Cultivating the Simigawa Administrative Combine
Nollson, John
John Nollson CULTIVATING THE SIMIGAWA ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINE Federal employees have begun to organize to save their jobs in the wake of ever-rising Japanese exports of government. "It's a...
...It is an outrage...
...If current trends continue, American government will be driven out of business by the end of the century...
...Are we witnessing a loss of pride because so many robots have been placed on the government-making assembly line...
...Accelerated depreciation schedules enable the Japanese to modernize their government-manufacturing plants at an unheard-of rate...
...As one county manager put it, "If you've bought the Japanese prefectural model and anything goes wrong, the people from Simigawa Administrative Combine are on the spot in a jiffy...
...Like everything else, the trend began in California...
...A comparison of recall rates is even more dramatic...
...It's a bureaucratic Dunkirk," said one of those affected...
...Everyone knows that the Japanese were the first to realize that American demand for government would rise, so they began to penetrate our market to secure a share for their own manufacturers...
...The American product was even suitable for export...
...The result has been chaos in the world government markets as aggressive Japanese salesmen continue to operate around the globe...
...Back in the 1780s, for example, government was made by old-fashioned craftsmen who even signed their names to their work...
...members of the European Common Market couldn't do a dime's worth of business anywhere in the Western Hemisphere...
...Just last week, four units of American-made government destined for Hokkaido were held at the dock by officious customs inspectors who claimed that the packing crates were mislabeled...
...As everyone has read, a proposal to buy an imported turnkey Tokugawa Shogunate was shouted down without ever coming to a vote...
...No wonder we're faced with a flood of cheap imports...
...OECD, IMF, GATT, UNCTAD, UNIDO, and other statistical agencies document how the Japanese have managed to corner the American market for small government...
...These impressions are borne out by the charts recently published in Consumer Reports...
...As one expert put it, "Unreasonable federal regulations have added billions to the cost of manufacturing government...
...Japanese tax laws allow government to be produced in Japan far more cheaply than in any other industrialized country...
...Growing American imports of miniaturized, fuel-efficient, Japanese government will put all of us on the breadline, sooner or later...
...One day, the fan belt on our Regional Transportation Planning Agency broke down, but the folks from Simigawa had it fixed in less than two hours...
...Many of the robots who work in the plants where government is produced take great pride in their work, but another culprit may be unrealistic environmental standards...
...Today, the figure is well over forty percent...
...It's just as good as a Xerox...
...Japanese-made models are almost never recalled, but thousands of American-made units of government have to be recalled each year...
...Besides, the Japanese have reinforced their position with a reputation of reliable spare parts and dependable service...
...The Japanese, in particular, aren't about to accept voluntary export quotas, nor will they soon dismantle their artfully constructed protectionist barriers...
...It's time to get the government off the back of government...
...Because our own producers failed to meet that demand, the Japanese were able to step in...
...Some Americans are old enough to remember when this was not so...
...Analysts differ about the causes of this predicament...
...The American appetite for government," one expert concluded, "craves serviceable government at a reasonable price...
...Not likely...
...Free trade in government has more than outlived its usefulness...
...Studies showed that the basic Japanese local government unit-even with deluxe custom options such as a regional commission and a computerized data base-could be installed for only 63 percent of the cost of a comparable American model...
...He's going to sue...
...In one California county, they decided to import an entire local government rather than purchase one from an American-owned plant in an adjacent state...
...Happily, the American manufacturer has decided to fight back...
...Some point to the rise in absenteeism on the assembly line, and others blame automation and alienation...
...The domestically manufactured product has three times the repair rate of a comparable institution made in Japan...
...Just ten years ago, Japanese exports of government represented only eight percent of America's public sector...
...But there's no use moaning about the good old days...
...The truth came out during recent Senate testimony on new legislation that would provide import relief for American government and bail out four of its nearly bankrupt subsidiaries...
...Some attribute Japan's success to a brilliant marketing strategy, but real insiders ' know better...
...Imports were out of the question...
Vol. 14 • June 1981 • No. 6
