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To: Les H who wrote (954)	11/11/2001 10:25:20 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29596

Consumer-psychology deflation Consumers may be inclined to rejoice at a flood of inexpensive imports, comments psychiatrist Hideki Wada, but America's manufacturing industry was brought to its knees by consumers waiting for prices to fall lower. He states in "The Terror of Consumer-Psychology Deflation" that the wellspring of new product development in Japan used to be the unquenchable thirst of Japanese consumers, which drove them to snap up such new gadgets as videocassette recorders and 8-millimeter camcorders, even if they were expensive. The same held true of the United States until the 1970s, he continues, but then the gap between rich and poor widened to the point where the general public could only buy low-priced products, putting Japan ahead in the development race. Subsequently the United States placed its bets for survival on the financial services sector and information technology, and this has worked for that country thus far. If Japan fails to come up with its own strategy for survival in the years to come, Wada warns, its consumers will just go on gobbling up low-priced imports. The threat posed by the ongoing corporate restructuring in Japan is the disappearance of the quality-minded consumer in the middle class. The slump in consumption will never come to an end, he fears, if Japan does not fashion a society in which people can spend money without worrying about the future. (Kyodo New more at japantoday.com