Toyota

When I wrote about the obvious "win-win situation" that was Cash for Clunkers this past summer, amid the fact that right now cars are back-logged, piled-up, unable to get recycled in an efficient, timely manner- South Carolina is offering $3.9 million, their share of some $300 million in federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act being distributed as appliance rebates. Meet... "Cash for Appliances."

In a rare example of corporate accountability and humility, the president of Toyota, arguably the best run auto company in the world, Akio Toyoda, had some very harsh words for not just his company's recent decline, which he characterized as "grasping for salvation", but for his own failure at prevent this collapse. One wonders when Mr. Toyoda's American counterparts, whose own failures are orders of magnitude worse, will do admit even a minor fraction of comparable culpability.