John Murphy - Merrill Lynch

Okay and Alan lastly yesterday was the first day you guys were down in D.C. with sort of your cross-town rivals, talking about the current situation and the need potentially for some government support for the industry. I was just wondering what you think Ford might need, in general, in this potential help from the government, or is there the potential for Ford, given all the liquidity that you pulled in at the end of 2006, to get through this without any government support, contrary to maybe some other players in the industry?

Alan Mulally

I will be glad to give you my perspective and you are always welcome to join us. I am very encouraged with the dialogue, with not only the U.S. government, but the governments around the world, as everybody is dealing clearly with this economic slowdown and what it means to the economies worldwide. And with respect to the U.S. government, I think I would like to maybe focus on three key things John that we are working with. The first one is as you all know that during the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, that legislation last year, I was really proud of Ford, we stepped up to be part of that solution. And in addition to the conversation on fuel mileage and the commitments we made on that, we also had a very good conversation about the investment it takes to bring those fuel-efficient technologies to market and then they also included in the legislation low government loans to help us support the implementation of that fuel-efficient technology. So that piece of it now has gone to the Department of Energy and yesterday they released the draft of their criteria for applying for those loans and so we spent time talking about that and understanding that and then of course we will balance our product development and our enabling technology plan up against that and get our request in sooner rather than later. So I am very pleased with the development in that area.

On another piece, associated with the government’s work to free up the credit, on Ford Credit’s side we have registered to sell up to $16.0 billion of asset-backed commercial paper through the U.S. government’s commercial paper facility and through October 31 we have utilized about 25% of that. So that’s a key part of freeing up liquidity for everybody but specifically for Ford Motor Credit to be able to make the loans that the customers really do need and then maybe the last piece John that I would highlight that we spent time on yesterday was additional funding under the guise of more of a bridge loan. Look clearly none of us know what the future really is going to turn out, but clearly the economy could degrade much faster and put the industry at risk and so one of the things we talked about was having a bridge loan capability that we could access that, if it deteriorated substantially. Now, having said all that, as we pointed out in the call, our basic plan is to enhance our cash position, continue to invest in the new products that people really do want, and continue on our restructuring and we are not assuming that kind of help from the U.S. government because clearly we don’t know what that might be. But we are absolutely going to continue to dialogue with the U.S. government and others, that if things deteriorated substantially that we could do what it takes to keep this very important industry going for the United States and be part of the solution to turning the economy around.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Ceraso representing Credit Suisse. Please proceed.

Christopher Ceraso - Credit Suisse

Thanks good morning.

Alan Mulally

Good morning.

Christopher Ceraso - Credit Suisse

Just one follow up Alan and what is your position, or willingness, to the extent that you do participate in additional bridge loans, in granting equity or warrants in the company?

Alan Mulally

What we talked about yesterday is that we would want to specify the specific funding mechanism but we were certainly open to talk about the different possibilities. But we’re not that much further than that right now. We will absolutely update you as we go forward.

Christopher Ceraso - Credit Suisse

Okay, one more question, you did outline in the deck here today that equity-for-debt swaps would be part of your cash improvement plan. How much of that $6.0 billion to $8.0 billion do you think would come from that mechanism, the $2.0 billion or $3.0 billion. Can you explain that for us?

Lewis Booth

Chris, it’s about $1.0 billion within the $6.0 billion to $8.0 billion of which we have executed roughly half and the cash starts coming back to us in 2009 and 2010 as a full-credit debt pays off.

Christopher Ceraso - Credit Suisse