Nissan, Mazda may join Honda, Toyota in seeking Japanese gov't loans

Nissan, Mazda may join Honda, Toyota in seeking Japanese gov't loans

Filed under: Government/Legal, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, Earnings/Financials



Toyota has already stepped up and asked the Japanese government for a $2 billion loan to shore up its U.S. lending arm, Toyota Motor Credit Corp. We've also heard that Honda may do the same. Add Nissan and Mazda to the list now. The four biggest Japanese automakers will now all likely ask for government loans to help ensure that sufficient credit is available for U.S. customers to purchase their cars and trucks. While all four have seen sales fall less sharply than General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, each is still experiencing historically low sales in their biggest market: the U.S. Fortunately, the Japanese government has a lot of cash lying around, around $1 trillion in a foreign currency stockpile. About $5 billion has been earmarked and can be funneled through the nation's state-backed bank, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. Only Toyota has officially requested loans, but Nissan, Honda and Mazda have all confirmed they will apply if the money's available.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req'd | Photo by NICHOLAS RATZENBOECK/AFP/Getty]Nissan, Mazda may join Honda, Toyota in seeking Japanese gov't loans originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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Wow, it's spreading...

Japan already did stimulus packages before. Ever heard of "the lost decade"? They had about 8 to try to pull them out of a recession, and it DIDN'T DO JACK.

Globally we're screwed now. And it originated from the US and Bush.

That's the dumbass answer. Not to be insulting or incendiary, but that's foolishness from watching liberal media all day and not taking the time to learn history.

The problem came about long before former President Bush, but he certainly didn't help with the stimu-crap bills be passed. IMO, the community reinvestment act passed by Carter really started the housing bubble, which led to Fannie/Freddie and their near-collapse, which led to freakouts and all the democrat-led "let's rush everything to 'help' the country as quickly as possible!" (hence why a pork-laden crap bill like his 'stimulus' passed w/o anybody reading it or having the promised 48 hours for the country to review it before voting).

Well rushing into the war accelerated the situation as well. Bush was dead set at finding weapons of mass destruction. He expended too many resources in "fighting terror". The bottom line is this: did it change much? Now we and the future generations have to pay for the exuberant spending. And pork barrel spending doesn't help either.

I smell greed a-brewin'

So once again, you place all blame on the former president?

You really don't get what the current president is doing, do you?

all of it may not be bush's fault, but majority of it is. typical republican nonsense is to say everything happened before him and blame on the democrat majority, but the republicans had the majority longer than the democrats.

Former President Bush deserves his share of blame, but in my mind, a majority of this can be pinned on the DEMOCRAT Jimmy Carter (community reinvestment act) and the DEMOCRAT Bill Clinton (his doubling-down on this policy in the 90's). BTW, the DEMOCRATS have had a majority for MUCH longer than republicans have. SAYING THAT, they are not pure as snow. They have their share of blame in spending like there's gonna be no tomorrow. Blame has to be on those who take no responsibility and believe that everyone has "rights" that aren't guaranteed by anything (i.e. giving loans to people who CANNOT AFFORD THEM).

/stepping off of soap-box

But you can't deny that the war has put us in this debt and economy in this state. And there's only one president who did that. I'm talking about recent events and not what happened say a decade ago. I'm just putting 2 and 2 together as common sense.

But you're being shortsighted as to WHY this all took place. War can be hard on an economy, but so can nationalizing and "stimulating" everything. Running up deficits out the wazoo SURELY isn't making things any better. See what I mean?

That's true. Either way, it's just one bad thing after another. It's all a downward spiral.