nelson_p@apollo.uucp (04/01/88)
We may be getting a bit far afielfd of this newsgroup but: >There is a basic assumption made in this response that I think is >invalid. Namely, that this is a free market. My understanding is that >this is about as far from the truth as possible. Consider the following >basic scenario: > > 1. The Japanese government selects some new industry that they want > to develop. > [ more Japan - bashing deleted ] This does not explain the whole picture. First of all, American industries get government breaks too, or at least they have in the past, in the form of tax breaks on R&D, accelerated depreciation allowances, big DoD contracts, etc. The US also has cheaper raw materials and energy costs. Furthermore, in servicing our domestic market they also have lower transportation and communication costs. A better explanation of why we are being beaten, not just in Japan but HERE IN THE U.S., is illustrated by the following: A Hewlett Packard study a few years ago showed that Japanese RAMs had a lower defect rate than ones from U.S. companies. At my last job we found that (U.S. made) SEEQ EPROMs (27256's) we were using had a dramatically higher failure rate the the equivalent parts from Hitachi. We switched to Hitachi. Check out Consumer Reports magazine. Look at the rate-of-repair figures for Fords, Chryslers and Chevy's and compare them to the figures for Toyotas, and Nissans. The Japanese have beat the U.S. to market with high-density RAMs for the last two generations of such chips. Europe, which *does* all the government protection that you suggest has not fared any better against the Japanese than we have. American companies have been unwilling to make a serious committment to quality even after paying lip service to it for the last 10 years. They have also lagged behind in research and new product development. They have abandonded whole markets (optics, photography, consumer electronics) to the Japanese. They stupidly refused to see the hand- writing on the wall and modernize and innovate to compete when the Japanese invasion started. I can still remember when the Japanese were developing modern, automated production methods, Zenith was promoting the 'advantages' of building their circuitry completely by hand in their ads. It is not just the success of companies that is at stake here. Our nation's economic future and even national security are at risk by U.S. companies' unwillingness to create higher quality products and bring them to market in a timely manner. It was once said that 'What's good for GM is good for America'. There is more than a little truth in that. GM's management, by failing to compete ought to be regarded as criminals or traitors to their country. Blaming the Japanese is not going to change the fact that they have better products, more advanced technology, and more loyal workers. Their educational system produces a much higher literacy rate and more engineers. Ours produces lawyers and MBA's. We have met the enemy, as Pogo said, and he is us. --Peter Nelson
john@jclyde.UUCP (John B. Meaders Jr.) (04/03/88)
In article <3b3430a9.44e6@apollo.uucp> nelson_p@apollo.uucp writes: > > Their educational system > produces a much higher literacy rate and more engineers. Ours produces > lawyers and MBA's. You have hit upon the problem. We have way to many damned lawyers and MBAs. These are the geeks that write the laws and interpret them. They get so caught up in the complexity of their laws that the rest of us have a difficult time deciphering them. All of you lawyers and MBA types feel free to flame, I'm a soon to be Petroleum Engineer (UT Austin '88). What we need are more engineers who know how to make things work, not a bunch of marketing and "legalese" idiots. -- John B. Meaders, Jr. 1114 Camino La Costa #3083, Austin, TX 78752 ATT: Voice: +1 (512) 451-5038 Data: +1 (512) 371-0550 UUCP: ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!jclyde!john or john@jclyde.UUCP
Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (04/04/88)
In article <656@jclyde.UUCP>, john@jclyde.UUCP (John B. Meaders Jr.) writes: }You have hit upon the problem. We have way to many damned lawyers and MBAs. }These are the geeks that write the laws and interpret them. They get so }caught up in the complexity of their laws that the rest of us have a difficult }time deciphering them. All of you lawyers and MBA types feel free to flame, }I'm a soon to be Petroleum Engineer (UT Austin '88). What we need are more }engineers who know how to make things work, not a bunch of marketing and }"legalese" idiots. About a year ago, someone had something along the following lines in his/her .sig: Engineers:Lawyers Japan 400:1 USA 1:400 I also recall seeing somewhere that the US (with ~6% of the world's population) has 2/3 of the world's lawyers. -- {harvard,ucbvax}!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=- DISCLAIMER? I claimed something? ARPA: RALF@CS.CMU.EDU FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/31 BIT: RALF%CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA TalkNet: (school) | "Tolerance means excusing the mistakes others make. (412)268-3053 | Tact means not noticing them." --Arthur Schnitzler
dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) (04/05/88)
I once attended a presentation by a representative from Texas
Instruments. One person in the audience asked why TI had set up a chip
assembly line in Japan. The TI person answered that TI tried to make
the same chip here in the USA and had a very high failure rate. Then
TI set up an an assembly line in Japan that uses Japanese labor and was
able to successfully make the chip.
