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Why Japanese companies do so many different things

davidoks.blog

281–290 of 439 posts

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Japanese and American companies have different purposes. In Japan the corporation primarily provides stable income and employment for society, Are you Japanese? Because this doesn't match what I know about Japanese companies, like Sony for example, who operate in a very American way. Your image on Japanese vs American companies feels like the copy and pasted idealistic impression of what American redditors imagine J…

The idea that Japanese companies provide more stability and lower returns on capital isn't a hypothesis, it's backed up by data https://www.nber.org/papers/w1762 https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6183.html

Failed businesses also tend to provide lower returns on capital, and that’s totally backed up by data. Doesn’t mean the “purpose” of those companies was to provide lower returns on capital.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#282
post #273
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it should be. The pay gap from CEO to bottom tier worker is now obscene (21 times in 1965 and ~285 today). It's the foxes looking after the henhouses.

What's your proposal for changing this? Government regulation?

Eh, less of new regulation and just more of actually enforcing anti-trust.

Hard to overpay the CEO when you're facing actual competition.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#283
post #273
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it should be. The pay gap from CEO to bottom tier worker is now obscene (21 times in 1965 and ~285 today). It's the foxes looking after the henhouses.

What's your proposal for changing this? Government regulation?

If we declared concentration of too much wealth in an individual a national security issue, there is no end to the kinds of levers we could pull. I’m hoping things like this will be the natural consequences of allowing the current administration to run almost unchecked.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but in terms of the average Japanese persons day to day experience it doesn't seem so bad. They outrank us in almost all QoL measures

* Japan is ranked 61st on the World Happiness Index. The US is 23rd. * Japan is ranked 23rd on the Human Development Index. The US is 17th. * However, Japan is ranked 8th on the US News Quality of Life Index. The US is 30th. Grass is greener on the other side. https://data.worldhappiness.report/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-countries-f…

And Israel is ranked #8 in the world happiness index, but if you look at the rates of depression and anxiety, you'll see a different story.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but 2 ends up being a good check on 1 in the higher productivity ends of the knowledge work economy in Japan. I'd disagree a bit in degree to what alephnerd says and additionally think a lot of the actual "zangyou" ("overtime") work that Japanese do today involves drinking with the boss or going on business trips, but think his comment is largely correct. I also think the insistence in Japanese doing on-site work…

> I also think the insistence in Japanese doing on-site work in Japan leads to a lot of inefficiency that Western businesses and governments have largely left behind 10-15 years ago. A lot of that is operational as well - historically, the only other country with a large Japanese speaking population was South Korea, but salaries there have largely aligned and the post-1990s generation switched to concentrating on Eng…

Sorry I don't mean Japanese firms hiring Japanese workers, I understand that's largely due to language fluency. I meant how much in-person work happens in remote branches. So many Japanese shakaijin friends at Japanese companies are taking constant business trips around the country to do things that a video call and an email thread would do in the West. It helps that transportation in Japan is ubiquitous and cheap so it's fairly easy to go on-site, but it still ends up wasting a lot of time and productivity that I don't think Western firms have to deal with.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing voters are skeptical of abundance or they have never heard of it (like 90% of democratic party members have never heard of abundance). Thank fuck too. Neoliberalism sucks, along with EK + DT.

It’s hilarious to me all the progressives like yourself absolutely losing their shit over someone saying they want government to be more effective and accomplish things instead of just spending tons of money and nothing actually changing.

Can you please tell me which politician runs on making the government worse? No single electoral campaign has ever said "I'm running to make the government less effective." Trump ran on making the government more effective, Harris ran on making the government more effective.

Turns out you need more that just vague platitudes than "things should be better."

No shit dude. Welcome to the ground floor everyone agrees with.

This is why EK is such a fucking dork. Go follow some organizers with your preferred beliefs, that would do you better than listening to the smart boy thinking very smart things and if you disagree with the smart boy you aren't a serious adult.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#287
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your proposal for changing this? Government regulation?

Eh, less of new regulation and just more of actually enforcing anti-trust. Hard to overpay the CEO when you're facing actual competition.

Competent CEOs get paid more when you are facing actual competition, because otherwise your competition will hire your CEO.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#288
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your proposal for changing this? Government regulation?

If we declared concentration of too much wealth in an individual a national security issue, there is no end to the kinds of levers we could pull. I’m hoping things like this will be the natural consequences of allowing the current administration to run almost unchecked.

This approach is basically crying wolf, only works once or twice.

After that ‘national security issue’ becomes a running joke. A bit like calling everyone a terrorist, or (very fashionable in the 1960s) communist to achieve your goals.

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