A company that deserves HATE

tw · 05-22-2001, 05:52 PM

{Warning: this contains much history and current news - it will be about 190 lines):

Michelin is an American patriotic company - even though this French company was not doing buiness in the US when it advanced mankind. They developed the radial tire in 1948 - a major example of what defines an Amerian patriot.

But anti-Americans ran all major American tire companies. Anti-Americans fear increase costs of innovation - and the radial tire - because of their business school training. A traditional bias belted tire lasted 10,000 miles whereas radials would exceed 40,000 miles. This was blasphemy, according to neoclassical economists, to sell a product that lasted longer. That would only lower profits. So Firestone, America's largest tire manufacturer, and all other American tire companies, ran to Congress for protection - to install large tarrifs on imported tires. They intentionly and blatantly kept the radial tire out of America for over 25 years.

The purpose of a business is to take a profit - not to advance the world with better products. We also call this the 'status quo'. Business school mentality, a fundamental concept found even in the mafia, is still stupidly entrenched in too many teenagers and twenty somethings even though history has long demonstrated the evils of such thinking. Anti-Americans believe a business's primary object is to take a profit - the world be damned. Below is an example of how evil that MBA school concept is - the idea that a murder can be called an accident. The idea that people should be killed to protect profits. The idea that there is plenty of blame to go around. The fear of this biblical commandment - 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management.

Note what a buisness school mentality does after innovation was stifled. They blame everyone else, then run to government for protection. In those days, we were all so anti-American that we believed lies about lower wage earners taking American jobs. Today we know that if a lower wage earner takes an American job, then that American company was anti-American - had so stifled innnovation that the job should not exist in America. Where American industries are not productive, the best thing for America is to let those anti-innovation companies go bankrupt - or remove the reason for those problems - top management. Either way, patriotic Americans believe in free markets - they always purchase innovative products from better run companies - no matter where in the world that company is located. Patriotic Americans solve the problem - they vote against the anti-American management by purchasing elsewhere.

However we did not do that in the 1940/50s. We encouraged Congress to protect anti-Americans - anti-innovators - in all major American tire companies. This continued until 1975 when Michelin opened plants in Nova Scotia and Georgia - plants that circumvented those anti-American tarrifs. By 1960, the radial tire was everywhere in the world - except America. Sears sold the first radials in American in 1975 - 27 years after the innovation was created.

Suddenly MBA American tire companies had to do something. They all rushed forward with ill conceived radial tire designs - combined with a 27 year universal ignorance of how radials worked. And so we have the famous Firestone 500 - a tire that was creating paraplegics and quadraplegics throughout America for over four years. Firestone settled quietly out of court with thousands of Firestone created cripples if they did not reveal the details of the settlement. I personally met one who told me the story from his hospital bed in 1978. It is why I became so sensitive to the story and began noticing how many cars around me had prematurely failing tires. You could see the tire tread weaving full inches back and forth as the tire prepared to disintegrate - and the owner was not aware.

By the late 1970s, the NHTSB had so many complaints of tire failure that they did a study - and discovered premature American radial tire failures were greater than 60%! It was (and still remains) the largest tire recall in the country. But not after these anti-American tire companies still banded together to sue the government in quashing the NHTSB report. Instead, the report mysteriously fell into the hands of Time Magazine - and was reported there before 1980. The lawsuit quietly ended. Lawsuit? Yes, just another tool so excessively used by MBA trained, anti-American management.

To solve their public relations problem, Firestone quickly began a series of TV commercials promoting its replacement tire - where a young, quirky genius is credited with developing this new tire - the 721. Too little too late. Firestone was bankrupt (good) - because American patriots stopped buying from an anti-American company. For example, American Patriots purchased French Michelin tires. Firestone, once the world's largest tire manufacturer, was sold to a much smaller company called Bridgestone. This is what happened to all major American tire manufacturers except Goodyear. Since they all were anti-innovation, then they either had to be bankrupted or sold to foreign competition. The Italians, French, Japanese, etc all purchased these failed American companies for percentage of their former value.

