The story recalls how one NHTSA representative was at the firm’s Nagoya headquarters in Japan in December, pressing Toyota after complaints about its accelerator pedals had been climbing in the U.S. for years. Toyota had been unresponsive to repeated U.S. calls to address the complaints, the authors write, and nothing was done after the December meeting.

In other words, Toyota ignored warnings from the U.S. until it was too late, the article suggests.

“I just don’t accept Toyota couldn’t put the dots together,” says Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator.

The piece cites U. of Virginia professor Ed Hess, who asks why Toyota didn’t just “pull the cord” on the assembly lines when problems became apparent.

At the company town Toyota City, one employee remarked to the authors “we are not sitting on our hands in Japan,” while another commented, “we have a sense of crisis. How can we not with all the media attention? Everyone feels that way.”

Toyota shares closed up $1.75, or 2.4%, today at $74.60.

He’s a buyer, he says.

Asked about the prospect for regulation that could hamper banks’ activities, Wien was unconcerned:

“There were a lot of rules on the books in 2006, 2007 that were not implemented. If we’d just implemented the rules on the books, we’d have been in a lot better situation. I think it’s going to be very hard to get agreement on it and get it through.”

“I would definitely restrict the amount of leverage financial institutions have,” Wien said, when pressed over whether he would support any kind of regulation. When asked how much leverage is appropriate, Wien added that it was a number in the teens, “not in the twenties or thirties.”

As for Jobs, Wien sticks to the view that unemployment starts to improve 9 months after the economy bottoms. Since the economy bottomed in June of last year, that means the February jobs report will be positive, he opined.

The S&P, meantime, will end the year at 1,150, because that reflects the $80 per share in S&P earnings that the market was already discounting at the end of last year, Wien added.

The company forecast 2010 results in line with analysts’ expectations.

Q4 sales rose a tenth of a percent, year over year, to $466 million, ahead of the average $451 million estimate, yielding profit per share of 75 cents, excluding some costs, ahead of the 72-cent estimate of analysts.

For the current quarter, Cerner forecast profit per share of 57 cents to 62 cents; analysts expected 62 cents. The company sees sales of $420 million to $435 million, versus the average $432 million. For the full year, the company sees $2.80 to $2.90 per share, in line with the average $2.84 estimate, on revenue of $1.80 billion to $1.88 billion, versus the consensus $1.85 billion.

Cerner co-found, chair and CEO Neal Patterson remarked, “We enter the new decade very well positioned to benefit from demand driven by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).  Beyond opportunities associated with HITECH, we are investing in several long-term growth initiatives that position us to build upon the stimulus-driven growth and deliver another decade of strong performance.”

The profit number excludes a 3-cent-per-share charge for restructuring and impairment. Including those amounts, the company made 44 cents per share.

The biggest boost came from the company’s television networks, up 7% year over year. Theme parks were flat with the prior year, while the film studio, consumer products, and interactive media all fell.

Despite the decline, Disney did manage to squeeze more profit from interactive and from the film business.

CEO Bob Iger said the company was “excited” about upcoming movies “Alice in Wonderland” and “Toy Story 3,” and about new attractions at its theme parks.

However, the authors add that Germany’s finance ministry said through a spokesperson that “no decisions on aid had been made.”

Meantime, in case you missed it, Der Spiegel’s Beat Balzli this morning quotes “insiders” anonymously as saying that Goldman Sachs (GS) and other investment banks started selling derivatives products in 2002 to Greece that helped the country mask its debt woes.

In any event, markets have trimmed some earlier gains going into the close, with the Dow up 159 points at 10,066 and the S&P 500 up 14 points at 1,070.

As Kim sums up the problem,

Toyota said the 2010 Camrys equipped with a 4-cylinder engine might have a shorter-than-required power steering pressure hose in the engine compartment. That could deplete the brake fluid, increasing the brake pedal stroke and making it more difficult and requiring more time to stop the vehicle, Toyota said.

The report follows on Toyota’s news today that it will recall 2009 and 2010 Prius hybrid vehicles over a problem with the braking system, and last night’s announcement the company has resumed production of vehicles affected by an accelerator pedal problem in the U.S.

Toyota shares this afternoon are up $1.97, or 3%, at $74.82.

John Bartko writes in a note today that there’s less and less likelihood the U.S. government will provide “additional extraordinary support” to Too Big to Fail banks in a way to benefit debt holders. Absent such support form the government, Bartko has doubts as to whether B of A’s financial performance over the next two years will be strong enough to benefit the firm’s standalone credit profile will be.

