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" Ford Motor Co., like GM before it, has admitted that it has way too many people and too many factories building too many vehicles that people aren&amp;#039;t buying. So the hard truth is the company must downsize to survive. And downsize it will--like right now! With buyout offers on the table to all of its union workers and pink slips in the mail for more than 10,000 non-union workers, Ford Motor Co. is about to shrink appreciably. This is the simple reality of supply and demand economics. Carrying payroll, staffing\u2014and equipping, heating, cooling and maintaining\u2014plants to build vehicles that people won&amp;#039;t pay for is a straight line to bankruptcy. And Ford&amp;#039;s management really has no other viable choice. But being a devoted, hard-working employee and told to go home and not come back is tough. I know. It&amp;#039;s happened to me more than once over the course of my working life. And the pain is multiplied when entire families are sent packing and entire communities lose their main source of income. But the pain of watching an icon, a pioneer in the building of industrial America, send all of its workers on permanent furlough and have to close or sell all of its factories and facilities because it has failed totally would be far, far worse. Not just for Ford employees and their relatives, but for all of us. The same tough weight-loss plan seems to be working at GM. If those who remain at Ford can do as their crosstown, age-old rival has and design and build vehicles that people will line up to buy for a fair price for once again, it will be worth it in the long term. But it&amp;#039;s still no less painful for those who will find themselves suddenly looking for a job. \u2014Don Chaikin "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a882/3927501/>