those who don't know history.........

Starting with this posting, we will occasionally go back over some history books for parables that work for our time.

Today's tale, how industry, and in particular, the auto industry, handled the early days of the Great Depression.

The following passage is from the book "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal" by noted historian William Leuchtenburg. It's page 21, if you're reading at home, from the paperback version of this 1963 classic.

"At a time when millions lived close to starvation, and some even had to scavenge for food, bankers like Wiggin (note: Albert Wiggin was the Chase National Bank President, a man who shorted his own stock) and corporation executives like George Washington Hill of American Tobacco drew astonomical salaries and bonuses. Yet many of these men, including Wiggin, manipulated their investments so that they paid no income tax at all. In Chicago, where teachers, unpaid for months, fainted in classrooms for want of food, wealthy citizens of national reputation brazenly refused to pay taxes or submitted falsified statements. (note: here is where it gets interesting, in 2008 terms) In Detroit, the hardest hit of any large city, Henry Ford set the standard for businessmen by shrugging off all responsibility for the welfare of the jobless. Detroit bankers, in fact, insisted that before the city would be granted a loan to maintain relief, it would have to cut relief pittances still further."

Today, while Ford is in the best shape of what once was the Big Three, it still clamors for bailout assistance. History is a wonderful guide, even if there have been moments between 1932 and 2008 that were less divisive for the industry and the workers, it's hard to ignore how Detroit intially responded to the throes of the Great Depression. Let's see what Detroit comes back to Capitol Hill requesting next week, after the Thanksgiving break. Let's just see, shall we?