Oddly enough, there are Chevy and Toyota models being built on the same assembly line from the same parts by the same people. The only differences are in the brand labels and minor trim changes. Yet, the average person on the street will swear that the Toyotas are far better than the Chevies.
Now, about the differences between a few years ago and today. Japan.inc engaged in some questionable marketing practices aimed at putting gaijin (foreign devil) companies out of business. The eventual result was an ever increasing number of American engineers desperate for work.
At the same time, those businesses strong enough to hang on became desperate enough to put business majors in charge of everything including product design.
Then, there was a movement spearheaded by Honda to setup factories in their market countries in order to get around import limits, shipping costs, and use up someone else's resources. They were shocked to find that the "stupid lazy American workers" turned out such better products at such lower cost that a major export to Japan from the US is Japanese products.
The end result is that American products are a lot of crap designed by business majors and made in countries where quality is unheard of. At the same time, Japan.inc has a lot of well designed products developed by American engineers that are being well constructed by American production workers.
Now, all of this just seems wrong to me. Why can't American businesses wake up and realize that they can't compete against well designed well made US products being made by foreign companies with foreign made crap? The only difference in now and 1960 is that the superior US made products are making money for foreign interests while US companies are loosing their arses trying to pedal cheap imports.
