> Certainly, Japan does not have any companies that are in the league of
> Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Systems, Intel, or even the revived IBM
Dennis Robert Redmond gamely replied:
>Nonsense. Nintendo, Sony, >Matsushita, Toshiba, Hitachi, >Sanyo, DoCoMo and
>Canon all own specific product >niches which no US or EU firm >can touch.
I was talking about 'total services' software companies, Dennis. Or if you take a measure favored with Fortune or Business Week, like market cap.
The only one that comes close in Japan is Fujitsu (and its tying up with IBM to survive).
Nintendo doesn't compete in OSes, does it? (though MS has invested in games big time).
Sony only makes money off of its games division, everything else is losing money in the deflationary/high yen era.
Hitachi and Toshiba have announced records losses. Canon and Richoh have bright futures, if the yen gets back to a level like 140/dollar. Sanyo? Sanyo makes great digital cameras and can't market them, even in Japan. They are mostly an OEM.
>The poor-helpless-weak-Japan >line just won't wash. Japan is a >superpower
>with 2 trillion EUR in the bank >which needs to get off its ass and >spend,
spend, spend.
Typed like a true consumer utopist, Dennis. What in the heck are they going to spend it on? US cars? More clothes made in China? Genetically-modified soybeans? This whole 'Japan has to boost consumer spending' line is a total line of shit. The Japanese who still have steady income buy more than they ever did, but spend less. That's deflation, and it's real. The Japanese are already some of the world's biggest spenders--ask any French exporter .
> If Japan's market-besotted >political elites aren't up to
>this, then that's a damning >indictment of the LDP, for sure, >but it would
>be unwise to, um, you know, bet >against the lizard.
Oh come on, Dennis. You are as market-besotted as they are (spend, spend, spend yourself). The current reform faction of LDP is allied with the likes of Sony and Toyota to save what's left of the part of the economy that they say can keep up with the US and EU, with or without free markets (and who is going to argue that Japanese exports ever found a 'free market' in either the US or Japan--they got quotas that made only the companies that were political players rich). They'll wreck the national health insurance system, the postal savings and insurance, and the co-ops in order to do it, if they have to.
I know American-firsters take glee in Japan's troubles. And many will just discount the coming disasters as the results of fair trade and competition. But if the Japanese economy goes down (something now on the lips of all those 'experts' at the WEF), then 'globalization' never had a chance at all. And what follows isn't going to be Negri's vision of St. Francis and the Wobblies.
Charles Jannuzi