It's sad to see them struggling, because their car lineup has been absolutely brilliant for the last few years. But now that the industry is at it's plateau, investors are very paranoid about any car company trying to invest in new areas (Ford spent much of it's earnings on tech companies). They would rather just see dividends instead.
1) That choosing investment over dividends must be a selfless act that makes one worse at their job (rather than simply a different option, possibly even more lucrative).
2) That "we" (who?) don't make life choices for selfless reasons, when it's plainly obvious that many do.
3) The idea that investors don't have a moral guideline AND that that's somehow acceptable.
I didn't downvote you, by the way.
This implies that they can't do both investing and paying dividends at the same time. What leads you to believe investment by F isn't sufficient?
First, I wasn't implying investors are bad people. In fact, I tried to imply the opposite.
What I meant was that a lot of people (at least people I know) blame companies for making decisions that cut jobs, and investors for pushing in these directions.
But at the same time, nobody is so selfless in their own life decisions in order to sacrifice their careers for someone they don't know. In fact, most people will consciously decide to earn more and make their lives better even if that means other people will lose their jobs. For example, I doubt any software developer will ever change careers just because the software he works on will cause half of the sales team to be fired. That's what I mean by people not being so selfless in their own life decisions.
But when it comes to losing their own jobs, it's common to hear people say that companies or investors could decide take the loss, earn less and keep these jobs, like the decision was a choice between saving lives or killing puppies for 10 cents more, and someone is just too greedy.
So, by "expecting investors to grow this moral guideline", I didn't mean they don't have a moral guideline. I meant people expect a much higher moral guideline that would make them sacrifice themselves in favor of the greater good, while other people don't actually do it themselves.
That is some serious projection there. Most people spend most of their lives not acting selfishly. If corporations acted with the kindness that individual people have for each other then the world would be much different.
I won't say that's not selfish though; some people would trade 3 seconds of their time here and there gladly for treating others like they would like to be treated. It's swapping time and/or money for less tangible but very valuable "things".
But incidentally, this whole "selfish" stuff is kind of a red herring anyway; OP was talking about investors being short-sighted and "paranoid", not investors being selfish. You may say that's the same thing, but I'd disagree, I'd say people "keeping their more to receive their less" isn't people being selfish, it's more like getting stuck in a local optimum. Locally, that's great, globally, that's having lost.
So yea, people do some things in their own best interest, but the norms are hardly 100% in either direction. Yet, somehow companies are expected to be ruthlessly selfish in all areas.
Psychopaths are pretty often not acting in their own self-interest - they're screwing themselves in long-term to get short-term gains. A person who acts in their own self-interest is usually an upstanding member of society with perfect reputation. It's very rare for an actual, diagnosable psychopath to pull off something like that.
It's their entry line that's lacking. I'm looking for a new car, and would love to buy a Ford.
Actually it's for an aging relative, and don't see much. I don't even want to walk up to that Focus, and I can't get her near it. Now she will listen to me on the impracticality of buying a Cooper Mini, and she will listen to me on what vechicles look nice, but are just too exotic for our future repair budget--basically me with with parts a account. But she won't look at a Ford, except the F150, which she can't even get into.
If anyone from Ford is listening. Buck the trend. Build a vechicle, that a customer can put 400,000 on. Build it like a 80' Toyota. Meaning just use common sence. Replaceable Ball joints, maybe at the most two computers. Nothing exotic. Just a people mover, with a splash of style? No dashboards that look like a sensor waiting to fail. Mechanic friendly. I had a Slick Rick car Salesman tell me no one works on their own vechicles anymore, and they all finance. He was naieve, or just trying to hussle? I know he knew nothing about about how a vechicle is put together, and shouldn't. Just a Salesman. Just a dude who checks his oil at every fill up--still can't figure out why. Maybe it can't be done with government regulations? I don't know.
Go ahead and put in six beverage holders, just make the thing last.
Make the thing last? Toyotas, and Hondas spend years honing that reputation, and are raking it in now. Do the same thing? You hit it out of the park on so many newer vechicles, now go back to the company roots. A vechicle your employees can afford, and want to buy?
(If there's any mechanics here, I would love your recommendations on some 2012 to 2016 vechicles that are good buys, and practical.)
If you're looking for something in the Focus/Cooper range.
I highly recommend the Honda Fit. I second hand one with 10-30K on it can be had for four figures. And it will go for 200K without major service, 300K if you live outside the rustbelt.
I recently switched to electric. I could not be more happy with the Nissan Leaf (mostly that the first service item in the manual is to change the Fob battery at 30K)