If it is like it was when I owned a Honda and then a Ford and then a Plymouth. American service sucks. But American cars are as good as any and better than a lot. My Honda was fast but it was the superior service organization that kept the car running on the road. Like a good socialist organization, they planned the obsolesence and replaced things whether they needed them or not. Such an organized replacement kept a smooth system in the automobile that didn't have the problem with the overall performance system having to adjust to completely new parts. Central planning does work if you so choose. But it was the initial Japanese governmental supports both as tariffs and as subsidies that made the Honda cheap enough for us to afford the new system and get used to a continual maintainence schedule.
Once I got the Ford, the maintainence was terrible and new parts destroyed old and stimulated destruction of the system as a whole. But my father-in-law who was a mechanic, loved the Ford. I got rid of that car quickly. I had to be a mechanic to know how to deal with it. The Plymouth had decent but not great service and the same problem with parts destroying each other since they weren't centrally organized either. I would compare the Japanese companies to the old Bell Laboratories. Some bad problems with monopolies but lots of good technological stuff and I had to shoot their telephone and throw them away before they would be defective. Today's phones are like chewing gum. Messy and easily ruined. You can forget about cell phones. Now cell phones are a place where I worry about radiation. Know anything about that Harry? REH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 4:05 PM Subject: RE: [Futurework] We're waiting, Mr Snow > Arthur, > > As I look out at my driveway with its two Toyota Station Wagons I wonder > why Toyota is at the top of the list in sales? I think Honda is second. > > Could it be that Americans appreciate a good car? > > Harry > ---------------------------------------------------------- > > Arthur wrote: > > >Somewhere I have a quote from the head of Toyota who said that since > >Americans didn't appreciate quality, they would slowly bring down the hours > >and effort and yen put into achieving quality. It was wasted on Americans > >and was costing Toyota too much. > > > >arthur > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 7:32 PM > >Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Subject: Re: [Futurework] We're waiting, Mr Snow > > > > > >Keith Hudson wrote: > >[snip] > > > In a report out today ML has opined that the > > > weak-dollar has already added 2% to nominal growth in the US. > >[snip] > > > >The best thing about a weak dollar is that it puts pressure > >on Americans to buy inferior American products and it > >gives people in the rest of the world incentive to buy > >inferior American products. > > > >I wish I could buy American *all the time* --> BECAUSE > >AMERICAN WOULD BE BEST. When will we shame the Japanese, > >the Germans and the Swiss about the inferior quality of > >their prodsucts? Until then, we'll have to rely > >on a weak dollar to get people to buy inferior American > >products --> or, even better, get them to lower their > >standards so they don't want anything better. > > > >When I was a child, "Japanese" meant junk. When I > >was a young adult (1972), I still thought > >a Datsun B-210 was a wingless kamikazi. Now I > >wonder whether maybe even a Kia is better than a > >Buick. (I would not even think of buying a Buick > >instead of a Corolla, because I consider the relation of > >Buick to Toyotas to be simliar (remember the > >analogy questions on the SAT?) -- > > > > Buick is to Toyota as movie is to film. (I.e., > > it's the ersatz kitsch nauga- version of it.) > > > >In an area which happens to interest me, fine mechanical > >watches, America once made the best in the world. The > >Waltham Stone Movement is a wonder to behold, e.g. --Then the > >Swiss undersold us (ref.: "Who killed Cock Robin?", in > >David Landes, _Revolution in Time_, Harvard Univ. Press). > > > >America *can* make as high quality as anyone else in > >the world, but in the new global economy we have > >constructed, we have made sure we no longer can > >afford to (The Invisible Hand, AKA The Mo9nty Python > >Boot, stomps down on the world). --No wonder > >a gelding won the Kentucky Fried Chicken and the > >Preakness: America has castrated its soul, so > >it is appropriate that it wins with a castrato. > > > >It makes me sick and disgusted. FTFM (F-ck The > >Free Market). > > > >\brad mccromci > > **************************************************** > Harry Pollard > Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles > Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 > Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 > http://home.attbi.com/~haledward > **************************************************** > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.484 / Virus Database: 282 - Release Date: 5/27/2003 > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
