sounds like he was a dick, the one guy's line "i've never been to hell, but I think it would be alot like working at the Ford plant"
The same people who try to rewright the History of Ford are the ones who attack out founding fathers. I always remember the saying "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time." Henry Ford was a simple man. Not intellectually but in his idealism. Intelect and education are not the same regardless what the educators try to say. At that time I think that Henry thought that what he was doing was the right thing to do. He like many of his contempories were sometimes missguided by what the so called intellectuals were putting out at the time. The Unions are very fast to point out how Ford hired thugs to keep the Unions out of Ford, but they ignore the fact that they used the same tactics to intimidate non union workers on the outside. Henry was also off base with his view of Jews, but so were a great many of his critics at the time. He was a genius with regard to marketing and genuinely wanted more people to be able to afford a car. Being a farm boy he had his engineers design the first low cost reliable tractor. The Fordson and then again in 1939 the 9-N tractor. The Ford Motor Company actually lost a few dollars on each tractor that they sold for many years. I probably wouldn't have gotten along with Henry but I think that he is undobtedly the most influential and innivative person that will ever be involved in the Automobile industry. As for some of you calling him a Dick. I'm a little sensitive about that derogatory remark since my first name is Dick and not Richard. I'm tired of my name being used in such a manner. So I'm changing my name to Peter. Dick
I thought it was cool that during the depression he actually raised workers wages and lowered the cost of his cars
Henry was criticized for thinking that he could talk the Europien leaders during WW1 and get them to the peace table. Henry on his own dime took a peace ship over there to try for Peace. He was called a fool. Now days we have politicians that try things that are a lot more foolish and nieve than that and we call them great statesmen. Our great statesmen do their better than First Class traveling on our dime. Dick
Sure are, but which people are they? If one really wants to know about Ford read some books from 50 years ago and ignore all stuff from the past 30 or 40 years written about him, it is seriously skewed by those with a political agenda. Does anyone else see how well things are going with the US auto industry because of the labor unions?
dj, You are absolutly right. It has been said that history is best written after at least 100 years have past. Sooner or later people will get smart and realize that those who control the media if left unchecked can control our future, A number of Universities that started out as Christian Universities have just about forced God off campus. As a result many History Majors, Journalism Majors and Political Science Majors have become spokspersons for one political persuasion. The average College Graduate has had this Philosphical brainwashing for 4 or more years. More and more of them go along with the game to servive. Others take about 10 years to recover and others never figure it out. At any rate the political establishment is not our friend. They include the brainless environmentalist who paint all who appose them as wanting to destroy the environment, poison our air, water and food and children. I want a clean environment as much as they do. But in their misguided desire to control every aspect of our lives they want to get our cars off of the road. Most of our cars run cleaner than they did when they were new. This Carbon Tax idea is all about Taxes and control. If passed it will run many of our businesses under or force them to have their parts and servicies provided by third world countries where there are no environmental controlls. Those countries polute the world environment 10 times as much as we do to produce the same product. Sorry for the outburse. We all have opinions and this is mine. The important thing is that we all protect our hobby from the Governmental Hacks many of whom are not elected. Dick
I stumbled accross the show last night and put "Family Guy" on hold to watch it. I thought it was a GREAT program and I learned alot from it. Weather the history was "dead nuts" on or not I still think it was good.
funny. the US auto industry was much stronger before the big 3 started busting the Unions by building cars in Mexico with cheap labor.
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