Bailout-Free Ford Earns $1.6 Billion in 3rd Quarter, Best Ever Results in North America

Amazing how a company can succeed and make a profit without government bailout money, unlike GM who is losing money and causing taxpayers to lose at least $25 billion.

From Detroit Free Press:

Ford reported a $1.6 billion third-quarter net income as its best-ever quarterly results in North America more than offset continuing losses in Europe.

Revenue was $32.1 billion for the quarter.

Pretax profits of $2.3 billion in North America more than made up for a $468 million pretax loss in Europe. Other regions were all in the black.

The earnings per share of 40 cents beat the street’s expectations of 30 cents and year-ago’s 34 cents.

“This is the third quarter in a row where we earned over $2 billion and had an operating margin over 10%,” said Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks. It shows a consistency the company wants to maintain but the fourth quarter will not be as strong because the end of the year traditionally has higher manufacturing, engineering and marketing costs.

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Two More Restaurant Chains, Jimmy John’s and Applebee’s, Warn ObamaCare Will Cut Profits & Employees

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is anything but affordable. Company after company continues to warn about the consequences of ObamaCare = higher costs & more unemployed Americans.

From Washington Secrets:

Add Applebee’s and Jimmy John’s to the growing list of small companies and franchisers warning that Obamacare will kill profits and force local stores to raise prices or slash employees and their hours.

“Somebody has to pay,” said Apple-Metro Chairman Zane Tankel on Fox Business Network. The Applebee’s chief added that it is unclear what Obamacare taxes, costs and fines will total, but said his restaurants will do whatever is necessary to stay in business.

The budget for employees and health care in the firm’s 2013 budget is being kept open until after the election when he expects the administration to reveal more details on how Obamacare will be fully implemented in 2014. Obama, said Tankel, “is waiting until after the election, then he’ll drop this on us.”

Ditto for Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of Jimmy John’s sub shacks, who also appeared on FBN.

Like a lot of small businesses, he said that the firm is considering cutting hours of workers to 28 to get under the Obamacare cap that requires companies to either fully fund health care or pay a $2,000 fine.

“We have to do that. There’s no other way we can survive it, because we think it will cost us 50 cents a sandwich. That’s just the actual cost,” he told Fox. “If you have 40 or 50 employees at a restaurant, and the penalty is $2,000, and you’re going to pay $80,000 or $100,000 penalty, there goes the profit in your restaurant,” he added.

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Obama: Banks Don’t Have ‘Inherent Right’ to ‘Certain Amount of Profit’

Spoken like a true Marxist/Socialist/Communist. Obama believes the government can regulate how much a business can earn and his regulations are showing his disdain for the free market.

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama suggested on Monday that the nation’s banks should “take a little bit less of a profit” rather than raise fees on customers.

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Obama was asked if the government can stop banks from imposing a new debit card fee on their customers.

“Well, you can stop it because … if you say to the banks, ‘You don’t have some inherent right just to — you know, get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated. That you have to treat them fairly and transparently.’ And — and my hope is is that you’re going to see a bunch of the banks, who say to themselves, ‘You know what? This is actually not good business practice.’

This coming from a man who has never worked in the free market or ran a business. The banks are doing this because of Obama’s regulations.

“Banks can make money,” Obama said. “They can succeed the old-fashioned way, by earning it — by lending to small businesses, by lending to consumers. By making sure that– you know, we are building the economy together.”

These are the “fat-cats” Obama pretends to hate as he accepts their money and bails them out.

Obama advocated “protections” (regulations) that Republicans want to roll back. However, as a direct result of those regulations, the nation’s major banks are considering a plan to charge customers a $5 monthly service fee for debit card transactions. A provision in the Dodd-Frank Act cut the amount banks could charge merchants for debit card swipes, so the banks may shift the burden onto consumers.

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