Dram Prices...

[Michael Silverstein]

In article <18814 at agate.BERKELEY.EDU> c60a-4fl at widow.berkeley.edu (Antony A. Courtney) writes:

>*> 'Scuse me for saying so, but I think you are out of your mind.  
>*> 
>*> The Japanese Government was subsidizing Japanese companies to sell DRAMs way
>*> below cost.  As such, there was no possible way that US Companies could stay
>*> in competition with this.  The end result:  US Companies stopped making
>*> DRAMs.

Possibly encouraging them. There's no evidence that the Japanese gov't
was actually subsididzing.

>*> They could just raise DRAM
>*> prices to...mmm...say... $20 or so for US Computer Companies doing development
>*> like Sun, and then they could sell their computers for much cheaper because
>*> they would obviously have DRAMs at their cost.

After US companies quit making drams, prices continued to FALL. The
Japanese manufacturers were competing furiously against EACH OTHER.
There's no reason to think this wouldn't have continued if we hadn't
"fixed" the problem.

As I said previously, we are now paying $10 for three dollar chips
so that as consumers we can SUBSIDIZE American industry back into
the dram business. But the worst of many bad effects this policy has
is the message it sends to the Japanese: "Don't take all this free
market stuff too seriously. Cut back production, raise prices, and
we can all make more money, (and keep the peace)". 

Compare the price of a basic, 4 passenger Japanese economy car to
what it was before the "voluntary" quotas, and you'll see who is
really paying the bill for this policy.

Views expressed are my own.

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|    /\/\ike Silverstein    | This can't be deja vous. Things are more like  |
| sun!mms -or- mms at sun.com  |  they are now, than they've ever been before!  |
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