trend. By the way, has anyone in Detroit thought of hiring some of those Honda and Toyota managers to repair the damage? Has the UAW shown a real willingness to Save the Industry? NO. Hence, there's no chance that a capital injection today will do anything more than delay the inevitable Chapter 11 filing. One more point. Based on statements in the Ford Plan, members of the Ford Family still receive dividends on their special class of stock. That means they too would get free money from Taxpayers if this capital injection plan were adopted. Yikes.