[heaps of anti-Japanese raving deleted]
>by definition, means ALL PARTIES INVOLVED must have free trade. So why don't
>you wake up and smell the coffee, and try to figure out why the country
>that INVENTED the following is in the toilet:
> Television, VCR, Audio, transistor, telephone, telegraph, computer,
>Digital television, Fax machine, and pretty much any "technological advancement"
>you could think of off the top of your head. Hell, try the assembly line,
>interchangable parts, and the car and plane.
This is pretty typical American blindness. I'm not sure exactly where all
of the things in the above list were invented, but they certainly were not
all invented in the United States. The Fax machine, for a start, was
invented by an Italian working in Paris, whose name escapes me for the
moment. You can find an account of this in one of the last few weeks issues
of "New Scientist". Various versions of the television were invented around
the world at the end of the nineteenth century - including one by a gold
miner at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia - though I'm happy to admit that he
didn't manage to commercialise it.
Claiming to have invented "Audio" is bizarre indeed. Some one in the United
States invented sound???? I believe that Marconi (another Italian) is
generally held responsible for transmitting audio signals using radio
waves.
Claiming the invention of the computer is another one that will not
stand up. For a start, how do you propose to define the boundary between
calculating machines and "computers"? If you mean something that can modify
its behaviour on the basis of a "program", then its back to nineteenth
century Britain for a look a weaving machines using stacks of cards
specifying the pattern. Or perhaps Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine -
also nineteeth century Britain. I'm sure that there was stuff going in
Europe and America at that time too.
If it's electronic computers you want, it's back to Britain during the
Second World War to the code-breaking establishments. I am reliably
informed that the world's 2nd electronic computer was actually built in
Australia, and was called ENIAC.
Don't think that this article means that I think that Japanese trade
practices are all sugar and spice, but at least get your facts right.
Moreover, the US can hardly claim innocence when it comes to trade. Have a
look at what US farm subsidies are doing to Australian farmers for a start.
-- Squizz