We are being asked, no forced to bail out the same folk who created institutions out of risky debt and enabled white collar credit thieves to ply their trade worldwide. Now, these bank and car-manufacturing executives have come to Congress with their hands out, begging for a bottomless pit of bail out bucks.
The folk who dug their heels in 35 years ago and refused to build fuel efficient cars, the same folk who turned a deaf ear to Dr. W. Edwards Deming's newfangled production line management, and deprived the nation of the greatest restructuring of manufacturing process in a century, are now whining about declining car sales and the inability of the industry to compete on a global scale without a "bridge loan" or bail out.
Lack of vision in both the car industry and finance sector have resulted in massive losses in housing, banking and the automotive industry. No thanks to the executives who refused to move forward and change their mindset. Unfortunately, their loss, and now, our loss, was Japan's gain.
The Japanese, themselves, credit their rise largely to the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, whom they call the "Father of the Third Industrial Revolution". Dr. Deming's work demonstrates that quality, pursued relentlessly, can harness the energies of a people and defy the predictions of economic theorists.
In 1947 and 1950, Dr. Deming was invited by General MacArthur to assist in the first postwar census in Japan. In 1950, acting on the advice of Homer Sarasohn, then on MacArthur's staff in Tokyo, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) invited Dr. Deming to Tokyo to give lectures on statistical process control. His lectures to large numbers of enthusiastic Japanese engineers were transcribed, word for word, edited by him and translated into Japanese. Thousands of copies were sold. When the Japanese offered to pay him royalties, he declined, and suggested that they use the money to create a prize for companies which had shown exemplary performance in the improvement of quality. Japanese companies added funds and today the Deming Prize is regarded around the world as the premier prize for quality. When the US Congress understood the importance of the Deming Prize in Japan as a spur to increased attention to quality, they created the Baldrige Prize in the USA. (Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 8 (1996)
How can we bail out an industry if we don't know what the "bill" is?(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
