Sanity and Principle at Ford Motor Company?

Will wonders never cease? The head of a major (well, formerly major) American company has said No to a government hand out! Yes, really. Well, sort of. Alan Mulally, CEO of the Ford Motor company, told reporters at the National Automobile Dealers Association yesterday that “We don’t want to borrow any more money. We have sufficient liquidity to fund our transformation plan, which means our business is in a relatively good shape.”

Could this be the dawning of a new attitude in corporate America? Could it be the start of a trend: away from dependence on government handouts towards–gasp!–private initiative? Perhaps Mr. Mulally took Barack “I won” Obama at his word last Tuesday when the Dear Leader informed his worshippers that we are at the threshold of “new era of responsibility,” yada, yada, yada?

Maybe. Or maybe Ford is just enjoying a sleepy postprandial respite as it digests all the money it borrowed in 2006 and contemplates what it wants to spend the $9 billion worth of credit for which it has applied to Washington when that is approved. Here’s a sentence students of business will want to savor:

“Mulally said Ford was in a better situation than its rivals because it borrowed more than $23 billion in 2006, using most of the company’s assets as security, including its well-known blue oval logo.”

Ford is in a better situation than its rivals because it hocked itself up to the eyeballs in 2006 and has cheerfully signed up for another $9 billion to finish the interment?

Well, well. At least Mr. Mulally is comfortable–very comfortable, in fact: “I am very comfortable,” he said, “that we are going to start to turn things around through the second half of the year.” Does that make you feel better?

If Mr. Mulally had a hat, I might be tempted to say he was talking through it. Still, it is a pleasant surprise to find someone from Detroit refusing–or at least say he is going to refuse–helping himself to more of what is after all your money. (You can contribute to this golf course for UAW members or–heartless bastard–you can turn the page . . .)

I suspect that Mr. Mulally’s declaration of (modified) fiscal responsibility will get quite a lot of attention. Substantively, it may not mean much, but rhetorically it strikes out in the right direction. Today, a CEO from Detroit pretends he is going to make his company stand on its own two feet: who knows, maybe tomorrow his company actually will!