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1. Corporate downsizing in the U.S. began partly in response to unprecedented foreign competition, largely from Japan and Germany. When did this lean-and-mean policy begin?
2. How many Americans have lost jobs through downsizing in just the past eight years?
3. Chase Manhattan Bank once had a legendary reputation for loyalty to its employees that was so strong, this Rockefeller institution didn’t lay off a single worker during the Great Depression. Then came Chase’s merger with Chemical Bank, one of the largest bank mergers in history. What was Chase’s nickname in the “good ol’ days”?
4. How many workers were forced out of the Chase nest after the merger with Chemical?
5. Mutual fund manager Michael Price, Chase’s largest shareholder, exercised considerable influence on Chase’s merger with Chemical bank. How much was his fund’s $385 million investment worth after the merger?
6. Name the picture-perfect American company that announced plans to lay-off over 10,000 workers last fall?
7. On the plus side, what airline was rescued from the brink of bankruptcy by an innovative labor-management-owner agreement?
8. Part-time and temporary workers now constitute what % of the U.S. workforce?
9. Which corporate leader has a reputation as America’s toughest boss, earning him nicknames like “Chainsaw” and “Rambo in Pinstripes”?
10. Newport News Shipbuilding was forced to lay-off thousands of workers after its only customer, the U.S. Navy, drastically cut spending at the end of the Cold War. When Newport News needed additional financing to begin building merchant ships, who provided the money that clenched the deal?
11. What American city promotes itself as the ‘City of the Future’ and pursues a deliberate strategy of luring high-tech companies to town, while touting its strategic location for global competition?
12. We’re still the richest country in the world. What percentage of American families own 70% of the nation’s wealth?
13. Why all the worry? Everyone’s playing the stock market and profits have never been greater! How many Americans are wheeling and dealing on The Street?
14. In the people’s capitalism of the 1990s, the bottom 80% of American families, in terms of income, own what percent of stock, mutual, and pension funds?
15. What well-known American shirt maker was saved from closure by a determined workforce that forged a creative public-private partnership?
16. Which European country can boast one of the region’s lowest rates of unemployment and highest levels of productivity, and can also maintain the shortest average work year of any industrial nation?
17. After six years of economic growth in the 1990s, average family income is higher today than it was in 1989.
18. Who wrote, “Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need?”
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