Iraqi Prime Minister Jafari wins nomination battle Ford cutting thousands of jobs

MELISSA STEVEN PERSPECTIVESEDITOR MS727@CABRINI EDU

The American car industry has been in competition with foreign car companies for years now, but it has now become clear that the foreign companies are winning with the recent downsizing of Ford Motor Company as well as General Motors. On Jan. 23, Ford announced its Way Forward plan, which includes cutting 30,000 jobs and closing 14 of its manufacturing plants. The news came after General Motors also announced downsizing plans about two months ago.

Foreign car companies now dominated more than 40 percent of the American car market. In 2005, Ford only held approximately 17 percent of the car market, down from 2000 when it held about 25 percent.

“The big mistake in the ‘80s was that the imports built better quality cars. Then the big mistake in the ‘90s was that the imports listened to the consumers needs, and the domestics didn’t,” Jim Quinn, former vice president of Toyota in the United States and Europe, said.

Ford’s decline in dominating the American car market stems from their focus on sport utility vehicles that once fueled their popularity in the ‘90s. Now with rising gas and steel prices, sport utility vehicles have declined in popularity.

Quinn, who has been in the automotive industry now for 32 years, said that back in the ‘80s imports began to become more popular to younger people because they needed a reliable car. He explained that foreign car companies did not employ union laborers, so it made it cheaper to pay their employees and build better quality cars. American car companies had to employ unions that drove costs up to pay employees which resulted in the quality of the cars going down.

Brian Metz, business administration professor, said, “I think they have the wrong product and I think they thought that if they built it people would buy it.”

The Way Forward plan is Ford’s new attempt at restoring its company. They are cutting failed to find the right formulas to satisfy the American car buyer.”

Metz said that Ford was not forward looking enough to see the problems that would arise with building trucks and rising gas prices, and that they did not react fast enough to that change to build more cars that people needed.

Ford has not commented yet on the speculation that they will be eliminating some product lines when the Way Forward plan was announced.

Metz said, “They are going to try to cars Americans will need to buy.”

ELIZABETH BRACHELLI ASST A& E EDITOR EAB722@CABRINI EDU

Iraq’s first permanent government is now in the hands of Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite Muslim doctor and Iraq’s current interim leader who was nominated as Prime Minister on Sunday. Jafari narrowly beat out economist Adel Abdul Mahdi, a favorite among the Sunnis and Kurds, by one vote after weeks of trying to decide on a unanimous candidate. Since Jafari has become the candidate for United Iraqi Alliance, he will be facing the many upcoming challenges in Iraq.

one third of their workers in North America by 2012. Ford said that they are determined to become more innovative and design more cars that are in demand like small-hybrid vehicles.

According to the New York Times, “Both companies have

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