The Last Wake-up Call for Ford, GM, and American Autoworkers.

The United States was once the world leader in the automotive industry, but it is now in deep peril. What was once the "Big Three" is now the "Big Two", and that may not be for long. Both Ford and GM are dangerously close to bankruptcy and Chrysler is no longer an American company.

For the autoworkers the situation may not seem so dire. We will always build cars in this country but many of them are being built by foreign companies.

When the foreign companies set up factories here they go to low wage areas, so the old autoworkers in places like Detroit, are out of luck.

Another problem is that the profits are going to Germany, Japan and Korea, and shortly will end up in Chinese coffers.

The Auto industry received a "Wake-up call" in the seventies. It chose to ignore it.

Before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut off the supply of oil to the United States in 1973 -- by then imported oil accounted for some 40 percent of consumption -- warnings were being sounded at industry meetings and in trade journals about the crisis to come. The United States was at the mercy of OPEC, they said, and over the longer range the world was running out of oil.

The government began setting fuel economy standards, which were often in conflict with the air pollution and safety standards, which had to be met.

When OPEC created a sudden demand for small, fuel-efficient cars in the mid-'70s, the American makers were not ready with good designs.

The Japanese

We responded to the threat with Ford Pintos, Chevrolet Corvairs and other ridiculous mediocrities that the public would not buy.

By the end of the decade, Japanese makers were selling 2.5 million cars a year in the United States, close to one in every four units sold.

Detroit was reeling, but did not seriously attempt to stem the tide.

The situation is much worse today.

Chrysler, Ford and GM made 74 percent of the new cars and trucks sold in 1995, but only 57 percent of the new autos sold last year. ...

Between management, the unions and the American workers, we have managed to lose the shoe industry, the steel industry, the garment industry, the electronics industry and many others.

When are we going to wake up?

We are still the richest countries in the world; we have some of the best colleges and universities in the world. What is the matter with us? Have we lost our American ingenuity, our competitive spirit? Have we become too fat and lazy? Are we too complacent?

I don't know the answer to these questions, but I know if we don't change our ways we'll have no manufacturing industry left, and that will be a shame.

America can build good cars; we already do build a few. The good news is that the automakers and the UAW