On Thu, 24 May 2012 14:47:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:


But apparently the US government had a conscious
policy of yielding the US consumer electronics business to Japan, in
order to keep them a happy ally.

Yep. I don't know the details, but I was told that the import duties
and tax laws of late 1960's were structured to make it cheaper to
build a product in Japan, than in the USA. Also, Japan's import
duties made it prohibitively expensive to import consumer products
into Japan.

Gosh, this really sounds like US and China today, except with China it is
almost all labor containing products.

?-)