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He is the head of General Motors.
He is leading America into “a new economic order, where the bonds of scarcity have been broken, and America is rolling in two-toned splendor to an all- time crest of prosperity.”
This was 1955. Harlow Curtice was head of General Motors and Time magazine’s Man of the Year. The magazine was ebullient. Soon, it gushed, Americans will need to spend “comparatively little time earning a living.”
Well, it is today, and many people actually are “spending comparatively little time earning a living,” But not from the “crest of prosperity” that was promised.
The “two-toned” splendor” of General Motors turned out to be a planned obsolescence in which cars were designed to conveniently break down in three years. It turned out to be a fight to the death against energy standards, a full-scale assault on safety standards, and the destruction of mass transit and trains. It turned out to be about a trillion lousy cars hot off the assembly lines of Michigan.
General Motors went financially bankrupt this week, following a half a century of just about every other kind of bankruptcy. Time magazine isn’t doing too well, either.
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at&t HEAD now heads GM….
maybe he will really get retro
and copy the relationship bwteen government and at&T before 1966
namely that the only car you can have will be GM, the only parts you can get will be GM, and to be fair…the company will run on a cost-plus arrangement so profits, pensions, perks are guaranteed for the executives……….
That’s the best (and shortest) explanation of what happened to GM that I have read anywhere. I will link to it from my blog, which I have neglected. Paul, I’d love to get your thoughts on the current state of automotive print advertising.