U.S. Memories: who is the loser?
Article Abstract:
US Memories, the American consortium which was to rescue the US computer industry from control by a Japanese memory chip cartel, died in the week of Jan 15, 1990. There was not enough financial backing. US Memories Pres Sanford L. Kane sees the failure as an example of US managerial myopia. But Gary Saxonhouse, a specialist on the Japanese economy at the Univ of Michigan, sees the matter as a triumph of business logic over chauvinist passion: high-tech manufacturers are willing to play an us-versus-them game when the public is paying, but not when their own money is at issue. When numbers are added up, points out Saxonhouse, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips are important, but high stakes for corporations do not necessarily translate into high stakes for the economy. Saxonhouse concludes that for want of a DRAM, the nation will not be lost.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1990
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Economic scene: semiconductor semi-success
Article Abstract:
The new semiconductor trade agreement between the United States and Japan removes the costly price restrictions of the old 1986 agreement and also the retaliatory tariffs that were imposed on Japanese microprocessor manufacturers for not employing fair competitive practices in the past. Some analysts merely view the new deal as a further indication that the US semiconductor industry has lost its ability to turn innovative design and advanced technology into business profits and domestic employment. Some analysts believe that the new agreement still contains a double standard that allows American manufacturers to sell nearly obsolete microprocessor technology for little more than cost, and at the same time prevents foreign manufacturers from doing the same in the American market.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1991
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
The uneasy case for subsidy of high-technology efforts
Article Abstract:
Lagging productivity and increasing competition from Japan has led many free-market economists to support government subsidies of high-technology industries. Theoretically, if one country dominates the production of a product, other industries that rely on, but do not produce, the product can be negatively affected by the pricing and distribution strategy of the country that does produce it. This argument is sometimes used to support government intervention in US memory chip production, on which the US supercomputer industry is so dependent. Economists say there are too many flaws in the theory to make it viable. Government supported research in Japan and Europe is nevertheless a strong argument in favor of US subsidies.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1989
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Racism: it's in the beholder of the eye. Women of ages
- Abstracts: Ask now from whom the bell tolls. The line forms to the right. Ontario: key to the kingdom
- Abstracts: The devil is in the cutbacks. The schemes of summer. The languages of politics
- Abstracts: Lost in the groves of academe. An island with the memory of youth. The case for Olympic croquet
- Abstracts: Computers proliferating in classroom. The Next TriBeCa? Stick a Pin in the Map. With Merger, a New York Studio May Finally Get a Hollywood Ending