Toyota Expects First Operating Loss in 70 Years
So it isn't just poorly-made American cars that are feeling the pinch:
TOKYO — Toyota Motor will lose money in its core automaking business for the first time in 70 years this fiscal year, the company said Monday, in a sign of how the global economic crisis is hurting even the mightiest carmakers.
The Japanese auto giant, which has been neck and neck with General Motors to be the world’s largest vehicle-maker, said it still expects to eke out a narrow group net profit for the year, which ends March 31, 2009.
But the company, which just a few months ago appeared to be riding above the ills that have crippled Detroit, said it has seen plunging sales not only in North America but even in emerging markets, which initially seemed to be immune to the United States malaise.
“The change in the world economy is of a magnitude that comes once every hundred years,” Toyota’s president, Katsuaki Watanabe, told a press conference in Nagoya, Japan, near the company’s Toyota City headquarters. Sales last month dropped “far faster, wider and deeper than expected.”
In case people haven't noticed, this is a global recession which could easily turn into a global depression.
It's going to be really bumpy for the next 2 or 3 years.
are saying as long as ten years.
Here is Marc Faber on Bloomberg.
Here is part 2.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
You know that, when one of the best managed companies in the world is struggling to turn a profit, we are in trouble.
Lots of people will be noticing, especially as they gather for the holidays and families swap stories like the ones I heard over the weekend at our annual family Christmas get-together!
My brother in law lost over $40,000 from his investments in stocks... luckily, we are the po folks in the family, so we're still living close to the bone like always. It helps to have a sense of humor.
This must also be the fault of those dirty union members....
The article claims operating loss in 70 years, not 8...
But one thing Toyota's 4,500 workers at idle North American plants will not do is get laid off.
As the U.S. auto industry sheds workers and Nissan offers buyouts, Toyota is sticking by its proud-and expensive-tradition of no layoffs during hard times
Donaldd
subsidiary companies around my town are now laying off, so....guess the depression is getting them too
"But one thing Toyota's 4,500 workers at idle North American plants will not do is get laid off. "
I would not bet on that- their sales were actually worse than Ford last month, Ford's cash burn rate was about $7 Billion last quarter, and Toyota is larger than Ford. Although they have $18 Billion in cash, they could easily smoke through that in a year- so I would not bet the farm on them not laying off people. No business can afford to do that for an extended period of time when the market contracts 60%.
It's the unions!
;)
They have such cheap labor. I guess the question now becomes; Will the Compassionate Conservatives bail out the foreign auto industries? And the answer is of course is; You betcha!1!1!1 No questions asked.
Filed under: Frigging Morons
Nationalized healthcare for the workers in their own countries...And the Japanese government has worked hard in the past to keep the yen artificially weak, amounting to what are basically subsidies of $4k-$14k per auto sold in the US.
Not to mention the subsidies Japan gave their steel industry, savings which were passed on to the auto makers, and direct subsidies that the Japanese government gave their auto makers until the mid-'70's...That's how Honda and Datsun got a foot in the US door to begin with.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
personally this is how i see it. there are others that don't. japan and china and others have been manipulating their currency. they have nationalized healthcare. they buy u.s. treasuries. they have a huge export relationship with us. like you mentioned they have subsidized manufacturing so to get a solid foothold.
And yet, these "foreign" corporations are in a recession as well. By the way, the Big 3 just received a huge bailout in Canada. What healthcare costs do they incur here? None.
the canadian subsidiaries will receive 3.29 billion about 20% of the u.s. package. these subsidiaries represent about 14% of the country's manufacturing.
a lot of money in my country. We are a heckuva lot smaller than the US in every department. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers employed (even relatively) by the "foreign" corporations like Toyota and Honda. Within a half hour drive from my house, there are 7 Toyota subsidiary plants. Don't know the number employed, but it's alot.
Now that the car manufacturers have our attention, and vise versa, lets insist that they make all electric cars, and make them nerf cars so we have no more deaths and mamings while driving around in the city.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Maybe it's time to slash their pay or move the plants from those states.
if your credit score isn't 700 or so you have a better chance of being turned down for a car loan. this whole fiasco is very fragile. these 3000 or so auto suppliers provide parts/supplies to the foreign automakers as well as u.s. automakers in this country. if the suppliers don't get paid from GM it hurts the suppliers (who can no longer provide credit) which in turn hurts the other automakers.
If you don't have a good paying job you cannot buy a car or anything else.
If companies ship their jobs to other countries that cannot afford to buy their cars.
And the people they left behind in America cannot buy their cars, then guess what guys you won't sell your fucking cars!
You dumbass republicans don't get it, Henery Ford did but you guy's are to fucking stupid to understand that if the people working for you cannot afford to buy your cars then your damned cars will not sell. That holds true for anything and everything you can think of.
If you don't make it here you are not an American and should have to pay huge tariffs to sell anything here.
If you are to stupid to understand this then you are to stupid to be in business or be an American!!!!!!
These autos are NOT made there. Just like Canada, little actual manufacturing takes place anymore. Everything is assembled, or produced somewhere else. That's the problem. Toyota, Honda et al, provide more jobs in my neck of the woods than the Big 3 ever have.
assembly does take place here.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Lear or any of the other of the huge array of parts manufacturers that are all over the place in Ontario but usually within hailing distance of the assembly plants and sometimes integrated into the plant. Parts manufacturing here showed double digit growth for most of the nineties and a good part of this decade alone. The idea that it's just assembly jobs is absolutely wrong. There are more jobs outside the assembly plants than inside.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
was that there is no such thing as the American Big 3 anymore. Because really, there isn't. To qualify as American made or Canadian made only requires a certain percentage of actual manufacture in the nation it resides in. So people that say they only buy American or Canadian, are really only fooling themselves.
this is the title of an article in The New Republic Dec. 03, 2008 edition. it offers a 3 page explaination of our economic relationship(s) with china and japan. it explains the tortuous u.s. financial arrangement that
'knits together its economy with those of china and japan'. the article focuses on how the trade deficit and budget deficits are now causing a lot of the problems.i recommend the article.
IS THERE A LINK?
Some stuff you can't make up!
http://www.tnr.com/talkback.html?id=16872fed-...
i have a hard copy.
oops, we don't have any.
and we get billions in subsidies from the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana.
So what went wrong? ....... DUH?!
Some stuff you can't make up!
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and hope you were being snarky with the 'poorly made American cars' comment. If not, you can feel free to contact me and I'll happily supply you with an ample supply of reading on why this old chestnut simply is no longer true.
Rick Wagoner goes before Congress and says the global economic meltdown is hurting GM. Everyone laughs. Toyota loses money and everyone suddenly stops and says "Wow, the global economy is really bad for automakers".
Ya think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjLpTVnpMgk
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
What's really frightening about this is Toyota makes the best cars in the world when it comes to mass production vehicles for the average person. Good fricken Xenu I had a Toyota Celica that had 110,000 miles on it when I bought it for $300 and then I put on 230,000 more miles before the odometer stopped working, drove it another 3 years before the bushings and seals were so badly worn that the car had to be scraped.
I replaced the back axel assembly twice and re-did the top on the engine once. The car was badly beaten to shit since I drove on fire break roads around Indian Springs Air Force Base and spent a lot of time killing the thing slowly.
When it comes to cars that last, Toyota is number 1. That they're going to be operating at a loss because of Christofascist Capitalism is very indicitive of everything that's wrong with Christianity.
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