Blatant Conflict of Interest Watch: GM's Majority Owner Bears Down on Toyota Motors

Already reeling from a massive recall underway concerning accelerator problems, Toyota Motors [NYSE: TM] has been contemplating a second recall over the brake-pedal in their Prius and Lexus hybrid vehicles. This comes on top of Obama Administration officials blasting the Japanese automaker for their slow response leading to last month's recall. Earlier this week, Toyota said the decision to stop manufacture and sales of the affected vehicles was entirely their own with no pressure from the government.

The Department of Transportation is reportedly considering civil penalties against Toyota.

"Since questions were first raised about possible safety defects, we have been pushing Toyota to take measures to protect consumers," [Transportation Secretary] LaHood said in a statement.
"While Toyota is taking responsible action now, it unfortunately took an enormous effort to get to this point."

Now, I should point out that I'm neither a Toyota Motors shareholder nor do I drive a Toyota. And while I do think some government oversight is necessary, the reaction from Washington so far has been to threaten and browbeat Toyota while trying to take credit for measures the automaker was already implementing.

Making matters even more convoluted is the fact that the United States Government is still the majority owner of competing automaker General Motors. In other words, one of Toyota's competitors in its biggest market has judicial and regulatory power over not just them, but other automakers.

Perhaps even more sinister and self-serving at first glance is the fact that Toyota's manufacturing and assembly facilities in Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana are non-union. During the last election cycle, the United Auto Workers raised more than $2 Million in campaign contributions for a slew of Democrat candidates. The current crisis Toyota is experiencing could be exploited by some of the UAW's benefactors to pressure Toyota to unionize their plants in the USA [Anybody looking at this current situation and saying to themselves "Boy- Toyota could've just avoided all this trouble if their USA plants just went Union"?- NANESB!]. A sort of incremental Card Check, if you will.

Perhaps this is being seized upon by some as an illustration of why we need even more government in this era of expanding government. Or perhaps I'm reading too much into this. But what I see right now is an automaker with a reputation for long-term quality trying to fix a problem [of it's own making, granted] while being hounded by a government and media with long-standing credibility issues themselves.

[Hat tip: Lonely Conservative, Washington Examiner]