Can’t blame this on the unions:
Toyota Motor said Tuesday it lost a net 77.8 billion yen, or $819 million, in the quarter that ended in June as global vehicle sales continued to slump. But the Japanese automaker trimmed its loss forecast for the current fiscal year by about 18 percent, to $4.7 billion.
Toyota, which posted a record loss for the fiscal year that ended in March, said losses in the last three months were smaller than expected thanks to stringent cost-cutting and a decline in inventory.
Government stimulus measures aimed at spurring purchases of low-emission vehicles in Japan and elsewhere provided somewhat of a boost, leading the company to revise upward both its sales and earnings forecasts for the full year. But sluggish sales in the United States, the company’s biggest market, as well as a stronger yen, which erodes the value of overseas earnings, cut into its bottom line.
But I bet they will anyway.
cmorenc
The GOP seems to believe in an entire alternative theory of the universe, not just the role of unions.
That this theory collides so often in so many places with inconvenient contradictary facts doesn’t inflict so much as a dent in the ideological force-field they’ve erected to shield their belief-system.
burnspbesq
I predict you will wait a very long time before you hear anything resembling a deep thought from either of those esteemed gentlemen.
R-Jud
I think their deep thoughts, if you could hear them, would be a series of whirrs, grunts, and clicks. Not very edifying, but if you set it to a backbeat you might be able to dance to it.
Hunter Gathers
What I think is hilarious about the likes of Corker and Shelby is the fact that if the Japanese auto companies were in as bad a shape as the American companies were 6 months ago, the Japanese government would not hesitate to step in and take them over. What would those two ass clowns think of that?
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
“But I bet they will anyway.”
Piece of cake:
“If those lazy unionized American auto workers hadn’t lost their jobs due to Toyota employees’ superior work ethic and manufacturing skills, they’d still be able to buy Toyota vehicles and revive the flagging Toyota sales division.
“This is all the unions’ fault, for being so lazy that they’re broke and out of jobs.”
Bootlegger
Deep thoughts? Jack Handy, meet Stuart Smiley. Who would have thought SNL would graduate people to the Senate.
The Cash for Clunkers program is attracting a “different kind of buyer” according to analysts. It will be interesting to see which manufacturer benefits most, i.e. whose sales get the most boost from the CARS money.
Incertus
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Or, the unions in those other states caused so much wage inflation that Toyota had to pay more than they should in order to stay competitive. That their own constituents would have a lower standard of living is beside the point.
Zifnab
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: I was going to go with, “Toyota didn’t need a bailout. Whowhatsaquarterlylose? Everything is perfectly fine and the Japanese car companies are doing splendid. They didn’t receive any bailout money and cash-for-clunkers doesn’t in any way count and it’s bad for America and Obama is destroying the American Car Industry. If unions never existed, the recession would have never happened.”
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Incertus:
“Or, the unions in those other states caused so much wage inflation that Toyota had to pay more than they should in order to stay competitive. That their own constituents would have a lower standard of living is beside the point.”
Damn it, if it weren’t for Americans’ selfish desire to live better than slaves, we could bring back all those factory jobs from China and Vietnam!
@Zifnab:
I like your answer best. It’s the silliest and least coherent. Throw in underpants gnomes and birth certificates, and you’ve got yourself a guest seat on CNN.
Rey
Corker is my Senator and a major jackass.
Brachiator
When the Japanese government promotes low-emission vehicles, that’s a smart instance of free market capitalism. When the Obama administration promotes the sale of high mileage vehicles, that’s communistic government control. Also, too.
Morbo
@Incertus:
Fixed that for you. It’s what the party is all about at the moment, and it serves two purposes. One: it keeps the businesses happy because they don’t have to pay their employees as much (never mind the fact that it means they spend less on products). Two: they can continue to stoke resentment that those people in Detroit (if you catch my meaning) make more than their constituents do. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.
tammanycall
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Well done, Scruffy!
Roar
Conversely, Ford posted a quarterly profit that beat expectations.
Brachiator
@Roar:
And Ford benefited from the “cash for clunkers” program:
tom.a
Correction: They lost $818,979,000. I bought a new car on Friday from them.
Dr.BDH
“Stringent costcutting” is a euphemism for cutting jobs, as a recent New Yorker article about Toyota in the USA detailed. No unions means Toyota can “stringently costcut” more easily than GM or Ford.
Toreador Red
Toyota needs to start making cars that people want to buy.