Given your inclination towards offering problems without solutions, I hope that you end up in a Chinese Gulag, howling the loudest in your Mandarin Chinese tongue that you have developed since the age of 14. The US is in trouble because of our government’s abandonment of protectionist policies that kept industry here in the United States. Japan and China practice market protections with great success.Furthermore, in China, wages are suppressed by an authoritarian government that doesn’t allow collective bargaining of any kind and one that suppresses freedom of speech and other rights we take for granted (but are under increasing attack in the United States.) One would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see that freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee trade hasn’t resulted in a train wreck for this once great country. $900 billion annual trade deficits for a decade, loans from the Chinese, are the direct results of freeeeeeeee trade policies and nothing more. The fact is, you can’t compete with slave labor no matter how well educated and “competitive” our population. Free trade and those who support it is nonsense in the real world. We have been surviving on foreign loans and our past wealth for too long. It is time to slam the door shut on these companies who willingly gave away our technology and manufacturing to others. It is time to slam the door shut on free trade and its disciples. Free trade belongs in a radioactive landfill. http://www.economyincrisis.org

I’ve focused my studies on China since I was 14 and started taking Chinese language and history courses. I moved on to study their culture and politics. I’ve spent time in China. I’ve also watched time-and-time again as various intellectual property cases went before the Chinese courts. I think my favorite example is New Balance. You should google their i.p. cases in China. Most Americans don’t even realize that an unknown, but, according to New Balance, significant, number of “New Balance” shoes sold in America are 3rd shift or the products of a Chinese competitor that simply lifted New Balance designs. New Balance is not seeing the profits. From family members, who work for companies like Coach, I know that they are desperate for cheap labor, but they are also quite scared about their low-cost Chinese competitors that have spun off of Coach sans permission from Coach.

I bet that you never thought Toyota or Hyundai would grow into massive headaches for Detroit. Or, if you did, then why can’t you see how a Chinese company could do the same and to even more devastating effect? Are you one of those nativists who doesn’t believe the Chinese have the mental or industrial capacity to do so? I doubt it. Yet you’re sitting there telling me that a $2 billion return on a $6 billion investment is acceptable when Ford’s short-term debt is somewhere around $23 billion and their long-term debt is something like $124 billion. There are other sources of capital and Ford has shown that they have earned credibility with their lenders who renegotiated payment dates PRIOR to final word on Ford selling Volvo.

Now, don’t get all preachy on the stocks point. You’re one of the posters that reminded us almost daily, over the past year, that greed on Wall Street was to blame for our woes. So, I fail to see how you can now anoint the performance of Ford’s stock. Moreover, how many times have folks on Wall Street celebrated the wrong moves? Wall Street strongly approved of Cerberus’ acquisition of Chrysler. The point is, unless you can tell posters what Ford should/could do 10-20 years from now to compete with cheap Chinese autos entering the U.S. then you cannot tell us to not worry. About the only solution I see for Ford is to offshore more jobs. And by the way, did you invest $10,000 in Ford stock and make a killing? If not then I can only assume you didn’t believe it was a good investment for $10,000 9 months ago. You may have bought a few shares, but you didn’t sell your car or dip into savings to raise that $10,000. I guess your crystal-ball is as cloudy as the rest of ours. Or maybe you did buy the shares and I’m an idiot.

One final thought, can you name ANY American-owned television company? I’ll give you a hint, the last one was Zenith and they collapsed more than a decade ago. And it all started with the licensing of transistor technology to Japan to make radios post-WWII. Americans are unwilling to accept market-competitive wages. The end result is that the only jobs we can’t offshore are the service sector jobs that require stores to be manned in the U.S. or service-visits to homes. In your world, America owns less and builds less, but somehow competes by working in service-sector jobs? Meanwhile, fewer and fewer Americans are paying taxes. 47% of Americans will pay NO income tax for 2009. Does it sound like these sort of deals have been good for America? I really hope you’re right. I promise that, under it all, I’m an optimist. I don’t believe you can ever count out the American people. That said, we differ on how to keep the U.S. strong. Merry Christmas leftwing!

When a Chinese company bought the rights to Pyrex from Corning they changed the formula because it was cheaper and then they started exploding at high temperature!
Anyone who buys a vehicle from a Chinese owned car company is a moron. Period.

about 12 months ago, if you had put 10k into ford shares, you’d have 50k in stock now…not a bad return, considering the economy and all…

You should get an award for this comment, when the Chinese get their chance they will flood the US with cheap cars, GM, Ford and Chrysler are done for in the near future

Cheap price volvo copies will dominate Chinese market, later Cheap price volvo copies kill US auto industry.

The Japan and EU are smart. Maybe they will protect their market from Chinese invasions. However, US should worry.

Volvo workers and sweden have no merit.

Perhpas, The volvo brand will selling well in China. (like lenovo pc), however, all of its profits belong to China and Chinese volvo factory. Volvo sweden worker waiting doomsday. After Chinese copy volvo technology, Chinese don’t need Volvo sweden workers.

thats the only way to get this not to be a catastrophe!

Elin Woods already started the process by swinging a golf club, go SWEDES!

Why hate? I really don’t think that most posters hate Ford, Geely or the Chinese people. It all comes down to whether you think it’s more beneficial to have cheap products that stretch U.S. workers’ salaries further, or American jobs, corporate profits and manufacturing know-how. The know-how, especially, comes in handy for things like large-scale wars that require national mobilization. A lot of folks don’t think that there will ever be wars like that again, but one can point to numerous periods in Western history in which large-scale wars did not occur. They have always returned. Some believe that nuclear weapons, through M.A.D., have changed this paradigm. Others point to the abundance of anti-ballistic missile programs and say that’s simply no longer assured. I tend to believe that nations that make things are powerful. This is an admittedly pessimistic view, but it is premised upon the notion that there are winners and losers. Then again, I live in a nation that gives trophies for showing up . . .

I suggest we use the great might of the combined economic and military forces of the West to teach them a lesson once and for all. We will at the very least need to keep their industries planted in the third world where they deservedly belong. The Holy Book demands it.

p.s. 85ZingoGTR…um…TATA hasn’t fundamentally done anything for Jaguar! They haven’t had them that long. The great product you see from Jaguar now was done under Ford’s leadership.

Now, Ford will have no excuse not to invest in the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands.

intellectual property? China is a big country. Sweden goverment and Ford/GM can NOT do anything against to China.
If China company violate intellectual property, and copy their technology, However, There is NO way to protest to China.
Because Geely, BAIC, these China state owned companies backing up by Chinese PRC goverment.

Well, I guess we can look at it this way: If not for Jack Nasser many of the World’s great automotive Marques would in all likelihood not be around, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Volvo. At least when Ford sold them they were in better shape than when they were bought ; although it should be added, at the expense of Ford’s core Brand. GM, on the other hand, has a penchant for destroying/impairing anything that it touches, e.g., see Lotus and Saab.

At this point, especially if you’re a fan of the Brand, it’s hard to say whether to be happy, sad or indifferent in reaction to the conclusion of the deal. Good luck to Volvo. Ford, I hope you know what you’re doing, Volvo wasn’t a large drain on your resources; sales/revenue were trending up. The Brand was close to profitability.

DB9;-)

Haha, I laugh

You don’t sell technology to one single Chinese company, you sell it to all China.