--
Rahul Dhesi UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesijru@etn-rad.UUCP (John Unekis) (04/06/88)
In article <656@jclyde.UUCP> john@jclyde.UUCP (John B. Meaders Jr.) writes: >In article <3b3430a9.44e6@apollo.uucp> nelson_p@apollo.uucp writes: >>... Their educational system >> produces a much higher literacy rate and more engineers. Ours produces >> lawyers and MBA's. ... >You have hit upon the problem. We have way to many damned lawyers and MBAs. >These are the geeks that write the laws and interpret them. They get so >.... What we need are more >engineers who know how to make things work, not a bunch of marketing and >legalese idiots. Once upon a time there was a land that was free of nasty creatures like lawyers and MBA's. Everyone was free to do what they pleased, so they did. They hacked each other to bits with stone axes, lived in the dirt, and ate bugs. Then came civilization, where nasty people like Kings imposed horrible laws on people that made them stop killing each other and taking things by force. Suddenly people were without amusement, so they were forced to invent new ways to spend their time, like studying nature and building machinery. But since they were still free spirited barbarians at heart, they took to stealing other peoples ideas and property. So more nasty laws were imposed to repress this free expression of their natural larcenous tendencies. Then there had to be someone to argue about the laws when conflicts arose, so lawyers came into being. Whats the point? Simply that lawyers are a result of our human greed and mistrust, they are not the cause. I have been an engineer (making computer systems) for nine years, and I have come to appreciate how valuable the law can be. Just try producing a new circuit board for the IBM PC without a patent on it. In two weeks some clone maker will have copied it, and will steal all the profit that should have been the reward of your efforts. If people were good as their word, if a handshake was an absolute bond and no one ever broke a deal, there would be no lawyers. But we as a civilization are basically dishonest and greedy, and our ability to function is based on laws that regulate our conduct. If you want to do away with lawyers, go find a few honest people that keep their promises. Then put them in a business where they lose money by telling the truth(like marketeers in the high-tech computer market, where you have to sell next years features as current products just to get the customers attention). If they hold up their moral standards, you may just have started a new age of lawyerless civlization. But I've never seen it happen. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Mine, mine, all mine! - Daffy Duck It's only my opinion - Me ---------------------------------------------------------------- to stealing each others ideas, and
tim@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Timothy L. Kay) (04/08/88)
I don't know what this has to do with the original subject, but what the heck. I'll bet that some of you are interested in my comments. John Unekis writes: > I have been an engineer (making computer systems) for nine years, and > I have come to appreciate how valuable the law can be. Just try > producing a new circuit board for the IBM PC without a patent on it. > In two weeks some clone maker will have copied it, and will steal all > the profit that should have been the reward of your efforts. Times are changing. In this day and age, a manufacturer had better either get a patent or STOP TRYING TO GOUGE THE CONSUMER. After all, add-in cards aren't all that hard to make these days (or the cloners wouldn't be able to duplicate them so easily, would they?). You don't see Seagate 251-1 clones, do you? I claim this is because hard disk drives are harder to make. But, just as importantly, Seagate is selling 251-1's at a reasonable price, and items that get cloned are those things that are sold at too much of a premium. Let's take Hercules as an example. They built a product that was very good. After it caught on, Hercules had two choices: 1) "Let's be responsive to customer needs, and offer the board at a reasonable price," or, 2) "Let's keep the price unreasonably high, so there is enormous room for the competition to undercut us and still make a good profit." After all, Hercules had been making the board for several years before the clones started appearing which should give them a cost advantage. Furthermore, they had a reputation which would cause people to pay *slightly* more for the genuine board than for a clone. (The real Hercules board even had an unprecedented two-year warranty.) Unfortunately, they didn't see the writing on the wall, and now everybody and his sister is cloning Hercules cards. I don't see *any* real Hercules cards anymore. I'll bet that most people that are buying "monochrome graphics" these days don't even know that it means "Hercules compatibility." I would never pay $60 for a clone card if I could get the real thing for, perhaps, $90. But I won't pay hundreds of dollars for the real thing. Rather than complain about being ripped off, American companies should work a little harder to be responsive to the customers, and thereby stay one or two steps ahead of the cloners. This is called value adding. Tim