Since I can't think of one important or, for that matter, good American software company, it's hard to do the equivalent for Japan. Various foreign countries, Russia, India, Israel, Brazil, for example, will have the power house software companies of the future. Ours will continually deteriorate indefinitely into the future.
The Japanese don't seek to compete in areas that are fully exploited with thinning margins. They did in the past, but those days are long gone. They have developed software in-house and software that is application specific or directed to specific function rather than the shrink wrap focus found here. Hitachi, Fujitsu, Nintendo, Sony, are big software houses, but they don't develop it for retail standalone markets. How do you compete with companies who give away their software creations?
If you want to go down the creativity drain, receive a Nobel prize. It is a major distraction and few recover from the bad effects. It is similar to winning a lottery. Failure and suffering begin as soon as you win.
The same is true for knowledge of future stock prices. Markets take you from p1 to p2 via hell. When you know that p2 is guaranteed and you see your stock plunging way below p1, the angst that the guarantee is invalid is overwhelming. It's much worse than not knowing. Since you have no need of faith in that p2 is guaranteed, you can't hold. Holding requires trust that the WSJ copy wasn't falsified and faith that the donor is honest. Such faith and trust don't exist on this planet except among the guileless. No one believes that it is possible to get something for nothing. To do that requires great faith, enough so that certainty in the knowledge of p2 is superfluous. |
