How do you cut costs? "Encourage" your employees to jump ship?

Massive restructuring of Ford has resulted in some 8,000 hourly employees jumping ship in January after taking Ford's buyout offer. With a net loss of $12.7 billion (that's with a "b") in 2006, and losing more of its share of the market to boot, you have to wonder who's in charge when Ford's president says everything "is going very smoothly." If this is smooth, what happens when they think they've hit a bump?

Ford's goal is to close 16 plants and axe 45,000 jobs in its massive triage effort to turn around the remnants of the "once upon a time" auto giant. We hope so. The US economy won't be helped by the influx of unemployed workers that the "big 3" have let go in the last six months. After all, the thought that we might all end up driving cars from China is more than a little bit frightening.

The China car market is a whole new ballgame but at least they have a Lemon Law --- it isn't as strong as US Lemon Laws, but it's a start!