Toyota Motor Corp.’s Scion brand, created in 2003 to attract young buyers with quirky cars and low prices, is trying to revive flagging sales with the tiny iQ. Scion is in need of a revival: Sales have fallen for four straight years, sliding 74 percent from a 2006 peak of 173,034. While deliveries of xB wagons, xD hatchbacks and tC coupes rose 27 percent in the first half, they totaled only 26,6...

Rating agency says U.S. debt woes likely to continue WASHINGTON (AP) ― Standard & Poor’s says it downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating because it believes the U.S. will keep having problems getting its finances under control. S&P officials on Saturday defended their decision to drop the government’s rating to “AA+” from the top rating, “AAA.” The Obama administration called the move a ...

You’ve read about cults that lose touch with reality and gather on some hilltop to greet the end of the world. We have a large cult-like group in the House of Representatives who have lost touch with economic reality and whose delusions may cause the country they say they love incalculable harm. Even with a last-minute deal between Congress and the president to wriggle past Tuesday’s debt deadl...

The parliamentary investigation into the savings bank scandal has virtually ended without uncovering anything about the massive irregularities at the suspended banks. The outcome is disappointing, to say the least, and all the more so given the prosecution’s failure to answer a host of questions regarding the banks’ offering of trillions of won in illegal loans. The ruling Grand National Party a...

In a surprise move, Standard & Poor’s has lowered the credit rating of the United States by one notch from the highest “AAA” level to “AA+.” The unprecedented rating downgrade is expected to have far-reaching effects on Korea and the global economy as it could hinder the U.S. economic recovery and accelerate the decline of the dollar. S&P said in a statement issued on Friday that, “The downgrade...

Debt crises make great drama. The big shots attend meetings, look terribly worried, then stomp out, accusing each other of bad faith. Finally, at the witching hour, they reach agreement and tell us all is fine, for now. The tough thing is sorting out what’s really going on. In the U.S. case, the answer is: not much. We need tax increases and spending reductions far beyond what’s being negotiated...

Japanese executives aren’t known for bucking the establishment. Hiroshi Mikitani is a rare exception at a time when rebellion is most needed. The president of Rakuten Inc., Japan’s biggest online retailer, turned 46 on March 11. That was the day when a record earthquake and tsunami set off the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl and forever changed the way Japanese view the reactors in their mi...