From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: Try it again - RE: Please give me your opinions...
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:11:19 GMT

In article <1992Nov13.001904.16035@oakhill.sps.mot.com> rvkl60@aus18a25.sps.mot.com (Tom Mathes) writes:

>I can't speak for Toys 'R' Us, but I can for Moto.  ONLY after large
>amounts of government intervention was Motorola allowed access to
>the Japanese cellular market.  Our being good at making/servicing
>the product had little to do with us getting access.  It was
>our fortune that Robert Galvin (former CEO of Motorola) was a
>personal friend of Ronald Reagan.  Without that help at the
>highest levels, we could not have gotten access.
>
>It seems that only when Japanese trade practices are answered with
>retaliation do we get opened markets there.  Hopefully, this
>next Administration will play more hard ball.

However, it was not answered with retaliation: it was simple, constant pressure
that opened the market (non-Kanto), the same way as the market was opened for
Toys-R-Us.

>Seems we have more folks "America bashing" than not.  Our present
>Administration ignores business.  Consumer publications like Consumer
>Reports seem to bash just about any American car they review.  I find
>comments like yours seem to be common; in fact, whenever anyone
>mentions anything bad about Japan, seems that person is labeled 
>a "Japan Basher" in McCarthyite fashion.  I guess the truth is
>too much for some to handle.

Consumer Reports listed Saturn very high, I believe (#2 in overall customer
satisfaction; unheard-of for a 2 year old company). A certain amount of 
Japan-bashing I find to be justified. My problems with the article in question,
I have begun to address in detail. 

>Smittie, I used to think that America was stupid in the way we do
>business.  I honestly thought that we could not sell in Japan since
>"we didn't do business the Japanese way".  Working for a large
>company that tries to sell there has opened my eyes.  We have
>world class product and service in several businesses.  My own
>division, the memory division, has had problems selling there.
>We do quite well in America and Europe, with world class
>product that Japan often can't make.  But, we find it hard
>to sell there.  Why is it that American semiconductor companies
>find it easy to sell everywhere in the world except Japan?  It
>sure isn't a quality issue, nor a lack of trying.

Agreed, and as such it is the job of our government to continue to press the 
Japanese on such matters. And as has been pointed out, several American 
companies do EXTREMELY well in Japan, if they go in and bypass the distribution
network.

>Since your hands are in Japanese pockets, and even though you don't
>admit it, your comments are garbage IMHO.  I'm not the one who is 
>biting the hand that feeds when I criticize Japan, but you are.  I 
>too would defend their practices too if I were in your situation.

I will listen to anyone's arguments, and then decide what to do with them. In
any event, I have posted, in my `rebuttal' to the article, several references
that either refute or expand upon the points presented, in far more detail and
far more thoroughly documented.

>As for my quotes from Business Week, I do alot more research than
>I wrote about.  I find that publication easy to quote since it
>is widely available.  I too have traveled to Japan, and found it
>a fascinating country.  I sure did stick out like a sore thumb
>there.  I went to places in Tohoku province that *really* made
>me feel foreign.  I got a good understanding what an African-
>American feels like in a room full of white folks.

Probably not. That seems a fashionable thing to say in many circles, but (IMO)
seems trivially wrong. Travelling and living are entirely different, and 
living in Japan is very different from living in the US. But in any event, I
don't see the relevance to the article in question.

Mike
-- 
Disclaimer - I'm only doing what the little voices tell me to do.