Archive for November, 2011
Toyota’s been through many Speed Bumps
Since the Toyota 2009 and 2010 recalls and the March 2011 Earthquakes in Japan, Toyota has still remained one of the largest producers of automobiles in the world. Toyota risky move during the 1997 to jump in on addressing environmental sustainability by moving towards the production of hybrid vehicles has fueled their sales.
Toyota’s very first mass produced hybrid automobile, the Toyota Prius, paved the way for other car companies such as Honda to enter into the market. Emerging out of this hybrid car realm, Toyota has continued to become the market leader and their continuation in the innovation process of their Prius and other hybrid vehicles has generated a lot of wealth. Toyota’s Prius has alone has sold over 2 million units since up until September 2011.
Furthermore, Toyota has been widely criticized for their lack of innovation on the appearance of most of its models on their cars, especially their Camry 2012. However, just recently, the renowned corporation released a short teaser clip of their latest FT-86 to prove that the company has the ability to product differentiate and innovate. Toyota has definitely gone great lengths into keeping up in the automotive industry with their inventive hybrid technology despite the bumps in the road.
Occupy Movement Isn’t All That Wrong
As time was winding down on the United States debt ceiling settlement, I contemplated the origins of such a colossal-sized federal debt. High-status executives on Wall Street caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis which elicited an economic recession the U.S is still sluggishly recovering from today. This has dramatically increased federal spending by providing bailouts to “too big to fail” American banks and impractical stimulus bills.
Where do billions of dollars to bail out these corporations come from? The very pockets of the middle class. Tax-payer’s money is used to drag these insatiable banks that put many through the 2008 financial crisis out of the hole they dug themselves into. According to Joanna Lai’s opinion on Occupy Wall Street, it is a waste of people’s time, money and energy. I disagree because this is a step forward for society to be more aware of corporate greed and corporations’ influence in politics. The government should play a significant role in reducing the exploitative nature of the financial markets. Despite the lack of direction and demands the Occupy Movement is trying to employ, their purposes are collective. The demonstrators’ assertive stance especially on income equality, needs to be addressed and further scrutinized