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Unfair Japan or Unfair Accusations? Destroying the
Entered 02/10/92
Please excuse the length of this post, but I think these facts are
important to distribute in the current climate of anti-Japanese
hysteria and protectionism. I got this from Internet.
................................................................
Citizens Against Statistical Distortion
Used To Further Protectionism
R.H. Martin, M.A., Founder
P.O. Box 20607
Bloomington, MN 55420
Email Addresses:
Compuserve: 71510,1042
GENIE: R.Martin43
BIX: rhmartin
January 26, 1992
Dear Sir or Ms:
I have founded a new group dedicated to counteract the vicious,
unfounded claims being spread by politicians and the media. These
"claims" rely upon crude and deceptive use of partial statistical data
where indepth analysis shows the truth to be vastly different!
Enclosed is the first paper issued by this group, entitled: "Unfair
Japan or Unfair Accusation? Instead of Alibis, Why Not Real Economic
Solutions?" The U.S. government's own data shows that the average
Japanese spends $783 (U.S.$) per year on U.S. items versus the $437
spent per year on Japanese items by the average American. Only by
viewing an unfair subset of the data in an unfair manner, can the U.S.
be viewed in a disadvantaged manner.
There is no intent to create a formal membership for this group. The
purpose of the group is to gain the attention of members of the press,
government and academia, so that public awareness can be achieved.
Towards this end, if you read this paper and feel any agreement with
its analysis, I encourage you to copy or publish this paper in
whatever manner you can. Add your own cover letter. Write your own
analysis -- send me a copy if you can. This group is not intended to
have a dictatorial censorship on its members' contributions. However,
the founder (me) does not necessarily endorse nor read everything that
will be published by members who further this group's purposes. Think
of this letter and attached paper as using a "chain letter" approach
to improving international peace and free trade. Normally, chain
letters are considered illegal, but that is because they are thought
to be only used for economic gain. I do not want any money in
exchange for you distributing or publishing this letter or the
attached paper. This is a truly non-profit venture.
This letter and the attached is a copyrighted document and can only be
distributed in accordance with the terms provided in each document.
The attached paper's terms are given up front. The terms for this
letter is that reproductions must preserve the entire text, without
adding, deleting or changing any of the text.
Thank you for your attention. I hope you decide to publish or copy
and share the enclosed paper. I would appreciate any words of
response. If you publish the enclosed, I do request a copy of the
reprinted publication.
Sincerely,
Copyright 1992
R.H. Martin, M.A.
All Rights Reserved
======================================================================
UNFAIR JAPAN OR UNFAIR ACCUSATION?
INSTEAD OF ALIBIS, WHY NOT REAL ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS?
The U.S. Government's Own Data Shows
The Average Japanese Spends $783 Per Year on U.S. Items
V. the $437 Spent Per Year on Japanese Items by Americans
Only By Viewing an Unfair Subset of the Data
in an Unfair Manner Can the U.S. Be Viewed at a Disadvantage
January 26, 1992
Copyright 1992, R. H. Martin, M.A.
All Rights Reserved
The author is President, Applied Foresight, Inc. and Editor,
ShareDebate International (an electronic magazine distributed in 25
countries by over 550 distributors); P.O. Box 20607, Bloomington, MN
55420. The author is also founder, Citizens Against Statistical
Distortion Used to Further Protectionism.
A non-exclusive reprint permission is hereby granted to any
publication, free of charge, provided the article is reprinted in full
and a copy of the publication containing the reprint is sent to the
author. (See information at end on how to obtain the text
electronically.)
[Continued]
* * * * *
An incredible amount of statistical distortion, due either to
ignorance, the need for scapegoating in a recessionary-election year,
racism, or envy, is being perpetuated by the mass media and our
politicians. Or maybe, additional tariffs are sought to increase
government revenues. If you listened to the powers-that-be, you'd
believe that we truly have a trade imbalance with Japan! Only if you
completely use statistics in the most unfair way can you make this
assertion. Here is the basis for the facts later presented. Japan,
as well as all Capitalist Asian countries, is considerably smaller in
population as well as size. For any of these countries, which produce
high quality, highly desirable goods, to have what the press and our
politicians call "a trade balance" requires the average Asian to buy
individually many more times American goods from us than we buy from
them.
For example, If nation A has twice the people of nation B, such as
is the case with the U.S. and Japan, for there to be "a trade balance"
as defined by the American powers-that-be, then each person in nation
B has to buy twice the amount of nation A's goods than what nation A's
individuals buy of nation B's goods. That is unfair. If each person
in nation A buys $100 of products from nation B and vice versa, that
means that each side, individually is buying equally from each other.
That is, individually each side feels the same about the other side's
products.
Now it's true, that the average receipts would be off balance.
But again, it's unfair to expect those to be equal. Purchases, in a
modern society, are predominantly caused by individual consumers'
behavior. What business purchases exist are driven by consumer
purchases and needs. Receipts of purchase payments, in a modern
society, are predominantly at the corporate level. If all that was
trade between Japan and the U.S. were cars, and if each car owner in
each country bought one car from the other country, there would be
equal preference despite nationality to buy the same as the other
nation's citizen is buying. Yet there would be a huge American-
establishment defined "trade imbalance," for there are many more car
owners in the U.S. than there are in Japan, where the population is
less than half and many rely upon mass transportation instead of cars.
The recipients of those purchases are the automobile corporations.
One does not expect Toyota nor General Motors to take that money and
buy cars from anybody else, much less from the other nation!
Furthermore, in the arena of free trade, it is unfair for one side
to pressure the other side to buy it's goods if the other side is not
making any pressure upon us to buy their goods. It is not the
Japanese fault that we buy their automobiles. It is the American
automobile manufacturers' fault that they can't make as good of a
car.
Ed Rubenstein provides relevant facts about Japan and the negative
effects of protectionism on page 12 of the December 30th, 1991, issue
of National Review, in his sidebar article "An Economic Pearl
Harbor?"
He writes "...in fact Japanese bought more U.S. products last
year---$395 per person--than Americans bought Japanese products--$359
per person. In 1990 Japan imported $49 billion of U.S. goods--second
only to Canada's $84 billion, and far ahead of our next largest
market, Mexico, at $28 billion. More importantly, Japan devotes a
larger share of its GNP to the purchase of imports from the U.S. (1.7
per cent) than we devote of our GNP to the purchase of imports from
Japan (1.6 per cent)."
The National Review, and its writer Ed Rubenstein, is to be highly
commended for this fair statement, as I have not read it in any other
publication nor heard it from any radio or TV journalist.
Rubenstein also comments, "Attempts to keep Japanese products out
of the U.S. have hurt us more than they've helped. Since 1984, for
example, steel-import restrictions have saved an estimated 17,000 jobs
in the steel industry. But industries that use steel, like producers
of farm and construction equipment, have lost 54,200 jobs as a result
of the higher cost of steel, according to a study by the St. Louis-
based Center for the Study of American Business."
Not wanting to trust Rubenstein on his word, who was alone saying
this, I analyzed the raw data available. Using the 110th edition of
the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1990, published by the
U.S. Department of Commerce and the Bureau of the Census, I found that
Rubenstein severely underplayed the data.
In our commerce relationships with Japan, we actually receive
sales revenue from three main sources: the sale of export goods; the
sale of land and facilities located in the U.S., which is referred to
as direct investments in a country by a foreign country; and tourist-
derived revenue. The government ignores the latter two sources of
revenue in its analysis of the trade picture with Japan, although it
separately tracks the data. Unfortunately, starting with the 111th
edition of the Statistical Abstract, the data for the second source is
not shown both ways anymore. Consequently, using this source for
analysis, 1988 was the latest year that data is available. Is the
government trying to downplay data that presents Japan in a better
light?
