1)... "Detroit's oversized and overpriced lemons [Sep 86]?" Come on! They're not that bad! Yes, I'd like to buy a Honda Prelude dirt cheap, but do you suggest we allow massive dumping of products on the US market when the country doing the dumping has a strong protectionist policy of its own? That sounds like economic surrender to me." R.P., Palo Alto, Calif.
Dear R.P.:
On dumping and trade retaliation in general, please see the booklet recommended in the "EPAmuck" item above. However, Japan does not need to protect itself from Detroit's small cars, for Detroit can't, compete. Here is a breakdown of small car costs (Fortune Nov. 85; the hoped for US costs have not materialized):
Item US (hope) Japan (fact)
Hourly labor $1,500 $450
Salaried labor 500 250
Parts, material, services 3,350 2,750
Depreciation, utilities 500 300
Ocean shipping to US 0 400
Total $5,850 $4,150
At a sale price of $6,000, the Japanese make a pre-tax profit of $1,850; Detroit's profit, with no ocean shipping costs, was hoped to be $150. The biggest difference is labor: the UAW extorted too much. As far as I know, the Japanese auto industry is not subsidized; but what if it is? Why would you reject a gift from the Japanese taxpayer?
Cordially, P.B.
2) "On your recommendation [Nov 85] I recently read E. Whelan's Toxic Terror. In her chapter on air pollution, I have found Dr Whelan's statements to be at odds with [your report on] health effects from fossil-fired power plants... You claim that the emissions produce a calculable, though admittedly imprecise, number of deaths per year... Dr Whelan, on the other hand, claims that 'there is no evidence whatsoever that air pollution is a major cause of death or disease in the US today.' She adds [later] 'Because of uncertainties the actual number could range from zero to fifty thousand.'... Can you enlighten me on the apparent contradiction here
¾between your statements and hers?'W. H.San Louis Obispo, Calif
Dear W.H.:
In general, when I recommend a book, it does no mean that I endorse everything in it. However, in this case, there is no real contradiction. The most thorough study that has been made on the correlation between premature deaths and air pollution by coal (with present pollution controls in place!) is the one made by the Environmental Dept. of Brookhaven Natl. Lab in 1980. Prorating their results for coal-fired electric power, I find the median annual premature deaths from coal-fired electric power as 37,000 (median means a 50 : 50 probability that they are higher or lower). That fits in with Dr Whelan's statement of "zero to 50,000." And though these deaths, largely avoidable by going nuclear faster, are morally outrageous, air pollution is certainly not a major cause of deaths or disease, for numerically, 37,000 deaths/year in the US is very little compared with 968,000 deaths by heart disease or 433,000 by cancer (1982 figures).
Cordially, P.B.
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Vol. 14, No. 4
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 14, No. 4 Date: November 29, 2004 05:14 PM Title: Viva Wasserman!
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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