Iacocca

Just finished the autobiography of Lee Iacocca, who is remembered for the great innings at the top of Ford, as well as the turnaround of Chrysler. The guy really had business sense. And he was really frank. I think that is why he was able to get his idea across, and also appear as sincere and honest.

His popularity after Chrysler almost filed for bankruptcy obviously plummetted, but he kept his cool, and due to his sincere efforts to help Chrysler, turned it around in no time. Boy, he did not even take his salary for a year, just took a nominal amount of $ 1. If all American executives were like him!!! There sure wouldn't have been any Enron.

However, in one thing he was wrong. He believed that due to various subsidies, and also low labour costs, and fixing of the yen to the dollar, the Japs would one day devour American industry. He could not have been more wrong. The Japanese economy could not take the strain of so many billions of dollars of subsidies, and also the fixing of the yen, and ultimately buckled. America, one the other hand entered one of its most prosperous years. This goes to show that free enterprise sure is the winner finally. Government should intervene only if it is a matter of national integrity and security, or if the damage due to something will make a very major mark in terms of skewing the unemployed ratio, as in the case of Chrysler.

The Chinese are going down the same path. They have fixed the yuan to the dollar, are giving massive subsidies, and are also torturing their labour. Let's see how far this one goes...

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"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'