*Note To Our Friends and Supporters:

I personally want to thank the many people who have been so thoughtful and encouraging with their overwhelming response of emails.  Your advice and information has been extremely helpful in your effort to explain how you view this serious matter of defrauding the transportation system and the American people.  This support was surprising but is very welcome and I invite you to keep up your communications with us. The Toyota situation that we have all been reading about is due to our coordinated efforts to bring the truth to the American people. All the lobbyists and all the politicians and all the media sell outs in the back pocket of the Japanese could not stop us. Now the American people will know the truth on who is on their side and who is responsible for our economic mess. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!   ---Mike Biras

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Japan's car corporations have had a good run of making statements about the quality of American auto products while theirs is decidedly lacking.  For years Japan has touted Toyotas the best company with good quality, but recent history is showing something else.  It is showing the lack of quality in their product.  Just imagine, the Japanese were constantly downgrading General Motors products because Toyota was superior

to GM.  Now the truth is out.

Toyota in an earlier recall of 4.2 million sold U.S. cars claimed it was because of pedals stuck because of floor mats. This was when the California highway patrolman and his family were killed when the car suddenly accelerated to 120 miles an hour and hit a tree.  The floor mat story did not work.

Another 1.7 million on the Avalon, Camry and Tundra models are subject to the last recall but were also included in the previous recall.  Now, according to the Washington Post, " Toyota is recalling 2.3 million U.S. vehicles to correct sticking accelerator pedals, latest in a string of quality problems that have bedeviled the Japanese carmaker.

That is a total of 6.5 million cars in the two recalls in less than a year with 1.7 million being included in both major recalls.  The list of this 2.3 million recalls has models from 2005 to 2010: they include 2009©2010 Rav 4, the 2009©2010 Corolla, the 2009©2010 Matrix, the 2005©2010 Avalon, the 2007ª2010 Camry, the 2010©2010 Highlander, the 2007©2010 Tundra, and the 2008©2010 Sequoia.  The recall is due to the vehicles pedal mechanism becoming worn and in some cases stuck.

Toyota also touts its Prius car as an example of a clean car and a quality one.  What they fail to include in the testimonies is the Prius stops while being driven on wet streets or driving in the snow.  That could be quite an awakening if your were driving the car in heavy traffic and suddenly have it stop.  That could be quite a frenetic awakening in any traffic to have the car suddenly stop.

Two years ago, Carlos Ghosn, CEO, Nissan Renault made a big push to take over General Motors.  In his quest he pointed out the lack of quality products of GM (which was not true) and while making these allegations, Nissan had four models at the top of the Worst Car List in the U.S.  Now the truth is coming out.  Toyota certainly did not make the quality products the Japanese were claiming.  Not if the gas, pedals which are basic to the safety of a driver, are sticking and we know of one family who died because of this flaw.

What makes this so interesting is a recent article by the respected author, Eamonn Fingleton, who is author of Unsustainable and a number of books about U.S. Japanese relations and trade.  His article describes what the press did to the American auto industry.  

Fingleton's article "How the Press Stabbed Detroit in the Back" stated "For decades American press coverage of global car industry competition has been abysmal.  Reporters and commentators have almost never dug below the surface and their idea of fact checking has too often consisted merely of 'accurately' recycling previous observers' errors.  Worse many commentators have displayed an almost venomously elitist bias against Detroit." One thing the author explains that "foreign car makers have succeeded in buying the press they want."  One such case of buying the press happened in the 1990's when Nissan had minivans which caught fire while being driven, or just sitting in your driveway. 

A story about a young girl leaving school at the end of the school year was ready for use at a television station. The story was about a trucker who saw smoke under the girls van as she drove down the highway.  The trucker forced her off the road and grabbed her out of the van saving her life just as the van went up in flames.   The station was visited by attorneys for Nissan who told them if they put the story on a shelf they would back Monday night football.  What is not said here is a very prominent reporter lost their position for bringing the story to the station.

Fingleton describes how adept the Japanese are in paying journalists with fat speakers fees or by pressuring the media ad departments.  His article describing the problems between Japan and the U.S. in the auto markets is quite accurate except for the timeline of the Japanese involvement in the auto industry.   

According to the history of the law  published by JAMA (Japan Auto Industry)  "Following the Japanese military occupation of Manchuria in 1931, the basis for war grew steadily stronger and in 1936, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of War jointly supported the establishment of the Automobile Manufacturing Industries Act.  The aim of this legislation was ostensibly to stifle the monopolization of the automobile market by American manufacturers by fostering domestic mass production of motor vehicles to meet the needs of the public, but an additional goal was to ensure an uninterrupted supply of vehicles for the military."   At that time the auto industry was classified under munitions.