Some claimed that foreigner paid too much for these anti-American tire companies that were purchased much above book value. But product oriented management realized how much more these companies were worth if they only had a standard technology product to sell. MBAs looked at the book value. Product oriented management saw the real value was in manufactureing innovative products.

Bridgestone had a problem. Firestone was massive whereas Bridgestone was but a percentage the size. Bridgestone had to teach MBA trained mentalities how to run a business - and did not have sufficient management to do so. They tried to explain, by fax, how to restructure operations. Classic example is quality as taught to Japan by the famous American W. E. Deming. Deming was so important that the Japanese highest award - the Japanese equivalent to the Congressional Metal of Honor - is named the Deming Award - in honor of an American - not a Japanese. But Americans worshipped business school concepts that destroy innovation. Ironic that American business - and still most American today - don't know who William Edward Deming is.

When a door arrives in Toyota, is goes immediately to production line without delay to be installed on a car. There is no time for Quality Control inspections. The door is inspected when it is installed by the installer. American business school mentalities cringe because if the door is defective, then the car will be assembled onto the defective part. But these are business school trained Americans. That door never arrives with a defect. How can this be - there is always a percentage of defects? Yes, if the supplier is also trained in an American business school. But since the manufacturer spent 10 years earning the 'right' to be a Toyota supplier - since he does not get the right to provide that door on lower cost - then Toyota never gets a single defective door. Patriotic suppliers use product people - not accountants - to design and manufacturer the door. Instead of trying to lower costs, a patriotic manufacturer concentrates on making every door accurately. Ironically both manufacturer and supplier have lower costs because they don't try to lower costs. Instead they concentrate on the product. Toyota has the legendary Toyota quality because of this American developed concept, brought to Japan by W. E. Deming, and ignored by Harvard Buisness School trained mentalities.

Most important, Toyota has no quality control inspectors. Any company, even today, that has a quality control inspector has no quality products. That is another commandment to replace those obsolete concepts of the bible. Higher quality means no quality control inspectors.

Firestone management was so MBA brainwashed as to not comprehend the Toyota examples. In response to the fax, Firestone local officials hired 300 more quality control inspectors. This was a painful time for Bridgestone - trying to break American managers of their MBA brainwashing.

Flash ahead to the 1990s. Bridgestone Firestone was developing a new tire for S/UVs. To cut costs, they no longer installed a belt between the steel belt and tread. Also if the tread was not installed immediately, a solvent would be required resoften the glue. This seemed to work - except if the tire was exposed to prolong temperature. Six years ago, this design was failing so prematurely in South America that Firestone ordered a recall. It is not clear if Ford World Wide operations was fully aware of the reasons for the recall. Apparently they thought it was only a bad batch of tires - not a totally defective design. But when this tire fails on S/UVs, such as Explorer, the consequences are catastrophic. One in four serious crashes of S/UVs cause turnovers. One in four turnovers kill humans. But since S/UVs were trucks, then this was acceptable.

Of course the public used emotion rather than fact to decide. The Explorer looks tough - therefore it must be safer. Damn the facts and make that emotional conclusion. S/UVs are inheritanty more dangerous to both occupants and all other vehicles. Firestone hope to count on a public that concludes without using logic.

Maybe the problem was or was not known to Ford. But when Ford did acknowledge the problem, they addressed it full force in joint cooperation with their 100 year partner, Firestone. But Ford did not understand that Firestone still was dominated by an anti-American MBA mentality. Firestone knew far more about these tire failures than they admitted and were not willing to admit that the tires were defective - by "design". Instead, in classic MBA style, Firestone wanted to share blame onto everyone else.

Bridgestone Firestone blamed owners for not inflating their tires to proper pressure - even though vehicle owners do that same thing on all other tires without tire disintegration. They blamed the vehicle - even though other manufacturer tires don't fail on Explorer. They obfuscate the issue by comparing tire failures on Explorer vs Ranger - forgetting to mention that those failures don't occur on either vehicle when they are non-Firestone tires. They blame the Decatur IL plant for the defects (the classic MBA technique of blaming Union labor) even though those S American tires, and probably many other premature tires came from other plants.

