> It's interesting that all those years under the control of famously
> patient, long-term, not-stock-price-obsessed German management did nothing
> for Chrysler.
It did give Chrysler five extra years of life, though, and prevented them from getting as badly clobbered as GM and Ford in the current meltdown. The deeper problem is that even if you could save Chrysler, two billion people in the world are churning out the low-priced, medium-quality manufactured goods which used to be the historical sweet spot of US monopoly-capitalism. Over the next ten years, those two billion will start to manufacture sophisticated goods and services.
If the US redirected the $647 billion it's going to piss away on military madness this year on things like renewable energy, education, universal health insurance, basic science and mass transit -- all things which the new metropoles are doing -- it would do OK. But right now, the US is headed straight towards Second World subalternity.
-- DRR