Henry Ford：My Life and Work, Additional Excerpt 272

We could have borrowed $40,000,000--more had we wanted to. Suppose we had borrowed, what would have happened? Should we have been better fitted to go on with our business? Or worse fitted? If we had borrowed we should not have been under the necessity of finding methods to cheapen production. Had we been able to obtain the money at 6 per cent. flat--and we should in commissions and the like have had to pay more than that--the interest charge alone on a yearly production of 500,000 cars would have amounted to about four dollars a car. Therefore we should now be without the benefit of better production and loaded with a heavy debt. Our cars would probably cost about one hundred dollars more than they do; hence we should have a smaller production, for we could not have so many buyers; we should employ fewer men, and in short, should not be able to serve to the utmost. You will note that the financiers proposed to cure by lending money and not by bettering methods. They did not suggest putting in an engineer; they wanted to put in a treasurer.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213
Locator：Additional excerpt 272 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

公版传记；原文逐字取自 Project Gutenberg，仅摘录段落并附全书链接。

This text is in the public domain. The edition and source link are above. Copyright

← Back to the library