From: davidc@montagar.com (David L. Cathey)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: The blame game
Date: 9 Oct 92 09:23:49 GMT
Distribution: usa,tx
Organization: Montagar Software Concepts, Plano TX

In article <21684@rpp386.lonestar.org>, jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
> In article <1992Oct7.094023.16813@montagar.com> davidc@montagar.com (David L. Cathey) writes:
>>	Do you have any reputable sources on this statement???
> 
> Sure.  On me right now?  No.  This is one of those no-brainer statistics,
> like China being the most populous nation.

	I can't pass this one up:  No-brainer statistics are the only ones
you seem to understand :-)  Sorry, I tried, really, but I just had too...

>                                             But here is a piece from an
> editorial that should lend some credibility to my statement -
> 
> 	"You would never know from their campaign rhetoric that America
> 	 remains the largest economy in the world, with the strongest
> 	 export trade, whose companies have been meeting the global
> 	 competition and winning.  Even with all of its current
> 	 weaknesses, the United States remains the undisputed leader in
> 	 new technology development, new business formation, worker
> 	 skills and higher education among the industrialize nations of
> 	 the world."
> 			-- Donald Lambro, 9/14

	Gee, I didn't see the word "productivity" in there...  He is right,
the U.S. has a lot going for it, but we need to use it again. 

>>	I think the Prime Minister of Japan hit the nail on the head.  Does
>>this piss me off? Yes, but at ourselves, not him.  The truth hurts, don't it! 
>>Maybe that will wake us up and get us off our coffee breaks.  Get your Ego
>>(U.S. just *has* to be #1) out of your thought process for a little while.  We
>>are probably no higher than #2 or #3, and the jobs are being pulled from
>>countries much lower than that, not Japan.

	Michael has been nice enough to post the list, with the U.S. as #4!

> This explains why American Honda Motors exports 3 times as many cars to
> Japan as does General Motors.  Certainly if those Japanese workers are
> so productive, AHM wouldn't be building cars here, much less sending
> them back to Japan.  Right?

	Remember those trade restrictions Japan has?  Also, they drive on the
other side of the road than we do, and few American companies build cars
where the drivers side is on the right, much less in large numbers.

> As for clear evidence, I believe that ADDS (the company that makes ADDS
> terminals) just moved all of their Japanese based manufacturing back to
> the US after learning it could be done far more inexpensively HERE with
> higher productivity American workers.

	There is a lot more involved in a manufacturing facility than
worker productivity.  There is cost of real-estate (Japan is way high, since
there is so little), cost of taxes (our taxes are less), local products
to not have any import/customs taxes, and shipping charges are reduced.
I'll bet that these are more involved in cost than differences in worker
productivity.  Your example is not sufficient to your argument.

>>	From my perspective, I don't see how workers are more productive
>>than the Japanese, when *OURS* go on strike for more pay!
> 
> Simple, we don't discriminate against women in this country.  We don't
> practice systematic racial discrimination.

	There are those that would disagree with you.  The L.A. riots brought
that vividly to light.  The Hill-Thomas show has brought out the problems
women face in the workplace, that you also seem to forgotten.

>                                             We allow the best and brighest
> minds from any country in the world immigrate.  You stand a better chance
> of immigrating from Japan to the US than from the US to Japan.  In Japan,
> everything has already been divied up by large conglomerates - there is
> very little real competition.  Throw all of that together and I'd say it's
> pretty easy to see why the Japanese send their children to the US for
> college educations, why the Japanese emmigrate to the US, why the Japanese
> are the #3 exporter after Germany (#2) and the United States (#1), and so
> on.
	Lessee...  Most countries allow great minds to immigrate, do you
think they're nuts?  Agreed, at the university level (I agree that the
elementary/HS level has some problems), we have the finest schools in the
world.  They love coming here, learning everything, then going home and
applying it.  Japan will never be a big exporter, due to sheer size.  They
are the size of California and just don't have the shoreline to compete with
us exporting.

>      It is also easy to understand why the Japanese stock market has
> declined 50% (from 36,000 to 17,000) in about 3 years compared to our
> stock market (up from ~2,500 to ~3,100) in the same period.  Why the
> Japanese economy is sliding into recession (we aren't).  Why Japanese
> cars are losing market share in this country (ours aren't).

	Isn't one of the big deals in this presidential campaign is that
we *are* in a recession?  That the economy is almost as bad as the Carter
Administration?

	Japanese is losing market share with the renewed "Buy American"
ideal, and the auto-makers are realizing that they are not just competing
between themselves, but other world car makers.  It took the Federal funding
of Chrysler to wake them up.

> Get a clue.  The Land of the Rising Sun is in for a big come-upance now
> that the material excesses of the 80's have ended.  Any nation based on
> foreign consumption is going to pay dearly when those foreigners decide
> that conspicuous consumption is passe'.

	And ours is based on our conspicuous consumption, and we are paying
for it, too.  If you "Get a clue", you would notice that much of the world
is having problems economicly, including the U.S.

> -- 
> John F. Haugh II           [  TSAKC  ]       UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
> Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151    [ DoF #17 ]            Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org
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David L. Cathey		                |INET: davidc@montagar.com
Montagar Software Concepts              |UUCP: ...!montagar!davidc
P. O. Box 260772, Plano TX  75026-0772  |Fone: (214)-618-2117