That Japanese Obedience Clause

The Times Online reports: Panasonic orders staff to buy £1,000 in products.

Its electronic gadgetry is gathering dust on the shelves of high street stores, nobody is buying new fridges and the mountain of unsold plasma televisions is growing by the day.

However, in desperation, Panasonic has hit on the perfect counter-attack against the consumer slump: it has ordered every member of staff to go out and buy £1,000 of Panasonic products.

Large swathes of corporate Japan are expected to follow suit, either by directly commanding or indirectly “pressuring” employees to divert part of their salaries towards the goods that their employers produce.

Toyota has already tacitly applauded a “voluntary” scheme in which 2,200 of its top brass decided to buy new Toyota cars, and the president of Fujitsu recently e-mailed 100,000 staff and gently pointed out how nice it would be if “employee ownership rates” of Fujitsu PCs and mobile phones were a little higher.

A Panasonic spokesman said that because the “Buy Panasonic” request was made to management-level employees, the company did not expect refusal rates to be high.

The emergency directive, some Panasonic employees say, is a particularly cruel blow: the same 10,000 managers now being commanded to fork out for unwanted electronics were told two weeks ago that their salaries and bonuses would also be slashed.

Forcing your employees to snort your cocaine = FAIL.