http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/11/11/failing-like-japan.aspx
Failing Like Japan
By Bill Mann
November 11, 2008
In 1990 I spent a heady summer living in a very rural part of Japan. It was
an incredible time to be there, the dawning of the age of Japanese hegemony.
Japanese land, which comprised less than 0.1% of the world, was being valued at
an estimated $20 trillion dollars, or 20% of the world's wealth at that time.
Business leaders the world round were flooding into Japan to study the "Japanese
Economic Miracle," and sought to implement its keiretsu and
zaibatsu corporate structures.
We were in the middle of nowhere, but all around our little town, land was
being chewed up to build golf courses that offered memberships primarily to
businessmen from Okayama and Osaka, cities that were each a multi-hour ferry and
train ride away. The cost of membership ran in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and there was a long waiting list.
It didn't last.
The trouble with the Japanese miracle was that its basis wasn't management
superiority -- though the country had some of the most admired companies in the
world, including Toyota
(NYSE: TM)
and Sony
(NYSE: SNE).
Rather, the miracle in Japan was based upon over-loaning from the government to
industrial conglomerates, which led, inevitably, to a bubble.
Unfortunately, the aftereffects of the Japanese bubble persist to this day,
and they have deep implications as the American government considers making
bailout loans to the Big Three: General Motors
(NYSE: GM),
Ford
(NYSE: F),
and Chrysler.
Why Japan continues to fail
In late 1989 the Nikkei 225,
Japan's leading stock index, hit an intraday high of 38,957. Today, 19 years
later, it's at 8,800. This multi-decade loss speaks to two things -- one, just
how out of control Japan's asset bubble was, and two, for the sake of
maintaining jobs, the Japanese government has not made the hard decisions that
would have allowed the country to grow.
In the aftermath of the bubble, Japan's government rushed in to prop up its
banking system, which was teetering under the weight of nonperforming loans.
Rather than letting businesses fail, this has had the effect of propping them up
to continue operating. To this day the scope of the problem is still not
known.
Without this information, investors both in Japan and outside have made a
logical conclusion -- to take their investment dollars elsewhere. Japan's
industrial sector has failed to meet its cost of capital over the last 20 years,
in large measure because the government has allowed capital-destroying companies
to continue to operate. Had these companies been allowed to fail, Japan long ago
could have flushed out its system and gotten back on the road to economic
health. In the name of protecting jobs, Japan's economy has continued to
sputter, punctuated by spectacular bankruptcies in cases where the facade could
not hold up. The cost of propping them up has been much, much more economic
pain. Japanese call the long economic downturn ushinawareta junen, the
lost decade.
Sure, but it's not your job we're talking
about.
As I look at the pressure being placed on the U.S. government
to bail out or even nationalize American auto manufacturers, I see the same
faulty logic being used. So desperate is the government to protect these jobs
and these massive companies that it is willing to spend taxpayer money to keep
Detroit afloat. It might be a good use of capital if the Big Three were
thriving companies that had simply suffered from exogenous events that they'd
reacted to improperly. But they aren't. These companies are sick and dying, and
they have not generated a positive capital return in decades.
It's not as if this were an unpredictable outcome, as I noted in 2003 when GM
raised
$13 billion in debt to shore up its pension system. To what end would we
bail out these companies? To keep them from collapsing? Wake up -- they have
already collapsed.
The "end," of course, would be to keep thousands of jobs, particularly in
Michigan and Indiana, from disappearing, to keep pensioners from being mauled at
a point in their lives when they cannot afford it. These are loyal, good company
people. What is happening at the Big Three affects them deeply, and it is both
unfair and cruel. To think otherwise would be inhumane. I have some experience
here, as my own grandfather's pension withered away as the textile company he
devoted his life to collapsed, in no small part because it refused to relocate
its factories to cheaper places.
But economic growth only comes when capital is allowed to flow to its most
productive uses. I am very sorry, but propping up Detroit's dinosaurs is not
productive. They have destroyed capital for a generation. They have too much
debt, they have above-market labor costs, they have shown minimal aptitude at
developing automobiles that people want to buy at prices that allow the
companies to turn a profit. They are losing to Toyota and Honda
(NYSE: HMC).
Their parts suppliers are, as a group, collapsing, with Dana Holding
Corporation
(NYSE: DAN)
and Visteon
(NYSE: VC)
teetering on the precipice.
Pain delayed is not pain avoided
There are no good
answers here -- none at all. Whichever way we go, there is going to be
substantial pain in the American auto industry. But a government bailout of
recidivist capital destroyers is a particularly bad idea, as it perpetuates the
destruction, and delays capital formation for more productive uses. It is a
bitter, bitter pill. Better to let the Big Three take their medicine, attempt to
reorganize in bankruptcy and attempt to emerge anew as smaller, more nimble
competitors.
At a minimum, it helps keep the Japan scenario off the table. It's been easy
to see that the political decisions made in Japan to protect companies and jobs
have been destructive. I've often thought that one of the reasons American
capitalism is superior is our willingness to allow companies to fail. Now I'm
not so sure.