Before presenting this data, it should be noted that so much of
the pressure applied to Japan, including President Bush's latest trip
to Japan, results in Japan purchasing more land and facilities in the
U.S. When Bush got the Japanese to agree to buy more American-made
automobile parts in Japan-owned automobile factories, the pressure is
on for Japan to invest in American-located automobile parts
companies, either through ownership, a partnership arrangement, or a
large customer arrangement.
When the government imposes quotas and import tariffs, they
pressure the Japanese to purchase land and facilities in the U.S., so
that the manufactured items are "made in America." On top of this,
local state Governors and state legislatures compete with incentives
for Japan to setup factories in their state(s). Look at how much the
Japanese have benefitted Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. I've read
recently (source forgotten) that the U.S. manufacturers have shifted
90,000 jobs out of the country while the Japanese have created 65,000
automotive-industry related jobs in the U.S. Yet the government will
ignore the money pored into such arrangements when they calculate the
trade picture next year. How unfair!
The following data is taken from the Government's 110th Edition of
the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1990. The data covers
the year 1988. All monetary data is in U.S. dollars. All page
references are to pages in the U.S. Statistical Abstract.
Japan's Purchases of U.S. Items -- From U.S. Data:
Japanese direct investments in America (p.793) $53,400,000,000
Japanese purchases of U.S.-exported goods (p.808) $37,732,000,000
Amount Japanese tourists spent in the U.S. (p. 240) $4,926,000,000
Total of U.S. Items Purchased by Japan (sum) $96,058,000,000
Population of Japan, 1988 (p. 841, calculated) 122,610,000
Average Japanese Spent Purchasing U.S.Items (calc.) $783
Japan's Gross National Product--GNP (p. 841) $2,851,300,000,000
Percent of Japan's GNP Spent on US Items (calc.) 3.369%
America's Purchases of Japanese Items -- From U.S. Data:
U.S. direct investments in Japan (p.793) $16,900,000,000
U.S. purchases of Japanese exported goods (p.808) $89,802,000,000
Amount U.S. tourists spent in Japan (p. 239) $1,023,000,000
Total of Japanese Items Purchased by U.S. (sum) $107,725,000,000
Population of U.S., 1888 (p. 841, calculated) 246,333,000
Average American Spent Purch. Japanese Items (calc.) $437
U.S. Gross National Product--GNP (p. 841) $4,880,600,000,000
Pct. of U.S.'s GNP Spent on Japanese Items (calc.) 2.207%
If you used a calculator to play with the above data, you'll note
that there are 201 Americans for every 100 Japanese. If you reversed
the data to get average receipts per inhabitant, you would find the
scales drastically tilted to "favor" the Japanese. But as said much
earlier, per capita receipts is an unfair statistic because the
smaller populated nation is always at a disadvantage and besides
receipts are heavily concentrated at the corporate level whereas
purchases are heavily concentrated at the consumer (individual
inhabitant) level. It is much more fairer to look at the balance of
commerce between two nations at the individual consumer behavior
level.
It is also more fairer to look at the balance of commerce over a
longer period of time. For all the decades that Japan, as a whole,
bought more from the U.S. than we bought from them, doesn't that give
Japan an accumulated credit that they're entitled to offset against?
PART 2 OF 2
UNFAIR JAPAN OR UNFAIR ACCUSATION?
INSTEAD OF ALIBIS, WHY NOT REAL ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS?
The U.S. Government's Own Data Shows
The Average Japanese Spends $783 Per Year on U.S. Items
V. the $437 Spent Per Year on Japanese Items by Americans
Only By Viewing an Unfair Subset of the Data
in an Unfair Manner Can the U.S. Be Viewed at a Disadvantage
January 26, 1992
Copyright 1992, R. H. Martin, M.A.
