Freedom Crier

Many people are upset with Corporate America these days. They are seen as greedy entities that care more about their own bottom line than the quality of the products that they produce. While this may be the case in a few instances, I would argue that it is not Corporate America that people should be upset with. Corporate America provides the goods and services that make our lives easier and more enjoyable. They provide the jobs that give us the wherewithal to buy the goods and services that help us live our daily lives and that gives us the opportunity to pursue our dreams. Instead, bankers and the banking system should bear the brunt of the general public’s ire for they are the true greedy profiteers who produce nothing other than the enslavement of mankind both at home and abroad.

Here’s one of the reasons why I say that.

I’ve been reading the book American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company written by Bryce G. Hoffman. For those of you who don’t know, Ford was the only one of the Big Three U.S. automobile makers who did not take a bailout from the American people after the market crashed in 2008. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. It reads like a good drama novel that you can’t put down — only it’s not fiction.

Although the main story is about Alan Mulally, one of the most respected and sought-after chief executives in the country, there’s a side story here that merits attention. There comes a time in the saga of Ford where Mulally’s game plan for turning things around begins to gain some traction. It takes time to right a ship as big as Ford Motor Company, but the actions Mulally takes begin to turn the company in the right direction and you can see that the new path they’re on is beginning to take them out of the abyss. Then the sub-prime lending market crashed. Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers went under, credit tightened, it became too expensive for companies to borrow money to cover day-to-day operating expenses, and both GM and Chrysler came to Ford looking to merge in order to stay afloat. Consumers all but stopped buying vehicles because they couldn’t get credit. Others lost their jobs and simply couldn’t afford to buy a new or used car. The bubbles that had been created by the banking industry were not only taking down the housing market, they were also taking down many other sectors as well. This nearly took Ford out of the game despite the incredible work Mulally and the team at Ford had done up to this point. Ford is hanging in there, but many other companies did fall and GM has since been sold to China.

In contrast, the six largest banks have gone on to make record profits and continue to show resistance to changing the behaviors that created the financial crisis in the first place. Just what are these behaviors? The following video explains: