Let me add one important distinction, however. Whereas I may have been wary, even slightly skeptical, Tam was definitely the idealist. She was, by God, going to get this country moving again. America was once more going to lead, she declared, not follow. No defensive Fortress America claptrap. Hers would be nothing less than a full-scale assault, intended to win back and keep a solid manufacturing base here, toe-to-toe with the world.
Since no overall American program existed to rescue industries now being killed by foreign competition, she was going to do it herself, create a coordinated battle plan for our strategic sectors. Backed by Noda's Japanese billions, she was about to try and redeem this country's future, leading us back to number one. She also was quick to add she had no intention of merely copying Japan's famous management techniques. Japanese industry, she insisted, hadn't invented long-term planning, sound capital investment, dedication. What they did over there these days was what the U.S. used to do. The American work ethic was alive and well; it was just temporarily on the wrong side of the globe. She was about to bring it home again.
Maybe she could. One major impediment at least would be out of the way. Since the companies Dai Nippon was taking over would no longer have to answer to a lot of fickle fund managers every three months, they could start investing for the longer term. Also a lot of unnecessary fat was going to be sliced out of upper management. If things went as planned, Dr. Tamara Richardson and Dai Nippon were about to become the ruthless architects of a new corporate America.
Unless . . . well, there seemed no reason not to take things at face value, at least for now. DNI's new Industrial Management Section on the twelfth floor had already begun filling up with young Tokyo University graduates, guys who embodied the work ethic in human guise. They meant business. Nobody was sipping coffee and critiquing last night's rerun of Dynasty. I got the definite impression one of the unsmiling whiz kids in Noda's handpicked cadre could chew up about five American MBAs for breakfast. Tam currently had them working overtime, putting together a reorganization plan for an outfit in Boston, one of their new acquisitions, which I guess I'd better just call XYZ. The previous week Dai Nippon had purchased some twenty-four percent of its stock, presently at a historic low, and she was planning to make the company her showcase turnaround.
Stock in hand, she'd buckled down with her new staff and using DNI's analytical machinery confirmed some alarming suspicions. It turned out XYZ was practically a terminal case, living at the moment off its real estate assets, which were being systematically dribbled away to mask heavy losses. Layoffs would be next.
By Thursday of the second week, however, she'd put together a restructuring, including some painful austerity that might just salvage the company and its American jobs. She went home that night feeling quite proud of herself, and Friday she flew up to Boston for her first official conference with XYZ's chief executive officer.
Since a quarter of a company's shares gives the holder reasonably high recognition, the CEO was understandably nervous about who exactly had acquired a fourth of his company inside of a week and a half. He appeared at Logan with his Rolls limo to receive Dr. Richardson personally.
She explained right off that she was there merely to pass along a few of DNI's "recommendations." She took one look at the Rolls and added that, for example, one of the first was going to be to divest all limos forthwith, along with the new fifteen-million-dollar Gulfstream IV he'd bought for weekend fishing trips down in the Keys, and direct the proceeds toward capital investment.
From there on things progressed pretty much as might be expected. By the time they reached his paneled office she had been obliged to explain that his options were either (1) to get in line, or (2) to watch DNI pick up another thirty percent of his company's O-T-C shares, then march him and his "golden parachute" past a stockholders' vote they would call to review his career options. After that she had claim to his unalloyed attention.
It was a tough Friday. After she flew back late, she dropped by the office to pick up a few things and fill me in on how it went.