Auto Industries in the U.S. & Japan David Halberstam published The Re

As a result, the Japanese began to emerge as the real victors in the war, because they had won important economic battles. Halberstam compares and contrasts two auto companies-- Ford in the United States and Nissan in Japan-- and he demonstrates how the Americans fell behind their competitors in a field they had helped to create at the beginning of the century.

Halberstam is critical of the American car executives because he knows that the crisis did not come upon them without advance signals: "There had been plenty of warnings . . . The men of the auto industry had never heeded the warnings" (p. 3). In Halberstam's view, "they dismissed (the warnings) as veiled criticisms of the cars they were making" (p. 3).

By going back in history, Halberstam shows that he is an excellent reporter when he details out the life of Henry Ford, who had seen the need for a popularly-priced car in the United States, and had given the public what it wanted. In 1908 he had created the Model T Ford.

By learning all about mass production, Ford

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In their place he put new unions that were more sympathetic to the Nissan company. Coinciding with Kawamata's rise was the situation of Henry Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II, who took over the company after being raised in sheer luxury. Halberstam sees the younger Ford as making many decisions and also making many mistakes. Ford brought in a new group of experts that were dubbed "the Whiz Kids." They included Robert McNamara, who would go on to serve as Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy Cabinet: "It was clear that Robert McNamara was the driving force of the group, the Whiz Kid most likely to succeed" (p. 204). These Whiz Kids knew a lot about management theory, but they were lacking in specific knowledge about car production. This didn't help the company when Ford stock went public in the middle 1950s, even though this was initially viewed as a successful move. Halberstam uses this portion of the book to show that the Ford Motor Company was too interested in short-term gain. Their profit margin was the ruling factor, and this often overruled considerations that were to the overall company's benefit. Consequently, the manufacturing plants were allowed to deteriorate. This was not the case in Japan. The people in t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Depression Ford, Nissan Japan--, Motor Company, United Japanese, Donald Stone, Japanese Koreans, Model Ford, Halberstam Japanese, Whiz Kids, Stone Nissan, auto industry, auto production, henry ford, industrial bank, ford seen, war ii, whiz kids, nissan company, robert mcnamara,
Approximate Word count = 1493
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)