What We Need

A CONSULTING engineer once told me that corporation managements often paid him and his associates quite handsome fees for information and advice they subsequently ignored. Apparently ailing companies sometimes hire experts in the hope of being told about some miraculous and painless changes that will improve the balance sheet without threatening certain cherished practices and arrangements. But of course no expert is ever quite that good, and the result is that the firms either continue to suffer or they finally face up to their problems and do something about them, even if it hurts.