Ford rules!

Have you driven a Ford lately?

Apparently, lots of you folks have.

The Ford Motor Co. did something that no U.S. automaker has done in a long time.

It made a profit last year. A big one. $2.7 billion!

And Ford was the only one of the Big Three that didn’t have to beg Uncle Sam for bailout bucks when the recession was cranking up.

Yee haw! There may be hope for the U.S. auto industry yet. Or at least a third of it.

Critics used to sneer that F-O-R-D stood for Found On Road Dead.

Maybe now they’ll say it means Full Of Resilient Dominance. (OK, I am going to work on that acronym.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, GM says it will pay Toyota customers a thousand bucks if they will switch brands.

Now, I may not be one of those power-tie-wearin’ Wall Street financiers, but that doesn’t seem like a good way to make money – bribing people to buy your products.

Congress thought along those lines when it dreamed up the Cash for Clunkers program. But those clowns never had a lick of fiscal sense, so that scheme wasn’t surprising.

The suits at GM should know better. Then again, maybe that’s why GM is hanging on by its fingertips.

We shall see.

But it’s nice to think that you can still buy an extended warranty on at least one U.S. car and hope the company will be there in a few years.