Don King (the flamboyant boxing promoter) used to say, Only in America – by which he meant unlikely success stories. But America has changed. It is now a country in which CEOs are paid extravagantly to fail. The latest example being the $27 million annually that will be paid to Ford’s CEO Jim Farley – a roughly 11 percent increase in compensation. Never mind the $20 billion Ford has lost – so far – under his tenure as CEO as a consequence of his dogged commitment to malinvesting in battery powered vehicles.
It’s similar over at GM, where CEO Mary Barra is paid similarly – and so are the losses.
This is nice work – if you can get it. The thing is, only a few can get it, the car company CEO gig being something on par with becoming an NFL quarterback. The difference being the quarterback is expected to perform and if he fails to do that, he gets traded or let go. But then, pro football is still a proper business in the sense that it still relies on making rather than losing money.
What’s gone awry in the car business is that it is oriented toward making the government happy. This is especially true as regards both Ford and GM ever since the bankruptcies (and near-bankruptcies) that happened back in 2008 and 2009. GM did go under but the government “saved” it, with monetary interventions – using our money, it bears saying out loud. The thing is, when you buy something, you generally own it – and that’s basically what happened. GM became something like a de facto subsidiary of the government. It understood who was boss, to put it in plainer language. Also who is its chief customer, if you want to put it even more plainly. Ford saw – and understood.
If you understand that, then you understand why Ford and GM continue to double-down on this EV Business; i.e., this money-losing “business.” And you understand why they are personally rewarded with tens of millions even when this money-losing is in the billions. They are not worried about bankruptcy because they know Uncle is always there to help.
If this is “capitalism” then Bruce really is “Caitlin.”
The problem is similar, too – in that both are destructive parodies. Even with the best of intentions, someone being paid $27 million in one year (Barra gets closer to $30 million in one year) is someone who almost necessarily cannot relate to people making around $60,000 per year – such people being the bulk of the people who buy new vehicles. For Farley, a $60,000 EV is what a $6 four pack of Chef Boy R Dee spaghetti and meatballs is to a person making $60k a year.
Consider: When Henry II was running Ford in the mid-1960s, his salary was around a quarter-million annually. As in one quarter of one million dollars. Adjusted – as the banal saying has it regarding the devaluation of the buying power of the dollar – for inflation, Hank the Deuce was paid around $2.6 million annually. This was at a time when Ford was making money as if it were confetti because it was making cars like the first-generation Mustang that sold in the millions. Ford also beat Ferrari during this period (if you haven’t seen the recent movie about this, you ought to).
Now – today – you have the current CEO of Ford being paid something in the neighborhood of ten times as much – in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars to lose more money than Ford was earning back when Henry II ran it.
This disconnect between accomplishment and reward is the sort of thing Marx wrote about that – as he saw it – would lead to the eventual extinction of capitalism. Or at least, the warped and ugly thing it has become.
Most people do not begrudge the recipient of an honest dollar – or even millions of them. Indeed, most people would like to be successful to that extent. There is nothing morally objectionable about that. Come up with something – an idea or a product – that people like enough to buy it at a price that makes a tidy profit and everyone’s happy. People who bought those first-generation Mustangs loved them and certainly didn’t hate Ford for making them. They were grateful to be able to buy them. And – for his part – Henry Ford II understood the wants and needs of the mostly working and middle class people who bought those early Mustangs, in part because although he was a rich man, he wasn’t a man disconnected from reality. Yes, he wanted to make money. But he wanted to earn it, too – as by whoop-assing Ferrari at Le Mans as well as every other brand in the showroom.
That was capitalism.
What we have today is something very different.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $25 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you’d like a Baaaaa hat or other EPautos gear, see here!
 used to say, Only in America - by which he meant unlikely success stories. But America has changed.){kind=link}
[…] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2026/04/01/make-money-by-losing-it/ […]
This disconnect between accomplishment and reward is the sort of thing Marx wrote about that – as he saw it – would lead to the eventual extinction of capitalism. Or at least, the warped and ugly thing it has become.
Even Marx, like the proverbial stopped clock, was occasionally right. Tragically, the perversion of capitalism into “crony” capitalism/state-corporatism/kleptoligarchy is what has kept Marx –a man who, along with his philosophy, should have been tossed onto the philosophical dump heap 200 years ago– relevant in the eyes of the working classes. I mean, gosh, it’s almost as if somebody actually WANTS the peasants to revolt and WANTS the system to fail that would free them from socioeconomic slavery.
The simplest solution is hit GM & Ford where it hurts, to get their full attention…
Right in the Wallet…stop buying their new & used vehicles at dealers, period. Don’t buy their parts, unless you have no choice, don’t get work done at their stealerships, use local independent shops…etc…
Buy used cars from other sources, online, local owners or lots, or buy from another manufacturer.
