Professor Elam

As usual Jerry Flint sees the Big Picture.  This article details recent problems at Toyota.  It seems Toyota has been virtually unstoppable, but now there are a rash of bad news events. It is nothing really major yet but..certainly the departure of some top Toyota execs to join, gulp, Chrysler, has raised eyebrows. You can read about the other details.

My point is that about the Tome the general consensus has some company or someone as unstoppable, they seem to stop.  Here are some recent examples

In 1989 everyone thought Japan Inc was going to own the world.  They did everything right we did everything wrong. Then an earthquake hit the country and the stock market went into a ten year plus slump. One hears little about Japan even today.

On the retail front here, WMT assumed Japan like Godzilla proportions.  It was speculated that WMT would soon engulf all retail buying.  Now WMT has had execs in trouble, harassment suits, and seems to be competing against itself more than anyone else. In the meantime J C Penny as arisen from its ashes and TGT continues to gain customers. 

Another example was the unstoppable Information Tech revolution.  Then the dot.coms went bust.  Tech has produced far fewer jobs than plain ole fashioned health care.

To listen to the faithful when I moved to Central Texas in 1999, all you had to do was put all your money in DELL.  Mike Dell was the Round Rock Superman, he and his gorgeous wife were everywhere and doing everything, building a 25,000 ft home, starting the Jewish Center, contributing  the Dell Diamond baseball park, hiring folks right and left, re inventing computer selling on the net, and then, Apple and HPQ struck back. Seems folks wanted to buy their computers at the store all of a sudden. Steve Jobs make Napster legal at 99 cents a copy and well look what happened.

Bill Gates was also hailed as a genius and had enough genius to quit and go into the philanthropy business.  Meanwhile Balmer has gone exactly nowhere with MSFT, does anyone want a ZUNE?  MSFT options are worthless and turnover has zoomed at the famous Redmond Campus.

No way Google was going to by pass Wall St and sell their stock in a Dutch Auction.  Today it hovers around $700.

Alan Greenspan said he was a gold watcher.  Funny now Bernake watches it at $80 as the US Dollar sinks, what happened there?

And so it goes, don’t get taken in by conventional wisdom.