Dennis Robert Redmond wrote:
>On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Charles Jannuzi wrote:
>
>> actual making of things than in research in labs. The other reason,
perhaps,
>> is to counter wild currency swings (this hasn't happened a lot in the
past
>> decade but collective memory about such things is a longer than that at
a
>> Japanese company).
>
>Fascinating, that Japanese firms have such lengthy collective memories,
>no? According to neoliberal theory, Japan is impossible: the place
>should've crashed decades ago. And yet no matter how many banks go
>under, those 100 billion EUR trade surpluses keep piling up, year after
>year, as regular as cherry blossoms and Godzilla sequels.
Doug:
>And they pile up in no small part because >Japanese industry is too
>unprofitable to justify investing the cash >pile in it, and because
>Japanese consumers live rather austere >material lives.
It's always amazing how US analysis of Japan is from Moon Base Alpha or somewhere. Doug's isn't that far out there, but it conflicts with what other Americans say.
One line of recent US analysis is that THE JAPANESE HAVE INVESTED WAY TOO MUCH IN THEIR INDUSTRIES--INDUSTRIAL OVERPRODUCTION BEING THE PROBLEM.
That's Japan, austere materialism. Japanese companies haven't been profitable because of a decade of an overly strong yen, largely engineered by the US. If the avg. Japanese got to live the American dream, real estate would be even higher and the four main islands would sink under the weight of their own refuse. Would make the commodities exporters even happier, for a while.
Yes, the trains are fast and they do run on time, but Japanese get to spend hours in crowded trains instead of in cars in traffic jams. And here in Fukui, where the American dream prevails, we have more and more traffic jams, and fewer and fewer buses and trams.
Charles Jannuzi