ABSTRACT
18 Long ago, in a previous incarnation, I made my living as a yardmaster for the Pennsylvania Railroad, known in days of yore as “The Standard Railroad of the World.” My domain sometimes included yards that delivered parts to automobile assembly plants of the then unchallenged automotive “Big Three”: General Motors in Wilmington, Delaware; Ford in Chester, Pennsylvania; and Chrysler in Newark, Delaware. Fifty years later, all these once mighty have fallen so far as to expose as rubbish once-popular notions of corporate omnipotence and immortality, as well as polemics that argue government should and could let failing businesses fail.
