>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.
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.
Doug