Re: US rules

[richard bies <bies@domain.elided>]

Protectionism does not have to be 100% exclusionary to be effective.  We
ought to know.

It looks bad to totally exclude competition -- looks better simply to
hamper competition.  I think one will note that as imports became a threat
to the big three and the UAW, hampering measures went into place.  Still
the imports penetrated -- but they in turn fell under the thrall of the
UAW, as aided by protectionist legislation (why it did not work for VW to
build cars down the road in New Stanton, PA -- traditional parts supliers
to Detroit could not meet even minimal quality requirements, and
non-productive union workers could not build a competitive car.)(Honda
seems to have been able to exctract sufficient productivity.)

We nitche market enthusiasts are the victim -- it may be feasible to
import super-expensive, but where there is price sensitivity, hampering
does the job.  (We are also the victim of Alfa's myopia; failing to
recognize that it had no "mass" market among Detroit devotees -- and
that its enthusiast market <was> price-sensitive -- anytime something
sold, they gussied it up and jacked the price -- and sales evaporated.
Alfa took the Alfetta sedan out -- in 1975 the car was a good buy -- by
1978 it had been loaded with useless gizmos and jacked nearly 50% in price
- -- <then> they complain that they can't sell cars in the US, and etcetera.
('75 was one of the best years Alfa had in the US.)  Did it again with the
164 -- at introduction, a base model was about 20K -- by the time they
withdrew, gizmos abounded and the minimum price was 30K or over -- of
course they were not selling.)

As in all things, it is necessary to distinguish the rhetoric -- US
industry is big on free market rhetoric -- except for "unfair" competition
- -- "unfair" competition is competition beyond what can be countered by
Marketing, and may actually require reduction in the cost of manufacture.
Labor occasionally chimes-in - but with little enthusiasm -- Labor lives
in perpetual fear that someone else may be willing to do the job at less
than the wage to which they would like to become accustomed (and the party
did last for about thirty years -- stretched-out in the steel industry
by massive inverstment and concentration on specialty markets -- but the 
exorbitant factory-floor wages of the workers retained has caught-up
recently, and even that vestage of the US steel industry is going).

r.m.bies

------------------------------