From: thomasd@tps.COM (Thomas W. Day)
Subject: Re: DOES AMERICA SAY YES TO JAPAN? - Off track!!
Organization: TPS
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:51:33 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.201248.4828@island.COM> fester@island.COM (Mike Fester) writes:

>Ever hear of Harley-Davidson? It's conveniently located (at least, 
>corporate headquarters) right there in "the formerly strong midwest of this 
>country".

I really don't think using Harley as evidence that U.S. companies are 
capable of competing is valid.  Harley sells a marginal quality, specific 
market motorcycle to people who have more money than sense.  In no area is 
Harley able to field a motorcycle that can compete with the Japanese 
majors.  Harley exists for its value as a keepsake, not as a motorcycle.  
For instance, Harley makes a bike that is matched in performance and 
function by all of the Japanese manufacturers, but Harley doesn't make a 
sport touring bike, a dirt bike, or a multi-purpose bike.  Harley isn't 
even the lowest cost, highest quality producer in their small niche.  In 
effect, they are making the same bike they have been making for 50 years 
with minor "improvements."  They are in the same status vehicle group as 
Rolls Royce.  

Because they have been successful in finding a small niche of 
the motorcycle market to participate in and are the sole American 
manufacturer in that market, they are a popular benchmark for American 
manufacturing success.  They are less of a success than is popularly 
believed.  

>Hmm. Don't universities do research as well?

Yep, they do.  They do research for anyone who will pay the bill and they 
educate more foreign engineers than domestic.  This wouldn't be such a crime 
if state universities weren't doing this deed with tax money.

>>The Japanese can give us all jobs working for them at $7.50 and hour and
>>end unemployment completely, and maybe they can even pay us all a bit more,
>>but if the profit above and beyond goes back to Japan, and the ideas that
>Excuse this (obviously irrelevant) question, but *IF* we are all going to be
>so poor, how can Japan then continue to sell to us? Who would there be to
>buy their products?

The way this statement was phrased missed the point and your answer avoids 
that same point.  As long as we have natural resources to divy up we will 
have some money to spend on luxuries.  So for some years yet, we will have a 
yuppie class and we will always be stuck with the ruling eliete and the 
inherited rich.  What we are losing is the working class.  

>Uh, in one case the engineer gets screwed by a foreign company with brains, and
>in the other, he gets screwed by a brainless domestic company which will sell
>the patent rights to a foreign company with brains? Too simple?

Not too simple, you got this one right.  The engineer gets screwed either 
way.  The lawyers and accountants get rich (and the rich get richer) and the 
rest of lose our country and our heritage.  

>Strange, is it not, that they have HIGHER unemployment than we do (in areas 
of>Germany, that 30% figure you doctored above is an undoctored fact). And 
that>they have similar budget deficits. 

I'm not convinced the 30% midwestern unemployment figure is "doctored."  Our 
published national statistics (if I remember correctly) don't include anyone 
not on the unemployment insurance roles.  This leaves out the "terminally 
unemployed" (people who have been out of work 6 months or more) and of 
course people who once were middle class but are now working at McDonalds.  
I was in Indiana for a few months last year and it certainly seemed like a 
ruin.  Every job posting had hundreds of applicants and most of the 
industrial facilities were abandoned.

>Actually, in terms of per capita income, living space, technology, etc, we
>are, in fact, doing better. More airports, physicians, lower unemployment,
>etc. 

I agree with "living space" (I suppose you could group airports in this 
category.), but this is only the result of our possessing more natural 
resources.  Resources which are being bought up at a rapid rate.  I disagree 
with the rest of your list, especially "technology."  More physicians hasn't 
resulted in any measureable advantage in our national health statistics so 
that point is voided.  The doc stat is skewed by the irrational distribution 
of physicians, check the rural areas for medical coverage.  Until our 
unemployment stats include every out-of-work adult, the military (they were 
counted as unemployed until sometime in the 1970s, I believe), and the make-
work positions in local, state, and federal government, I won't be convinced 
that data is significant.