In all its 43 years, the Ford Motor Co. has by tradition been closemouthed about its profits & losses. Last week, before the Jefferson City, Mo. Chamber of Commerce, Ford's executive vice president, Ernest Robert Breech, broke with tradition. He announced that Ford's loss for the first nine months of 1946 was a whopping $51,600,000 (if this figure still stands at year's end, tax rebates would cut this down to $32,900,000). Reasons: wage increases, shortages, suppliers' strikes.
He added, "We are going to have to earn back these losses before we can do many things we would like to do—things like...