Most damning is last summer's USA Today report where pictures of documents reporting on the tire failure over 4 years ago had the initials of the Firestone president - who insisted he knew nothing of the problem until year 2000. Classic example of MBA trained corporate management. Deny. Deny. Deny. And made more striking by Ford's patriot attitude of solving the problem full force - even at the expense of profits.

Ford all but dragged Firestone, kicking and screaming, into a 6.5 million tire recall. Ford, without Firestone's cooperation, got other tire manufacturers to supply products to expedite the recall. Ford discovered that Firestone continued to withhold statistical information. (Is penis loving Ken Starr a Firestone lawyer? This is classic Ken Starr tactics.) Ford executives even visited victims of tire failure even after Firestone refused to send their corporate executives. Firestone only apologized after Ford's apologies made Firestone look bad. Looking bad might hurt profits - the victims be damned. Classic comparison of a product oriented vs MBA trained management teams.

In a quality organization, the supplier routinely shares confidential information with the manufacturer. Firestone was not doing that. Ford started doing a confidential statistical study that was only recently completed. Ford was shocked how much worse the tire problem was. But Firestone heard about the study and demanded access to the information. Why? Firestone had stonewalled Ford. The only reason Firestone would want that documentation - so that they could deflect blame on anyone else. Ford, in retaliation (and good for them), stonewalled Firestone's phone calls. Do you see what the devil is called - Bridgesone Firestone - management from the MBA schools.

In response to new facts, Ford ordered another 13 million Explorer tires recalled - as any patriotic company would do. Firestone now completely blames the Explorer for all tire failures, and decided to stop selling tires to Ford - an end of a 100 year relationship dating back to when Henry Ford met Harvey Firestone to make Firestone the only tire on Fords. You should be doing same. Openly confront anyone who would purchase from the devil - Bridgestone Firestone - a company that may have killed more Americans than a communist Kremlin.

Look at how patriotic Ford is being. They are paying for the entire recall themselves without the cooperation or reinbursement from a bloody thirsty, profiteering Firestone. $2billion are GM's profits in a good year. Ford will spend $2.1billion just on this latest 13 million tire recall. Furthermore Ford will take additional loses as they shutdown all related assembly plants for at least 2 weeks to address Firestone tire problems in current production lines.

But this is even more revealing. Firestone said the problem was only with 15 inch tires. Only 15 inch tires were recalled the first time. Ford has discovered the problem exists in 15, 16, and 17 inch tires - and must recall all three sizes! No, this is not an isolated problem. Firestone by design, made defective tires and Firstone MBAs would kill Americans, in order to not admit guilt. You would be logical to emotionally advocate prision for all top Firestone executives. They killed more people than Timothy McVeigh. That emotion is based upon logical conclusions - Firestone designed a defective tire, knew the tire was defective, continued to manufacturer and the defective tires, and then deny, deny, deny - just like the Firestone 500.

History repeats itself?

How anti-American can Bridgestone Firestone be? They replaced their MBA trained top executive. The new guy is featured in TV commercials talking about how important a customer is to Firestone. And now we learn that the new guy is also hiding facts - while blaming the Explorer for tire failures - in classic MBA school tradition. It is as if Firestone was throwing tires over the wall and only just recently discovered that Ford was putting them on Explorers. Bull. A responsible supplier to a quality oriented company (Quality is Job 1) is fully informed as to how the product will be used - so that there is no need for quality control inspectors. Firestone is a classic example of a Company every reader should DESPISE. Do you hate all the world - like Milosevik or dichead Ariel Sharon? Then buy Firestone tires and remain quiet when you neighbor also buys advocates MBA school philosophies. We are talking about a company with an MBA mentality - that would create genocide if it meant higher profits. Firestone is THE company you HATE.

BTW who still makes superior tires? Remember that partiotic company at the start of this long story? Michelin. Michelin has been continuously developing new tire processes including one that makes new tired (not recaps) from old tires. Innovators are what we call partriotic American companies - the reason you purchase their products and not the products of MBA school graduates.