 GM and Ford had been in the Japanese market since 1925 but JAMA reports "they were forced to stop production with the passage of the Automobile Manufacturing Industries Act, which aimed to eliminate dependence on foreign manufacturers for reasons of national security."  That is exactly the reason the Japanese companies must obey the laws in the U.S. because of the reason of National Security of the United States.

In 1958 Nissan came to the U.S. as Datsun (which it owned).  Datsun had a sub©compact car which was an advantage to the company.  In 1969 the Clean Air Act was passed in Congress in December after one day of hearings, a voice vote in the Senate and an afternoon of meager discussion in the House. In 1970 the Clean Air Act amendments were passed which Nixon signed. 

Newsweek reported that "Goals that had been planned for 1980 were suddenly made even tighter and moved up to 1975 and 1976. In fact, as reported in the "Temporary Times" newspaper in 1973 in Arizona "the EPA now says that one third of all autos must be off the road by 1975.  This would amount to virtual destruction of the industry that directly and indirectly employs one sixth of the labor force in this country."

The Clean Air Act and its amendments gave Datsun an advantage because the law was mandating subcompact cars and all the American automakers made large cars.  It at this time that the Japanese made a push in the U.S. in the car industry.  First Nissan came in 1958 and then Toyota shortly afterwards followed by Honda.

Fingleton reports that the Japanese "began to cut a swathe through the American market in the 1970s.  The Japanese were helped by the oil crisis of that decade."   Actually the Clean Air Act gave a clearing for Datsun which opened the door for the Japanese companies.  The Brookings Institute played a major role in developing the clean air legislation and they also worked with the Japanese.  They had produced a special background report to the Johnson Administration.

With the uncertainty of the severe clean air requirements the American industry was then more challenged by the Japanese which were coming into the U.S. by the mid 1980's.  In the 1990's the California Pension Fund then challenged "The Big Three" to fund all of their future retirees in full and also the health care.  That special fund created in the 90's came back to cause problems for the American auto industry in the last decade. 

The industry had been challenged by the government with radical changes and raising the miles per gallon requirements since the 1970's.  The last time the changes were made they were driven by Nissan which escaped the mileage requirements because of exemptions for their cars made in Mexico.  Only the U.S. industry was paying a price for the changes in government requirements.  

The "fix was in" not only monetary but also regulatory challenges for the U.S. auto industry beginning with the Clean Air Act, with the very generous tax abatements provided by the States to the Japanese companies, the weakened yen payments by the Japanese government to their companies in America. 

The American industry was holding their own but with the U.S. government providing federal and state funds to the Japanese against our own National Defense Industry the problems continued to grow.  The U.S was providing research to the Japanese companies, they did not, regardless of their claims, pay their fair share of taxes.  The foreign companies funded chairs at American universities and refused to share their research but demanded, since they were taxpayers that the universities share the university research with them.  Congressman Jake Pickle (D©TX) special project while in Congress was tracking the taxes of foreign companies not paying the U.S. taxes.

This brings us to the present when Toyota and Volkswagen protested when the President suggested that only American companies could sell their vehicles to the American military.  Since the Army has the largest fleet of cars in the world, the companies were not happy.  Regardless of their objections, it is American taxpayers money paying for the military so why should we subsidize the foreign autos again. 

The Japanese are very miserly with allowing foreign companies in to sell their cars.  Regardless of who loans the federal government money, the choice is up to the American

taxpayers on creating jobs and manufacturing for the Americans.  Since America is now down to 11 percent of its manufacturing base, it is time to shut the "barn door" for only American companies to deal with the military.

Nissan could not qualify because it broke the law on retitling a fleet of cars and rolling back the odometers to show they were new in commerce when it was not so.  They broke the securities laws by doing that and created other frauds.  The company must sign an agreement to obey Federal, State, County and City laws and regulations.  

By contract with the State of MS Nissan is held harmless from all Federal environmental and hazardous laws and regulations.  In addition, Nissan pays only 1/3rd the ad valorem taxes due the schools and this is stated in the contract.  We need a hearing before Congress to review all of these events and the effects of abatements and the frauds committed. 

It is time to level the playing field in the United States for our own auto companies which have played such a major role inbuilding the economy of this country.  We must not hand it to an outside country which we are doing with the generosity we have shown to the Japanese.  It is time for them to change the chairmanship of the U.S.-Japan Partnership For Prosperity from the White House to the State Department where it belongs.   experienced government officials are shocked that this has happened. 

It is time to give our critical American companies, the auto industry the opportunity to work without the interference from the Japanese companies.  The clock is ticking and the hour is late.  Fingleton was right, the press missed this story.

Mike Biras

mibras64862@mypacks.net