From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed Dec 26 2001 - 15:02:35 MST
<Dehede011@aol.com> Wrote:
>The Boston Consulting Group in the late 70s or early 80s allegedly laid out
>a strategy for Japan that consisted of lowering prices to the point that they
>chased their competitors from the market place. That was reported in the
>press during that time period and I assume the press got it right.
That may have been their strategy, it probably was, but it hasn't worked as
expected. Japan has high unemployment and very high living expenses,
its banks are basket cases held together by glue and sealing wax limiting
future investment, many of its very largest corporations are unprofitable,
and it has the highest by far debt to gross national product ratio of any
industrial nation. Yes, America is several months into a recession but it
will probably end by summer, Japan is 12 years into the deepest recession
since world war 2 and there in no end in sight. They have not found the formula
for success, during the last decade the Japanese have been really lousy
businessmen, they tried to protect every industry regardless of how much
money it lost and they tried to run everything centrally. In fact their
accounting practices are so crummy in their largest corporations they don't
know what parts of the company make money and what divisions don't.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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