Hotel is aesthetic smorgasbord
By Lack* Coleman
The formal Japanese garden at
the Hotel New Tagawa in
Kitakyushu is a place of tranquil
beauty. Not just pretty. It's an
aesthetic smorgasbord. You can
stand there for a few minutes and
feel its quiet symmetry seep into
your soul.
At breakfast, early one morn
ing, I noticed a small hunched
figure, an ancient woman dressed
in gray smock and rubber boots,
quietly toiling in a corner of the
garden. She had been there the
evening before, working in
solitude, seemingly oblivious to
passersby.
Later in the day, I went out to
see what she was doing. And I was
amazed. Using no tools other than
her fingers, she was meticulously
picking up fallen leaves and tiny
twigs, carefully placing them in a
yellow plastic bucket.
"Not much of a way to spend
Things That Matter
your life," I thought, "just pick
ing up twigs and leaves."
But, then, the truth dawned.
This whole lovely garden was
largely the result of that little
woman's daily labor. Like a skilled
artist, she was providing a tapestry
of natural beauty for the hundreds
of visitors who came to admire her
handiwork.
"Not a bad way to spend your
life," 1 thought, "caring for such a
lovely garden."
That little Japanese lady taught
me an important lesson. If we want
to live in a world of beauty,
somebody's got to pick up the
twigs and leaves - and the cigarette
butts, candy wrappers, discarded
paper cups, bottles, burger boxes,
and the empty beer cans thai
threaten to turn our cities and
roadways into a gargantuan trash
heap.
Technological breakthroughs
have a lot to do with our quality of
life. But so do little things. Things
like picking up the leaves and
twigs.
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Opinions
Auto executive bonuses
taking consumer for ride
By Richard A. Viguerie
"We've been 'had* " That's
how Bill Brock, President
Reagan's trade representative,
described the gigantic bonuses paid
to the top management of the U.S.
auto industry.
Brock was angry because, for
nearly four years, the U.S. govern
ment has kept the price of each
automobile at least SI,000 higher
than it should be. Instead of using
the extra money to protect
workers' jobs, the auto companies
decided to give their executives
some of the highest bonuses in the
history of American business.
The chairman of General
Motors took home a bonus of
$865,490 in cash and stock, in ad
dition to his $625,000 salary. The
president of GM got a $790,000
bonus added to his $550,000
salary. In all, GM's top 5,800 ex
ecutives received average bonuses
of $31,000 each.
Ford gave its executives bonuses
totalling $81 million. Its chairman
received $7.3 million in salary,
bonus, and stock options.
At Chrysler, the two highest of
ficials got a total of $1.7 million,
and Chrysler's proposed bonuses
for 1,500 top officers amount to
$35,000 apiece.
Of course, companies have the
right to pay their executives as
much as they like. If Michael
Jackson can get $10 million to pro
mote Pepsi, and if TV anchorpeo
ple and football players can earn
millions of dollars, corporation ex
ecutives have the same right to
charge as much as they can get for
their services.
...provided, of course, that the
corporations pay them with their
own money. But that's not what
GM, Ford, and Chrysler did. They
got the money by convincing the
government to limit imports,
restrict competition, and let them
charge outrageous and unjustified
prices for their product. Just last
year, auto import quotas cost con
sumers some $5 billion.
Here's how it happened: The
auto industry, reeling under years
of mismanagement and over
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regulation, asked for protection
from Japanese competition.
The industry claimed that, if the
government would restrict imports
for two years -- three years at the
most ? U.S. companies could
modernize and once again compete
openly with the makers of Toyotas
and Datsuns.
The U.S. government worked
out a deal with the Japanese, who
agreed to "voluntarily" limit the
number of cars they sent over here.
With the quotas in effect, U.S.
automakers were able to charge a
lot more for each unit. At the same
time, the Japanese had no reason
to keep their prices down. From
1980 to 1983, the price of the
average imported car went up
more than 40% and the price of
the average domestic car went up
nearly 30 percent.
At the same time, profits went
through the roof. Last year
American auto companies had
profits of more than $6 billion,
almost a billion dollars more than
in any previous year. This year
they will make about $10 billion.
The quotas did nothing to en
courage modernization of the U.S.
industry. Without intense competi
tion from abroad, U.S. companies
had less incentive to modernize.
They are no more able to compete
now than they were four years ago
when the "two-or three-year"
quota program began. And instead
of using extra revenue to protect
jobs, the automakers did just the
opposite; they decided to sell fewer
cars at a higher profit on each car.
Meanwhile, Walter Mondale has
endorsed a "domestic content"
bill that would virtually ban
foreign cars by requiring that up to
90^o of each car be built in the
U.S. Such a bill, if passed, would
mean the end of the U.S. auto in
dustry as we now know it. Already
the average $10,500 price for a new
car is beyond the ability of many
Americans to pay, and new price
hikes would mean even fewer cars
sold.
The United Auto Workers union
? whose members make an average
of $23 an hour in wages and
benefits ? supports the quotas,
claiming that the restrictions save
200,000 jobs. Even if that claim
were valid (and few outside the
union think it is), the consumer is
being taxed at least $2S,000 for
each job saved.
Instead of fighting for quotas to
drive up the price of cars, the
UAW should work to bring prices
down. The U.S. auto industry
became the greatest in the world by
following Henry Ford's strategy:
sell many cars at low prices, rather
than a few cars at high prices. By
agreeing to wage concessions in
return for profit-sharing and by
getting out of the way of plant
modernization, the UAW can
bring prices down, ensure the long
term health of the industry, and
protect workers' jobs.
American farmers grow
highest quality foods
By John Sledge
N.C. Farm Bureau Federation
The American farmer supplies
this country -- as well as many
other nations around the world --
with the highest quality food
grown anywhere on earth. This
abundance has been possible only
because of the farmer's outstan
ding productive capacity and his
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reliance upon the latest in
technological advances.
Interest in better nutrition by
people all over the world has put
even more emphasis on high quali
ty food during the past few years.
Farmers rccognize their respon
sibility in meeting this challenge
and are obviously succeeding in
this direction. Farmers support
policies and programs to assure
consumers of wholesome pro
ducts, to provide consumers with
full product information, and to
require new food products to meet
the same quality and health re
quirements as existing food pro
ducts.
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