Toyota recall hara-kiri
It's easy to look good when everything is humming along on an even keel.
Sooner or later, though, you're going to make an error...particularly if you're turning out millions of complex examples of your craftsmanship every year.
What is true of people is also true of corporations: It's how you own up to your mistakes that reveals your true character.
Toyota is new to this business of acknowledging its faults and making good on them--something American automakers have gotten accustomed to, if not exactly comfortable with.
Because they're newcomers, Toyota fell into the trap of trying to stonewall, rather than preserve customer goodwill by immediately taking responsibility. Now they've annoyed people and hurt the reputation of their brand.







Lost amid the weekend hoopla of the Super Bowl was Sarah Palin’s $100,000 speech to the Tea Party convention, which The Lowe-Down happened to watch in its entirety.
There is no small amount of controversy here in the Super Bowl Host Area about whether the whole mess is worth it to our economy.
The lobbying armies of the status quo did a great job of scaring the hell out of people last year ("Are you going to let a bureaucrat get between you and your doctor?"), and the pro-health reform forces have been afraid of their own shadows ever since Scott Brown's victory.
One can easily understand why Washington gridlock has spawned a grassroots movement of angry citizens.
It has taken Barack Obama a long time from campaign promise to implementation on this one, and you have to wonder what he's still afraid of.
In a court action sure to lift the hearts of crooked public servants everywhere, there is a Supreme Court challenge pending on the constitutionality of a law that has been a phenomenally useful tool for federal prosecutors.
CHAN LOWE


