re: time to step back from Korea and Japan

Had the big 3 US automakers--add AMC to that for the time period--had listened to Demming like the Japanese did they would have been making the quality we now enjoy 30 years ago.

Another big reason the Japanese passed us up in the eighties in manufacturing quality is that many US companies were getting by selling the easiest customer in the world--the US government. The government bought enough crap from the big 3 they could stay in business. The Japanese, without a military, didn't have such captive customers.