Final Word from Friday, February 5, 2010
Blaming the foreigner is one of the obvious reactions to an economic crisis, and this theme seems to play a role in Toyota's recall problems in the USA. Toyota isn't facing much pressure in the CR so far, but there have been intermittent tendencies to blame foreign investors for importing foreign workers, spreading disease and violating Czech social norms. Pres. Jaroslav Míl of the Confederation of Industry told LN that it was stupid to give incentives to Hyundai to put up an assembly plant, instead of pushing it to build a full production and development center. What Míl failed to mention, though, was the likelihood that Hyundai would have gone elsewhere. The real mistake, it seems, was to offer hefty incentives to dozens of parts suppliers who would have followed Hyundai, Toyota and other top-level manufacturers to the CR anyway. The blame for this misstep goes to Czechs, not to the "damn foreigners."[Czecgh Republic TPCA Peugeot Citroen motor Lidové noviny United States of America product]
Glossary of difficult words
recall - (of a manufacturer) a request that all purchasers of a certain product return the product, as the result of the discovery of a fault;
intermittent - occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous or steady;
hefty - impressively large;
misstep - a clumsy or badly judged step.
"damn foreigners" - a frequently used expression (but often used in jest) to distinguish undesirable foreigners from more-desirable local people.