Do the high prices, rigid refusal to adapt to changing times and complete disregard of customers' needs and cares sound familiar?
Emma Marcegaglia, the president of Confindustria, Italy's bosses' club, blames red tape, slow justice, high taxes and a rigid labour market.
It's part of a larger corporate wave that's turning Japan from a land of rigid, high-cost lifetime employees into a nation where skilled workers migrate with jobs.
In recent years, a string of reports now gathering dust on ministerial shelves have identified the chief brakes on growth: the weight of the public sector, high taxation, a rigid labour market.
But as those rigid exchange rates require high interest rates, they impose a heavy penalty on growth.
What I am hoping to see is that American designers will not bring over the only the image of high label, which is a little rigid.
After the recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s, Europe's rigid labour-markets kept unemployment high for decades.
An ultra-rigid chassis with strategic use of high-tensile steel provides a vault-like platform for the rear-drive powertrain configuration.
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The Cherokee sits relatively high above the road and the drive is rigid and balanced, even when I zipped past 18-wheelers blazing down the I-80.
More realistically, however, Germany and France are already seen as hostile business environments because of their high labour costs and taxes, and their rigid markets.
These include their high strength, which makes it possible to create extremely rigid structures in terms of torsion and bending, excellent crash performance and low weight.
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Being made of silicon, the transistors in the drive circuitry tend to be rigid, fragile and to operate at temperatures high enough to melt the plastic display.
MC10's conformal electronics platform makes high performance chips and sensors thin and bendable, transforming once rigid devices into truly wearable products.
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High payroll taxes in many Latin American countries penalise workers in the formal economy, and rigid and over-generous labour laws discourage the creation of formal jobs.
Spain's construction bust and rigid labour markets seem certain to condemn it to years of economic struggle and high unemployment, yet Michigan is scarcely in better shape.
Its aluminum chassis makes for quite a rigid device in hand, and the machined and polished bevel gives the V98 a very high-end look.
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It has announced reforms of its rigid labour laws that may eventually go a long way towards cutting the country's chronically high unemployment.
This is chiefly linked to rigid labour-market rules and payroll charges on employers, which between them keep labour costs high and deter job creation.
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