What A Drag!

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For all its problems, Harnischfeger offers encouragement to other Americans at this uncertain time. Folks at the Wisconsin company have earned higher wages and have been able to educate their children better because of the profits they have reaped from the unprecedented spread of global commerce and free trade. But the price of that prosperity is a global economy so interlinked that the troubles of America's trading partners very quickly become its troubles too, even when America's domestic economy is showing remarkable resilience, as it is now. Harnischfeger's managers believe they are in for a rough ride for several quarters, but that the company's future, like that of the American economy, is bright over the longer term. Says Francis Corby Jr., the company's executive vice president for finance and administration: "We'll bounce back." They always have.

--Reported by Bernard Baumohl, William Dowell and Aixa M. Pascual/ New York, Julie Grace/Milwaukee, Alison Jones/ Durham and Adam Zagorin/Washington