Toyota's decision to shift sales operations to Texas has been the subject of much hand-wringing over the past few days, but the high-water mark for hate speech so far has come from Christie Schweinsberg at Ward's Auto.
Quoth Mrs. Schweinsberg,
The news, first reported by Bloomberg, that Toyota will be moving many of its Southern California-based sales and marketing positions to Plano, TX, is shocking for a number of reasons.
The most obvious to me is this is an automaker that constantly preaches its commitment to the environment, taking a large chunk of jobs from what is one of the most eco-friendly states in the union to the U.S.'s equivalent of China…. If the No.1 Japanese automaker really did pull the plug on its Torrance operations for tax reasons, we'll know what "green" status really counts in Toyota City.
It's also possible that Toyota is moving away from California to reduce the impact that its water consumption is surely having on California's water table, which is at its lowest point in recorded history. Alternately, perhaps Toyota wants to be closer to where they build trucks. What's even less clear than Toyota's reason for moving would be the decision on the part of the Ward's editorial staff to openly denigrate both Texas and China by painting the latter as an environmental hellhole (which it may well be) and the former as its moral equivalent. Perhaps the best clue we'll get comes from Mrs. Schweinsberg's description of California elsewhere in the text:
an optimal environment to work and have fun
Tell that to the migrant workers who live beneath the poverty line inland while they destroy their bodies and health toiling in 120-degree weather… oh, who am I kidding! All of California is like Los Angeles! It's an optimal environment to work and have fun!
California good, Texas baaaaaaaaad!
from The Truth About Cars http://ift.tt/Jh8LjA
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