Back in the mid 80's a division of Toshiba stole US Submerine running silent technology. Wonder if Rush knows that.
I know this because I worked for Sharp copiers back then and we used this info against Toshiba copiers that were a piece of carp anyway.
I know we have our favorite trade spy stories. I go to Thailand fairly often (because of my Thai wife). Certain plazas will sell you software programs for little more than the cost of the CDs they are burned on. I think the point Rush is making is that there's so much globalization that something from everybody--including some of our worst enemies is everywhere. I think the ports issue will be resolved on the merits after this 45 day period. But I do agree with you: Toshiba copiers were horrible and were always broken...
Actually, they didn't steal the technology. It was the super accurate computerized milling machines that we used to create the hyper accurate complex curves of the zero noise propeller blades and we licensed it to them (for other purposes), but with restrictions. They then turned around and sold it to the Soviets directly violating the specifics of the agreement.
My company used to do a lot of business buying Toshiba printers. We had our own corporate account manager who would visit us regularly in our corporate HQ back when we were in NYC. He came in after that broke trying to convince us to ignore the issues and the recommendations of the panel the President Reagan had put together. they had recommended that American companies should stop buying Toshiba products (voluntarily) to show our displeasure. We had to break it to the Toshiba guy that our Chairman was one of the people on that panel.
Oooops.