This article talks about one contradictory thing (amongst several, I suppose) that is very noticeable about Japan.
I like this joke in particular:
Late last week, I visited Toyota's astonishing Tsutsumi auto plant, near the car company's headquarters in Toyoda City. With a capacity of 400,000 vehicles per year—this is where the Prius is made—it's clean, bright, full of erector-set conveyer belts, and thinly staffed. The welding shop is like a scene from The Terminator—a thicket of robots extend their arms, moving large pieces of metal and blasting them with shots of heat. (The section where robots stamp "Obama '08" and "NPR" bumper stickers on the hybrid vehicles must have been around the corner.)
I read recently about the Japanese's significant car-manufacturing presence in the US economy. Apparently they started up factories in some inland US state sometime in the '70s, when the Carter Administration started talking about protectionism.
ReplyDeleteThese factories are lean, mean, efficient, and have turned once quiet country towns in the states into cities.
Naturally, the Obama Administration's deal with the big car manufacturers in Detroit is providing their GM and the like with a huge competitive advantage, and f*ing them over royally. Pardon the language.
Having a robotised manufacturing industry, and people still in service jobs sounds a hell of a lot more sensible than the western economies method of choice - ie, dispensing with service jobs in favour of methods like robotised answering machines, and keeping human manufacturing jobs at the expense of the economy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there is really nothing to match the good service that is just routine in Japan. It is basically an extension of a very polite society, and as such it feels much more genuine than American "have a nice day" style of service.
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