History

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Wheylous — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:22:46 GMT

That looks really awesome!

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Jargon — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 21:05:00 GMT

I thought you would enjoy this information Wheylous:

In the steel industry, for example, minimills have been cleaning the clocks of the old
steel giants. According to Adams and Brock, minimills operating at infinitesimal
fractions of the output of U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel had by 1998 achieved a 45%
share of the U.S. market. They used electric furnaces to process scrap metal, and oriented
their output toward local markets. Minimills produced wire rod and cold-rolled steel
sheets 28% and 29% cheaper, respectively, than U.S. Steel. A minimill could produce
steel bars with only thirty employees on average, compared to 130 even in a single plant
of U.S. Steel.21

21 - Walter Adams and James Brock "The Bigness Complex"

Of Carson's Organization Theory

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Wheylous — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 05:11:44 GMT

I didn't know that...

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Aristippus — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:28:36 GMT

Also Atari and later Sega as video game console makers. Also Wheylous, you should know better than to make 'question' threads, which do not show the proper page number on the forum view once they go up a single page.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Kakugo — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:43:51 GMT

A brand US audiences may be familiar with is TWA.

They ignored the Asian market (big money lost), air cargo (bigger money lost) and deregulation on the domestic US market hit them hard as they had ignored that market which, after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, had grown at an exponential pace.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Samuel Smith — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:30:59 GMT

Pan Am, Hostess

EDIT: RIM/Blackberry, Sony, Nokia

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Wheylous — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:44:50 GMT

Thanks.

I think my list will be Sears, US Steel, Xerox, Eastman Kodak, and IBM. It's the most recognizable to US audiences.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Kakugo — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:38:08 GMT

The whole British automotive industry. Among cars you have Austin, Morris, Triumph, MG, Talbot, Hillman, Rover and Wolseley. Among motorcycles you have Triumph (the present brand has no affilitiation, they just bought rights to the name), Norton, AJS, BSA, Velocette, Francis Barnett and Chater-Lea. Among engine and component manufacturers you have Pressed Steel (bodywork), J.A. Prestwick (four stroke engines), Rickman (suspensions), Villiers (at one time the largest two stroke engine manufacturer in the world), Lucas (electrics) and Smiths (instrumentations and other automotive components).

Other automotive brands which may be of interest to you are:

Tohatsu. Their motorcycle division couldn't keep up with offering from the Big Four and was shut down in the early '80s.

Bridgestone. They built some superb two stroke motorcycles in the '60s but operations became uneconomical and they shut the division down, concentrating on tyres and chemical products.

Marusho. They built a long line of excellent motorcycles (the Moto Guzzi V7 was almost a straight copy of the Lilac) but made a fatal mistake by trying to get into the scooter business as the market in Japan was in full decline, investing huge capitals. What was left of the company was bought by Honda, which also hired most of their engineers and designers.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Wheylous — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:26:40 GMT

Well, it appears that I was right about Sears:

http://www.csub.edu/kej/documents/economic_rsch/2012-03-19.pdf

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Wheylous — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:18:48 GMT

Ooh, Xerox and US Steel are big ones.

Anyone know something about Sears?

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Bogart — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 04:40:06 GMT

The first one that I thought of was Standard Oil, their 90% share had dwindled down to 60% and was dropping when broken up not by Anti-Trust saints but by the first Rosevelt Adminstration that was indebted to the enemy of the Rockefellers: The Rothchilds, but that is just a conspiracy theory.

