A Modern Parable

A MODERN PARABLE . .



A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) 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 8 people steering and 1 person 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, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person 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 rower... There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

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.
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IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

It is funny, most of us americans are stupid. But more important, greedy. Others will invest wisely and make the profit later but some just want the short term profit. Tsk, tsk.

Very well put, I would love to hear more. Starred and flagged.

And this misguided sentiment that American made cars are worthless while foreign made cars are so amazing doesn't help either.

Somehow the country has been led to believe that foreign cars, particularly Toyota are so superior to American made cars.

Personally, I only buy American cars, but I'm most definitely in the minority.

Burdensome café standards and other worthless environmental regulations on American auto companies don't help either.

I think American cars are great! I have a 1984 K5 with just shy of a half a million miles on its gas engine.

Regretably... The American Automotive institutions aren't as dilligent.

Again, I think that's the misconception.

I firmly believe if the government would get out of the auto industries way and let them do their thing, that they would dominate the industry.

Too many regulations and burdensome standards have hurt the American car.

I own two pickup trucks. One is a 1987 Chevy Silverado. It's a beautiful truck, solid black with plenty of chrome trim, and the old 305 Pontiac powerplant runs like a dream. But it does have a few problems. The electrical system tends to have a lot of glitches from poorly-designed connectors, and the switch between the gas tanks (dual-tank system) has never worked right. It's a brand-new switch, and won't maintain contact. But returning it will do no good, as every single switch I have checked at the parts stores is the same way. I have a piece of electrical tape holding it closed until I get time to build something that will switch the tanks electronically so I can still have the 'original' switch in my dash instead of some homemade-looking apparatus.

The transmission went out a while back, forcing me to intrude upon a co-worker to get back and forth to work for a few days (I was driving a local dump truck at the time). On the way home one day, I saw a 1980 Chevy LUV pickup for sale. I bought it, because I used to have one that made a great little truck.

For those who aren't familiar with the LUV, it was a transition vehicle. It has Chevy nameplates all over it. But open the hood and right across the top of the valve cover is the word 'ISUZU' embossed in the aluminum in big bold letters. Every piece of that truck was made in Japan at Isuzu Motors including the Chevrolet emblems, and every piece was assembled in Japan as well. Completed trucks were shipped back to Chevrolet to be sold.

I get about 30 miles per gallon in the little thing. It's not that great at hauling large loads, but it tries its little four-banger heart out when pushed. It's still got a carburetor which needs tuned from time to time. It has a bolt in the distributer to loosen it for timing adjustment. Simple. Efficient. Tough. And not very expensive when they were new.

You see, the idea was that since American workers were so expensive and Japanese workers were so cheap, that Chevrolet could save money by having the LUV built overseas. The people who made that decision were paid handsomely for this, because it saved Chevrolet money and that is the only thing that is considered where CEO bonuses are concerned. So everyone was happy. Chevrolet saved money, Isuzu got work, there was still enough jobs for the American auto workers, there was work for Japanese auto workers, and the people got a cheap, efficient, good truck.

But what Chevrolet executives did not see was that now Isuzu had experience making trucks. They took that experience and the knowledge gleaned from the deal, and became a competitor. Now Chevrolet has to share a portion of the market with Isuzu.

Toyota used to make tiny little cars that would barely make it from point 'A' to point 'B'. I remember seeing one, sitting in a pile of rust at the edge of an old hayfield. It was a three-cylinder with three magnetos. Everything was undersized and it made for some good laughs as I checked it out. Now, 30 years later, Toyota has taken the lessons they learned from those laughable cars and emerged as a major player in the auto industry. Why? They began making parts for American companies to 'reduce costs'... again increasing executive bonuses.

the whole time, the AFL-CIO was busy padding their own pockets. The leaders made great salaries, and since the only way they could remain in power was to keep the workers happy, they did so by increasing the price of labor to artificial levels that were simply too high for the market to bear. Economic pressures from time to time kept driving sales to the cheaper to buy and cheaper to drive Asian cars, and this demand allowed the Japanese to increase their work force and try new ideas by investing in technology rather than CEO bonuses.

Now we have the results of this great experiment: American auto manufacturers have high-paid employees, both in the labor and executive positions, but not enough sales to support them. The Japanese have well-paid people in these positions as well, but plenty of sales. All because of the short-sightedness of GM, Ford, and Chrysler in their dealings with those they at the time considered 'inferior' and those executives they endowed with power to destroy in order to profit.

Since Henry Ford's initial dream of 'a car in every garage', we have seen the American auto industry excel and succeed beyond Mr. Ford's wildest dreams. We then saw in the last 20 years how this dream has evaporated amid individual greed and lust for individual power. Who is to blame? The labor unions who demanded too much? The CEOs who allowed competition to thrive while ignoring their own companies in favor of personal profits? The competitors like Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Isuzu who took full advantage of the situation? How about the politicians who allowed and even encouraged this through agreements like NAFTA and tax incentives to move manufacturing overseas, while playing CEO through the passage of more and more environmental regulations to make the product more expensive and complicated?

They're all to blame. We're all to blame. 'Buy American' makes a great slogan, but if it is no more than a slogan, it is just a slogan. The only way to get back to where we were is to allow the entire economy to collapse around our ears and build it back again, with all of the pain and sacrifice that built it i the first place. Actually more, because now we have competition.

TheRedneck

You could be correct that if the government would let them just make cars that they would dominate the industry. But the EPA won't let us make cars like they do in China or Korea. THAT'S the tragity! Poor people who think that buying a car made in Korea that gets 38mpg is green when if you look at all the waste they dump in the air and water... It''s a tragity!