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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:5500 comp.os.linux.misc:35748 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!in1.uu.net!bcstec!plato!gfm9611 From: gfm9611@plato.ds.boeing.com (G Frank McCormick) Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld! Message-ID: <D4IwG4.BFC@plato.ds.boeing.com> Organization: Boeing Commercial Airplane Group References: <3heh7u$scl@umbc8.umbc.edu> <3hg0ei$f96@yama.mcc.ac.uk> <D45tx6.7nJ@wndrsvr.la.ca.us> Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 21:16:52 GMT Lines: 116 system@wndrsvr.la.ca.us (system) writes: > > Excuse me? The mind boggles where this historical revisionism comes > from. The reason the USA has no TV manufacturers is due to DUMPING > of Japanese TV sets on the American market at below cost. American > manufacturers were driven out of business not by quality, but due > to inability to compete with Japan Inc. The Japanese business industry, > it is well known, is supported by the government. The gov't funded > the TV industry until American manufacturers went bankrupt. It's > well known that the Japanese market is closed to foreigners. With > a captive market to make up for the losses in America, Japan couldn't > go wrong. It's only very very recently that the market has opened > a hairs-width to foreigners (American). > I generally try to ignore these discussions, but someone needs to challenge the assertions above. There is not and never has been any evidence that the manufacturers of Japanese consumer electronics engaged in systematic dumping in the American marketplace. Every American administration has had to deal with these charges in one form or another, and no one has ever been able to muster more than the odd anecdote to support the claims of dumping. In cases of true dumping, excess profits in the manu- facturers home market must offset the (predatory) losses in the "victimized" foreign market. The presumed victims are then supposedly driven into bankruptcy by the evil imports, against which competition was impossible. If this scenario is true, then prices for the dumped goods should rise dramatically after all the victimized former competitors have been removed from the playing field. Another possible effect would be lower prices for the previously inflated prices for these goods in the manufacturer's home market, after the foreign losses have been turned to profits. In fact, nothing of the sort happened with any Japanese consumer electronics, televisions or otherwise. What did happen was that the Japanese electronics makers very sensibly exploited an advantage that had been years in the making -- clever design work, skillful assembly and packaging, and lowish wage costs. These advantages were not exactly bred by a crafty and omniscient group of politicians, bureaucrats and civil servants. It is true that for many years after World War II, the Japanese tax code favored investment over consumption. But it is equally true that the crowd at MITI blundered as often as not, and a good case can be made that Japanese industry would have been better off overall if MITI had left well enough alone. For instance, MITI refused to allow the founder of Sony to import transistors for his first solid-state product. MITI believed the devices to be largely useless and a diversion from the "real" task of heavy manufacturing. In another well-known example of government mis-wisdom, MITI tried to bully Japan's car makers into combining under three huge groupings (there were from eight to eleven significant auto manufacturers in Japan at the time, depending on how you'd like to define "significant"). MITI's reasoning was that Detroit's Big Three were successful, so there must be something inherently advantageous to being Big and being Three. The comparatively smaller and more numerous Japanese car makers resisted MITI's bureaucratic imperative fiercely and, fortunately, successfully. Only a few years later, those same upstarts had begun to erode Detroit's market share in one of the century's most spectacular illustrations of how to challenge the market leaders by offering products that consumers actually _want_ to buy when given a choice. They didn't do this by dumping. No one can seriously believe that Toyota, Honda, Nissan et al cunningly lose money year after year in the American market. I'm probably a typical American consumer. I was a lot happier with my first Japanese television than I had been with my last Sylvania television. The Japanese TV cost more than the American one had, so I certainly wasn't buying solely on price, to the detriment of poor, victimized Sylvania. I was a lot happier with my first Honda automobile than I had been with my last Oldsmobile. And this was at a time when GM wouldn't even consider putting steering wheels on the correct side of the car for sale in Japan. Left-hand steering is good enough for Americans, so Japanese drivers were simply expected to take whatever we made for ourselves and like it. Guess which group saw its market share grow? Then there's the issue of the protected home market. Here, too, the assertions above fail. While the Japanese protect agricultural products more than does America, Japan actually has slightly _lower_ tariffs on manufactured goods. Japan averages around 4%, America between 5 and 6. Fortunately, both are fairly low, although a rate of zero percent in both cases would be beneficial. So, I'm sorry, but the outraged claims are straw men. These assertions are common, but they are unsupportable by evidence. They amount to little more than a comforting mythology chanted and retold by Americans who would rather explain our collective failures than fix them. It would be nice if we could admire and learn from the intelligent activities of foreigners, instead of assuming that Americans possess a God-given right to dominate every industry, or that any challenge to a dominant position is evidence of some malevolent plot by devious aliens. > > P.S. This thread wandered off-topic long ago. > Yes, it did. Frank McCormick, Not speaking for Boeing and all that