The end of Hollowing Out?

[Taro Toporific]

hollow-man.jpg

So Much For Hollowing Out
--Japan's giants are investing in plants at home again. Why the switch?
--BusinessWeek magazine / OCTOBER 11, 2004 edition
Lying 800 kilometers south of Tokyo on the island of Kyushu, Oita prefecture is hardly the kind of place you would expect to find the trendsetting titans of Japan Inc. Until recently the biggest contributors to the economy in bucolic Oita were the hot spring resorts in the coastal town of Beppu.
But this year, Oita is flourishing as Japan's corporate giants invest billions in new manufacturing plants. Canon Inc. (CAJ ) is building a 29,000-square-meter digital camera facility near Beppu Bay. Down the road in Oaza Matsuoka , Toshiba Corp. (TOSBF ) in October plans to open a semiconductor plant that's part of a $1.8 billion, five-year investment in Oita. And auto producer Daihatsu Motor Co. is building a factory in nearby Nakatsu...

[dingosatemybaby]

Money quote:

"Canon reports that its Japanese employees are far more loyal than those abroad -- typically staying with the company for their entire careers -- so they're less likely to walk off with knowledge of the latest technological developments."

In other words, Japanese are far more willing to spend their lives working as obedient corporate slaves. The longer I stay in Japan, the more profoundly it becomes clear that nothing ever changes here.

[stuckinkysuhu]

Oita has always been quite industrial. Sony made huge investments here back in 1999 or 2000 to produce the main chip for the Playstation 2. I think the city is trying to market itself as a high tech oasis surrounded by rice paddies and onsen.

[Taro Toporific]

Japan’s Car Slump Signals Return of Factory Hollowing Out
bloomberg.com | Sep 1, 2014
Japan’s lowest auto sales in three years are reviving concerns that manufacturing will hollow out in Asia’s second-largest economy.
Such rhetoric was tossed around regularly as recently as 2012 by car executives as the stronger yen forced production to shift out of Japan. While favorable currency rates since then paused such talk -- Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) is headed for a second straight year of record profits -- the country’s first sales-tax increase in 17 years has led to a slump in consumption and carmakers have resumed scaling back output in the country...
...Sales in August tumbled 9.1 percent, the steepest drop in 14 months, serving as the latest sign of the trouble ahead for Asia’s second-largest auto market. Japan’s main association for car dealers warned yesterday that further declines loom.
"Structurally, Japan is a slowly declining market," said Tatsuo Yoshida, a Tokyo-based automotive analyst for Barclays Plc. "The outlook for exports is not promising either. Japanese car companies, particularly those big Japanese companies like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, they are already committed to making cars where the demand is." Toyota has pledged to keep annual production of 3 million vehicles in Japan, while Nissan has committed 1 million.
Vehicle production in Japan shrank by almost one-quarter in a matter of five years, tumbling to 7.9 million units in 2009, when the worldwide auto industry slumped amid the global recession. Output stayed weak in the following years as executives including Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn warned that the industry would “hollow out” if the yen remained strong.
Those concerns dissipated as economic policies pushed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe helped weaken the currency. Should the hollowing out of the industry resume, it would be a blow to his efforts to revive the economy...more...

dead-japanese-factory.jpg

Also
Why Japan's economy is stuck in 'no man's land'
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101959442

[matsuki]

Regaining that dollar dollar bill y'all will require deviation from the "We Japanese" mentality...