"Shame on you congress for being so ignorant about the very subject you questioned Toyota about."

Written by: Jimmy Sesto

Well the CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, was in the hot seat for hours today being drilled by the panel consisting of mostly people that had no business to ask any questions. Over the years we have seen many business leaders in that same hot seat from Howard Hughes to the CEO's of Wall Street. One thing has become apparent to me from watching these panel's grill the "Big Three" CEO's last year to the grilling of Mr. Toyoda today is that congress does not know what they are talking about. Once again I bleed blue as in the Ford Blue Oval but I really need to stick up for Toyota today. While I don't agree with Toyota's recent recall practices, I certainly do not agree with what I saw happen on CNBC today. Members of Congress were asking questions that made themselves look stupid or at the very least lacking knowledge of the auto industry. One of the members of congress must have asked 5 times why Toyota uses two different suppliers for the gas pedal. The congressman felt that Toyota should use only one company. I felt sorry for Akio at this point because I could tell he was struggling to understand the question as well as struggling to have his interpreter convey his answer correctly. As I have worked for many auto manufacturer's I know that it is common practice for all car companies to use multiple suppliers. One supplier can not handle the load nor can they be in every country to fill orders. That would be like saying all car manufacturer's buy all their steel from one mill, that's ridiculous. Car companies use multiple mill's just like McDonald's uses multiple farms, and even the U.S. Government uses multiple mints for coins. Shame on you congress for being so ignorant about the very subject you are questioning  Mr. Akio Toyoda on. My point is the panel is not ridiculous but the people who are asking the questions are. Only people who are knowledgeable in such a subject should be allowed to do the questioning. After all if I was asked to form and head a panel for an inquisition on the practices of pharmaceutical companies, I would certainly get the right people but I wouldn't ask question number one because I have no idea what the correct answer should be. So while I do agree that Toyota should be held responsible for their recall practices I also believe they have the right not to be put in question by a person that is ignorant on the subject. I hate to say it because I love Detroit but don't think for one minute that Detroit is not in someway urging congress to take action. Let's not forget one very important fact, Toyota employee's over 170,000 Americans. It is difficult to get accurate numbers from Chrysler right now with it being a private company merging with Fiat but I would not be surprised to learn that Toyota has more Americans employed than Chrysler.