| I had the exact same reaction when I saw this.."congress? why is congress getting involved in this?" If people are upset with how their Toyota cars are operating, then no one stands to lose more than the Toyota company itself in lost revenue. So what additional incentive or pressure could congress apply here except increased publicity? Let's see...we lose a billion dollars, or get chewed out by some old guys for a few hours, which sounds worse? It seems really silly to watch politicians chastise a CEO and talk down to him. Good engineering (especially on a massive scale like that) is really hard. If they think they can do better then no one is stopping them (members of congress) from starting their own car company to try and compete. Otherwise, I'm not sure why they feel qualified to criticize. Something else that bugged me is the quote from one of the witnesses which said 'Shame on you Toyota for being so greedy'. So...you're saying they intentionally pissed off all their customers as some sort of plan to make more money? I'm so confused by this mentality people have that greed in corporations is a bad thing. Yes, you could argue they sacrificed long term quality for a short term savings, but this is hardly greedy, it's just bad business practice that leaves you with LESS money. This may be unrealistic, but I really wanted to see the Toyota CEO reply to congress with some sort of statement like, "We won't be appearing at any hearings. We are a private company and don't answer to government. We only answer to our customers. So if any of our customers have questions here is a toll free hotline. Members of congress, if you are a Toyota customer, feel free to call as well, but you're role in government won't be taken into account in how we respond." |