Some Things Never Change

[Whit Otis, 1188]

•   "......I begin to think about the situation that exists in business and industry in this great country of ours - a land of potential promise and opportunity - at least, so it always has been.  As I write, we have millions of people unemployed, who seek an opportunity to work.  Despite the fact that our government has been creating billions of dollars of indebtedness millions remain idle.... We have hundreds of millions of dollars lying idle in our banks....  As a country, we are blessed, with out measure, with almost every essential natural resource.  We have the finest producing plants supported by the most progressive manufacturing technique that ever existed anywhere.  As a people, we are willing to work if given the chance.  Yet in a land of such abundance we live in a state of relative scarcity, for too many have much too little.”  Alfred P Sloan, Jr. "Adventures of a White Collar Man"

•   â€œâ€¦Some political leaders have tried to convince us that our idle money is a result of a static economy.  They even talk about the desirability of a tax to penalize efficiency, with the objective of reducing unemployment - incomprehensible to anyone familiar with the workings of our industrial system.  Then they develop a scheme of taxation, supposedly for revenue but actually resulting in penalizing business and industrial development, and so confiscatory in character as to prejudice the whole profit motive.  Then they preach the gospel that accomplishment is a crime - the greater the accomplishment, the greater the crime.  They teach the concept of something for nothing.  This, in one form or another, has influenced our national economic thinking for many years.”  Alfred P. Sloan, Jr, "Adventures of a White Collar Man"


“Right here lies a question very much before us - how to help small, inadequately financed units of business.  The answer is not to be found in action by a paternalistic Government.  What is needed is an adequate opportunity for hard work and intelligent management, based upon the principle of the survival of the fittest.  Merit and initiative will find a way, given half a chance.“  Alfred P. Sloan, Jr, "Adventures of a White Collar Man"