The New York Times looks at the similarities between the steel industry
in Pennsylvania and the auto industry here in Detroit and how the Motor
City may be able to learn a thing or two from it.
Excerpt:
If they were allowed to go under, their partisans warned, the
consequences would ripple through the economy at a cost too high to
bear. The old saying, “As steel goes, so goes the nation,” was as much
a threat as a boast.
The Detroit automakers are using the same argument as they seek a $25 billion bailout
from Congress. “What happens in the automotive industry affects each
and every one of us,” a General Motors Web site declares, warning that
the consequences of a shutdown would be “devastating.”
Yet
steel’s savior was not the government bailouts it ardently sought but
exactly what it so long tried to avoid: bankruptcy. Only when the
companies failed were they successfully slimmed down and retooled into
smaller but profitable ventures. As debate continues over what, if
anything, should be done for G.M., Ford and Chrysler, the steel
industry may offer a model.
Read the entire article
here.
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