I’ve been doing this for decades, and its only helped my personal financial bottom line.
Screw’em both….
Meh, seems like that tactic goes nowhere fast?
The thinkers do that.
…The lemmings, they outnumber us & keep buying the slop.
I wish it were not so.
Broadly speaking Ford isn’t even that much out of line. Farley makes 253 times the median pay for his company, which is $98,273. That puts them at around 200th place in the manufacturing sector and 400th for all sectors. Some companies are wildly out of step, although statistically that’s often because they’re retail and pay their workers jack shit.
Back when Hank II was in charge, say 1965, the general range of pay at Ford was about $2.690/hr up to about $3.825/hr. Figure base pay of $3.50/hr plus maybe 10% overtime was something like $8K/yr per year. Maybe higher, maybe lower, just a wild ass guess. Doesn’t matter that much since the calculation would suggest a CEO pay of $250K/yr was making about 30 times median. Figuring also that a CEO back then had a higher level of accountability and did a lot more actual work to earn it.
Wage Chronology: Ford Motor Company, June 1941-September 1973
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/bls/bls_1787_1973.pdf
Off-topic: a straight-8 engined Alfa Romeo 8C 2900, spotted in a restaurant parking lot a few minutes ago:
https://ibb.co/Cptm1H6G
It is one participant in an Arizona Pre-war Classic outing.
I want it … I need it … I bleed it.
Whoops, it’s an 8C 2300 Spider Zagato from 1934. This same car, with the same plate number, is featured at Wikipedia:
https://tinyurl.com/bp8dup8s
Hardly-Ableson, a Ford-like dinosaur in the motorcycle business, pays the price for its screw-ups, including a flirtation with ‘Live Wire’ battery-powered
dildosscooters:‘It had to happen sooner or later. For the last three years or so, most of Harley-Davidson’s financials have been in bad shape. Since 2023, under the leadership of former CEO Jochen Zeitz, MoCo’s revenue declined each year, falling from $5.84B in 2023 to $4.47B in 2025. Profit also plunged, falling more than 50% over the three-year period.
‘Financial performance was so poor that the company sold off a large portion of its Harley-Davidson Financial Services (HDFS) division. Ultimately, the deal made HDFS more profitable than the motorcycle business itself.
‘So Harley’s new CEO, Artie Starrs needed to look at everything to help Harley-Davidson recovery financially. And unfortunately, one of the steps he has taken is to begin a reduction in force (i.e., layoffs). According to Spectrum News, a Harley-Davidson spokesperson confirmed the layoffs.’
https://www.advrider.com/global-layoffs-begin-at-harley-davidson/
Old knuckleheads never die — they just rust in the rain.
There was no real “middle class”, at least here in the USA, until Henry Ford forced the issue with his $5 per day and 8-hour day, 40-hour workweek.
Previous to Ford’s actions, most ordinary workers were paid as little as possible, almost always being subject to frequent wage cuts with business owners (robber barons) pleading poverty while themselves living grand lives.
Henry Ford broke the Adam Smith “invisible hand” mold by paying his workers a decent wage, recognizing that a decently-paid workforce would pay him back in spades. Ford recognized that well-paid workers would not only be able to afford his products, but would boost the national economic engine to levels never seen before. Ford’s motives were not entirely altruistic as assembly line work was monotonous; a way had to be adopted that would reduce employee turnover. However, Ford did want his employees to “enjoy the fruits of their labor”, something that no JEW business owner ever advocated.
Ford’s actions forestalled advocacy for communism which was thought to be a way to reign in the “robber barons”.
Of course the wall street fat cats howled that Ford’s “excessive wages” would destroy capitalism–the opposite occurred.
When the “Austrian painter” came on the scene, his monetization of labor was seen as a threat that had to be crushed, world jewry declaring “war” on Germany in 1933, hence WW2 commenced, the destruction of the “German economic miracle” was necessary to make the world safe for jewish communism and crony capitalism, which exists to this day.
On January 5, 1914, Ford Motor Company, led by its visionary and stubborn founder Henry Ford and his business partner James Couzens, unveiled the “Five-Dollar Day.” The policy applied to male workers over 22 who had been with the company for six months and met standards of sober, thrifty living.
Addictions run in the Farley family. Chris with cocaine and Jim with government welfare crack.
The boardrooms at Ford and GM are Asch Conformity experiments. Overpaid executives are not going to rock the political boat and argue the point such as EV’s and climate change are bogus ideas. Too big to fail must be very comforting. No more John DeLorean’s out there.
(Conducted in the 1950s, the Asch conformity experiments showed that individuals often ignore reality to conform to a unanimous majority. In the line-matching task, 75% of participants conformed at least once by giving an obviously wrong answer, revealing the strong influence of peer pressure.)
