MSM: Auto bill draft would require black boxes

(WashingtonPost) – All new cars would have to be equipped with “black boxes” that record performance data and federal safety regulators would be granted the authority to order immediate recalls under newly proposed auto-safety legislation being considered by Congress.

Toyota’s consumer safety problems are dwarfed by body count of Big Pharma’s deadly drugs – Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) – Even as Toyota now finds itself the target of an increasingly hyped-up inquisition about “public safety,” skeptical consumers are asking the commonsense question: If public safety is so important, then why isn’t Congress asking about the dangers of Big Pharma’s deadly drugs?

What’s Behind the Toyota Bashing?

(EIRNS) – Japanese and U.S. sources have indicated to EIR that the Toyota recall of millions of cars (mostly in the U.S.A.), and the massive media campaign to demonize Toyota, may be at least in part the result of a conscious effort to undermine, or even destroy, Toyota’s U.S. operations, for refusing to support efforts to bailout worthless debt instruments. Japanese sources said that it was widely believed by knowledgeable people in Japan that there is an effort to undermine Toyota, but that the Japanese press won’t report it.

MSM: Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Banks Shift Reserves

(Bloomberg) – Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen, further pressuring the greenback after its biggest two- quarter rout in almost two decades.

Dollar Hysteria – Mike Whitney

Robert Fisk has set off a firestorm with his unsettling narrative which appeared in Tuesday’s UK Independent titled, “The Demise of the Dollar”. The article went viral overnight spreading to every musty corner of the Internet and sending gold skyrocketing to $1,026 per oz.

Shuttered factories, shattered lives in US rust belt

(RawStory) – Weeds have not had time to overtake factories shuttered in the wake of recent bankruptcies at General Motors, Chrysler and a host of suppliers, but the signs of shattered lives are spreading as the economically devastated region, dubbed “the rust belt” after its steel industry, fails to absorb the collapse of the auto industry.

What’s Good For General Motors – Is Now Good for China

I remember the hullaballoo in January 1953 when GM CEO Charles Wilson, President Eisenhower’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, was popularly quoted as saying that “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”

Green Shoots, Red Ink, Black Hole

I have an unfortunate sense that the “green shoots” in the economy that everyone is talking about are nothing but dandelions.

MSM: Japanese exports plunge nearly 50%

Japan‘s exports nearly halved last month, the biggest decline on record, as car shipments to the US and Europe plummeted.

Nissan to Cut 20,000 Jobs

HONG KONG — Nissan Motor joined Toyota, Mazda and Mitsubishi on Monday in forecasting a loss for the current financial year, and announced it was cutting 20,000 workers in one of the most aggressive cutbacks so far by a Japanese company since the start of the global downturn.

MSM: Toyota shuts down all but one assembly line

Japan (CNN) – On what was to be a historic day halting all of Toyota’s Japanese assembly lines, the automaker announced late Thursday that it kept one line running.

MSM: Japan heads for worst recession since second world war

Japan could be heading for its worst recession since the second world war after figures released today showed industrial output fell almost 10% last month and unemployment rose at its fastest pace for more than 40 years.

MSM: Possible Toyota job cuts as auto crisis rolls

(Reuters) – A warning of unprecedented staff cuts at Toyota, the world’s biggest auto maker, and word of a possible first quarter loss by Volkswagen piled fresh pressure on struggling car manufacturers on Friday.

MSM: Auto Sales Worst Since 1983

Shell-shocked consumers stay away from showrooms. GM sales down by 45%, Ford off 30%, and Toyota 23%

A combination of plunging consumer confidence and shortage of credit is pushing auto sales to their lowest monthly levels since the early 1980s—and the automakers themselves to the financial breaking point.

MSM: US motor industry: The great breakdown

Such is the severity of the downturn in the global car industry that US manufacturers are now pushing for their own state bailout. Stephen Foley reports from New York

Why stop at the banks? Now governments around the world are pouring taxpayer money in to bail out loss-making financial institutions, it is getting harder to argue against subsidies, loans, guarantees and other forms of government assistance for other industries, too – particularly since the economic pain is now being felt far from Wall Street.

MSM: Signs of slowdown spiral around the world

$16.3 trillion in stock value lost since Sept. 1; some brokers fear more drops

Pessimism about the global economy deepened yesterday as fresh evidence of a worldwide slowdown showed up in feeble corporate profit reports from Asia, sinking commodities prices, and a scramble by emerging economies to prop up their sagging currencies and avert credit defaults.