All Rights Reserved
The author is President, Applied Foresight, Inc. and Editor,
ShareDebate International (an electronic magazine distributed in 25
countries by over 550 distributors); P.O. Box 20607, Bloomington, MN
55420. The author is also founder, Citizens Against Statistical
Distortion Used to Further Protectionism.
A non-exclusive reprint permission is hereby granted to any
publication, free of charge, provided the article is reprinted in full
and a copy of the publication containing the reprint is sent to the
author. (See information at end on how to obtain the text
electronically.)
* * * * *
[Note: the first half of the full paper was posted to LIBERNET
yesterday with the inquiry asking if anybody wanted the remaining 310
lines posted. Two people responded and both in the affirmative. The
rest of the paper follows.]
* * * * *
One other Western writer analyzes the situation fairly and in
great depth. British Member of Parliament, Phillip Oppenheim, in his
book The New Masters: Can the West Match Japan? documents thoroughly
that the protectionist measures--formal and informal--in Japan are
less than how the Western economies act, including the U.S. Everyone
should read Oppenheim's book. It reveals the massive amount of
fallacies that exist among politicians and industry pundits regarding
Japan. His book is published in London by Business Books Limited,
1991, an imprint of Random Century Limited, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA. ISBN 0-09-174-693-0 (hardbound); ISBN 0-7126-4190-4
(paperback).
This is the best book I've read on Japan, why protectionism hurts
the industries it aims to protect, and what the West should really
consider doing in order to meet the challenge of the Japanese.
Oppenheim writes: "Indeed, an OECD survey for 1988 placed Japan
only twentieth out of 24 industrial-ized countries when it came to
subsidies. Japan's support for its industries totalled under one
percent of GDP, which was less than the OECD average of 1.5 percent
and well under the levels for the Netherlands (4.3 percent). The same
survey also shows that even back in 1970 Japan's level was below that
of most of its main competitors at 1.1 percent, which placed her
eighteenth out of the 24 countries. (page 147)"
Oppenheim comments on the multitude of barriers foreign companies
face doing business in America including the additional ones imposed
by individual U.S. states. He then comments: "This may be why one
survey of non-tariff barriers found that on a 1981 index of 100, by
1986 Japan's figure had fallen to 98.6, while that of the United
States had risen to 123 and the European Community figure was up to
118.3 Another estimate, by the World Bank, of the extent of non-
tariff barriers in 1983 showed that in Japan they covered nine per
cent of all goods and 5.4 percent of manufactures, while in America
they affected 34.3 percent of all products and 12.3 percent of
manufactured goods. France was even worse, with non-tariff barriers
covering 44.2 percent of all products and even the Netherlands came
in with a figure of 21.4 percent. Overall, Japan's totals were the
third lowest of the sixteen countries in the survey. For the truth
is that when it comes to crafty import restrictions, there is little
that the West can learn from Japan. (page 106)"
As for official barriers to trade, the EC [European Commission]
has listed in a 41 page report the multitude of American government-
created restrictions to trade. Oppenheim writes: "These, according
to the document, include tariffs; custom user fees; agricultural
import quotas; as well as barriers to imports of machine tools,
beverages, confectionery, firearms, ammunition, foreign-built
vessels, jewellery, telecommunications equipment, ham, bearings,
power equipment and vehicles. The EC report also criticizes United
States government subsidies for exporters and R&D and cheekily
censures America's implementation of antidumping duties. (page 368)"
The author poses the question disputed by today's media pundits.
He writes: "Can Western companies and products succeed in Japan? ...
