Professor Elam

Maria Bartiromo is getting better and better at this interview thing.  But I am not sure Bil Ford is. In this
interview, he sounds a lot more like Al Gore.  Consider these gosh how did you get groomed to take over Ford answer!s

How did Ford lose $8.7 B in one quarter?
We had no idea where the tipping point would be (that people would finally react to high gas prices) and literally overnight people stopped buying trucks and SUVs.   Well duh Bill!

If in fact that is true, that Ford had no idea where the price of gasoline became an elastic consideration rather than an inelastic one, no wonder Ford is in trouble. Remember from economics that inelastic demand means the consumer is indifferent to price.  Elastic demand means that price increases result in fewer sales. Put another way, this is why Ruth Chris sells thousands of $100+ meal deals and McDonalds sells millions of $12 per couple meal deals.

One would think a company the size of Ford with one big gas guzzling product, the F 150, 250 pickups, would be conducting consumer surveys, reading independent predictions, following oil markets, etc all the time. And one would think, at least if I were in charge, those researchers would report to the Board and CEO, independent of the rest of the company so as not to be influenced by their thinking. But Bill says they were clueless when $3.50 gasoline hit.

My point here being, does your business or school conduct such research?  Public schools now face competition from private, charter, magnet, home schools, etc. Companies like Sylvan offer all sorts of advanced remedial training. Some big city school districts have already outsourced their operations to private companies. Hmm come to think of it, aren’t these the same governments that outsource prisons to private companies?  Well how much of a stretch is it to assume the same trend will not continue?  This is the reason to read publications like Fast Company.

Here is an out of the box thought. You are a government with a budget. You have all sorts of demands from parents, softball players, the elderly, and the Federal Government. In response other organizations like business have outsourced continual nagging problems even to other countries,you know like employment problems.  Routinely companies outsource local employment to Kelly Girls or Adeco. Now they have been outsourcing to India and China though I think that trend has peaked. Union demands pretty much drove this to happen. Okay, what is the powerful force in education, and the one that apparently is against change, see Washington DC, Detroit, etc. Teacher unions, that’s what. Contract to a private company and bingo, the union goes away.  Whether that appeals to you or not, trust me there is no union at the University of Phoenix. Think about it.

But I digress. Bill goes on to say he is a big environmentalist.  And says, quote, I knw this day would come. I ahve been an environmentalist my whole life. …I was viewed as a bit of a Bolshevik throughout my whole career.

What kind of kool aid is this guy drinking?  Can you imagine what kind of house he lives in, we are talking the Board Chair of Ford, a company  that bears his name. Private schools, private country clubs, owner of one of the ultra rare Ford GTs that he said wold be the symbol of Ford when he was CEO, that is the street going replica of the 427 ci Lemans winner-gee that hardly sounds like Kermit the Frog to me Bill!

Oh well read the interview and see just how defensive he gets, geez.