Also add to the list: GM, Chrysler, Xerox, US Steel, etc.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Prime — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 04:40:04 GMT

Best Buy is crumbling before our eyes. Circuit City already went down.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

RagnarD — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 04:36:43 GMT

No company names, but hopefully this is helpful

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CreativeDestruction.html

Table 1 Technological Unemployment



New Product	Labor Needed	Old Product	Labor Released

Automobile	Assemblers	Horse/carriage	Blacksmiths
	Designers	Train	Wainwrights
	Road builders	Boat	Drovers
	Petrochemists		Teamsters
	Mechanics		RR workers
	Truck drivers		Canalmen
Airplane	Pilots	Train	RR workers
	Mechanics	Ocean liner	Sawyers
	Flight attendants		Mechanics
	Travel agents		Ship hands
			Boilermakers
Plastics	Petrochemists	Steel	Miners
		Aluminum	Founders
		Barrels/tubs	Metalworkers
		Pottery/glass	Coopers
			Potters
			Colliers
Computer	Programmers	Adding machine	Assemblers
	Computer engineers	Slide rule	Millwrights
	Electrical engineers	Filing cabinet	Clerks
	Software designers	Paper	Tinsmiths
			Lumberjacks
Fax machine	Programmers	Express mail	Mail sorters
Email	Electricians	Teletype	Truck drivers
	Software designers		Typists
Telephone	Electronic engineers	Mail	Postal workers
	Operators	Telegraph	Telegraph operators
	Optical engineers	Overnight coach	Coach drivers
	Cellular technicians
Polio vaccine	Chemists	Iron lung	Manufacturers
	Lab technicians		Attendants
	Pharmacists
Internet	Programmers	Shopping malls	Retail salespersons
	Network operators	Libraries	Librarians
	Optical goods workers	Reference books	Encyclopedia
	Webmasters		salespersons

Resources no longer needed to feed the nation have been freed to meet other consumer demands. Over the decades, workers no longer required in agriculture moved to the cities, where they became available to produce other goods and services. They started out in foundries, meatpacking plants, and loading docks in the early days of the Industrial Age. Their grandsons and granddaughters, living in an economy refashioned by creative destruction into the Information Age, are less likely to work in those jobs. They are making computers, movies, and financial decisions and providing a modern economy’s myriad other goods and services (Table 2).

Table 2 The Churn: Recycling America’s Labor


*. Fewer than 5,000.

Job Destruction	Now (2002)	Then	Year

Railroad employees	111,000	2,076,000	1920
Carriage and harness makers	^*	109,000	1900
Telegraph operators	^*	75,000	1920
Boilermakers	^*	74,000	1920
Milliners	^*	100,000	1910
Cobblers	^*	102,000	1900
Blacksmiths	^*	238,000	1910
Watchmakers	^*	101,000	1920
Switchboard (telephone) operators	119,000	421,000	1970
Farm workers	716,000	11,533,000	1910
Secretaries	2,302,000	3,871,000	1980
Metal & plastic working machine operators	286,000	715,000	1980
Optometrists	33,000	43,000	1998
Job Creation	Now (2002)	Then	Year
Airplane pilots and mechanics	255,000	0	1900
Auto mechanics	867,000	0	1900
Engineers	2,028,000	38,000	1900
Medical technicians	1,879,000	0	1910
Truck, bus, and taxi drivers	4,171,000	0	1900
Electricians	882,000	^*	1900
Professional athletes	95,000	^*	1920
Computer programmers/operators/scientists	2,648,000	160,613	1970
Actors and directors	155,000	34,643	1970
Editors and reporters	280,000	150,715	1970
Medical scientists	89,000	3,589	1970
Dietitians	74,000	42,349	1970
Special education teachers	374,000	1,563	1970
Physicians	825,000	295,803	1970
Pharmacists	231,000	114,590	1970
Authors	139,000	26,677	1970
TV, stereo, and appliance salespersons	309,000	111,842	1970
Webmasters	500,000	0	1990

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

idol — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:23:03 GMT

Blockbuster and Myspace have lost significant market share due to competition.

Re: Request - examples of giants the free market brought down

Wheylous — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:55:17 GMT

Neodoxy - I had already thought of that, but I wanted something more obvious.

Aristophanes - true enough. Yet it appears that in some cases it might be impossible to identify a government cause for the downfall of a company. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, that is, but still. Do you think this is a worthless pursuit?

Autolykos - thanks.