Hey Southern Republicans, Maybe Toyota Should Lower its Worker Wages and Benefits to Match Mexico’s? Labor’s Such a Drain on Profits isn’t it?

For those who would deny, straight faced, the Republicans weren’t trying to break up the unions have been caught in a lie.

In demanding the big three auto makers lower labor costs to match the foreign car makers in the U.S. so they could compete, the Republican law makers have been exposed in their deception. Isn’t it strange that those foreign companies are having the same problems GM and Chrysler are having, even without the legacy costs and unions? N.Y. Times:

Analysts said Toyota’s downward revision, its second in
two months, showed that the worst financial crisis since the Depression was
threatening not just the Big Three but also even relatively healthy automakers
in Japan, South Korea and Europe. Many other companies will also soon be
reporting losses.

Toyota Motor, the Japanese auto giant, said that it expected its first operating loss in 70 years, underscoring how the economic crisis was spreading across the global auto industry. (It) would be the company’s first annual operating loss since 1938, a
year after the company was founded, and a huge reversal from the $28 billion in operating profit earned last year.

How can that be when they don’t have unions pushing the extreme liberal agenda?

(Toyota) would respond by suspending investment in new plants, including last week’s announced postponement in the start of a factory in Mississippi, and moving some production lines to single shifts. The company has even unplugged electric hand dryers at some offices in an effort to cut costs.