Interesting…slumping sales have Toyota looking for a $2 billion government loan from Japan…
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-03-03-toyota-loan-negotiations_N.htm
If Toyota can’t make ends meet, what does this say about the American auto industry…?
just wait until you hear about what the boj’s been doing in the commercial paper market recently!
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what’s really at issue is that japan has always had a craptacular banking system. they’ve never REALLY fixed it. corporate japan is made up of all sorts of cross ownership between the big conglomerates. banks are included in this mess, so when things start to go sour, the whole house of cards buckles.
i can’t tell you many more details about that, though. japan is not a country i do much on.
south korea, though… there’s an interesting story 
What we don’t know about the Japanese manufacturers and their home market and government support is pretty astounding.
Try this one on
So we scream at the big three, but even our government didn’t fund the program. Not saying either was right, but a lot of people hold these companies up as paragons of good business practices based on what they see over here, not how they handle themselves in their home and other international markets. You should look at what they are doing with plant closures in other parts of Asia and the UK.
Toyota has a problem (credit for financing new cars) where as the US auto industry has many.
Toyota wants to find the cheapest credit available to be able to offer financing for new cars, whether that is public or privately financed does not appear on any balance sheet and in terms of their financial viability is almost inconsequential.
As to paying people to do nothing. Post 9/11 they saw a 30% slump on the Forklift side of their business but they did not lay anyone off. They seconded them in to service improvement on the rational that companies that did not buy their replacement trucks that year (the 30%) would eventually and in order to be prepared for the upswing in demand that would occur in the future (the 30% outstanding plus the expected sales) they would have to increase their efficiency.
Honda and Toyota in the UK have put people on leave where they are not making cars but they are expected to improve the facilities, undergo training for future improvements and contribute to community projects in the local areas of the factories. Both companies understand that laying people off or firing them in the long run is more expensive due to training and start up costs than trying to keep their staff occupied with other productive activities.
Too bad the UAW would refuse to have their members do any of those useful things.
Too bad the UAW would refuse to have their members do any of those useful things.
To bad you don’t know what your talking about. The employees in the Jobs banks were approved to go work for charities in and around the communities. The media just did not want to report this, and the average American was to lazy to look it up. Now that the Jobs banks have been closed local charities are hurting for volunteers.
Doesn’t Toyota make American cars? As in make them in America. I was expecting to read that they were sniffing at the same trough as the Big Three.
Too bad the UAW would refuse to have their members do any of those useful things.
To bad you don’t know what your talking about. The employees in the Jobs banks were approved to go work for charities in and around the communities. The media just did not want to report this, and the average American was to lazy to look it up. Now that the Jobs banks have been closed local charities are hurting for volunteers.
So they stopped volunteering when they were not paid to do so? Getting paid is not volunteering, pretty much by definition.
Too bad the UAW would refuse to have their members do any of those useful things.
To bad you don’t know what your talking about. The employees in the Jobs banks were approved to go work for charities in and around the communities. The media just did not want to report this, and the average American was to lazy to look it up. Now that the Jobs banks have been closed local charities are hurting for volunteers.
So they stopped volunteering when they were not paid to do so? Getting paid is not volunteering, pretty much by definition.
Sorry you don’t like the term, that’s the term that was used in the story about the Toyota workers and is the term most people would be familiar with, Oh ya and its the correct one. People who volunteer often get paid money by the Feds, (income tax credit) so by your definitions thats not volunteering? What about Jury Duty guess those folks didn’t volunteer? Hey guys and gals in the armed forces sorry to tell you but your not part of a volunteer armed force.
Lets go look up the Definition:
n. **1. **a person who freely enrolls for military service rather than being conscripted, especially a member of a force formed by voluntary enrollment and distinct from the regular army.
**2. **a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
**3. **a person who works for an organization without being paid.
Hmmmm seems like by definition 2 they are volunteering even though they got paid.
Ever volunteered to help out on a project at work, even though you were getting paid at that time.
Funny I typically go by option 3. Even option 2 is a stretch…I’ll take option 4, conscripted how does that sound?