If you’re a large American corporation:

What do you do after reporting fourth-quarter profit of $124 million?

A 19 percent increase in profits from the same period a year earlier?

$2 billion in profits on over $47 billion in sales for the full year?

And announce profits for the third straight year?

Well, if you’re the Ford Motor Company:

You announce the layoff of 30,000 employees, 25% of its workforce, and plans to close 12 plants.

And every 100 Ford jobs supports 460 jobs in related industries. That’s a possible loss of another 138,000 jobs at suppliers and in service industries.

Why?

Because Ford has decided that Americans don’t want the gas guzzling, unsafe, oversized clunkers they build. They have no plans to adapt to future demands. So they’re “downsizing.”

And how does Wall Street respond to Ford’s announcement that they have no idea how produce cars people want and innovate for the future? The stock rose over 5% on the news.