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Japan won't want a military. If they were to try to build a navy, N. Korea would be send more missiles than we could possibly defend them from. There is a very good reason we don't have much of a military presence in S. Korea or even the Sea of Japan. Just about anything sets off N. Korea. As least from all I remember from a few years ago.
Now on topic-I actually think the concerns lie in the fact that their newer generations are not looking at cars, but electronics. Their public transportation is good enough at this point that they need to sell cars in other markets in order to keep in business. Now in order to keep selling cars as of late, they are having to offer incentives similar to what GM has been doing for years. The result? Resale values are dropping. So along with reliability, that too is going out the window. All we're seeing is the result of bean counters trying to keep a lid on things and looking at the short term solutions until the media died down...only this time it didn't. Didn't Jim Press (ex-CEO of Toyota) recently come out and blame the bean counters, too?
As for the bias based on the possible government ownership - I can't say for Chrysler but I know GM is paying back the loan in just a few months. The "major" stake the gov't has in them will also be sold off bit by bit after the loan is paid off. Its not as if the gov't had any say in executive decisions anyway, it was that they had to stabilize the stocks so that GM wouldn't lose even more money from accepting the loan. Chrysler's was probably similar, but I can't say for sure.
The hearings probably would have happened anyway. There are enough cases that are now coming out into the light now since their customer service reps and dealerships can't say they were unable to duplicate the problem the owner is experiencing.
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