Awareness making certain we come to the realization that the BRICS Countries that the company is moving all our business / engineering to are the same ones that want to de-dollarize the world, destabilizing the United States Currency and weaking it to the point to where goods will no longer be bought or traded with it on a global scale. Fourteen countries joined in this initiative this week, with another 40+ countries wanting to join, this is serious. Think of your retirement in the last two years and inflation, imagine the new headwinds coming.
To expedite white collar manpower resourcing to low cost countries with a pool of non-automotive engineering at a laser-focused-light-speed, the company has made multi-billion dollar investments to resource and move engineering, programs, assembly, vehicle testing, calibration, BEV development to foreign countries. We could go on for a long way, but we all know what is happening with the US-Based jobs and this company. Amazing how most of this resourcing is moving to folks who chant d e a t h to America, making me wonder just how patriotic the owners are?
Not too difficult tying this all together, that a publicly educated country boy like myself can do it, the inquisitive curious side is asking why, what is the end game? Do the execs feel they are going to have some dominance somehow with countries that blatantly steal technology, break patents, have zero human rights of their population and workforce. What will be left, besides a dismantled company, where their products will be “owned and manufactured” by government owned entities elsewhere? Did someone upstairs strategize and make a huge mistake somewhere.
When our vehicles launch, we have huge teams from Brazil that come toward the end of the program, then the American’s are soon fired. The mustang and explorer are prime examples, where all the staff was fired after doing the difficult work and training their counterparts so they can be replaced. Upon graduation, the American Amigo’s are let go and Tada, this and the next programs are yours to the people from Brazil. Just ask any PMTs/D&Rs, if you can find any that survived and they will tell you all about it. You can visit LINKEDIN to see their company reward of unemployment for time served and a great job.
Next, we have the lovely folks from China, they took the Edge, if you remember that one. Engineering, parts and production gone and so fast. The BEV / powersplit transmission/gearbox to our surprise is moving as well as many other high value components and programs. Must be one heck of a work encampment to see how fast the executives jump through all the hurdles to accomplish this miracle, we all thought we were watching the West Minister Dog Show – no offense to West Minister Dog Show meant here !!
India / Mexico – OMG, need we say anything, just see the links below to see some pictures of the engineering facilities down below. Cafeteria for 6,000, basketball courts, 9,000 and 12,000 employees; 20% the population of the once great and soon to be abandoned City of Dearborn by the company. Just look at the facilities, one would believe these are in Las Vegas if one did not know any better. Chennai as two twelve story building that are L-shaped, so much larger than this description. Better get a stiff shot of some Wild Turkey, it goes down smoothly when you glance at these new facilities.
Now getting to the point with my public education writing skillset, we ask ourselves why would anyone make such billion dollar capital intensive investments in countries that take your products, technologies and want your country out of existence? Unfortunately I don’t have these answers, but am not feeling too supportive after seeing the hardship of my fellow coworkers whom I have had the opportunities to get to know, learn about their families, hang out and become friends, only to see it all squashed by pure greed. Had to do it to survive is absolute nonsense, Tesla is doing it.
Another noteworthy point to mention as India just landed on the moon, the “U.S. gave India $139 MILLION in charitable aid 2022 ($139,523,265). In essence, the U.S. funded India's space aspirations while its population suffers from some of the worst poverty. At the same time, India is forming BRICS alliances w/ adversaries in China and Russia to de-stabilize the dollar” around the world.
Once upon a time in a not-so-distant past we had great leadership here at this company with Alan Mulally, where everyone chanted the mantra One-Ford. We now read excerpts from last week’s F150 BEV trip across the desert sands in Viva Las Vegas, I will refer to this as “excerpts+” to make it greater than great, like “performance+”. I do not get paid the millions the exec’s do to wordsmith all these initiatives with the magic of the “+”, but did watch a few town halls and am slowly catching on. Glad through to see the Picaso Viva Las Vegas Journal published on the homepage, several of us were pondering where our exec was with the couple weeks of MIA in those town hall meetings.
Meanwhile, we are praying the executive actions taken will result in a successful product lineup that everyone wants in the future, but with most of the labor force who had 20+ years of service now fired it really doesn’t matter, does it? Are we even able to go back to anything with ICE after the many dismissals of the old folks who did the initial work and knew the products that Sales and Marketing abandoned? The common workers refer to such great money making product as trucks, you know F150s, F250s, F350s, the ones that are our bread and butter, the mullah, the cash cow, our money maker… The gas / diesel engines the base of what made this company great and still funds the entire company to profitability.
A little more than one hundred years after the advent of the modern assembly line, our country is blessed to have another great car guy – Elon Musk of Tesla. I did not like this guy initially, but seeing him bring a product that no one wanted to a successful juggernaut, I have to say I am very impressed. He was able to pull this all off with many hurdles we don’t have: very high tax state of California,, significant land costs, high engineering labor cost, high assembly cost, extreme energy costs, needed to develop battery technology, had to design and test a new car, zero dealership / sales infrastructure, market the new vehicle, etc. I do believe all our BEV tax credits do counter any argument about government tax breaks.
Now I ask to anyone who actually made it this far of my best attempt at writing, where is our leadership and what the he-l is wrong that they cannot do the same thing? What is the excuse, legacy costs, too much existing capital, outdated something…? This company had engineering that has spent most of their entire life serving this company as car folks and you blew it and kicked them out the door, Elon started from scratch. Like I hear in the meeting: plan, do, check, act. Maybe we need to try: analyze our current position, figure out how we need to refine our failing plan to successful, train/develop our experienced car people staff to the new requirements and eliminate these 27 class syllabus of nonsense, grow and develop your leadership for folks that know how to change our non-working/political release/development processes.
India: Technology and Business Center (12,000 employees)
Mexico: GTBC (Global Technology and Business Center) (9,000 employees)
Some pics and sources:
BRICS = Brazil / Russia / India / China / South Africa (we are moving business to three of five on this list)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/can-brics-dedollarize-the-global-financial-system/0AEF98D2F232072409E9556620AE09B0
https://www.kitco.com/news/2023-08-22/BRICS-kicks-off-as-common-currency-de-dollarization-steal-the-spotlight.html
Chennai Center: https://in.worldorgs.com/catalog/chennai/software-company/ford-global-technology-business-center