Toyota framed?
To the editor:
We live in a world where immorality is an accepted practice. Where lies, cheating and deception, at all levels, is characterized as okay and acceptable in both business and government. Where killing babies in the womb is common and where truth and fairness is no longer integrated into the character of our children.
With this kind of deterioration serving to destroy the foundation and fabric of practice and procedures in America, one can’t help wondering if Toyota is not being mistreated in a cruel, irresponsible and unprofessional way. Toyota, after decades of growing a company through providing quality, dependability, fair pricing and superior design, became the world-wide leader in automobile sales. Toyota, along the way, built a reputation for being honest, customer oriented and earned the respect and admiration of people around the customer world … all people except the competition.
The competition -Ford, GM, Chrysler- became frustrated, and the frustration turned to envy, and the envy turned to desperation. The competition couldn’t complete and, I believe that, this desperation developed a plan to attack the credibility of a company that has done nothing wrong. Factually, the blame for the collapse of the auto industry in Detroit does not belong on the door step of Toyota or any other outside influence. The failings came about by way of mis-management and a ‘sleep-at-the-switch’ pompous attitude that resulted in lost market share and eventually the bringing of once dominant companies to the brink of disaster.
All companies producing mechanical merchandise, at times, require call backs. In Toyota’s case, I believe that there might be some defects … not in every car produced, but in some and in very few considering the amount of world-wide automobiles produced. The hysteria, I believe, is being fueled by unscrupulous competitors who look to this as an opportunity to wound Toyota for personal gain.
We need to slow down, let the smoke clear and let a fine company which has earned the respect and trust deal with this situation in the responsible way that they have always done in the past. We should not permit ourselves to be drawn into a situation that smells bad and just might be nothing more than a case of competitive skullduggery.
Dick Kalfus
Cape Coral