More than 1,000 foreign companies had wholly- or partly-owned
affiliates in Japan in 1987, with sales totalling $120 billion and
260,000 employees. ... Furthermore, a study in the late 1970s by the
American Chamber of Commerce in Japan indicated that the United States
investments in Japan had been extremely profitable, with an apparent
average annual return of 19 per cent - twice as good as the return on
American investment in France or Britain. (page 335)"
He counters the pundits arguments that Japan excels because the
government has protected its' businesses. He uses Japan's
bankruptcies figures as proof that Japan's businesses are more
vulnerable to market pressures than U.S. businesses are. He writes:
"Further evidence of the burning pace of Japan's domestic market lies
in the high level of bankruptcies. Between 1980 and 1986, there
averaged more than 15,000 bankruptcies each year of companies with
debts of more than Y10m (about 4.5 million pound) each. These figures
are around 12.5 per cent higher than those for the United States, even
though Japan's corporate population is only 40 percent that of
America's. (page 167)"
Quoting from Richard Greer, Oppenheim quotes: "The basic problem
in evaluating the efficacy of industrial policy is that one has no
information as to how growth might have proceeded in the absence of
such policy. So merely noting that targeted industries grew is not a
compelling argument. Moreover, the list of industries in Japan
which grew without the benefit of any specific policy is extensive and
includes sewing machines, cameras, bicycles, motor bikes, transistor
radios, colour televisions, tape recorders, magnetic tape, audio
equipment, watches, calculators, textile equipment, farm machinery,
robots and photocopiers. (page 145)"
Regarding American resentment of Japanese companies buying
familiar brand-name companies in America, he reminds us that
"Americans should also bear in mind that their own industry has
invested far more in overseas markets than foreigners have invested in
the United States. If Americans believe that it is a good thing for
their industry to acquire foreign companies such as Jaguar, bought by
Ford in 1989, they should not consider it such a betrayal when
Japanese or British companies buy up well-known American names. (page
363)"
Oppenheim provides four powerful paragraphs about why Japan's
economy is so strong.
"Ultimately, the factors which probably differentiate much of
Japan's industry from the West's are these: an open-minded willingness
to adopt the best technology and practices for a given situation; an
eagerness to enter new fields and markets as a means of surviving in
the face of unrelenting competition; the high quality and educational
attainment at all levels of Japanese industry; and a preparedness to
take pains to make employees feel part of their organization. Above
all, there is the seeming infinite capacity of Japan's managers to
take trouble and to ensure that the customer is their chief priority.
(page 231)"
"Western governments themselves should also recognize the key role
that they have played in Japan's success, for there can be little
question that Japanese exporters have had their job eased by
mismanagement, high state-spending and overconsumption in the United
States and parts of Western Europe. ...many Western governments
removed market constraints on wage levels, with the result that from
the late 1960s wages in most developed countries contributed to
unemployment. In the face of growing joblessness, a variety of
weapons, including protection against overseas competition and
subsidies to 'strategic' industries were deployed. The result was a
vicious circle of inflationary political commitments and government
intervention, which led to further economic distortions and the need
for yet more inflationary commitments. (page 397)"
"Any government which squeezes industrial capital investment by
over-taxing savings and taking too large a share of the nation's
resources, or overstimulates domestic consumption, or legislates in a
way which positively encourages labour militancy, or promotes anti
business attitudes, is bound to end up with a manufacturing sector
which is shrinking relative to its competitors.
Moreover, any country which neglects the fundamental truth that
the prime object of education should be to equip its people with the
ability to earn a living is unlikely to enjoy a successful and
competitive industry. ...there are elements in Japan's relatively
low-cost, high quality school system which could be extremely
beneficial. These include the emphasis on pre-school education, the
element of parental choice, the stress placed on learning the basics
of language, mathematics and science, the number of pupils staying on
beyond the age of 16 and on into higher education, the use of regular
testing as a means of assessing performance and the inherent
vocational bias of the system. (page 406)"
Last, Oppenheim warns the West about the ultimate dangers of
protectionism. He writes: "there is now a real risk of a decline
into the type of conditions which brought about the Smoot-Hawley Act
in 1930. This protectionist legislation, designed to safeguard
American industry and jobs against foreign competition, ended in
retaliatory measures against the United States from 25 of its trading
partners, with the result that by 1933 American exports had declined
by about 60 per cent. (page 371)"
Beyond everything said above, the most concise argument that I can
make for endorsing free trade policies at home, regardless of what
degree of protectionism is engaged in by other countries, is to point
to the example of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has the lowest corporate and personal income tax rate
(17.5 percent). It has a high growth gross domestic product rate, it's
seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 1.3 percent as of the end of
1988, it has no protectionism (unlike the substantial amount of the
U.S. --have you seen the U.S. custom duties book lately?), and it has
held a net trade balance with the outside world for the period 1986-
1988. It's economy grew by 11 percent over the 1986--1988 period.
According to the Hong Kong government, "This basically free-
enterprise, market-disciplined system has contributed to Hong Kong's
economic success."
Can you imagine Hong Kong being dynamic without a free trade
policy with the rest of the world? No, it's because of its zero-
tariff, free trade, free market position, that it is so strong despite
what its trading partners, Japan, Europe, China and the United States
do.
Finally, it is totally wrong to blame Japan for the unbalanced
trade position. Japan didn't force one sale upon U.S. customers.
Most of the trade unbalance involves automobile purchases, and with
the high tariffs imposed upon Japanese cars, Americans have to pay
more to buy a Japanese car than a comparable American car. Yet
Americans persist in buying Japanese cars, whether they're made in the
U.S. by a Japanese-owned company or made abroad. Why? Because they
want to. Some of them have had horrible experiences with American
cars and don't want the hassle of dealing with them again---not until
America becomes known for making more reliable cars than Japan.
The bumper sticker that I want made reads (in my mind): "Support
freedom. Freedom to buy the best regardless of origin. Encourage
American Industry to do its best!"
If the government wants to improve our trade position with the
rest of the world, particularly Asia, then it should copy its low
taxation policy, such as eliminating the Business Profit Tax--if not
for all companies--then at least for those engaged in exports. The
BPT is passed onto consumers as a flat-amount tax, which is most
unfair to the lower half of society, and it is applied as many times
against a product as there are companies behind the making of a
product. High technology products can have the tax applied tens of
times to a finished goods item---some products could have up to
seventy percent of its retail price derive from this geometric
application of the tax throughout the multilevel bill of material
behind the item. By the way, how many politicians understand a
multi-level bill of material product-costing rollup?
Reduce the Capital Gains Tax to the lowest personal income tax
rate. Narrow the scope of U.S. patents to be as narrow as Japan's.
Due to the broadscope and ethically unfair patent laws of the U.S.--
see "Whose invention is it anyway?" by Gary Slutsker and David C.
Churbuck in the Forbes August 19, 1991, issue (pages 114-118)--, we
have fewer major industrial players in every industrial sector than
the Japanese. The writers quote Boston U. law professor, Robert
Merges: "There are certain features of the Japanese patent system-
limiting intellectual property rights--that encourages aftermarket
improvements." When critics state that "Americans invent, the
Japanese perfect," it is not because they're genetically superior to
us, it is because their legal system allows them, while ours handicaps
industry. Using the past and the present for statistics, look at our
photocopy industry (XEROX traditionally), our camera industry (KODAK
and POLAROID traditionally), our car industry (3 players), our
computer mainframe industry (IBM really the only U.S. player), our TV
industry (ZENITH but also formerly GE, RCA, MAGNAVOX). Yet in all
these industries there are a multitude of Japanese industries---again
due to their more intelligent patent law system I argue.
As recommended in a Wall Street Journal editorial, reduce unfair
costs in law suits by mandating that the looser must always pay the
lower of the two sides legal fees to the winning side--this provision
will encourage large corporations to not bring out big legal guns
against small consumer-lawsuits because if the consumer looses, the
large corporation will only receive the legal fees of that paid by
the small consumer. In addition, I propose standardizing standards
imposed upon occupations to be the same across the board--including
judges and lawyers--this would probably mean that one can't engage in
their work when drunk and one can't intentionally misrepresent their
skills. If consumers want to be protected against mishaps, allow new
insurance policies to exist to protect against surgical mishaps,
construction mishaps, etc. Then only those consumers that want to pay
for protection will pay more for the goods they buy, rather than
raising the prices of the goods for everybody thereby hurting their
world trade position.
