Toyota recall – Would you turn over damaging information to competitors?

When U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota owners should stop driving their cars, questions immediately emerged about LaHood’s motivations. There is no way to prove of disprove his motives; only LaHood knows for sure what motivated the statement. The perception that our government doesn’t have pure motivations is real, and this view will continue as long as they are tied to GM and Chrysler.

One question to bring up is why Toyota didn’t address the defect sooner; was it because they didn’t want to turn over damaging information to one of their competitors? Toyota could claim they were worried about the severity of the problem being exaggerated by U.S. officials, and can point to LaHood’s statement to back up those concerns.

If new regulations are put into place to protect consumers from the defects found in Toyota’s cars, Japan could start accusing the United States of regulatory misconduct and unfair trade practices. There is no guarantee a trade war will erupt from the recall, but it is a possible unintended consequence.

There might be calls for a congressional investigation of the transportation department to make sure nothing fishy has been going on. As much as I like keeping congress busy with innocuous distractions, an investigation will just be a waste of time and money because it is so difficult to prove pure or impure motivations.

The longer government motors is in existence the more the problem will grow. When GM or Chrysler wins a contract with the government, the conflict of interest problem will be brought up again. Ford will be able to claim the government is showing favoritism each time they don’t win a contract.

This story is another example of what can go wrong when one institution of society becomes too entwined with another. Hybrids work well in cars, but government and industry hybrids are accidents waiting to happen. The government should have stayed focused on its role of governing and not subsidizing industry. Staying focused on protecting liberty it is the best way to govern and avoid conflict of interests and the resulting unintended consequences.

Ed Schultz and Sean Hannity team up to keep each other in the news

I’m wearing my tinfoil hat today; I’m starting to believe the cable news channels are part of a conspiracy.

This video from Ed Schultz “Psycho Talk” – 02/04/10 calls out Sean Hannity for being intellectually dishonest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RBo3cXZfTw

At some point you’ll see Sean Hannity talk about President Bush giving up golfing in 2003 to be “in solidarity” with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq. Hannity will then call Schultz intellectually dishonest because the clips were prior to Bush’s statement. Hannity might even call out Schultz while Schultz is on Hannity’s show.

In the media, they say to each other, “good for you, good for me.” Controversies are good for both sides in the media, as when Sarah Palin was on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Palin sold books and Oprah had good ratings, so it was a win-win for both.

I think both Schultz and Hannity are intellectually dishonest and wouldn’t be surprised to find out this back and forth is as staged as a wrestling match.

Don’t politicians generate enough intellectually dishonest controversies on their own? Are these two just tired of sharing the BS limelight with real politicians and have cut out the middleman?

As evidenced by the ratings for Hannity and Schultz, there is a market for political theater, but I think you should be a politician to play a part in the play.