On Toyota closing Nummi, politics and unions as well as prospects for protectionism when Government Motors is told both to be profitable and go green, all the while maintaining the largest workforce possible.
Holman Jenkins: The Meaning of Nummi - WSJ.com:
"There you have the still-unfolding disaster of the developed world's auto market writ small. Protectionism is never about 'saving jobs,' but about saving specific jobs of politically useful groups. Ms. Merkel's steps may well cause a blow-up in the EU, given her insistence that Opel's German plants be protected at the expense of plants in Belgium and Spain. Likewise, California is not up for grabs politically, unlike other states where the UAW is powerful. So the union, having already received countless favors from the Obama administration, chooses to spend its ammunition elsewhere, partly because it never liked the Nummi idea of 'lean manufacturing' in the first place."
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