No Sympathy for the Big Three

If Lee Iacocca wants to confront the problems of the American auto industry, he would do better to look in the mirror than to go to Tokyo.

If the Big Three can't hold onto their markets in the US, where they have all kinds of advantages, I don't see how any amount of "fair trade" can win them many new customers in Japan.

Mr. Iacocca and other captains of US industry are paid far more than their Japanese counterparts. High executive pay scales filter down to middle and lower management and fuel (as they should) union demands for more money, reducing a firm's competitiveness.

This huge pay difference between people at the top and the bottom works against the development of the kinds of employee attitudes that are so successful in Japan. Joe Walton, Berkeley, Calif.

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