crime

Takata close to settling U.S. criminal probe

9 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© 2016 AFP

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

9 Comments
Login to comment

Shut Takata down. They are criminals.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Why the heck agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice?! The agreement shouldn't be done between the company and the victims?!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Shingorilla, criminal probes are always by the governments. A civil lawsuit following the criminal one would be with the victims.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Shingorilla, it's called a shake down. Extortion rackets like this are the last resort of countries which are losing the economic war. In return for Uncle Sam agreeing to soft pedal on their criminal malfeasance, firms agree to cough up 'shobadai' as a necessary cost of doing business. Cynicism all round!

0 ( +2 / -2 )

The US government is bankrupt! Since Obama administration took office received a national debt of 8 trillion dollars, president obama will deliver 20 trillion dollar of national debt for the next president. Obama wants to Japanese and German companies pay your bill.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I have often noted in posting that one person who regularly posts on this site lacks a lot of perspective. This is yet another case. The actions initiated against Toyota and Takata were begun by LaHood, who was one of the Republicans that Obama appointed to the NHTSA n a spirit of bipartisanship. People might recall that all the allegations against Toyota, except for some floor mats, were never substantiated, but LaHood is on record as telling people to "stop driving their Toyota vehicles immediately" in a hysterical panic. Sound familiar?

Cut forward a few years, and we have the same guy, LaHood, picking on a Japanese company for unfounded allegations, backed up by a few disgruntled employees, and a lot of media hysteria. I suspect Takata failed to fill out some paperwork somewhere along the line, so they do have something to plead guilty to. To get this whole mess behind them and deal with the few civil suits that have arisen over the last decade, they will plead guilty, pay the fine and get back to the business of saving lives.

So people who see this action against Takata as being taken on behalf of the Obama administration, forget it. It is a Republican vendetta, just as Toyota was. LaHood even went after GM, which was supported by Democratic subsidies, if you remember, just to get people scared and angry about government subsidies to "insiders". And if you don't believe me, consider this: LaHood has been going after Takata for a little over 2 years now, and LaHood has been gone for a couple of months, and all of a sudden the Takata issue looks like it will be resolved. Imagine that. So was the problem Takata? Or was it LaHood? Look at the timeline and make your own judgments. For the record, the alleged problem with inflators has NEVER been substantiated. Looks a lot like the Toyota case to me. And the Audi case of several years before. This kind of stuff just keeps happening. Hmm. Also for the record, note that Takata was set up to be taken over by Bain Capital, which is Mitt Romney's investment company. They could have bought Takata for almost nothing in the middle of all the hysteria. That also magically stopped their takeover bid the moment Trump was elected. MItt found bigger fish to fry, obviously.

The market has spoken. Takata's stock price has more or less doubled in the last couple of months. As time goes by and hysteria fades and the truth comes out, what we find over and over is that a LOT of people overreact and let their narrow perspectives lead them to making false accusations and assuming that people are "criminals" when they are just caught in some bureaucratic/media crossfire.

You can adopt the 24-hour-media kneejerk perspective that people accused of some crime somewhere must be "criminals" and we should hate them viscerally without really bothering to educate ourselves on the issues. But you WILL be wrong eventually and you WILL lose money.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

smithinjapanDEC. 29, 2016 - 06:24PM JST Shut Takata down. They are criminals.

What's with Takaka 11 lives? If the lives were so important, how come government didn't shut down GM? The side saddle fuel tank design installed in over 10 million trucks from 70's to late 80's GM full-size trucks is the worst auto crash fire defect in the history with over 2,000 people were killed in fire crashes involving these trucks. And the government gave them slap in the wrist?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Well, I am back to report that the stock has about TRIPLED now, not doubled. Up another 20 something percent yesterday.

Sfjp330 makes a great point, and I will say it again. Three times PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE. It does not matter if we are talking about Donald Trump, nuclear power, Takata, Toyota, China, or anything. Taken case by case, people can get hysterical. If a news article gives only a certain set of facts, and if all you ever see in life are those facts, then you can get yourself to believe anything. Now consider that some of those might not be facts, and that some are in fact lies that are never retracted, or blatant PR.

Here is what I do. I stick with the math because liars cannot get past math.... well.... it is harder anyway. And numbers tend to be more official and less opinion. Sfjp330 has figured that out too.

What are we really looking at here? 11 deaths allegedly tied to Takata inflators. Over about a 10 year period. That is about 11 times more than died of radiation in Fukushima over the last five years so of course it demands a lot of concern and worry and hysteria, at least on a par with what one would level at nuclear power. But then we hear about the 50 million or so inflators that will have to be replaced because of these allegations. 11 deaths, out of 50 million? What policy is worth that? What is the cost benefit here? What is the baseline level of deaths from similar causes?

And that is where the lack of perspective really becomes apparent. If people really valued safety, they would not run stop signs and red lights. More people are killed by their pet dogs every year than have allegedly died from Takata inflators over the last decade. And I am not even saying that Takata should not be sued. Go ahead. But making a sweeping social policy costing billions and billions based on 11 allegations? Well. Three times that number of allegations won't even get Bill Cosby into a courtroom. PERSPECTIVE.

If you look at the math, the arguments are so abundant that you can come up with your own. If Takata inflators were really dangerous, then why are Takata inflators being replaced with Takata inflators? If they are so dangerous, why aren't we banning them? If all the rumors and allegations were really true, then why hasn't someone been arrested? Could it be that all those alarmist reports and statements were false? Of course. Where are all the whistle blowers and regulators now? They disappeared. Most were anonymous to begin with.

I have some really bad news for some people who have been consistently wrong on this issue and others in the past five years. The New York Times gets it wrong. Often. And it has gotten worse. If one believes their coverage of Fukushima, or of Toyota, or Takata, or any other number of issues, then one has been misled into feelings of horrible outrage time and again, and it must feel to such people as though the world is entirely out of control. I am not sure what is happening to world journalism, but it is a combination of factors that is feeding people wrong information on a regular basis. It has been getting worse The state of journalism today demands skepticism and vigilance over new information. More than anything, it demands PERSPECTIVE.

Journalism herded people into electing Donald Trump. They can get people to believe anything. And they do. You can find better answers by questioning information than by believing it. And if you believe that people with all the money are running the show in this world, then the market can tell you more than the front page of the New York Times.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Greedy sue happy USA. All about the money.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites