Modern Parable. A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters. The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower , halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses. The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India. Sadly, the End. Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages. TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses... IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY
BMW has a plant in the US that ships 40% of its cars back to Germany. Its not that workers here are inefficient, its that we cant pay them like they have PhD's.
You'll notice one thing about all the plants being built in the US by foreign companies--they're all in Right-To-Work states. No offense to assembly workers, but there isn't a single one who should make more than an engineer. The UAW is killing the Golden Goose.
If it weren't for them damn unions, I wouldn't mind spending 60k on a giant SUV that gets 10 miles per gallon and the American economy would be saved!
First, that SUV would be $10K less. It's been the value proposition of American cars that have been killing the auto industry. Second, people have been clamoring for those SUVs and pickups so much that companies that produced small cars made them for the American market. Third, people generally take into account the price of gas when buying a car. People purchased SUVs with the idea that they got poor gas mileage.