[Edited by tw on 05-22-2001 at 06:55 PM]

05-22-2001, 05:52 PM	#1
tw Read? I only know how to write. Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 11,933	A company that deserves HATE {Warning: this contains much history and current news - it will be about 190 lines): Michelin is an American patriotic company - even though this French company was not doing buiness in the US when it advanced mankind. They developed the radial tire in 1948 - a major example of what defines an Amerian patriot. But anti-Americans ran all major American tire companies. Anti-Americans fear increase costs of innovation - and the radial tire - because of their business school training. A traditional bias belted tire lasted 10,000 miles whereas radials would exceed 40,000 miles. This was blasphemy, according to neoclassical economists, to sell a product that lasted longer. That would only lower profits. So Firestone, America's largest tire manufacturer, and all other American tire companies, ran to Congress for protection - to install large tarrifs on imported tires. They intentionly and blatantly kept the radial tire out of America for over 25 years. The purpose of a business is to take a profit - not to advance the world with better products. We also call this the 'status quo'. Business school mentality, a fundamental concept found even in the mafia, is still stupidly entrenched in too many teenagers and twenty somethings even though history has long demonstrated the evils of such thinking. Anti-Americans believe a business's primary object is to take a profit - the world be damned. Below is an example of how evil that MBA school concept is - the idea that a murder can be called an accident. The idea that people should be killed to protect profits. The idea that there is plenty of blame to go around. The fear of this biblical commandment - 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Note what a buisness school mentality does after innovation was stifled. They blame everyone else, then run to government for protection. In those days, we were all so anti-American that we believed lies about lower wage earners taking American jobs. Today we know that if a lower wage earner takes an American job, then that American company was anti-American - had so stifled innnovation that the job should not exist in America. Where American industries are not productive, the best thing for America is to let those anti-innovation companies go bankrupt - or remove the reason for those problems - top management. Either way, patriotic Americans believe in free markets - they always purchase innovative products from better run companies - no matter where in the world that company is located. Patriotic Americans solve the problem - they vote against the anti-American management by purchasing elsewhere. However we did not do that in the 1940/50s. We encouraged Congress to protect anti-Americans - anti-innovators - in all major American tire companies. This continued until 1975 when Michelin opened plants in Nova Scotia and Georgia - plants that circumvented those anti-American tarrifs. By 1960, the radial tire was everywhere in the world - except America. Sears sold the first radials in American in 1975 - 27 years after the innovation was created. Suddenly MBA American tire companies had to do something. They all rushed forward with ill conceived radial tire designs - combined with a 27 year universal ignorance of how radials worked. And so we have the famous Firestone 500 - a tire that was creating paraplegics and quadraplegics throughout America for over four years. Firestone settled quietly out of court with thousands of Firestone created cripples if they did not reveal the details of the settlement. I personally met one who told me the story from his hospital bed in 1978. It is why I became so sensitive to the story and began noticing how many cars around me had prematurely failing tires. You could see the tire tread weaving full inches back and forth as the tire prepared to disintegrate - and the owner was not aware. By the late 1970s, the NHTSB had so many complaints of tire failure that they did a study - and discovered premature American radial tire failures were greater than 60%! It was (and still remains) the largest tire recall in the country. But not after these anti-American tire companies still banded together to sue the government in quashing the NHTSB report. Instead, the report mysteriously fell into the hands of Time Magazine - and was reported there before 1980. The lawsuit quietly ended. Lawsuit? Yes, just another tool so excessively used by MBA trained, anti-American management. To solve their public relations problem, Firestone quickly began a series of TV commercials promoting its replacement tire - where a young, quirky genius is credited with developing this new tire - the 721. Too little too late. Firestone was bankrupt (good) - because American patriots stopped buying from an anti-American company. For example, American Patriots purchased French Michelin tires. Firestone, once the world's largest tire manufacturer, was sold to a much smaller company called Bridgestone. This is what happened to all major American tire manufacturers except Goodyear. Since they all were anti-innovation, then