Whelp, guess you shouldn’t have spent years abandoning the legacy of Henry Ford. While I’m certainly glad they’ve let go of his overt racism, they abandoned the positive parts of his legacy too.
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
-Henry Ford
Henry Ford would have never done a stock buyback. He designed and improved the Model T to be as cheap as possible. He designed it to be as repairable as possible. He built in clever features like a power takeoff so that farmers could power attachments with their car. He fostered a diverse ecosystem of third party manufacturers that would make accessories and modifications to Model Ts. He didn’t try to sue them or do whatever the 1920s equivalent of locking things behind DRM would be.
Today, if it lives anywhere, the legacy of Henry Ford lives on in China. American car manufacturers have completely abandoned the vision of creating an affordable vehicle for the common man. Instead, the companies have been completely infested by the MBA class, who realize you can get a higher rate of return by making fewer numbers of extremely expensive cars. Ford invented the assembly line specifically so he could make a car that the average person could afford.
Henry Ford was a common man born on a small farm, son of an Irish immigrant. Today, Ford Motor Company is lead by CEO Jim Farley, who previously was CEO of McDonalds and Harley-Davidson. His bio from his Wikipedia page:
Farley was born to a banker father in Buenos Aires, Argentina,[1] where he spent his early years, before moving to Greenwich, Connecticut. Before university, Farley attended Portsmouth Abbey School, a Catholic, college preparatory school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.[citation needed] He graduated from Georgetown University and then later, the UCLA Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.[2][1]
Farley’s grandfather worked at Henry Ford’s River Rouge Plant in 1918.[2] He is a cousin of the entertainers Chris Farley, Kevin Farley, and John Farley. He is also a cousin of Carolina Hurricanes TV analyst and former NHL and AHL player Tripp Tracy.
Ford Motor Company was founded by a man who came from nothing. Currently it’s lead by a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth. China is recent enough to industrialization that most of its car companies are still led by their original founders, most of whom came from very humble beginnings. I can’t help but think this has a profound impact on how they see the world and the types of cars they seek to build.
If the American car companies really want to compete, they should adopt a new rule. No executive should have been born to a family making more than 90% of the median household income or have attended an Ivy League school. And they must have an engineering degree and no MBA.
JFC…Henry Ford was an antisemite and hired thugs to kill workers trying to unionize his factory. He also tried to build his own country and forced workers to eat a diet the dictated. He’s no different than any modern billionaire. He literally murdered workers during the 1930s,
In the aftermath, Ford Motor Company attempted to control the narrative by destroying news photographs onsite. The surviving photographs were published nationally as evidence of Ford’s brutality, helping to turn public perception in favor of the union.
The incident had been preceded five years earlier by the 1932 Ford Hunger March, in which hunger marchers were attacked with gunfire from the Miller Road pedestrian overpasses. The site of that attack remained an entrance to the Rouge plant, and the overpass bears the logo of the United Auto Workers in addition to Ford’s.
Oh there’s a lot more to it than I’m going to briefly link
to for those curious enough to follow breadcrumbs
Another Ford misadventure for the savvy: when he bought 2.5million acres in Brazil to make a rubber plantation factory town, but quickly turned into a disaster. They built suburban homes in a jungle to house local workers while trying to get his American managers to enforce diets on them.
Whelp, guess you shouldn’t have spent years abandoning the legacy of Henry Ford. While I’m certainly glad they’ve let go of his overt racism, they abandoned the positive parts of his legacy too.
-Henry Ford
Henry Ford would have never done a stock buyback. He designed and improved the Model T to be as cheap as possible. He designed it to be as repairable as possible. He built in clever features like a power takeoff so that farmers could power attachments with their car. He fostered a diverse ecosystem of third party manufacturers that would make accessories and modifications to Model Ts. He didn’t try to sue them or do whatever the 1920s equivalent of locking things behind DRM would be.
Today, if it lives anywhere, the legacy of Henry Ford lives on in China. American car manufacturers have completely abandoned the vision of creating an affordable vehicle for the common man. Instead, the companies have been completely infested by the MBA class, who realize you can get a higher rate of return by making fewer numbers of extremely expensive cars. Ford invented the assembly line specifically so he could make a car that the average person could afford.
Henry Ford was a common man born on a small farm, son of an Irish immigrant. Today, Ford Motor Company is lead by CEO Jim Farley, who previously was CEO of McDonalds and Harley-Davidson. His bio from his Wikipedia page:
Ford Motor Company was founded by a man who came from nothing. Currently it’s lead by a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth. China is recent enough to industrialization that most of its car companies are still led by their original founders, most of whom came from very humble beginnings. I can’t help but think this has a profound impact on how they see the world and the types of cars they seek to build.
If the American car companies really want to compete, they should adopt a new rule. No executive should have been born to a family making more than 90% of the median household income or have attended an Ivy League school. And they must have an engineering degree and no MBA.
JFC…Henry Ford was an antisemite and hired thugs to kill workers trying to unionize his factory. He also tried to build his own country and forced workers to eat a diet the dictated. He’s no different than any modern billionaire. He literally murdered workers during the 1930s,
In the aftermath, Ford Motor Company attempted to control the narrative by destroying news photographs onsite. The surviving photographs were published nationally as evidence of Ford’s brutality, helping to turn public perception in favor of the union.
The incident had been preceded five years earlier by the 1932 Ford Hunger March, in which hunger marchers were attacked with gunfire from the Miller Road pedestrian overpasses. The site of that attack remained an entrance to the Rouge plant, and the overpass bears the logo of the United Auto Workers in addition to Ford’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass?wprov=sfla1
I’ll not miss a chance to tell people about the original shareholder value over all else situation we’re in, was created when Ford tried to run his company by investing in his employees, and was sued by Dodge bros, who were a 10% owner in Ford.
First nail in the coffin of our current era was hammered in by Dodge, remember that next time you see one.
Not to mention he spread rumors he was leaving the company to tank its value to then buy out the Dodge Bros for pennies on the dollar.
I just finished the docuseries lol
Oh there’s a lot more to it than I’m going to briefly link to for those curious enough to follow breadcrumbs
Another Ford misadventure for the savvy: when he bought 2.5million acres in Brazil to make a rubber plantation factory town, but quickly turned into a disaster. They built suburban homes in a jungle to house local workers while trying to get his American managers to enforce diets on them.
I guess these ideas seemed good at the time…?lol
Ford was insane. He blamed everything on Jews.