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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 20, 1992                   TAG: 9202200580
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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U.S. IS IN WAR OF INDUSTRIAL DARWINISM

THE REMARKS of Prime Minister Miyazawa concerning the American worker's lack of a work ethic produced a certain amount of anger within me. So did the remark of the Speaker of the Japanese House that we are lazy and illiterate.

I notice they say nothing against the American consumer. Might as well, as most consumers are American workers. Why should the Japanese elite criticize supposed American national characteristics that have helped make a market so enriching for Japan?

We all witnessed a show of the American worker and American products in the Persian Gulf War. In World War II, the aircraft carrier Yorktown barely limped into Pearl Harbor with damage from the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 27, 1942. Everyone, including the Japanese, said repairs would take 90 days. In two days, the Yorktown was seaworthy and left for the Battle of Midway.

The American worker produces what is designed. For a good many years, our engineers designed and produced products under the School of Obsolescence Engineering, corrupted to produce shoddy goods.

The United States is in an economic war called industrial Darwinism. Japanese management understand this war better than we do. MARSHALL A. COBURN NARROWS

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