How to Turn Your Corporation Into a Balance Sheet From a Finance Company

In the 1980s, General Motors tried to diversify into regulated industries with government contracts. What it couldn't do by diversifying, it did by offshoring, moving production to low-wage areas like Northern Mexico starting in the early 1980s. US Steel bought not only marathon oil for 6.3 billion, but paid 3.6 billion for Texas gas and oil. National Steel bought United Financial Corporation of California and another steel company, Armco, went into insurance. In 1986, the Reagan administration's Commerce Department invited 38,000 American companies to a trade fair in Acapulco, encouraging them to explore moving factories to Mexico.