Billie, we didn't lose all those jobs overnight. Policies for job creation haven't been on the agenda for several...many...administrations from both parties, going back a long, long time.

I can recall back in the mid-1970's I was asked to give a presentation to the Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). The CGSC is a step in the training of all senior Army officers, all bird colonels for the most part, in preparation for promotion to general officer.

I was an active reserve officer myself and the time I was responsible for all commercial banking in the central U.S. for my bank, one of the largest in the country...financing the "rust belt", if you will. The U.S. steel industry had already begun its decline and any financial analyst at the time would have reached the same conclusion that I did--that other than the production of specialty steel and fabrication, "big steel" was headed offshore. closer to the sources of raw materials and cheaper labor. The United Steel Workers were one of the most powerful unions at the time and the pay and benefits of U.S. steelworkers were legendary...uncompetitive, unaffordable and unsustainable.

The colonels were aghast at my proposal. We spent more than the allotted time discussing how a country could have an effective fighting force without an industry as fundamental as steel as a key part of the military-industrial complex. We didn't reach a conclusion, of course. But over then next 10-15 years, my prediction was realized. As a banker I had done my job. I had scaled back on the extension of credit to the big steel companies so that we were assured that our loans would be repaid before the companies failed or went out of business.

Sadly, I had to do the same thing with the auto companies only a few years later. That was harder for me because I had worked for ten years in the auto industry in Detroit at the beginning of my career. I remember the day I told the Chairman of our bank that I intended to scale back credit to Chrysler as our commitments to lend to the company rolled off--that in my opinion Chrysler could not survive. He too was aghast--Chrysler was our fifth most profitable account and he was a close friend of Chrysler's then-CEO. It took a little longer than I projected, but in the end I was right regarding Chrysler as well. But he knew that I knew Chrysler well--I had worked in senior manufacturing positions for Chrysler for five years.

The saddest part of the story, my story, is the shut-down and dismantlement of the Detroit Plant of The Budd Company, a major auto supplier of body stampings, wheels and brakes. When I worked there, my first job out of college, that plant employed almost 10,000 people on three full shifts. I was proud to be a part of such a successful and vibrant company. The end of that plant's story is told in a book entitled, Punching Out by Paul Clemens. Read it if you get a chance.