John Eickholt

Jim Lentz Lays Out Toyota's 2009 Expectations

Rick Newman should go back to Jan of 2008 and read some of Toyota perdictions for 2008. He is a 100% wrong. Why does so much of our media spread lies. All he has to do is Google last Jan Toyota stories.
This is his first part of his story.
(Hardly anybody wants to predict the future these days, since so many forecasts for 2008 turned out to be dead wrong. But Toyota (TM), with its timely hybrids and steady global growth, is as good as any company at guessing where the economy—and consumer tastes—are headed. Like most other carmakers, Toyota had a dreadful year in 2008, with U.S. sales off 15 percent, only slightly better than the 18 percent drop in the industry overall. I met recently with Jim Lentz, president of Toyota's North American arm, and discussed the outlook for consumers and the U.S. car industry. Excerpts:

It was obviously a terrible year in 2008. And some people think it will be worse in 2009. What does Toyota foresee? )

Looks likeRick Newman is treating Toyota with kid Gloves

Vote on Auto Bailout Sparks Senate Debate

From listening to some of the southern states senators against the big three bail out.The northern don't have Hurricanes and heathquakes.Why should we pay for them.


Who Killed Detroit?

by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)

Posted 11/21/2008 ET

Who killed the U.S. auto industry?

To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee
the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog
SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and
Koreans prepared and built for the future.

I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the
United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long
harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the
smokestack industries that won World War II.

As far back as the 1950s, an intellectual elite that produces mostly
methane had its knives out for the auto industry of which Ike's treasury
secretary, ex-GM chief Charles Wilson, had boasted, "What's good for America
is good for General Motors, and vice versa."

"Engine Charlie" was relentlessly mocked, even in Al Capp's L'il Abner
cartoon strip, where a bloviating "General Bullmoose" had as his motto,
"What's good for Bullmoose is good for America!"

How did Big Government do in the U.S. auto industry?

Washington imposed a minimum wage higher than the average wage in
war-devastated Germany and Japan. The Feds ordered that U.S. plants be made
the healthiest and safest worksites in the world, creating OSHA to see to
it. It enacted civil rights laws to ensure the labor force reflected our
diversity. Environmental laws came next, to ensure U.S. factories became the
most pollution-free on earth.

It then clamped fuel efficiency standards on the entire U.S. car
fleet.

Next, Washington imposed a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, raking
off another 15 percent of autoworkers' wages in Social Security payroll
taxes

State governments imposed income and sales taxes, and local
governments property taxes to subsidize services and schools.

The United Auto Workers struck repeatedly to win the highest wages and
most generous benefits on earth -- vacations, holidays, work breaks, health
care, pensions -- for workers and their families, and retirees.

Now there is nothing wrong with making U.S. plants the cleanest and
safest on earth or having U.S. autoworkers the highest-paid wage earners.

That is the dream, what we all wanted for America.

And under the 14th Amendment, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to obey the
same U.S. laws and pay at the same tax rates. Outside the United States,
however, there was and is no equality of standards or taxes.

Thus when America was thrust into the Global Economy, GM and Ford had
to compete with cars made overseas in factories in postwar Japan and
Germany, then Korea, where health and safety standards were much lower,
wages were a fraction of those paid U.S. workers, and taxes were and are
often forgiven on exports to the United States.

All three nations built "export-driven" economies.

The Beetle and early Japanese imports were made in factories where
wages were far beneath U.S. wages and working conditions would have gotten
U.S. auto executives sent to prison.

The competition was manifestly unfair, like forcing Secretariat to
carry 100 pounds in his saddlebags in the Derby.

Japan, China and South Korea do not believe in free trade as we
understand it. To us, they are our "trading partners." To them, the
relationship is not like that of Evans & Novak or Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers. It is not even like the Redskins and Cowboys. For the Cowboys only
want to defeat the Redskins. They do not want to put their franchise out of
business and end the competition -- as the Japanese did to our TV industry
by dumping Sonys here until they killed it.

While we think the Global Economy is about what is best for the
consumer, they think about what is best for the nation.

Like Alexander Hamilton, they understand that manufacturing is the key
to national power. And they manipulate currencies, grant tax rebates to
their exporters and thieve our technology to win. Last year, as trade expert
Bill Hawkins writes, South Korea exported 700,000 cars to us, while
importing 5,000 cars from us.

That's Asia's idea of free trade.

How has this Global Economy profited or prospered America?

In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes,
furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You name it. We
made it.

Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we
better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off
now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no
longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for
the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?

We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane company,
and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM goes Chapter 11,
America will soon be out of the auto business.

Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on.
Historians will have no problem explaining

Pre-packaged Bankruptcy Is GM's Only Option - Barron's

Its a shame the media is never held accountable for false statements.Like the $70+ per hour. Pat tells what happened to Detroit.

www.humanevents.com/ar...

Who Killed Detroit?
by Patrick J. Buchanan

Who killed the U.S. auto industry?

To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the
demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no
one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans
prepared and built for the future.

I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United
States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a
deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack
industries that won World War II.