Eliminate all trade tariffs, gradually to allow American
industries time to prepare, --say 25 percent reduction per year so
that all tariffs can be eliminated within a given Presidential office
span. This will allow American industry to purchase the best
components they need for manufacturing at the cheapest price. This
will allow American companies to become profitable by re-exporting
what they import--something that is very profitable to Hong Kong but
nearly impossible to do when import tariffs are required.
Allow American industries to reintroduce market forces in labor
wages---stop government efforts which remove market forces from
establishing fair labor rates. This includes either eliminating all
occupational licenses and letting competitive private-sector
occupational-competency groups handle such tasks or if citizens want
some government interference to limit it to just occupational
certifications, where failure to have the certificate doesn't prevent
one from practicing (only from advertising the obtainment of the
certificate). Liberal and free-market observers recognize the
distortion of licensing laws. Read James Fallows' book, More Like Us
(1989, Boston: Houghton Mifflin); Milton Friedman's book which covers
many pertinent topics, Free to Choose (1980, New York: Avon Books);
and S. David Young's book, The Rule of Experts: Occupational
Licensing in America (1987, Washington DC: Cato Institute).
Minimum wage laws are wrong, for each time the minimum wage
increases, thousands of jobs are lost, which means that the minimum
wage law is a law where the majority steals from the minority, which
is undemocratic and unethical. In our democracy, minority rights are
supposed to be protected. When the wages of the many are increased by
the laying off of a minority, that is accomplished because the many
have effectively stolen the wages of those terminated. The Bacon Davis
Act which mandates uniform pay for workers in various jobs is an anti-
minority bill too---it's origins date back to Jim Crow legislation
which resented Blacks from "stealing" jobs from Whites by willing to
work for less. The Bacon Davis Act stole many jobs from minority
members. This is not an original observation--free market economists,
both black and white, have long been making these recommendations.
Read Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams for the views of free-market
oriented black economists. In particular, read Williams' "Minimum
Wage, Maximum Folly" in his book, The State Against Blacks, 1982, New
York: New Press (a McGraw-Hill Book Co.).
When American labor can't produce enough to justify their pay,
American jobs are lost to either downsizing or bankruptcies or to
shifting jobs overseas. Unions were greedy and shortsighted to think
they could get away with wages beyond what labor's productivity
justified. Asian workers have far more job security than their
American counterparts and that is because the government didn't try to
thwart fundamental free market principles.
Last, have politicians seriously take the advice given by the two
best Japan experts that I'm aware of, namely Philip Oppenheim (see
above), and Steven Schlossstein (author of The End of the American
Century, 1989, New York: Congdon & Weed, Inc.), as well as the Nobel
Laureate in Economics, Milton Friedman--who also argues against the
Business Profit Tax--and who has traveled and lectured abundantly in
Asia. (See above made reference to Friedman's book.)
If these recommendations were adopted, as they have long ago been
adopted throughout Asia, American industry would quickly become a
historical dynamo again. And to compete, Japan would have to adopt
similar free-market measures. One can't compete with free-market
countries by increasing protectionism internally. One can only compete
by becoming more free-market oriented. This is the best way to
compete better with the Japanese. Compete and win with free market
weapons!
____________________________
To obtain a copy of this paper in electronic form (EMAIL or diskette),
or to find out about the freeware magazine, ShareDebate International,
write or email the author. EMAIL addresses: Compuserve: 71510,1042
(checked most frequently); GENIE: R.MARTIN43; BIX: rhmartin.
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