To: Duane L. Olson who wrote (11465 ) 4/5/1998 8:17:00 PM From: Jock Hutchinson Read Replies (3) | Respond to
Duane: Your article dovetails with my bullish scenario for LSI. First, if you are a Japanese family with some available funds, would you rather keep your money in a near bankrupt Japanese bank earning near zippo, or would you rather invest it in a leading semiconductor company that is providing chips for one of your few remaining industrial jewels-Sony? Second, the lack of deep equity portends a very dark future for interim (three to five years) high quality ASIC growth among Japanese chip companies. In broad general terms, I doubt if we will ever see Japan re-ascend to its previous industrial power. And it won't make as much a difference as some people think. Do you honestly think that in the next ten years that the Poles won't be developing high quality fabs and other areas of true industrial might. Surely the Chinese will develop competitive areas in the semi field. Japan was never the innovator that it was reputed to be. They were great copiers. And the strength of their economy lay in large part to a lack of a military budget. But they essentially squandered much of their advantages on foolish promises to their aging population, real estate speculation, government supported inefficient businesses, overreliance on consensus rather than individual leadership, deep divisions between the sexes, and to some extent overplaying their hand in the area of international business relations. How will they rebuild. It won't be at the capital intensive end of high quality high tech. It will be improving at the margins labor intensive high quality low tech. I am off of my soap box.
