You rightfully called out the quality issues...as did I. And, while I won't disagree that executive compensation was too high, it was by far outweighed with the pension liability the companies owed. You also had situations where workers could literally shutdown the assembly line, go home, and be paid for the day. I also know people who ordered vehicles with nothing on them, that were delivered loaded because they knew the right people.

Here's a factoid I just found though it predates the Japanese wave...
1950—Top CEO salary in America: GM chairman Charlie Wilson is paid $663,000, roughly $5 million in today’s dollars, and about 40 times the annual wage of his average assembly line worker.

Here's another...
When the German and Japanese companies opened plants in the USA, they headed to the South and operated without unions.

You're misrepresenting the history of the Japanese vs. U.S. auto manufacturers. There were many reasons why the U.S. failed, and to reduce it to "someone coming along with a way to cut their costs a small percent..." is just revisionist history. The Japanese didn't have nearly as much overhead as U.S. manufacturers. They didn't have to fight with the UAW year after year. They didn't have a huge pension program that had to be covered by the cost of every vehicle sold. And, while they sold crap vehicles at first, they learned from their mistakes, and improved reliability. American manufacturers didn't get that lesson right until years later, and only once they were already suffering for it.

FWIW, I grew up in Motown (1958-76), and have many friends in the industry. There's was a lot of corruption, and Mob influence that affected the cost of vehicles in addition to the issues already mentioned.

Clearly another apologist. Yes, lets blame those who got hacked, and pretend there's no problem with China's state operated hacking.

Okay well we'll continue to disagree. I see it like the ihtoit stated. If the people's representatives made those laws, then violations of them are arguably offenses against the people. It's probably a bit pedantic though, and I certainly don't disagree that some laws are bullshit. But then those who wrote them will disagree with us, and we've come full circle. I'm gonna go have a couple beers and philosophize about it some more :-P

I couldn't have said it better.

You're welcome to call bullshit, but then you're wrong. I got out of software, and into management years ago, so I haven't kept up. Have I heard of Gnome, absolutely. Do I know or care what it is currently, no. What I do know is that companies who write code don't necessarily stick to a single area. The one I work for has written products for everything from cyber security, to networking, to environmental products. So, yeah, when Apple records got into it with Apple Computers, it was pretty obvious. Not so much in this case.

If you're okay with that, then you should be okay with giving that free pass to every other nation. Oh, and was the playing field uneven back when the US was a developing nation? Why was China unable to go through the process at that time?

Yes, the US should clean up it's portion of the mess, but China should in no way get a free pass to piss in the commons.

Why do you feel that there should be a per capita comparison? Your comparing apples and oranges, so the amount of "sacrifice" isn't as you claim.

In general, I'll agree. But, exceptions for certain periods, like donuts and potty breaks need to be allowed.

How about we make it so these are only releasable upon a conviction? People get charged all the time, that doesn't mean they've done squat.

Then for those of us who weren't familiar with either, it could easily be confusing, and thus the Gnome foundation did have a valid point.

Gnobody Gnows.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?...
Despite a lack of evidence that peer review works, most scientists (by nature a skeptical lot) appear to believe in peer review. It's something that's held "absolutely sacred" in a field where people rarely accept anything with "blind faith," says Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ and now CEO of UnitedHealth Europe and board member of PLoS. "It's very unscientific, really."

http://www.ecnmag.com/blogs/20...
As soon as we receive a paper, we publish it," after a cursory quality check. Peer review happens after publication, and in the light of day.

http://www.economist.com/news/...
The hallowed process of peer review is not all it is cracked up to be, either. When a prominent medical journal ran research past other experts in the field, it found that most of the reviewers failed to spot mistakes it had deliberately inserted into papers, even after being told they were being tested.

The people (or more accurately their representatives) made those laws. We can argue all day about the rational for any of them, but it's their choice as to what they want to permit or not in their state. Some would argue that legalized pot, or prostitution is victimless. Others would can counter, and claim both are not...society being the victim, or the young ladies. It mostly depends upon which side of the issue you stand.

Because it's not applied to all jobs. Certainly licensing is appropriately necessary for some positions. The argument here is that there's no reasonable reason for it in this case.