they either had to be bankrupted or sold to foreign competition. The Italians, French, Japanese, etc all purchased these failed American companies for percentage of their former value. Some claimed that foreigner paid too much for these anti-American tire companies that were purchased much above book value. But product oriented management realized how much more these companies were worth if they only had a standard technology product to sell. MBAs looked at the book value. Product oriented management saw the real value was in manufactureing innovative products. Bridgestone had a problem. Firestone was massive whereas Bridgestone was but a percentage the size. Bridgestone had to teach MBA trained mentalities how to run a business - and did not have sufficient management to do so. They tried to explain, by fax, how to restructure operations. Classic example is quality as taught to Japan by the famous American W. E. Deming. Deming was so important that the Japanese highest award - the Japanese equivalent to the Congressional Metal of Honor - is named the Deming Award - in honor of an American - not a Japanese. But Americans worshipped business school concepts that destroy innovation. Ironic that American business - and still most American today - don't know who William Edward Deming is. When a door arrives in Toyota, is goes immediately to production line without delay to be installed on a car. There is no time for Quality Control inspections. The door is inspected when it is installed by the installer. American business school mentalities cringe because if the door is defective, then the car will be assembled onto the defective part. But these are business school trained Americans. That door never arrives with a defect. How can this be - there is always a percentage of defects? Yes, if the supplier is also trained in an American business school. But since the manufacturer spent 10 years earning the 'right' to be a Toyota supplier - since he does not get the right to provide that door on lower cost - then Toyota never gets a single defective door. Patriotic suppliers use product people - not accountants - to design and manufacturer the door. Instead of trying to lower costs, a patriotic manufacturer concentrates on making every door accurately. Ironically both manufacturer and supplier have lower costs because they don't try to lower costs. Instead they concentrate on the product. Toyota has the legendary Toyota quality because of this American developed concept, brought to Japan by W. E. Deming, and ignored by Harvard Buisness School trained mentalities. Most important, Toyota has no quality control inspectors. Any company, even today, that has a quality control inspector has no quality products. That is another commandment to replace those obsolete concepts of the bible. Higher quality means no quality control inspectors. Firestone management was so MBA brainwashed as to not comprehend the Toyota examples. In response to the fax, Firestone local officials hired 300 more quality control inspectors. This was a painful time for Bridgestone - trying to break American managers of their MBA brainwashing. Flash ahead to the 1990s. Bridgestone Firestone was developing a new tire for S/UVs. To cut costs, they no longer installed a belt between the steel belt and tread. Also if the tread was not installed immediately, a solvent would be required resoften the glue. This seemed to work - except if the tire was exposed to prolong temperature. Six years ago, this design was failing so prematurely in South America that Firestone ordered a recall. It is not clear if Ford World Wide operations was fully aware of the reasons for the recall. Apparently they thought it was only a bad batch of tires - not a totally defective design. But when this tire fails on S/UVs, such as Explorer, the consequences are catastrophic. One in four serious crashes of S/UVs cause turnovers. One in four turnovers kill humans. But since S/UVs were trucks, then this was acceptable. Of course the public used emotion rather than fact to decide. The Explorer looks tough - therefore it must be safer. Damn the facts and make that emotional conclusion. S/UVs are inheritanty more dangerous to both occupants and all other vehicles. Firestone hope to count on a public that concludes without using logic. Maybe the problem was or was not known to Ford. But when Ford did acknowledge the problem, they addressed it full force in joint cooperation with their 100 year partner, Firestone. But Ford did not understand that Firestone still was dominated by an anti-American MBA mentality. Firestone knew far more about these tire failures than they admitted and were not willing to admit that the tires were defective - by "design". Instead, in classic MBA style, Firestone wanted to share blame onto everyone else. Bridgestone Firestone blamed owners for not inflating their tires to proper pressure - even though vehicle owners do that same thing on all other tires without tire disintegration. They blamed the vehicle - even though other manufacturer tires don't fail on Explorer. They obfuscate the issue by comparing tire failures on Explorer vs Ranger - forgetting to mention that those failures don't occur on either vehicle when they are