But from the beginning, I voiced concerns over how Corporate America would face the challenges that lurked beyond restructuring. At several junctures over the past few years, I ventured the mistaken opinion that the bulk of the downsizing was over. So I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is more substance to my fears over hollowing than I had ever imagined. In particular, I sense that several things are missing in America's great productivity revolution. In the end, I guess it's no secret why the stakes in this debate are so profound.
Corporate bloat is one of the most telling characteristics of a sheltered competitive environment.
And when formerly regulated industries, for example, are exposed to harsh market pressures for the first time ever, redundancies must be eliminated. But the real test comes when these same companies finally begin to face the strategic challenges that come after downsizing. If all there is to the newfound tactics of competitive revival is cutting the fat, then the day could well come when come when managers begin slicing into corporate muscle. The outcry over my so-called conversion is not too hard to figure out. Investors hate it because it threatens the disinflation and earnings revival that has been central to the great bull markets in bonds in stocks in the first half of the 1990s.