From: edsverk@ed4000-2.lerc.nasa.gov (Kenneth Lee Atchinson)
Subject: Re: DOES AMERICA SAY YES TO JAPAN? - Off track!!
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:36:16 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.123430.24528@hellgate.utah.edu>, llarsen%peruvian.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Loren Larsen) writes:
> Sense?  Okay, let's suppose you own a business and you have just a few
> big customers and one of those customers is much bigger than the rest.  So
> you decide to get together with your board of directors and design a plan to
> put your biggest customer out of business.  Who in their right mind would
> do that?  So now, explain to me what the Japanese have to gain by putting
> out of business their strongest customer, in fact their only strong
> customer.

I think you are missing the point.  No, I do not think the Japanese want to
ruin this country.  Their economic policies are setup to kill the competition.
Putting people out of work here is a "side-effect" of killing the competition.
I do not think the Japanese have it as part of their economic policy the
"health and well being of the US is JOB #1".  


> >BZZT! WRONG! Take the cigar away!!  The low prices HELPS drive [or
> >for a lot of manufacturers HELPED drive :( ] American manufacturers
> >out of buisiness because those low prices are designed with a razor
> >margin or at a loss specifically to DRIVE AMERICANS OUT OF BUISINESS.
> >The consequence is that there are less jobs, and less $$ in the
> >economy - so i seriously doubt that as a whole we are a richer people
> >for it.
> 
> BZZT! WRONG!  Consider that almost 80% of all Honda cars are made from
> the ground up in the US.  Seems to me that injects quite a bit of money
> into our economy.  More and more manufacturing by Japanese firms is moving
> to the US.  Why?  The cost of transportation is a very large portion of the
> final cost of a product now.  Why?  Advances in manufacturing have been
> tremendous over the past decade.  Advances in transportation have been much
> less.  Airplanes are no faster and not much bigger, neither are the boats
> that transport them.  The labor to load goods has just increased.  So it
> is much to the advantage of the Japanese to move their factories right next 
> to their best customers.  

BZZT! WRONG! Honda cars (and other Japanese origin) are made in the US 
because of 
   1) US Gov't trade laws (what little there are) which limit imports and 
   2) The "States" in the US make it very lucrative to build/manufacture 
      here with tax abatements (Hey, what do you mean we don't get tax 
      money from that Japanese plant here in the US for 10+ years?) and 
      other "incentives".
The Japanese build plants in the US for the same reason that US have built
plants in Mexico - to enter the market without tarrifs and hassle.  Note
that at the Honda plant most are the parts for the cars are IMPORTED from
Japan.  The parts that they don't import, they have another Japanese firm
here in the US to make them for them.  Read the DASYTJ article and see this
to be true.

In essence, most postings to this topic talk about JOBS.  Yes, the JOB issue
(jobs lost due to unfair competition to Japan) is very important.  However,
paramount in this issue is the ABILITY to produce, which includes TECHNOLOGY,
ECONOMIC RESOURCES, and CAPITAL EQUIPMENT.  As companies close down here in
the US due to unfair competition from Japan, then we lose our ability to
manufacture and produce things.  It takes ALOT of MONEY, INITIAL CAPITAL
EQUIPMENT (Machining tools, Bulldozers, what have you), and of course
TECHNOLOGY to build a car plant (i.e. GM, Ford, Chrysler) or any large scale
manufacturing operation today.  If we loose our ability to manufacture here
in the US, we will be dependent on foriegn companies (not just Japan) for
such products and technology in the future.  If it was easy to build to have
this ability to produce, then Somalia (and other "Third World Countries" 
would have such companies.


> Besides that, we have a resource they don't have, land.  
> What do the Japanese do with their profts?  They invest it in America.
> Only about 2% of the profit from a Honda motor car goes back to Japan.  Of
> course they buy land in the US which we can tax at our discretion.  We can
> tax them the full property price each year in taxes if we want because they're
> Japanese.  They don't vote.

