On 6/12/2018 6:33 AM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 6/11/18 11:43 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2018 17:33:20 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2018 15:09:48 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:
- show quoted text -
Anyone who is rooting for a recession just to punish the sitting
president deserves a little dislike. I assume you are in his camp
saying **** the working man, I have mine.
.........
Maher was really lame in this one.Â* He sounds really desperate to me...
The left is scared to death that Trump will be successful, to the
point that they are wishing for a disaster they can pin on him.
Trump is very successful kissing the ass of murderous dictators, but he
doesn't seem to be able to get along with the leaders of western
democracies. North Korean specializes in prison, torture, executions,
and starvation of its own people, but Trump thinks Kim is someone to
admire.
Trump is focusing on the future, not the past.
The immediate media reactions to the summit meeting is extremely
interesting to me. I am far from being an expert in these matters but
one thing really struck me based on my limited experience in
business meetings and/or negotiations with representatives with some
Asian companies.
Watching MSNBC this morning, all the discussion is about how "loose"
and undefined the agreement Trump and Kim Jong Un signed. They
are focusing on the lack of specifics and timing of North Korea's
actions, dissecting the agreement.
Americans tend to want to get right down to the nuts and bolts of a
contract and hammer out all the terms and conditions so they can be
documented in a legal document in the form of a contract, and the
faster it can be done, the better.
The culture in Asian countries ... and my experience is limited to
Japan and China ... is very different. Much more time is spent
initially in getting to know each other down to some of the personal
and family aspects of the people involved in the project. I remember
back in the early 80's the company I worked for at the time was
entering into a major contract with a company in Japan. The Japanese
company (Ricoh) sent a delegation of engineering types, project managers
and contract specialists to spend a week at the company I worked at
to work out the contract. The owner of my company hired a consultant
to come in and brief all of us who would be involved in the discussions
regarding how the Japanese business culture worked and what to expect.
The meetings went exactly as he described with pretty much the whole
first day being spent on who we all were, our families, our hobbies
and personal interests, etc. Not a peep about the project until after
a day or more of personal interaction, dinners and social meetings
in the evenings. Only after all that did we get down to discussing
the project.
It was a very similar experience when I went to China in 1986. Met
with several companies representing different industries over the
course of a week and a half. Very little was discussed about specific
applications for the technology my company represented. It was more
of a personal "interview" and, in the case of China, was very
ceremonial. Local political leaders often attended the meetings
and much time was spent with them honoring their "guests" (me and
another guy who went with me) at nightly banquets given in our honor.
It was only after all this personal and ceremonial meetings that we
actually got down to discussing the technical and contractual issues.
The purpose, I've been told, is to develop mutual respect and trust so
that in the execution of the contract, details that were not documented
or overlooked could be worked out in a trusting and mutually respectful
manner.
I don't know if the North Korean culture is similar (or even if it
still exists in Japan and China anymore) but if so, I can understand
how Trump is approaching this. It's too complicated to document every
single nut and bolt of the intention of an agreement. Plus, the
"contract" hasn't even been developed yet.
The MSNBC folks are thinking like typical American business people
and (predictably) are being very critical of the very early discussions
Trump and Kim Jong Un had as if they were supposed to work out every
nut and bolt.