Craig;

Having spent my early years in electronic manufacturing and interested in what goes on I spent a good deal of time studying the Japanese. The Japanese government works with Japanese industry. They have things like 20 year plans. Two such plans I am well aquatinted with were electronics and automobile manufacturing.

In the case of television manufacturing as an example Japanese manufacturers produced high quality items and sold them for less than sets made in the United States. American buyers like to save money on purchases so bought the Japanese sets. For each television sold in the United States the Japanese manufacturer lost money. The Japanese government reimbursed them. A television set made in Japan cost more in Japan then in the United States. During the mid 1970’s electronic manufacturing of televisions in this country almost ceased. It was down to 2 – Zenith and Curtis Mathis. A few years later there were no television sets manufactured in this country.

In the late 1970’s and early 80’s Japanese manufacturing took on RAM chips. Once again high quality items were dumped on our market for less money and people bought the cheaper item. Hitachi make great chips and I used them in my S-100 Bus computer. They cost a fraction of what the HP chips cost and the HP devices were very flaky. At least we reacted in a positive fashion and put resources into chip manufacturing. For once we were not beaten.

There is a very long list of areas where the Japanese have taken over manufacturing by the means described above. It is a big world out there and different players look at things with different motivations.

There are areas of manufacturing where we cannot compete such as steel manufacturing. Our equipment is old and our quality is low. Do we want our "Battleships" made with inferior steel? No! Just pay the tariff and continue using steel made in Poland to make our Navel vessels. We have been doing this for the last 20 years - why stop now? In fact close down all steel manufacturers in this country and just pay them to do nothing. That would do us a service. If you cannot compete go home!

Tom



>It really comes down to keep the US Steel companies alive. We have a steel mill here that has been teetering on bankruptcy for years and is currently almost completely shutdown. This, because foreign governments are helping to subsidize steel manufacturers in their countries, causing foreign steel to be cheaper than domestic. The new tariffs were praised by the people at the mill as a chance of life for it.
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>>US steel consumers who may not be in marginal(voter) areas will have to pay more for their steel putting up their prices for domestic consumers and exports.
>>Also US steel will have less incentive to restructure and remove excess and out of date capacity
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>>I do sypmathise with protecting jobs though.
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>>Nick Mason