Hence, he cut the bank’s debt outlook to “negative” from “stable.”

His colleague Scott Sprinzen has the same concerns about Citi, though he believes Citi should return to profitability in “the next few quarters.”

Citi’s current credit rating is “A/Negative/A-1,” the same for B of A’s.

Still, Citi shares are up 2 cents, or 0.6%, at $3.17. BAC stock is up 5 cents, or 0.4%, at $14.54.

McCarthy’s reason for writing are two recent visits to Monsanto labs, and a chat with the CFO, Carl Casale, as well as CTO Robb Fraley. He’s impressed with the firms R&D for biotech seeds.

The company has an attractive cornseed product with its “SmartStax,” he argues, which should offer higher crop yields. Soybean seeds are a source of risk, as Monsanto is expected to protect its premium pricing, which could lead it to lose some volume this year.

McCarthy raised his estimate for fiscal year 2011 (ending May of that year) by 15 cents, to $4.30, though that is below the $4.40 average estimate of analysts.

The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, is interviewing former Treasury Secretary Henry M. “Hank” Paulson Jr., this afternoon at the Qwest Center in Omaha, Nebraska. You can see the live feed at the Omaha World Herald’s Web site.

Buffett kicks off the discussion thusly: “I should declare right off the bat I’m a friend of Hank’s. I admired him before he took the job, I admire him a lot more after the job he’s done as Secretary of the Treasury. The name of his book is “On the Brink,” and that’s where we were in September and October of 2008. We had four people in the operating room that we were lucky to have. We had Hank, we had Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, we had [FDIC chair] Sheila Bair, and we had Ben Bernanke.”

Buffett goes through the drama of the time: commercial paper frozen, companies worried if they would meet payrolls, the third-largest bank, Wachovia, that needed a shotgun marriage on a Monday morning to survive. This book starts where Fannie [Mae (FNM)] and Freddie [Mac (FRE)], in early September, they both were broke. Those in the banking system allowed Freddie and Fannie to operate with a 40 to 1 leverage ratio and hundreds of times the capital they had. They had received, and this complicated Hank’s problem, a clean bill of health from the watchdog agencies. Might be fun to go back and read those reports.

Buffett remarks that he learned something about how to attract women from the book. “Hank had a sure-fire approach. When he took Wendy out on a first date.

Paulson laughs and thanks Warren and says he’s a long-time admirer, noting he was a pillar of strength during the credit crisis. “I was not a model of maturity as a senior at Dartmouth College. We were at a concert at the Boston pops, and I made my program into a paper airplane and sent it at Arthur Fiedler.”

Buffett asks Paulson to tell about growing as “a tough guy” as a tackle at Dartmouth.

“But when the president asked him to become secretary of Treasury, he had one big worry.”

“My mom,” says Paulson. “I’m quite close to my mother. She was not an admirer of George Bush, very unhappy with the war. There was a fair amount of speculation I might go to Washington. I assured her I was not going to go. But when I reversed myself, I was in Barrington, Illinois, the president was going to make the announcement. I was at church with my mom. When I told a friend what I was doing next, she asked my mom about it, and my mom didn’t think it was great. When I went to tell her about it, she was sobbing and very angry and crying. I started with Nixon and now I was going to end up with Bush and I deserved everything I got. In the end, I say, by the time I finished in Washington, my mom had a different opinion of Bush. Wendy wasn’t much happier with me.

“I’m probably like your mother in my opinion of George Bush,” quips Buffett. “But I do think that he summed things up better than anyone in the fall of 2008, when he said, “If money doesn’t loosen up, this sucker can go down.” It was like the Gettysburg Address — short and to the point! Was there ever a time you went to him with proposals he shot you down on?”

Paulson: “No, he was only surprised when I was surprised. Sometimes he was almost like my mother to me. He told me I needed to work out, to get more sleep.”

Did you really get down on your knees in front of Nancy Pelosi? asks Buffett.

“I did, but you have to realize, I was in a room with senators John McCain and Barack Obama, and nobody threw blows, but there were visible blows there. I didn’t break the tension, but tried to get a smile or a laugh.”

