Dennis Redmond wrote:
"Japan is a densely packed, crowded culture, so it'll always have an expensive retail infrastructure -- there's no space to warehouse stuff, so you get this just-in-time infrastructure, lots of things moving all the time."
Okay, but what do you make of that article that is very influential in the Bush administration at least called something like "Why the Japanese Can't Compete" (I can't put my hand on it at the moment) that suggests that while Japan's export economy is the best, it's domestic producers are overpriced and deliver poor value. I think they study the detergent industry, pharmaceuticals, food, and construction and find that what makes the relatively few (but mega-profitable) titans of the Japanese economy great is missing in most Japanese industries.
The article definitely suggests that what you call a "just-in-time" retail infrastructure is actually a Mom-and-Pop retail infrastructure.
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