Ford offers to buyout all its UAW workers

If my last 5 years chart looks like this, this is what I would resort to doing. It clearly shows that the U.S auto giants Ford(F) and GM (not depicted above) are facing tremendously stiff competition from the Japanese auto manufacturer, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

Ford's previous North American overhaul plan, the Way Forward, unveiled in January, had proposed eliminating 30,000 hourly jobs, about 36% of total U.S. hourly workers, and 4,000 salaried jobs by 2012. Those cuts, and more, will likely happen several years sooner under the revised plan, keeping in mind that they have lost $1.3 billion in the first half of the year. Just take a look at their 2006 quarterly income statement. So, when is bankruptcy taking over?

Ford's decision to offer all of its U.S. hourly workers incentives to leave the payroll follows a similar offer by GM that succeeded in slashing more than 34,000 people from the company's U.S. factory work force which is expected to cut its annual costs by $9 billion

Hard choices, tough decisions, increasing costs, workers strike, shameful net losses and bankruptcy threats are few of the zillion things that are keeping the Ford executives sleepless. A couple of sleeping pills could help...