Comments on: New Canon 5D and 1980s Japanophobia

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:58:21 +0000

Sure, they make things well, but they just can’t produce the financial results:

Japan: Where Capital Goes to Die

http://www.fool.com/investing/international/2009/01/14/japan-where-capital-goes-to-die.aspx

“Ah, Japan: land of the rising sun, homeland of the hot dog-eating champions, and capital-sucking vortex.

‘Capital-sucking vortex?’ That’s a wee bit harsh, no?

No, it’s really not
Japan is where capital goes to die, and I have the stats to prove it.

Firing up my super-duper stock screener (not sold in stores), I see 2,371 companies with a primary listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. That excludes non-Japanese firms that happen to have local listings, like Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) and Aflac (NYSE: AFL). Out of all those businesses, how many do you think managed a greater-than -4% return on equity — a solid but not stunning result — over each of the years 2005, 2006, and 2007?

Make sure you don’t guess too high, or you’ll be disqualified. I’ll give you a hint: The answer is less than 800.”

By: Nagita

Nagita — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:34:16 +0000

I have the impression that Japanese products are high quality not because they want to win some quality competition but because they sincerely do not want their products to break down. They were a little more expensive but you got some value for that extra money.

Honda built small cars not because they thought gas prices would skyrocket but because they have a philosophy of ‘blue skies for our children’. They put V6 engines in the Accord not for necessity but because of market pressure. Even now the 4 cylinder Accord is really the standard.

Maybe the philosophy of how you approach product development and manufacturing effects the final product.

By: Dan Lyke

Dan Lyke — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:34:04 +0000

Woodcraft recently sent me a $10 off coupon, so on Saturday I was in the store looking to save some money, and decided that I should try these Japanese pull-saws that I’ve been hearing so much about. Yesterday I was in the shop and used them for the first time.

They’ve been out-innovating us for centuries, apparently. Thinner kerf, much easier to use, all sorts of reasons why that style of saw is just the right way to build a saw. Now I can’t understand how they lost WWII.

By: Chris Ryland

Chris Ryland — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:21:26 +0000

Phil, Canon has always been over the top in their pursuit of perfection, esp. reliability.

I was one of the early folks at Imagen, a laser-printer spin-off from Knuth’s TeX project at Stanford (we commercialized a raster image processor design that Luis Trabb Pardo and others had built for TeX printing), and we used the early wet-process Canon LBP-10’s, the first “affordable” laser engines on the market (in the $5K range). These were amazing machines, but the wet process was clearly undesirable; soon thereafter, Canon showed us (we were the first US company to get them) the dry LBP-CX, which was the engine later used in the Apple LaserWriter.

Canon was so worried about reliability that they spec’ed that machine (which was an incredible, high-quality device, even by today’s standards) for 100K images, but overbuilt it like a tank. Some of those machines went on to print 5M images (some are still going).

Typical of Canon. An amazing company.

By: Cincy Steve

Cincy Steve — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:07:48 +0000

My photography skills and equipment fall on the mundane end of the spectrum but I would echo the Canon comments. My several point and shoot Canons have been replaced due to greater needs rather than collapse of any functional part of the camera. I also have had 2 Canon video cameras which have held up well in the hands of children and a lack of care on my part in spite of seemingly delicate mechanisms.
Vidar- my HD video camera stills are getting closer to the quality of my point and shoot camera but still have a way to go.

By: Vidar Svendsen

Vidar Svendsen — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:55:11 +0000

Phil, interesting to note the latest development with still cameras having video capabilities (I have a Nikon D90). Many years ago on photo.net (when not many of us had digital cameras at all) you predicted that we in the future would video film everything and just pick out the best frames for still photographs. It seems you were partially right but the technical development is coming from the DSLR side right now!

By: EDZ

EDZ — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:01:29 +0000

I would not be surprised if a decade from now the US stock markets are trading at late-1990s levels, even if the economy overall is doing pretty well. If the previous market peak was a crazy, unjustifiable bubble then it is natural for that level not to be reached again for a very long time.

Japan has a stagnant (and now possibly shrinking) population. But this realization, far from dooming the country’s ability to innovate, is driving a new robotics industry to automate tasks that now need humans. (And the place still doesn’t seem to have a labor shortage — look at the number of people involved in filling up your car’s gas tank or wrapping up your purchases in a department store.)

By: Neal

Neal — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:20:19 +0000

Another example: We were listening to the car talk guys when a caller complained that her new Jeep shook violently when going into a turn at freeway speeds. Click and Clack explain that the vehicle’s solid axle suspension was designed in (maybe it was just after) WWII and the only solution is to slow down. I can’t imagine a Japanese company tolerating this kind of design flaw for half a century.

By: Wab

Wab — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:56:56 +0000

And yet Japan’s stock market is trading at 1980-something levels. What’s up with that?

Canon appears to be an exception, but my impression is that many Japanese companies are run as non-profits. Their goal is social stability rather than shareholder value. And frankly, I’m not sure that’s a Bad Thing.

By: philg

philg — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:58:29 +0000

Steve: I don’t doubt that there are American companies that can make a mirror for a $1 billion NASA space project or a $2 million machine for a factory. Last I checked, however, these companies contracted out many of the components and ended up being systems integrators rather than manufacturers. Nor are those companies apparently capable of competing in the consumer market. If a huge market developed for some weird $2 million machine and Canon decided to produce one, DuPont and Perkin Elmer would probably find themselves pushed aside.