For better or worse, “price fixing” is a Japanese cultural tradition. For generations their business model has been for like-minded organizations to get together and set prices. How about competition you ask? Well they create artificial …competition by setting obstacles, like who will have the highest sales of a product gets certain benefits in the community. I realize price fixing is illegal, and I’m sure these big company execs do as well… but the article never touches on the fact that while it’s wrong for WESTERN thinking, it’s not necessarily wrong to the stodgy old bags of bones leading these companies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703697004574498201465082572.html?mod=rss_Asia_Technology