>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).
One misconception Americans have about Japan is they have no idea just how competitive the domestic market here is with things like automobiles, white goods, and consumer electronics. It is very.
I should have said 'US or Europe'. The point was, once quotas were in place, the companies that made money were those that got to fill the quotas. True, Europe was far more protectionist toward the Japanese than the US of the early 80s, but the US was the power that forced Japan into disastrous unilateral decisions over trade and commerce (which made the Europeans highly resentful, in their usually useless way).
Charles Jannuzi