[Pen-l] "They want high pay without working."

[raghu <mraghu01@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DE133BF932A15752C0A964958260
--------------------------------------snip
One of Japan's most senior politicians said over the weekend that
America's economic troubles were rooted in a work force "too lazy" to
compete with Japan, and argued that one of the biggest problems of the
United States was that nearly a third of its workers "cannot even
read."

The harshly worded assessment by Yoshio Sakurauchi, the 79-year-old
Speaker of Japan's powerful lower house of Parliament, seemed bound to
fuel the trans-Pacific arguments over the causes of America's trade
and competitiveness difficulties with Japan. Though Japanese
politicians rarely speak publicly in such direct and confrontational
terms about the United States, Mr. Sakurauchi's comments seemed to
amplify themes that have appeared in the Japanese press and on
television since President Bush and his entourage of business
executives left Japan 10 days ago.

In Washington today, a Department of Education official denied the
assertion that a third of American workers could not read, saying that
less than 5 percent of the American population is illiterate. [ Page
D11. ]

According to accounts that appeared widely in the Japanese-language
press today, Mr. Sakurauchi told a meeting of supporters in Masuda
City, a manufacturing and agricultural area in western Japan, that
America risked becoming "Japan's subcontractor," and had no one to
blame but itself.

"The source of the problem is the inferior quality of U.S. labor," he
reportedly said. "U.S. workers are too lazy. They want high pay
without working."



-raghu.

-- 
"To be or not to be. That's not really a question."
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l