non-Firestone tires. They blame the Decatur IL plant for the defects (the classic MBA technique of blaming Union labor) even though those S American tires, and probably many other premature tires came from other plants. Most damning is last summer's USA Today report where pictures of documents reporting on the tire failure over 4 years ago had the initials of the Firestone president - who insisted he knew nothing of the problem until year 2000. Classic example of MBA trained corporate management. Deny. Deny. Deny. And made more striking by Ford's patriot attitude of solving the problem full force - even at the expense of profits. Ford all but dragged Firestone, kicking and screaming, into a 6.5 million tire recall. Ford, without Firestone's cooperation, got other tire manufacturers to supply products to expedite the recall. Ford discovered that Firestone continued to withhold statistical information. (Is penis loving Ken Starr a Firestone lawyer? This is classic Ken Starr tactics.) Ford executives even visited victims of tire failure even after Firestone refused to send their corporate executives. Firestone only apologized after Ford's apologies made Firestone look bad. Looking bad might hurt profits - the victims be damned. Classic comparison of a product oriented vs MBA trained management teams. In a quality organization, the supplier routinely shares confidential information with the manufacturer. Firestone was not doing that. Ford started doing a confidential statistical study that was only recently completed. Ford was shocked how much worse the tire problem was. But Firestone heard about the study and demanded access to the information. Why? Firestone had stonewalled Ford. The only reason Firestone would want that documentation - so that they could deflect blame on anyone else. Ford, in retaliation (and good for them), stonewalled Firestone's phone calls. Do you see what the devil is called - Bridgesone Firestone - management from the MBA schools. In response to new facts, Ford ordered another 13 million Explorer tires recalled - as any patriotic company would do. Firestone now completely blames the Explorer for all tire failures, and decided to stop selling tires to Ford - an end of a 100 year relationship dating back to when Henry Ford met Harvey Firestone to make Firestone the only tire on Fords. You should be doing same. Openly confront anyone who would purchase from the devil - Bridgestone Firestone - a company that may have killed more Americans than a communist Kremlin. Look at how patriotic Ford is being. They are paying for the entire recall themselves without the cooperation or reinbursement from a bloody thirsty, profiteering Firestone. $2billion are GM's profits in a good year. Ford will spend $2.1billion just on this latest 13 million tire recall. Furthermore Ford will take additional loses as they shutdown all related assembly plants for at least 2 weeks to address Firestone tire problems in current production lines. But this is even more revealing. Firestone said the problem was only with 15 inch tires. Only 15 inch tires were recalled the first time. Ford has discovered the problem exists in 15, 16, and 17 inch tires - and must recall all three sizes! No, this is not an isolated problem. Firestone by design, made defective tires and Firstone MBAs would kill Americans, in order to not admit guilt. You would be logical to emotionally advocate prision for all top Firestone executives. They killed more people than Timothy McVeigh. That emotion is based upon logical conclusions - Firestone designed a defective tire, knew the tire was defective, continued to manufacturer and the defective tires, and then deny, deny, deny - just like the Firestone 500. History repeats itself? How anti-American can Bridgestone Firestone be? They replaced their MBA trained top executive. The new guy is featured in TV commercials talking about how important a customer is to Firestone. And now we learn that the new guy is also hiding facts - while blaming the Explorer for tire failures - in classic MBA school tradition. It is as if Firestone was throwing tires over the wall and only just recently discovered that Ford was putting them on Explorers. Bull. A responsible supplier to a quality oriented company (Quality is Job 1) is fully informed as to how the product will be used - so that there is no need for quality control inspectors. Firestone is a classic example of a Company every reader should DESPISE. Do you hate all the world - like Milosevik or dichead Ariel Sharon? Then buy Firestone tires and remain quiet when you neighbor also buys advocates MBA school philosophies. We are talking about a company with an MBA mentality - that would create genocide if it meant higher profits. Firestone is THE company you HATE. BTW who still makes superior tires? Remember that partiotic company at the start of this long story? Michelin. Michelin has been continuously developing new tire processes including one that makes new tired (not recaps) from old tires. Innovators are what we call partriotic American companies - the reason you purchase their products and not the products of MBA school graduates. [Edited by tw on 05-22-2001 at 06:55 PM]

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