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There were so many electronics companies growing with borrowed
money. Many companies have gone down, and only the strong and
correctly managed ones survived. Every time a major corporation
goes down, many subsidiaries or related banks have to qo down with
it. Government tried to help, but they go down. That's precisely
why the Japanese government recommended shifting people from, say,
the textile industry or the shipping industry to high technology
industries. So there have been many who had to go down and banks
had to go down, too. So banks have to be very careful; It's a
matter of their survival, too, because they have so much in those
industries. If they invest in the wrong industry, they may not
survive. That has been the history with us. Only the strong sur-
vive. So we have to work and design, and develop patents and so
forth.
The number of patents applied for in Japan is 160,000.
In U.S. I think it's about two-thirds of Japan. In many companies
there are contests for employees to make suggestions in engineering
design. Within Sony, in one year we had aatremendous number of
suggestions --1,500 suggestions within one year. Technically, some
are very simple, like how to pack efficiently to save money, and
waste less and so forth. Girls and boys, young and old. In one
year 1,500 suggestions.,
So because of a situation like seeing another company
going down, every employee works hard. There is no other company
to go to. Once we are where we are, we work together, and maybe
the boss doesn't take so much money. We are very democratic I
think. Because in this country, confrontation--. Wherever you
go in the United States, people seem to want to destroy something,
divide and attack. You are dividing yourselves and you're attack-
ing yourselves.
back.
MR. FRITTS: We have a question from Jim Costello in the
U.S. POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF
DEBT VS. EQUITY FINALVCING
MR. COSTELLO: I just wondered if maybe some of the
representatives of the American businesses wanted to comment on
the debt versus equity qlrestion as to whether it would be feasible
or even desirable within the context of the American economics
system to have some shift in that ratio that Hr. Haynes just out-
lined. And it's something that certainly has congressional policy
implications because we have a virtual obsession in Congress right
now with the question of whet-her we ought to be, with tax incen-
tives, encouraging more savings or more investment among average
peers.
MR. CUNNINGHAY: I'11 camment on that. I think we aqree
totally with what Mr. Eiaynes said. We can get money; what we need
is incentive from a tax and depreciation point cf view to make