It was with real sadness that I read today of the illness and death of Alexander Cockburn, the left-wing columnist and media critic who – in addition to being famous for his acid wit and equal-opportunity lambasting – was my first mentor as a journalist. I was assigned to serve as Alex’s research assistant during my internship at The Nation in 1992. It was my first big break in the business. While the other interns at the magazine spent their days fact-checking stories (a quaint practice that is all but forgotten in journalism today), Alex had me doing real reporting... Continue reading

With Tuesday's decision by Moody's Investors Service to restore Ford Motor Company's credit rating to investment grade, the Dearborn automaker has cleared the final hurdle in its epic restructuring. The company can now unmortgage all of the assets (inlcuding the Blue Oval itself) it pledged as collateral to secure the financing necessary to fund CEO Alan Mulally's turnaround plan back in 2006. Moody's decision is a final proof point of just how successful that strategy has been. Ford used the money it borrowed to fix its problems the old-fashioned way -- it pulled itself up by its bootstraps, avoided bankruptcy... Continue reading

The retirement of two of Alan Mulally’s chief lieutenants from Ford Motor Company on Thursday is not a cause for concern as so many other high-profile departures have been in Detroit in the past. Rather, it offers another proof point of just how much he has transformed the corporation. When Mulally was hired in September 2006, Ford’s bench as both short and shallow. Nothing testified to that more poignantly than Bill Ford Jr.’s decision to bring in a Boeing executive with no automotive experience to lead his company. But Mulally is all about teamwork. And since his arrival in Dearborn,... Continue reading

Ford Motor Company posted its biggest profit since 1998 on Friday and, as expected, Wall Street reacted by knocking 53 cents of the company’s share price. I say “as expected,” because pretty much everybody on the Street knew that Ford was not going to hit the targets they had set for the company because of rising commodity costs and the deepening economic crisis in Europe. The Thai floods did not help either. But that did not prevent some analysts and investors from treating Ford’s $20.2 billion profit as a sign that the automaker’s comeback may be in peril. It is... Continue reading

Like most people who heard it yesterday, I listened to the dramatic radio exchange between “Captain” Francesco Schettino and Captain Gregorio De Falco of the Italian Coast Guard (a man actually deserving of that title) with unmitigated disgust. Rarely has anyone deserved the disparagement of the word “coward” more than Schettino, who fled the wreck he clearly caused and then refused to return to his ship and help the survivors — even when ordered to do so by Captain De Falco. As I contemplated Schettino’s utter abdication of maritime leadership and responsibility, I could not help but think about the... Continue reading

Just got back from Ford Motor Company's annual holiday party. What a difference a couple of years makes. I missed last year's gala because I was working on my book about the automaker's epic turnaround. But a year before, in 2009, Ford was still trying not to crow too loudly about its recent success -- understandable, given that its two cross-town competitors had just emerged from bankruptcy. Today the American automobile industry may not exactly be thriving, but it is surviving. All three Detroit automakers are expected to be profitable by year's end. Ford CEO Alan Mulally reaffirmed that his... Continue reading

When I started this blog, I promised myself that I would write a new post at least once a week. It seemed like a modest goal. Something that was actually doable. Not something impossible, like exercising every other day for at least 30 minutes (though I told my doctor I would do that, too). Unfortunately, I seem to falling short of my goal. This week, at least, I had an excuse. Newspapers seem to operate according to their own unique karmic laws. For example, I once spent all of about fifteen minutes writing an eight-inch-long story about Kelly Clarkson doing... Continue reading

I have been thinking a lot lately about the problems that we Americans face as a country today, and I am convinced that many of them stem from the same root cause: shortsightedness. We are a nation obsessed with instant gratification. That is why we -- both individually and collectively -- carry so much debt. Whatever it is that we want, we want it now. It is also why so many of our corporations have put near-term profits ahead of long-term, sustainable success. They have let today’s stock price trump tomorrow’s profits. One corporation that has taken a different approach... Continue reading