Amen, Hans –
The industry as it exists today would never allow a guy like DeLorean to rise to a senior position. He’d likely get fired as a young, obscure engineer before anyone knew who he was. The situation is very much like the theme of an Ayn Rand novel.
Wasn’t this similar to Edsel Ford firing Lee Iacocca? They just can’t abide success brought about by others.
Henry Ford II fired Lee Iacocca.
“It” has always been a scam. All the way back to the OG’s, the pharoahs and before them, a few to rule the many. The only difference is how less bad each method was for the plebs or serfs or peasants or vassals or citizens-whatever you call the ones not at the top. For some, life wasnt too terrible for a while, some certain empires had long stretches of relative liberty and prosperity for many of the underclass, the foundation of the pyramid.
But is all the same whether you call it by a different name: democracy, republic, fascism, nazism, monarchy, parliamentary monarchy…whatever. Democracy or the forms we have seen in the past 130 years seem, to me, to be the worst most destructive forms of oppression.
Our ancestors moved on when things got too much. If they could. Once I hit $3k a month take home…I can live pretty good in another country, more free than here, if that kind of thing is important to you. Economic freedom appeals to me, and less stress and constant hectoring, rather than political liberty since I dont really care, at my age.
But it is an interesting discussion. I’ve always thought the defunct Bill of Rights ought to be applied to any business entity that is regulated. I mean, if the big bad gov can tell business who, how, how much, when, et cetera, then they can certainly enforce free speech and all the rest on them. But nope. the trend is always less for us, more for them.
Go to a less bad country. Live there 3 years. Renounce citizenship. That is the ultimate protest.
The money is no longer in selling vehicles for a profit.
GM/GMAC set the precedent in mid/late 00’s when it was realized that financing is where the real money is at and the auto manufacturing thing was more of a side-hustle.
Gimmicky, overpriced and unreliable vehicles are a byproduct of this business model.
= sheet. Pure sheet.
So right you are.
‘People who bought those first-generation Mustangs loved them and certainly didn’t hate Ford for making them.’ — eric
Imagine if sales of the 1966 Mustang were ‘reopened’ for a limited period, using the EeeVee subscription model. Reserve one for say, $500. Ford would easily receive 100,000 reservations, if not 250,000.
Ford doesn’t even make cars like that anymore, although restomod companies sell 1960s vehicles for $200,000 and up. Ford doesn’t even try. It is clinically brain dead.
According to Jim Farley, driving a Xiaomi SU7 EeeVee was such a great experience that he ‘didn’t want to give it up.’ Would you buy a used car from this man?
Think it’s fair to use the Bronco as a comparison?
The original one, such as 1966 to 1977, Ford made between 15,000 and 25,000 per year. All of them were basic trucks.
The new one from 2021 to 2025 they make to the tune of about 100,000 to 140,000 per year, which includes a big range of trims. Bet you could assume they sell just as many of their base model now as total sales then, though.
Back in say 1966 Mustang might sell 500,000 per year but the bulk of them were modest 200 I6 with a 3 speed or optional automatic. Even if you did opt for a V8 you had got the tame 2 bbl version.
The bad ass Mustang we think of now was not really common even then. The number of 289 with 4 bbl, solid lifters, increased compression, 4 speed stick fastback Mustangs in 1966 was a few tens of thousand and the even more rare GT350 was in the couple of thousand.
What Ford has done is just make the high end models and on that basis they make just as many now. It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to think a simple Mustang could sell in high numbers, just like the 400,000 plain daily driver Mustangs they made in 1966. The difference being back then you’d be driving something interesting instead of a dull blob.
Fuck up and move up. That’s what these car company CEOs did. They make shitty cars with features that nobody wanted. And isn’t it a proven fact that they are charging more than double the cost of inflation than what these cars were worth two and three decades ago? We are being scammed.
Yes sir, “We are being scammed.”
And, competition, isn’t even allowed.
I guess, it’s anti-American, up and down the line?
Or, is that, The American Way? Idk.
The era in which the American car companies were most successful was when the currency was strong, good jobs were plentiful, the cars generally looked good and didn’t all look the same, the cars for sale on Monday had more than a passing resemblance to what won on Sunday, the music was great and on and on. It was truly a magical time to be alive.
Compare that with today and you realize why no one is rushing to spend money on a new car that treats you like a member of the Stasi going after a defector.
Make it a double feature. “Ford v. Ferrari” and “Tommy Boy”.
Today’s headline picture really emphasizes the Farley family connection.
At least Tommy cared about the workers in the Callahan plant. I’m not so sure about Chris.