Oh goody goody.  The Japanese buying up the US is good for us.  Note that
when they "buy" such things, they "own" it and have full control of it.
Alot of people got upset about the Matsushita/Universal Pictures buyout
only because they thought the new owners would "dictate" what pictures
would be made in the future.  And if Honda's market share goes down,
which factory do you think the Japanese would close first: (somewhere), Japan
or Marysville, Ohio?


> so let's suppose American's lose jobs because of tough Japanese competition.
> What does that mean?  First, it means our process of designing, building and
> delivering a product was inferior to theirs.  So now they produce instead of
> us.  What does it mean when people lose their jobs?

Again, Americans would not be only "JOB POOR" but "INDUSTRY POOR".  The US
would not only stop manufacturing "inferior" products, we would loose the
ability to manufacture a "better" product in the future.  In DASYTJ and
other articles, they talked about the LCD Display market.  Americans 
invented (Kent State University, and they are STILL doing work in LCD 
Technology) LCDs but the Japanese has over 90% of the market.  Trying 
to BUY an "Intelligent" LCD display without the Hitatchi name on it 
is close to impossible.  Think about all of the laptop computers made
in this country (IBM, Compac, Apple) which use Hitachi (or another Japanese
brand) display.  If Hitachi, which also makes laptop computers, want to
do damage to it's competitors (i.e. drive them out of the laptop market),
they could "raise" the price of the LCD Display it supplies to it's 
competition.  If someone think this situation is "ok" or "normal" for 
business, ask Burger King why they switched from "Pepsi" (which owns 
Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco Bell) to "Coke" recently.  
Burger King felt the "competition" in the fast food market from Pepsi 
(think about it) so switched to Coke, which does not own any restaurants.  
Originally, Burger King switched to Pepsi to be different from McDonalds, 
which always served Coke.


> Is society and more poor?  Nope, the good is still being produced 
> and probably for less money because more frequently than anything 
> their job was eliminated because the need for that person's work 
> output has now been automated or made more efficient through technology.

BZZT!  WRONG!  Sure it is, when the Technology and Manufacturing
ability isn't owned buy that country.  More people may be working, but they
will have "low skilled" (i.e. they ASSEMBLE Hondas in Ohio, but do not design
them there or design plant/manufacturing changes there), "Burger Chef" jobs.
Sure, advances in technology eliminates jobs.  However, the US is slowly losing
manufacturing jobs and the "service" industry can not absorb this.  It would
be different if person A lost his job in manufacturing due to a technological 
change.  He could be retrained (yeah, I know it's difficult) however if there
aren't anymore manufacting jobs to go to, what can person A do?  This kind of
thinking reminds me of Reagan in his early days of office saying "Why is there
unemployment when there are jobs available?" while holding up a job classified
section of the paper.  Then, maybe people weren't trained for those positions.
Now, those jobs are GONE and (new) college grads (in engineering and other
"marketable disciplines") are having trouble finding a job.  I guess they
should be "retrained".


> THE problem is that we don't as a country
> provide training for people to go and learn new things.  THE problem is we
> expect that when we lose our job that we are going to find another one just
> like it.  

Well, tell me what area that has jobs, and what training is necessary to get
that job.  Then, tell the other 8%-10% (or whatever the current lie the
Gov't hands down) unemployed who are *professional* with *advanced degrees* 
about it.


On your defense, I would say that US Businesses and People have had a part
in this mess and that it isn't all just Japan.  Emphasis on short term profits,
greed by CEOs and other affluent people, CEO/Comany blunders/mistakes,
and the US Gov't (deficit, national debt, social programs) have played a part.  
We (US) must change OUR ways before things will get any better, or we (US),
Japan, and the rest of the world will go head first in the worst depression
seen in modern times.


-- 
Kenneth Lee Atchinson
edsverk@lerc.nasa.gov
Standard Disclaimers Apply!!!  It's mine, all mine!! (D. Duck)
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