Chapter 196
Today is US Independence Day. Only 247 years old, the history is short. In world history, there are few opportunities to learn the history of the United States, but we can see that it has been an amazing country with the world's No. 1 GDP for more than a century since 1910. In just 134 years since the founding of the country, there are many things to learn about how it has become No. 1 and how it has maintained it. To conclude, isn't it the tolerance to accept change? The Civil War was tolerant of black slaves. Since then, it has accepted illegal immigrants and refugees. In addition, in every field of politics, judiciary and administration, they have built a system in which reforms can be carried out without becoming rigid. For example, the judicial jury system is easy to understand. Citizens influence judgments by consensus. Regarding the patent system, in Japan, the examiner rejects a completely irrelevant patent by listing it as a similar patent, or weighs the number of patents in court without contesting the validity of individual patents. The unbelievable is done. The culmination of these small systems constitutes the national system. In the United States, they have a reasonable system of experts in the field helping them understand. It is for this reason that our company conducts patent litigation in the United States. In fact, in one patent, we won a substantial victory against five companies. As Lester Thurlow pointed out, the conservative and immutable Japanese should learn a lot. Even at the peak of the bubble period, Japan's GDP was only half that of the United States, and after that it remained almost flat, while the United States actually rose fourfold. During the bubble period of the Japanese economy, Japanese automobiles, home appliances, and semiconductor products flooded the world. There was even a joke about buying up Manhattan Island. At that time, the US economy was such that if you peel off the interior of a GM car, you will find empty cola bottles or packages of potato chips, which is why American cars are still avoided in Japan. After that, the TOYOTA Kanban system called “Kaizen” was adopted, the quality was greatly improved, and the management of blue workers was also thoroughly reviewed. It is well-known that Steve Jobs of Apple was a big fan of SONY, and there was a big difference between the industrial products produced by the delicate sense of the Japanese and large and rugged ones made in USA at the time. Japan's miscalculation is that it underestimated South Korea's catch-up, and that the people were emasculated by leisure promotion policies such as the resort law promoted by the government with the keyword of "overwork." Now that the number of nonsensical holidays has increased and the power of the nation has weakened, the number of holidays should be reduced, but there are no political parties or politicians with the guts to promote unpopular policies. All social systems remain outdated, irrational and unproductive, yet they cannot be changed. It is clear what Japan needs to do to regain its international competitiveness in the future. It would be good to start by accepting young Chinese people. Chinese university students are struggling to find jobs. Meanwhile, Japanese universities and companies lament the lack of students. The week before last, I went on a business trip to Europe for the first time in a while, and what I felt was the diversity of races. The taxi driver I took in Spain was Indian and said that he used to live in Holland but moved to Spain where prices are cheap and people are friendly. Now, even in Europe, people of various races come and go.
Valencia, Spain prospered in the silk trade in the 15th century.World heritage "Llotja de la Seda"
July 4, 2023
Thoughts on America's National Day