The person to listen to in “Tommy Boy” is Dan Aykroyd. That’s remarkably prescient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16RuiTTQsus
“What the American public doesn’t know is what makes them the American public.”
Aykroyd is a real car guy so I gotta wonder how much of that was improvised.
Yep. But Tommy does win the end; that’s how you know it was a movie.
Just look at Whirlpool buying the bankrupt Maytag name and just relabeling Whirlpool appliances as Maytag’s. Not the same quality but in the end buyers of the “new” Maytag’s figured it out. With all the auto parts being made in China or Mexico it’s a hard slog to figure out the difference between them. Last brake job I used Raybestos Rotors with Bosh pads, seems to be OK.
Chris would have done a better job running Ford.
And that “something different” is Fascism. That is, the merging of corporations and The State. If you want a movie that encapsulates what we are living now watch Schindler’s List.
Ol’ Oscar was in the enamel pot business. His biggest customer was GovCo. He saw to it that the military governors sent to oversee his part of the world were kept neck-deep in loose women and booze. During the war he prospered, greatly. After the war, when a semblance of a free market arose…he failed…repeatedly. And died destitute.
And that’s what we’re dealing with today, Charlie Brown.
Hi Mark,
And yet, the word “Fascism” is thrown around as much as the word “Racist” has been for years. There are people who actually think that we’ve NEVER become a fascist country until Donald Trump became president the first time. However, we’ve actually been living under REAL FASCISM long before Trump became president; it just became more obvious over the past 20 years, from the federal government bailing out big banks and automobile manufacturers to an incumbent president trying to MANDATE that people who worked for an employer with 100+ employees take an experimental COVID jab made by Big Pharma. Had the Supreme Court not ruled against that mandate, MILLIONS of Americans would have been instantly unemployed, though Big Pharma executives might have become quite wealthy through such mandates.
They throw out the word fascism for things that are not actually fascist in order to obscure the meaning of word and confuse people. That way, real fascism can go forward unabated without the majority recognizing it.
We live in a continuous existence of multiple psyops. I’m required to dedicate about 25% of my energy and existence (perhaps I’m underestimating) trying to discern the actual truth.
It seems to me that EVERYTHING in this country is a grift or a swindle of some kind. It seems that everyone in “elite” society is milking or rigging The System to fuck us over. Medicine, law, politics, industry, the military, education — all of it.
Trump just pardoned some Jewish scammer who ran a bunch of nursing homes and was convicted of fraud. He’s still richer than any of us will ever be:
https://www.propublica.org/article/joseph-schwartz-trump-pardon-skyline-nursing-home-patients
I’m not a communist by any means, but fuck this shit and fuck these people. This is not “free market capitalism.”
The healthcare business has nothing to do with capitalism. It’s not socialism either. Don’t really know if what it is actually has a name… Kleptocracy perhaps?
It’s a cartel. Though without state licensing and enforcement, it would rapidly decentralize and improve, so fascist is a pretty good label.
What we have today is something very different.
Yes, and only possible with government regulation, IRS regulations, and compliance of the courts.
Traded corporations are definitely creatures of the State, and as such, ought to be treated as State organs by the courts. But, ain’t that America, land of the freeeeeeeee….
Doesnt matter dudes, whatever free market system there may have been was done away with many decades ago. Enjoy the suck
Indeed, it is still possible to be independent and live outside the system.
I have done it, but it is absolutely limited, if you don’t play by their rules, you will never make much, you will never see great success. If you take their license, or even if you take on employees, they immediately own you.
And you always have to watch your back, the statists are constantly looking for new powers to usurp, and new licenses to grant.
The incestuous boards of directors have a lot to do with this, as does the big investment banks. Stock prices are the measure of the man, and nothing else matters. So if Farley’s stock buybacks and dividend manipulation raise the stock price, he makes bank no matter the actual sales figures.
It’s a pretty cool system if you’re on the inside. You become CEO and your headhunters go out looking to get you board seats with other companies. There’s no obvious quid pro quo but clearly the boards are all too happy to increase executive compensation for each other. Not because there’s a clear connection, but because they’re all in groupthink mode WRT their own “hard work” and effort. “Of course Jim deserves his compensation plan, he’s just like us. He works just as hard as we do! Not his fault Trump took away the EV punchbowl!”
Agreed. The BoD’s are not doing their job or fiduciary duty. Ford stock price hasn’t gone anywhere in decades.
A coworker of a friend of mine had the pleasure of attending a skip level meeting with JF. The topic of ‘year end bonus ‘ came up and one of the employees mentioned they were disappointed. Allegedly, JF’s response was that ‘my boss (wife) was disappointed also “. This was a few years ago but the pay package was similar, $20M plus. Completely out of touch with reality and the folks that work underneath him.