The other reason why the Asian companies do better than the Big Three is that in Asian culture, they don't operate under the concept that the company acts as the CEO's personal piggy bank. You just don't have situations Japan in which executives earn 10,000 times more than the line workers. In America, it is tolerated (for some reason beyond my understanding) for a CEO to make 1.2 billion per year while at the same time announcing tens of thousands of layoffs and/or offshoring.

If Chrysler (like Ford and GM) had put billions into R&D instead of bloated executive comp, they would not be in the situation they are in today.

This is why I became a Socialist! Unrestrained capitalisim funnels money to the top of the pyramid, where it remains... forever.