I think that Japan actually did a good job in protecting their high tech jobs — by making the Japanese market more closed, by giving R&D incentives (and loans via low interest rate), and by virtue of its culture of life-time employment. The result is mixed. It definitely helped to preserve the middle class (good for citizens), and a strong high tech industry such as the precision instrumentation and machinery sector. The cons include heavily inefficient industrial complexes engaged in many subscale “high tech” segments — look at NEC, Toshiba, etc. The Japanese economy also stagnated. In addition, because of the life-long employment promise made to the older workers, more younger workers are only hired as part-timers, so they are a lot more disallusioned.
US is the opposite — more open, survival of the fittest type of competitive environment. The plus is that a US company is very competitive globally, the minus is that it may come at the cost of displaced US workers. I think that the government did a terrible job in building the right incentive systems (education, tax, R&D credit, worker retraining, etc).
It is what it is. As individuals, do what Boston_and_OC did — find a niche where you have more competitive advantage over others; this is how everyone survives in the global market place.