America's automakers released their October sales results yesterday. There was some of this and some of that. The industry as a whole was up 7.5 percent -- not bad, considering the state of the economy. It seems that pent-up demand for new cars and trucks in a country where the average vehicle on the road is now 11 years old is proving stronger than consumers' fear about their financial futures. But the month' s numbers still fell short of most estimates, and the analysts I talked to yesterday doubt this pace of growth is sustainable. They expect car and truck... Continue reading

The cover of my book -- American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company -- has finally been released and is up on Amazon. I think the folks at Random House did a great job with it. I had an opportunity to meet with the team supporting this launch there this week, and I was really impressed with their ideas and insights. It is very reassuring as an author to know that such talented people are working to make your book a success. The jacket copy should be up soon, so stay tuned! Continue reading

Back in 2007, CEO Alan Mulally promised the United Auto Workers that Ford would reinvest in American manufacturing if the union made the painful concessions necessary to allow the company to profitably assemble cars and trucks in the United States. With the new labor agreement that UAW members ratified this week, both sides are keeping their part of that bargain. The union convinced negotiated a new contract that allows its members to share in Ford's success without adding appreciably to the company's fixed costs. In fact, Ford Americas president Mark Fields said today that the deal only increases the automaker's... Continue reading

While the final details are still being hammered out, Ford has agreed to build Fusions/MKZs -- or at least some variants of the popular mid-sized sedan -- at Flat Rock as part of its new deal with the United Auto Workers. That is good news for the workers at the Automotive Alliance International plant, who have been in limbo since Ford's former Japanese subsidiary, Mazda, announced that it was pulling out of the joint-venture in June. Ford will continue to produce the Fusion in Mexico, too. The Flat Rock factory does not have enough available capacity to meet the strong... Continue reading

As negotiations between the United Auto Workers and Ford enter their final phase, union President Bob King is spending much of his time at the Glass House in Dearborn. Not so Ford CEO Alan Mulally. He is in Asia this week. And with an agreement on a new national contract expected any day now, he is likely to remain there even as the final deal is hammered out. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Ford's point man on labor relations has always been Bill Ford himself. And there are other senior executives around like Ford Americas President Mark... Continue reading

Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of the Fiat-Chrysler combine, sent shockwaves through the American automobile industry last week when he not only broke off negotiations with the United Auto Workers after being stood up by the union's president, but also sent a strongly worded letter to Bob King expressing his frustration at being sidelined while the UAW negotiated with General Motors. In doing so, Marchionne broke one of the cardinal rules of labor negotiations in Detroit: Thou shalt not publicly attack the other side, no matter what. But as he is fond of pointing out, the old rules went out the... Continue reading

Ford Motor Company’s aggressive expansion plans in China appear to have hit a speed bump in August. Sales in the world’s second-largest car market were down 7 percent last month compared to the same period in 2010. That is bad news, because CEO Alan Mulally has made Asian expansion Ford’s new top priority. Ford is still up for the year in China — to the tune of 11 percent — but the company the company is still playing catch-up. Along with its obligatory Chinese partners, Ford has embarked on an ambitious construction campaign, adding two new assembly plants and two... Continue reading

With less than two weeks left before the United Auto Workers contract with Detroit’s Big Three expires, I am spending most of my time covering the labor negotiations. As we first reported more than two weeks ago, General Motors is taking the lead in this year’s talks. Today, some other media outlets have finally decided we were right. Ford has been hoping all along that GM would go first. It wants to go last. That is because, unlike GM and Chrysler, Ford cannot take any disputes with the UAW into binding arbitration. That was a plum the Obama administration granted... Continue reading

It's official: I received an e-mail from Random House today informing that my revised manuscript for American Icon has officially been accepted and released for copy editing ... and there was much rejoicing. In theory, at least, the heavy lifting is now finished. Of course, just as I was letting out a long sigh of relief, I received an e-mail from Ford Motor Company informing me that one small piece of information I thought had been thoroughly vetted turned out to be not quite right. But better now than later, right? Continue reading