From Pearl Harbor To Victory By Japan

SEARCH BLOG: HISTORY

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. Four years later, Japan surrendered. The U.S. responded by...

Total U.S. assistance to Japan for 1946-1952 was roughly $15.2 billion in 2005 dollars, of which 77% was grants and 23% was loans. Most of these funds were provided through GARIOA grants.

Japan responded by:

Japan repaid $490 million of the total postwar assistance. [source - p2]

By 2006...

TOKYO (AP) - Toyota announced an ambitious plan yesterday to boost global sales to 9.8 million vehicles in 2008 - driving home a message of stellar success as its troubled U.S. rivals are closing plants and scaling back production.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. already surpassed Ford Motor Co. as the world's No. 2 automaker in annual global vehicle sales in 2003.

And the latest plan shows Toyota is readying to overtake General Motors Corp. as No. 1. GM sold 9.2 million vehicles worldwide in 2005, the second-largest volume in the company's history.

2008...

Toyota said its net income fell to 353.7 billion yen ($3.2 billion), in the quarter, compared with 491.5 billion yen in the period a year earlier.

While their overall results were hardly comparable to the $15.5 billion loss reported by General Motors and the $8.7 billion loss by the Ford Motor Company, Toyota still proved vulnerable to the sharp shift by American consumers from large vehicles into smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

Times have changed... and by the way... there certainly has been a lot of concern about lending money to the American automobile manufacturers while there was very little concern about giving money to Japan when it was on the brink.

Just strikes me as a little masochistic... especially in light of the fact that Toyota has had over 50 years of a "safe harbor" Japanese market... less than 10% of the market belonging to foreign manufacturers over that time.

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