Category: Business

Posted on

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen: Is Toyota the new GM/Ford from the ’60s/’70s?!

If you haven’t been watching news lately, Toyota has announced the biggest, if not one of the biggest, recalls on vehicles… EVER!  Evidently it’s a pedal that seems to get stuck.  It has already claimed lives… and its luxury sibling, Lexus isn’t immune to this defect either.

Picture courtesy of NY Times

According to the NY Times article, four people died in a tragic accident that shouldn’t have happened in last August in a Lexus ES 350!  How the hell does this kind of stuff happen?!  Well, from my sociology class from yonder years in college at WPI, I am reminded of the ethics falling behind the curtains of schedules and costs.  Ford & GM had similar safety issues but with gas fuel tanks in the ’60s and the ’70s.

Back then, I thought Ford and GM had made one of the worst choices by choosing not to recall the cars and leave it to statistics and chance and paying out lawsuits rather than spending millions in repairing the dangerous defects.  I still hesitate because such an inherently terrible oversight makes a consumer think twice and buying such product.  Only recently (since 2005) have I actually thought that Ford has come a long way and made the cars actually decent and safe.  So in essence, it has taken about 30 to 40 years to erase the reputation damage that were burned into the minds of the consumers.

So I was rather shocked and disappointed to find out that Toyota has been so slow in doing something about this recall and dealing with its defects!  It applies to millions of cars including the best-selling Camry!  When you choose money over people, you are telling the consumers that you don’t care about us and only care about money.  Well, that will always be true to certain degree because of the nature of for-profit companies.  However, if you look at things in long-term perspective, you think Toyota would have learned from the lessons of Ford and GM.  Come on!  Toyota is repeating history!

Today’s headline in Business Weekly shows that their decision to recall and repair was too slow.  Trying to hide it or ignore it (or whatever they call it) is definitely the worst business AND ethical decision they have made EVER!!!

I will say this… Toyota, welcome to my black list.  I will buy your cars in maybe 30 years or so… when that terrible stigma of poor decision making process wears off from me, your typical consumer.  Sheesh…  Just the picture of this Pinto makes me shriek and reminds me of some of the terrible decisions made from the past…

Courtesy of Motherjones.com

UPDATE: Now, though fixed somewhat more or less, 2010 Prius have had some brake issues as Toyota admits its problems.  Like I said in the last comment, Toyota is at best becoming like Sony, just big in its head and riding on its popularity.

UPDATE 2: This lady was driving a ’07 Tundra pickup….

Posted on

Chrysler Burning the Bridges

CNN Money Article

It’s one thing to cut your losses but it’s totally another to burn the bridges in the process.  I swear that when financial folks are involved, they take the humanity out of the process!  So we all knew that GM, Ford, and Chrysler were planning on cutting off a slew of dealerships throughout the country but there’s a right way to do it and then there’s a wrong way.

GM did things decently at least.  They gave out the notice in October and gave them decent amount of time to close out their stores.  Chrysler, however, have been less than helpful.  They gave only 30 days to sell off the cars and parts!  Many that were told to close ended up losing a lot of money due to time constraint.

GM seemed to go through arbitration process at decent pace bringing back some of the dealerships.  Chrysler however made the process expensive and with no guarantees that dealers that were shut down seemed to refuse to even consider the arbitration.

Where’s the decency in that Chrysler?!  Chrysler is not learning.  They don’t seem to realize that bad news travels way faster than good news.  Now that the people know how Chrysler treated the dealerships by burning the bridges, I am fairly certain that the consumers will have even more bitter taste in their mouth and stay further away from them when their pockets and auto needs meet.  Seriously, nobody seems to look at long-term effects anymore…  Sheesh…

Posted on

Another $1 trillion “into” the economy?!!

Source: NY Times

What?!! The government is planning on pumping another $1 trillion “into” the economy?!! With what money?!! Just by printing more?!! And going into more debt?!! What’s wrong with these politicians?!! So far, we’ve dumped just about $1 trillion into the “economy” and what have we gotten so far?!! Not much. AIG used its $170 billion bailout money to pay back other banks! WTH?!

Create more jobs or pump it directly into the economy by giving it to the people this time then!!  This is a bogus plan…

Posted on

Apple Greed: Proprietary chip in Shuffle earphones?!!

Gizmodo

I knew that Apple (and all other companies) was greedy but… WTH?!  Apple put proprietary chip in the new Shuffle’s earphones?!!  This means that you can’t just use other earphones or headphones!!  You have to shell out extra if you want a better one ’cause other third parties will have to pay a licensing fee to Apple to build a Shuffle-compatible earphones!!  WTH?!!  Now, I really despise Apple!  😡

Oh and I am on a roll!!!  Three post in one day!!  Woohoo to me!  😛

Posted on

AIG’s $165 million bonus: The Counterpoint

NY Times

So here the author provides a counter point.  That, despite the inexcusable bonus, we should let that pass.  Now that we have invested into 80% of the company, we don’t want to scare off the people from leaving.  Then, all that we put in as taxpayers would surely be lost.  And since these were contracts written prior to AIG’s million mile fall, contracts should be honored.

I can kind of see that.  This was why I wish we had let AIG flop instead.  Insuring what was bound to be a catastrophic failure of sub-prime mortgage, they and whoever invested in them should fail.  Yes, it would send the world economy into depression perhaps, but we are almost there already despite having invested so much in trying to prevent it.

Posted on

$165 million in bonus to AIG execs?!!

Source: NPR News

What?!!  I sure hope the administration puts a stop to this madness!!  We put our OWN money in saving AIG’s butt and what do they do?!!  They give themselves bonuses for making one of the worst decisions ever?!!  (in regards to sub-prime mortgages)  I am beyond mad!!  If this keeps on going, I say pull the plug!!  What is going on with “responsible spending”?!!  😡

EDIT:

CNN Money article

Evidently it was ALREADY paid out!!  😡  And much of the bailout money went to Goldman Sachs & Merrill Lynch along with some European companies!!  WTH?!!  This is stupendous as the PEOPLE/government own 80% of the stupid company!!

Whoa!!  We paid back a German bank?!!  The bar graph on the left is from CNN Money article…