Navistar Announces New 18-Month Plan

The new CEO of struggling Navistar has announced an 18-month plan to bring financial stability to the cash-strapped company. This plan includes reducing the workforce by 700 in order to increase capital. In other words, no new hires at Barton or anywhere else unless essential.

And after 18 months? No one seems to know; Navistar itself is shooting for a period without any new disasters. That may sound glum, but isn't that a good day for most of us?

However, one financial analyst has stated:

The management team at Navistar is beyond incompetent and reaches into the realm of imbecilic. After being delisted from the NYST it apparently still has not mastered basic accounting – as the SEC has launched another probe into its accounting practices. However, it is the lack of coherent strategic thinking and continuing failures in execution that truly illuminate how mediocre the “leadership” team is at Navistar. The board must be equally inept for tolerating such sustained poor performance. During the Great Recession Nav was rescued by the US Military’s desperate need for mine resistant vehicles, however, there won’t be a rescue from Uncle Sam this time. The current engine debacle is not root cause of the company’s problems, just its most visible. The company’s core truck business is imploding and its declining market share and mounting losses are simply a period to a sentence Ustian has been writing since he was elevated to CEO.

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We had incorrectly reported that Matthew Fox had been denied youthful offender status in June. It seems his hearing was only postponed; Judge Jackie Hatcher will be making a ruling soon, but we can't see Fox receiving this plum.

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A reader commented on our article concerning the Natalie Chanin-Billy Reid organic cotton field:

I am quite sure that Mr. Reid will offset the costs of the free T-shirt and party by raising the price on the already expensive shirts and clothing. There is statistically no difference in this organically grown cotton and the typical harvested cotton. By the time is makes it to the manufacturer it will have been washed and cleansed in numerous chemicals which are probably just as bad as the pesticide. At the price of these items it is really sort of an insult to ask people to freely come and weed their fields.

Shoalanda