Toyota shuts down all but one assembly line

[Historic NY]

TOYOTA CITY, 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.

The late news sent copy editors and reporters to their laptops erasing headlines like "historic shutdown," but it did little to quell the pain for the tens of the thousands of workers idled across Japan as nearly every Toyota line stopped producing autos and auto-related equipment.

Nowhere was the silence more deafening than in Toyota City, home and birthplace to Toyota Motor Corp. (TM). Factories were shuttered and workers idled in an attempt to bring production in line with falling global demand.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/05/news/international/toyota_assembly/index.htm

[notadmblnd]

1. Ok, so where's all those people who were defending the foreign

automakers as being profitable despite difficult economic times, and that American automakers woes were the result of lazy overpaid workers?

I'd be interested in hearing what they've got to say about it now.

[Occam Bandage]

2. I don't think anyone suggested they were immune to economic downturn,

but rather that they were significantly healthier. The fact remains that GM and Chrysler would not survive without unprecedented levels of free government cheese, while Toyota and Honda have so far been able to weather the storm by scaling back.

[notadmblnd]

3. I do believe the Japanese government does give government handouts to their automakers

There are articles out there. Just google "japanese government and subsidies to japanese auto makers."

You're right in the fact that Japan did refuse to give Nissan, Toyota and Honda money, but they did ask for it from their government.

There was an entire clique here that blamed all the woes on overpaid union workers. I did not imagine that.

[BR_Parkway]

4. Obviously those Japanese car maker unions are to blame.

:sarcasm: