On the front page of the Wall Street Journal for Monday, October 23, 2000, there was an article on the steel industry. That conservative bastion, that never-stilled trumpet for the free market and competition said the following:

"Melbourne, Australia. Executives from the world's largest steelmakers took a break recently from battling each other to confront an old problem that's plaguing them all: The world is producing too much steel.

"...the mood among steelmakers was surprisingly upbeat. It seems that the biggest players in the industry acknowledged that the value of their companies would rise, or at least stop falling, if they began to close inefficient plants, scale back production, and consolidate."

"There's little doubt that consolidation would solve many probkems for the fractured industry. With fewer and bigger companies, the industry could maintain more control over prices. ..."

The italics are mine. There you have it. Straight from the champions of competition. The big steelmakers meet, decide to quit competing so much, and combine into bigger companies in order to control prices.

The WSJ doesn't bat an eye. They tell it like it is. Except... strangely enough...they don't exactly seem to mind... and they report it as a creative solution to a vexing problem.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), October 24, 2000

Answers

Alice picked up the thread and read the tiny label. It said "Notice me."

"How very queer," Alice thought, "For if I had not already noticed the thread, I should not have been able to follow the directions. And having noticed the thread, there was no need for them."

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), October 24, 2000.

Another good way to lower your costs is slavery!

-- Porky (Porky@in.cellblockD), October 24, 2000.

We accept and welcome... as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

--Andrew Carnegie

-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), October 25, 2000.

>> --Andrew Carnegie <<

In evaluating any statement of judgement, the Romans had a wise saying: qui bono? Translated: Who benefits?

Andrew Carnegie was a huge benficiary of the "conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves" that he defended in your quote. Taking Carnegie's word on this is like trusting a fox on the question of whether the henhouse should be left unguarded.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), October 25, 2000.

I submitted the Carnegie quote because of its arrogance and its irony. The irony is that his arrogance is typical of those who would aggrandize power to themselves, be they Robber Barons or "public servants".

-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), October 25, 2000.

Too Cool, your answers. Makes one think, once they "stifal" out the noise.

-- Heaven Bent (andIamnot@qualified.com), February 16, 2001.