Word: marton
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...problem puzzled General Electric's Dr. Theodore Marton until one evening when he was playing with his son's stand-mounted toy dog made of beads. When the bottom of the stand was pressed up, the string threaded through the beads relaxed and the dog collapsed; when it was released, the strung-together dog was pulled into shape again. Why not use the same simple principle in a tether? So Marton built a new space line of interlocking aluminum balls and collars, all strung on a central cable. When the cable is loose, the tether is completely flexible...
Nevertheless, for observers who survive the crossfire of cliches, Line has some real rewards. Director Andrew Marton has put together a couple of masterly melees. And in the character of the private he has described with horrifying clarity the nature of the beast in men and nations that perennially threatens to engender Armageddon...
Businessman Marton, who looks like a Slavonic William Holden, learned many of his economic lessons in seven trips to the U.S., and is fond of repeating such familiar free enterprise lines as "The customer is always right" and "We have to grow or die." He particularly believes the latter, and has just embarked on an ambitious plan that aims at nothing less than converting Sljeme into, as he puts it, "a Yugoslav combination of Howard Johnson's, Safeway and Swift, with a little Conrad Hilton thrown in." Marton intends to spend $50 million by 1970 to build restaurants, motels...
...Practical Limit. After filling a series of postwar industrial posts, Marton took over Sljeme in 1951 when he was 29. He got the job because of his credentials as a trusted Communist, had no formal business training. But he made Sljeme prosper because of his skill as a manager, his ability to outwit competitors and his readiness to adopt the modern techniques and philosophy of capitalism. This was possible because, though all major Yugoslav industry is owned by the state, the state itself does not run businesses. Workers' councils that operate somewhat like boards of directors are elected...
...There is no such thing as Communist business techniques and capitalist business techniques," says Marton. "The only difference is who gets the profits." Sljeme pays taxes to the government, but the council decides whether the company's earnings should be paid out to the employees or reinvested. Sljeme's net profit averages a respectable 4% of sales, and earnings are usually reinvested. Is there a practical limit to Sljeme's growth? "Oh, yes," says Marton quickly. "There is a limit. The sky." It is clear that he has also learned a few lessons from Madison Avenue...