Congratulations, Ken, you’re now 2 for 2 in the eikaiwa closures prediction market and the Red Sox are up 2-0.

If cabbies want a better life, they need to pressure license holders to push for regulation, specifically a limit on the numbers of actual cabs on the streets (which would, of course, benefit license holders), as well as for a licensing system. If they’re spending so much time behind the wheel, why not make it a profession? Raise standards, make sure drivers have that most basic of qualifications for taxi drivers in other parts of the world: knowing the city. In other cities, asking a cabbie for restaurant recommendations, directions, or other similar advice is common and frutiful. In Tokyo, you’re spending so much time telling the driver where to go (especially in the winter at night, when the farmers come down from Tohoku), that you’re thrilled if you get where you want to go along a more or less reasonable route.

As for Chrysler, I’m not sure why you guys are so sanguine about them. Nardelli hasn’t been a bust in his previous jobs, but he’s certainly not a sure bet, much less a miracle worker. Furthermore, the fact that Cerberus got the company for a fifth of its previous sale price is not exactly a confidence builder unless you’re Cerberus. Simply responding to customers is not a good formula in the automotive industry, Ford learned that the hard way in the late ’90s and the early part of this decade.

Toyota, on the other hand, did well, it seems, by employing the strategy that study after study shows to be effective, but that dare not speak its name: dictating the market. Produce and sell what you think is “best” for the customers and they’ll buy it on a longer-term basis. After all, Toyota was enjoying some of its biggest growth years in the US, selling small-ish cars, when American consumers were supposed to want bigger and bigger SUVs, which they bought for a little while, but where is Ford now?

Chrysler certainly could recover. It’s even probably that they’ll improve, but I’m not sure I’d put my money on them.

Finally, when Toyota first reached its now lofty ranking, it said it was going to tread carefully, that passing GM too quickly could create an anti-Japanese backlash among American consumers. Do you guys give any credence to the idea that Toyota might be pulling its punches in North America?

There’s a lot of foreshadowing, though - everyone knows Nova’s going to be killed off in the next two episodes.