He recently abandoned a target of returning to profitability in 2009 and delayed the launch of a new pickup truck, the F-150, which had been showcased at the Detroit motor show amid much glitz in January.
With Osborne's target of returning government finances to a surplus by 2020 now scrapped, the new prime minister has a golden opportunity to get started with major infrastructure projects.
While Mr. Machado, the Ford executive and trade group head, proudly cites the Spanish car industry's target of returning to a precrisis production level of three million vehicles a year, some analysts say that could be wishful thinking.
However, it said its previous target of returning both the TV and PC businesses to profitability would not be achieved within the current financial year.
Meadows has set herself the target of returning from next month's World Indoor Championships and the summer's European Championships and Commonwealth Games with medals, although the colours of which will remain a secret until, or if, the deed is done.
The SNP, encouraged by its victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, set itself a target of returning 20 MPs and hoped to find itself holding a balance of power.
Its opponents argue that in many industries prices are decisively influenced by the actions of a few leading firms, which have as their objective not maximum profits in the short run but a target rate of return over a period of years.
For example, if a division's capital is $100m and its cost of capital is 10%, its target rate of return will be $10m.
That is about 4 percentage points above the annual benchmark return that Harvard would expect if it simply matched its target rate of return in each of the various asset classes in its portfolio.
