Spare a thought for Ford Motor Company, which lost $14.7 billion last year but is battling on, trying to fix its problems with hardly a shred of government help in either America or Europe. In America its two domestic rivals, General Motors (gm) and Chrysler, are using bankruptcy protection and $62 billion from the Treasury to shrink their debt, reduce the cost of their obligations to retired workers and prune their sprawling dealer networks, gmac, the lender that provides loans to the customers and dealers of both firms, but not those of Ford, has received $13.5 billion of funding from the government. In the European Union, meanwhile, despite strict rules intended to stop states from giving an unfair advantage to "national champions", France and Germany have rushed to prop up three of Ford's main competitors.
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