As he always seems to do, Malcolm Gladwell has written a provocative piece in The New Yorker. The current article discusses the burdens that worker pensions and health coverage have placed (particularly) on America’s older heavy industries, for example, GM. He notes that in most other countries these matters are centrally funded (i.e., government) and businesses are better able to rise or fall on their own merits without regard to the age of their workforce. It’s well worth reading.
Gladwell discusses some of the reaction to the article and elaborates here and here.