Daily Archives: February 17, 2006

Surviving Globalism – Caterpillar

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Joann Muller:

Caterpillar confronted the same labor costs and Asian competition that the auto companies did. But Cat is doing just fine. Why?

A Midwest manufacturing company, fat and lazy, heavily unionized, suddenly faces foreign competition. You know the ending: massive layoffs, closed factories, consolidation, rumblings of bankruptcy. That’s the familiar story of General Motors, Ford and lots of other big manufacturers over the last 20 or 30 years.

Great article, particularly in contrast to GM’s challenges.

Congressman Quizzes Net Companies on Shame

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Declan McCullagh:

Rep. Tom Lantos: Can you say in English that you’re ashamed of what your company and what the other companies have done?

Google: Congressman, I actually can’t, I don’t think it’s fair for us to say that we’re ashamed.

Lantos: You have nothing to be ashamed of?

Google: I am not ashamed of it, and I am not proud of it…We have taken a path, we have begun on a path, we have done a path that…will ultimately benefit all the users in China. If we determined, congressman, as a result of changing circumstances or as a result of the implementation of the Google.cn program that we are not achieving those results then we will assess our performance, our ability to achieve those goals, and whether to remain in the market.