RALEIGH— Last week news came out about a massive recall of Toyota car parts. The accelerator had been found to “stick” resulting in unwanted and uncontrollable acceleration. Today news is coming out of a Federal Probe into the brakes of Toyota cars.
This isn’t good news for the largest car manufacturer in the world. Such news tends to dampen sales and growth of a company. If it persists Toyota could very well see real decline in sales.
Mr. Obama has invested heavily in two American auto companies after being elected. The unions of these auto companies invested heavily in getting Mr. Obama elected. With that the US Government, by direction of Mr. Obama, purchased both Chrysler and General Motors out of bankruptcy with massive loans. It represented a huge investment by the US Government. An investment which will probably never be rewarded or re-payed.
Is there a connection between the US government reviewing competitor cars to its own General Motors and Chrysler brand?
TennesseePaul
Stephen VanNuys
Brooklyn Daniel
The Freedom Thinker
I think that is a highly suspect means of reasoning given the strength of Toyota as a employer throughout the South of the United States. But hey, maybe they got to put lipstick on the pig that is GM/Chrysler.
It is still a telling story that Ford is the one capturing the most market share despite the fact that GM/Chrysler have a golden opportunity.
So your answer to the question is no, I take it.
Yes, Ford succeeding is quite interesting. For the longest time Ford had the “Fix Or Repair Daily” acronym. And now here it is being the superior American car…
Go Ford!
The government should stay out of it because they can’t be objective. Imagine a court judge trying a criminal accused of robbing a family member. The judge would have to recuse them self from the mediation as a judge. Even if the criminal (in this case Toyota) did in fact do the crime it doesn’t make it just.
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Interesting.
I’d like to go on record as saying “I wrote mine first.”
I have been hearing rumbles that some of Toyota’s accelerator issues have come from having the vehicle on cruise control and the system taking over and launching car and driver into hyperdrive. Hopefully that can be immediately corrected by stepping on the brake, but it would be a teaser for a moment or two. Software glitch?
Can’t help but wonder if you would see GMC issuing such a massive recall?
Ford did not participate in the rush for bailout money, yet here they are with great sales. Might be a lesson there.
Maine: Isn’t it odd to have back to back weeks of your product failures publicized by the owner of your major competitor. Not only that, the two failures are hard to stomach when you hear them in unison… “Toyota issued a recall for accelerators which stick causing unwanted and uncontrollable acceleration…. Today the US government is looking into faulty brakes in Toyota cars…”
Nothing like possessing a “bully pulpit”, eh?
Sort of gives me the creeps – Tom Clancy had a novel about an actual shooting war with Japan that developed over a malfunctioning automotive component built in Japan that was the contributing factor in a high-profile automobile accident. A tone-deaf U.S. administration was in power at the time.
Yep – there might be something to this. If nothing else, having the US government owning GM certainly creates a big perception issue.
It’s funny to me that we spend so much time in the private sector making regulations about independence and rules around avoiding conflicts of interest. Heck, if I can go on a rant here, we also have really thorough rules about how to present financial statements so that there are no undisclosed, off balance sheet liabilities.
And yet these same types of rules never apply to the government. Conflicts of interest proliferate throughout all levels of government (most notably in recent years with the Fed/US Treasury and Wall Street). Our government financial reporting is a sham, with 10s of trillions in off-balance sheet liabilities unaccounted for in our national debt figures.
And Obama wonders why there is a basic distrust of government???
I thought George Will hit it best a few weeks back about the State of the Union address. Obama spent a good chunk of it, blaming the polarized nature of Washington, trashing back-door dealing, condemning a culture where every day is election day. Then he went on to advocate his agenda that would centralize even more power in Washington.
Do these people even listen to themselves?