Buffett asks Paulson what he’s investing in now. “You and I have a common worry about the fiscal crisis in this country,” says Paulson. “You just need to understand what Wendy and I are going to do, we’re going to devote the balance of our careers to conservation and the environment. So I’m not looking to make more, I’m looking to hang onto what I’ve got. So I’m looking to high quality stocks. If I were a young person, I’d be looking at companies with strong positions for the long term. A lot of what I have is in fixed income and money markets, and the rest is in oustanding, well-managed companies. Companies that know how to operate globally will prosper for a long time.”

Buffett asks if Paulson’s fixed-income investment makes him worry about the decline of currencies.

“Well, you’re not going to get a former Treasury secretary to speculate on … ” Buffett laughs.

“The best way to have a strong dollar is to have a strong economy,” says Paulson.

“Would you prefer TIPs bonds or the straight type?” asks Buffett.

“I’d defer to you, Warren,” says Paulson, which gets a laugh out of Buffett.

Buffett wants to go back to talking about the fall of 2008, to talk about just how bad it was.

“This was a doozy,” says Paulson. “I knew we were overdue for a credit crisis, and I told the President that, but I didn’t expect anything of this size. It had been building up for a long time, institutions had been sitting on loses, we’d been pressing them to raise capital. You had Lehman and Merrill [in crisis] over a weekend. We had Washington Mutual and Wachovia. We had six European institutions on the brink. So it was coming at us very fast.”

Shares of MetLife, meantime, have also spiked, rising $1.71, or 5%, to $35.35.

Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates, a buffet fan, tweeted this afternoon “fun to see him as interviewer.”

Indeed.

Watch the live feed at the Omaha World Herald’s Web site.

Volume of suds sold fell almost 5%, year over year, as the U.S. remains a tough market for beer, the company said.

Cut backs in marketing and general expenses, and decent pricing, weren’t enough to offset the impact of lower beer consumption.

Specifically, the company’s MillerCoors joint venture with England’s SABMiller PLC, from which Molson receives a distribution of profits, saw a 22% drop in net income in the quarter.

“It’s tough out there,” MillerCoors CEO Leo Kiely said.

Unemployment hit not only “premium” brands such as Miller Lite, which were down “mid-single digits,” but also blue-collar suds, such as Milwaukee’s Best, which saw a decline in “the high single digits.”

In international markets, by contrast, the company saw a jump of 14%.

Investors, however, bid up other beer labels, with Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) rising $1.63, or 3.5%, to $48.67, and The Boston Beer Co. (SAM) up $1.25, almost 3%, at $45.50

Despite discouraging remarks by the European Central Bank this morning, markets remain convinced that the Eurozone has decided it will have to help Greece with its sovereign debt concerns.

The Dow has snapped back from a brief dip, now rising 212 points to 10,120, while the S&P 500 is up 20 points at 1,077.

Germany’s ruling coalition government said that “euro zone governments have decided in principle to help debt-burdened Greece,” Reuters reports, citing an anonymous source.

And in another telling sign, the flight to quality that had gone on much of the morning in German bund futures — the equivalent of options on U.S. Treasuries — has collapsed, with the bund futures now dropping to 123.58, below yesterday’s close of 123.91, as the chart below shows:

(Odd, then, that CAT’s incoming CEO, Douglas Oberhelman, sold a bunch of shares at $51 and change on Feb. 5, as noted yesterday in Barron’s “Inside Scoop” by Miriam Gottfried.)

Wertheimer, who raised CAT to “Overweight” from “Underweight,” says this is the first time in three years he’s been positive on Caterpillar. The stock could double or triple in two to three years if its “structural transformation” plays out, he writes.

Caterpillar shares are up $1.94, almost 4%, at $52.78, and Wertheimer’s target goes to $70 from $51.

Conversations with suppliers confirm the company is streamlining parts and materials, he writes, which supports the idea the company could hit a target of $8 to $10 per share in 2012, as the moves “could save hundreds of millions to billions,” writes Wertheimer. Last cycle, the company made $5.66 per share, he observes.

Davis, meantime, upgraded ROK to “Equal Weight” from “Underweight,” and raised his price target to $57 from $51, writing that restocking of industrial inventories is the near-term boost, with “the only remaining uncertainty around timing and magnitude of capex recovery.” He sees “mid-cycle earnings power” of $3 to $3.50 per share and peak earnings of $4.50, better than what Rockwell Collins did at the top of the last economic cycle.

ROK stock is up $2.69, or 5.3%, at $53.48.

The hope that Europe may have to find a solution to Greece’s sovereign debt woes lifted markets this morning, but Reuters clarifies that a spokesperson has said Trichet left for logistical reasons. And Reuters’s Boris Groendahl reports that ECB member Ewald Nowotny remarked on later in the day that the Central Bank cannot bail out Greece.

