From: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: An American strategy for world trade
Date: 15 Dec 92 18:18:16 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

In <louis.724383020@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Louis Schmittroth) writes:

|mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:

|>In <louis.724185334@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Louis Schmittroth) writes:

|||2.  Establish *something like* the Japanese MITI, the Ministry of
|||    International Trade and Industry.  but American in conception 
|||    and implementation.

||MITI's greatest success has been in self promotion.  If you look at the
||entire record, not just the advertised successes, you will find that MITI
||has been an abject failure.
||Below, you mention HDTV and microelectronics, let me talk about these two
||further.
||HDTV, seeing an opportunity to further dominate the TV market, MITI pushed
||manufacturers to invest billions in developing several HDTV systems.  These
||systems are analog based since that was the best technology at the time.
||The american companies decided to bide their time.  Now the americans and
||the europeans are designing systems using digital technology that promises
||to blow the pants of the Japanese systems.  The Japanase systems are closer
||to market, but so what.  Their systems were obsolete before they were
||installed and will never be installed anywhere outside of Japan.

|If this is indeed the case, and HDTV will be an American success story,
|great.  But that is not the message I get from reading Thurow and
|Prestowitz.  Prestowitz, "Trading Places," page 491, says "HDTV is the
|next wave of television technology.  While plans are already well
|advanced for its introduction in Europe and Japan in 1991 [written in
|1988], there is nothing beyond research activity in the U.S."

In anything dealing with technology, especially electronics, 4 years old is
ancient history.  Some government agency (FCC?) is currently stdudying
which of several HDTV systems will be accepted as the US standard.
The winner should be announced some time this spring.

|In Thurow, "Head to Head" page 293ff, he says:  "In 1989 and 1990 the
|Bush Administration was engaged in an internal debate revolving around
|the HDTV: Should the Defense Department subsidize research on HDTV?  
|Sadly the debate remained an abstract ideological debate about the
|merits of government interference in the market rather than a real
|debate over whether HDTV was the place to jump back into consumer
|electronics, and if so, how?  The ideological crusaders in the While
|House, a troika of John Sunumu, Richard Darman, and Michael Boskin, beat
|the advocates of government research subsidies in the Commerce and
|Defense departments ..."

And meanwhile back on the farm.  While the government was debating 
how it should interfere in the HDTV development, private businesses went
ahead and developed it on their own.

|You seem to forget the great days of DARPA, when it funded Sutherland
|at Lincoln Labs, timesharing at MIT and Berkely, BSD, and DARPANET,
|with enormous benefit to American industry.  These are examples of the
|kind of "strategic" research and development that an American
|counterpart to MITI, whatever the form might be, should be undertaking.
|Not interfence in the market, and not directing, but helping American
|firms to compete in a New World Order, where the rules are no longer
|made in the USA, but made in Europe and Japan.

The best thing that the government can do to help business is to set up
an environment in which business can proseper and then get out of the way.
Such as investment and R&D credits.

|Well, I see there is some hope in the semiconductor field, and wonder
|how much of the present turnaround is due to Sematech?

None.  Sematech is a project that has absorbed a few billion in revenue
to create a few million in results.  All of the major participants have
either pulled out or are seriously considering pulling out.

|||5.  Put some rules on all foreign investment.  Welcome it, but not at
|||    the expense of US jobs.

||How do you think foreign investment hurts US jobs.

|Thurow says that so far the Japanese investment in the US has caused a 
|net loss of 49,000 jobs.  When the Toyota plant was built in Kentucky
|the general contractor was the construction firm in the Toyota keiretsu,
|suppliers were brought in from Japan. 

This makes no sense to me.  Is Thurow trying to claim that fewer jobs
would have been lost if we had instead imported the cars, pre-assembled
from Japan
-- 
Mob rule doesn't become any prettier, just because the mob start to call itself
a government.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com
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