Toyota announced historic profit losses

(How are we to read this news?) This is a bump in the road for Toyota whereas their competitors are in a canyon. (So what is the Toyota way of doing business that helps it weather hard economic times like these?) The foundation is a long term philosophy, for example they work to stabilize the inside of the company. Money doesn’t burn a hole in their pocket, they save money. (Compare that to the theory of a company like GM.) Well at GM their stockholders have so much influence so if they have several good years, the stockholders say go out and find companies to buy. If they had saved more money from their profit years, they wouldn’t need a bailout now. (Toyota does not have the legacy costs of unionized auto workers and Toyota still invests in research, talk about that.) Toyota does not have unions and they decided to have a 401k program a long time ago. (What is the economic downside for that?) the downside is for their employees, whose 401k’s might not be worth much right now. Toyota’s long term future is based in R&D though. (So is this a Japanese business ethos also?) Yes, this also applies to Honda. The Japanese ethos is represented in Toyota to the extreme.