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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 11, 1985
PAGE 9
rency. The Japanese can use them to buy in Australia or Brazil,
which in turn use them to buy in the U.S. Or maybe the Japanese
invest them in U.S. bonds or in building plants in the u.s....
Dollars will continue to be well accepted so long as the U.s.
follows sound, free-trade economic policies••••
Part of the reason for this week's outburst, we suspect, is that
a disorganized Congress finds positive tasks too demanding. So
members relieve their frustrations and their reelection fears
with primal screams toward
!!!!
Pacff!c.
That worries us••••
Americans, unfortunately, will be the main victims if Congress
gets itself into a self-destructive mood.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, on January 4, 1985 ran an article entitled "The
Political Dimension of Japan's Trade Balance," written by Robert Keatly,
editor of the ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Some Japanese are becoming extremely peeved by all this. What
the West wants, they contend, is for efficient Japan to adopt
European sloth and American inefficiency. They say foreigners
should work harder to meet Japanese competition and to penetrate
the admittedly complex Japanese market, and stop complaining.
They insist Japan won't sink to standards of the West by import
ing its lackadaisical labor methods, whimsical strikes and mid
dling management.
As a recent book phrased it, the Japanese believe Europeans in
particular "have lost the habit of work." Thus, tourists find
Europe only a""n'rce place to visit;--wftli"'cultural monuments, good
shopping and exotic sex--all at reasonable prices and all set in
elegant stagnation.• Others call Europe a boutique, America a
farm: beyond fashions and food, the West has little to offer that
meets Japan's high standards--and that's not something for which
Japan deserves blame.
Interestingly enough, the Common Market, by admitting two additional •poor
cousins• (Spain and Portugal) may be in even less of a position to meet
Japanese competition. The Europeans have employed all sorts of elaborate
gimmicks to restrict Japanese imports--far more than the Americans have
used. This has served only to deflect more Japanese sales to the U.S.
Murray Weidenbaum, a former chairman of President Reagan's Council of Econ
omic Advisers, also wrote in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, April 2, 1985, in an
article titled "U.S. Export Curbs Contribute to the Trade Deficit•:
A more constructive approach to reducing the trade deficit can
proceed from a little-known fact: The U.S. has erected many bar
riers to its own exports. These are self-inflicted wounds that
are easily treated.
For example, the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline
Authorization Act prohibits the export of oil from North Slope
fields. Under free-trade conditions, Alaska would be Japan's
least-cost supplier of energy••••
Another burden to u.s. trade is the Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act, which requires strict record-keeping standards to guard
against bribery of foreign officials. It is difficult to discuss