Found an interesting article about how the US government’s stake in GM and Chrysler creates a conflict of interest with anything they do with regards to how they manage the Toyota brake pedal fiasco.
“The optics are terrible because — and this is what happens when a government owns a company - the two companies that are going to gain the most out of this are General Motors and Chrysler,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s business school.
Sounds like transportation secretary Ray Lahood is not doing much to help and his comments are causing confusion and harm more than anything
According to the article, Lahood also caused a brief panic when he told a congressional panel that owners of 5.3 million Toyota vehicles affected by the recalls should “stop driving” them. Later Lahood toned down his remarks, telling reporters: “What I meant to say and what I thought I said was if you own one of these cars or if you’re in doubt, take it to the dealer and they’re going to fix it.”
The article balances out the theory the US wants Toyota to struggle because Toyota is a large player in the US economy
Weston Konishi, an expert on Japan at the Mansfield Foundation think-tank, said he doubted either Washington or Tokyo wanted the Toyota flap to escalate.”Toyota is now a real stakeholder in the US economy — think of its auto plants and jobs — so trying to score points against it would be somewhat self-defeating,” he added.
Either way Japanese corporate culture is so slow moving, and cover up happy, Toyota probably tried to cover up the problems first. When the cover up failed they botched the recall.