“Greece, being a euro country, is under the regime of euro regulations, and so the main policy approach is of course that they have to solve the problems themselves,” Nowotny tells Groendahl.

Still, U.S. markets are broadly higher, with the Dow up 129 points, or 1.3%, at 10,037.40, while the S&P 500 is up 10.75 at 1,067.49.

The dollar has sold off against a strengthening Euro, falling to $1.3734 versus last night’s closing cross of $1.3660.

Commodities have rallied, with gold futures for delivery in February up $8.30, at $1,074 per ounce, and March futures for light sweet crude oil up 88 cents at $72.77.

Toyoda said he would be travelling to the U.S. to explain the situation to regulators.

As Norihiko Shirouzo of Dow Jones Newswires points out, the company is making the recall somewhat reluctantly, with the company insisting that the braking system in the hybrids “meet safety standards” and saying it’s voluntarily recalling the vehicles “to be in accordance with the spirit” of safety standards.

As Shirouzo puts it:

Many at Toyota — from top executives to engineers to sales managers — believe the company is now being forced into the corrective action on its popular hybrids because of heightened government and public scrutiny of Toyota’s recent quality problems at home and in the U.S. These executives say the Prius problems are much smaller than, and unrelated to, the sudden acceleration complaints that have triggered the firestorm of criticism against the company in recent days.

As one Toyota senior engineer described the problem with Prius and other hybrids, “when braking at low speeds on bumpy or slick road surfaces … the [anti-lock breaking system] can “kick in a tad stronger and stay kicked in a bit longer than some consumers would like.”

Net loss per share of 31 cents was a big improvement from the year-earlier $1.33 per share loss, though it was deeper than the 19-cent loss expected, driven by $925 million of depreciation.

However, the company also had $800 million in income tax benefits and said it expected a total tax refund of $917 million, which would bring the company to break-even for the period. On that basis of comparison, of course, the company faired better than the 19-cent loss expected.

Top line was driven by a 13% increase in closings, with 6,200 homes done in the quarter, even as prices fell 7%.

Q4 sales rose 5 to $7.5 billion about as expected, yielding profit per share of 66 cents, in line with estimates, and up 53% on the profit line.

Coke was even able to overcome a 3% increase in cost of goods and a 9% increase in general operating expenses.

Total volume of drinks sold dropped 1% in North America, but it either rose from prior-year levels or held steady in the rest of the world, at 5% growth in total, up from last year’s 4%, and 6% internationally, same as the 6% a year earlier. Overseas, growth soared in China, up 29%, and India, up 20%, and even in European markets, with France up 12%.

“We have the right ingredients for growth even under challenging economic conditions,” remarked CEO Muhtar Kent.

Parkway Properties (PKY), an office REIT with properties in 11 states across the southeastern and southwest, reported Q4 profit of 36 cents per share, way below the 67 cents estimated as revenue came in about as expected. The company forecast profit this year well above the $2.58 consensus forecast, at $2.72 to $2.92, but it also said it would slash its dividend from $1.32 last year to just 30 cents this year.

Parkway said the move would help assure the company’s capital structure in the midst of low rents and also allow the company funds for acquisition opportunities.

Parkway shares were unchanged at $19.95 in after-hours trading.

Meantime, residential property REIT Camden Property (CPT), which owns apartment complexes across the U.S., met Q4 revenue estimates and beat EPS estimates, but forecast profit per share of $2.35 to $2.65 per share, below the average $2.66. CPT stock is down 57 cents, or 1.5%, at $37.25.

Residential property REIT Associated Estates Realty (AEC), another apartment owner, reported Q4 revenue and profit as expected but forecast earnings per share this year of 86 cents to 92 cents, below the current 93-cent consensus forecast. AEC stock was unchanged at $11.30 in after-hours trading.

On the bright side, Post Properties (PPS), a developer of multi-family homes, beat Q4 sales and profit estimates, and forecast profit per share for this year of 98 cents to $1.12 per share, in line with the $1.06 estimate.

In the company’s press release, CEO Bill Stewart remarked that the company saw improved pressure pumping in the U.S. and Canada.

And that’s all you’ll get from him: the company is in the process of being acquired by Baker Hughes (BHI), expected to close next month, so BJ’s not hosting a conference call for this quarter, it said.

Shares of Baker Hughes are up 1% at $45 in after-hours trading.