"Counter-Revolutionary Wreckers"The Enlightened Redneck:
The bureaucrats and politicians in Washington are out to get Toyota because of ongoing recalls of the Japanese automaker’s popular vehicles. The House held one hearing yesterday, and another is scheduled for today. Toyota also is target of a U.S. criminal probe and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
This morning SBD chanced to hear a caller on a radio talk show wonder in dismay about why the Japanese CEO of Toyota had not yet committed suicide, but, short of that, he allowed that he would be satisfied to see long prison sentences for Toyota America's executive suite.
Yes, bring on the show trials!
The WSJ's Kimberly Strassel suggests that the government's aggressive stance is quite possibly spinning out control and the pols are nervous about it:
Yet having revved up the drama, the administration is now all but obliged to take action against Toyota, say with civil penalties. Mr. Rockefeller and other Democrats with ties to the carmaker are under pressure to get rough. And if Toyota bungles Washington as badly as it did the initial recall PR, this could go on a long time.
Toyota has not yet laid off a single one of its 34,000 U.S. workers, but that may change. Only a year ago, Democrats were wailing about economic damage if GM or Chrysler went bust. They forestalled that with government ownership. They, and Toyota, are now dealing with the all-too-easy-to-predict political behavior that followed such meddling in the private economy.
Yes, Toyota's products cettainly have a problem and they may or may not have taken it seriously. They are now. And they are attempting to fix it. And it will cost them a few billion in the process and quite a few unionized floors in order to ensure a quality product going forward. But that is all irrelevent. They opened the closet and hanging there for them is but one three piece suit of corporate greed, corruption and obeisance. The Obamocracy is their tailor. When all is said and done, Toyota will dress strictly to the left.
