Word: worthingtons
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Bill's father, Worthington, heeded the warning, made expansion of Scranton's industrial base his life's main work. He had helped create the Scranton Industrial Development Co. with his father (who contributed $50,000) to attract new industry in 1914. After World War II he was the leading figure in developing the "Scranton Plan." Still widely copied, it is a self-help program in which a community buys or builds industrial facilities, then leases them to firms willing to move to the city. The plan eventually drew more than 50 plants and 10,000 new jobs...
Summers at the Beach. Bill was born to Worthington and Marion Margery Scranton on July 19, 1917, in their beach home in Madison, Conn. He spent most of his boyhood summers there, overcoming an asthmatic condition by constant exercise in the sun. With his three older sisters,* he enjoyed a huge, century-old house at 300 Monroe Avenue in Scranton, later moved into a great stone mansion atop a hill in suburban Dalton, complete with indoor swimming pool. Father Scranton tended to business and did right well: he and his partners sold the gas and water firm for $18 million...
Strapping Steel. What worries Worthington is that blue-collar workers may get undue credit for productivity rises for which they are only partly responsible, and on the strength of this inflated claim get extravagant wage-and-benefit increases that would eat into profits and leave the steel companies strapped for funds for capital expansion. "In 1960,'' said Worthington, "European countries invested some 10% of their gross national product in capital equipment, while we devoted only 5% to this purpose. Why? The answer is we have been discouraging the flow of investment capital. As a percentage of gross national...
Many economists agree with Worthington's stand on productivity; even some union economists concede that part of the fruits of increased productivity should go into increased dividends and capital expansion as well as into higher wages...
Hard Line. Worthington's line on inadequate profits is harder to buy. His comparison of recession-hit 1960 with the boom Korean war year of 1950 seriously distorts the profits picture. In fact, corporate profits averaged only 6.4% of the G.N.P. between 1945 and 1949 and since the end of the Korean War they have been averaging just under 5%. Moreover, industry's allotments for capital outlay are determined not just by profit margins but also by consumer spending patterns and by the amount of existing manufacturing capacity (most industries currently have more than they can use). Though...