Monday, February 16, 2009

Obama throws 'car czar" idea under the bus


Barack Obama has dropped the 'car czar' idea for saving the U.S. auto industry. He plans to replace the car czar with a government task force. This sounds like another bureaucratic committee. It has been said a camel is a horse designed by committee. This is another step backwards for saving the American auto industry. They need a strong powerful overseer who can step in and force a deal. If GM and Chrysler can not get the UAW and their creditors to give major concessions, they are headed towards bankruptcy.
Obama drops "car czar" idea
By Matt Spetalnick
February 16, 2009

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has decided to launch a government task force for restructuring the struggling U.S. auto industry instead of naming a "car czar" with sweeping powers, a senior administration official said on Sunday.

Obama is appointing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as his "designee" for overseeing auto bailout loans and as co-head of the new high-level panel together with White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, the official said.

But Obama, who took office on January 20 and last week won congressional approval of a $787 billion economic stimulus program, has dropped the idea of having a single appointee empowered to handle the politically sensitive task of revamping America's once-mighty auto sector.

"There is no 'car czar,'" the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. (excerpted) read more at boston.com

2 comments:

Oct3 said...

Not sure how this can help…. In the mean time, I just came across a very good, basic site on recession tips. It was pretty helpful, I think,

http://www.recessioninfocenter.com

Anonymous said...

With an individual, you never really know what they are going to do, sometimes they will be effective and other times they will not. With a committee. you can nearly always predict what they are going to do; it is that thing everyone wants to do that is really not a good idea at all if you look closely. Luckily, while they tend to put individuals in government positions where they want someone to take control and take action, they tend to just make committees to look busy and come up with ideas that they will later ignore.

"When birds fly in the right formation, they need only exert half the effort. Even in nature, teamwork results in collective laziness."