Carmakers and Risks Ahead

31 March 2009 |permalink | email article

Obama’s decision to reshape the American auto industry, as David Sanger points out today in the New York Times, has few precedents.

The President is saying that economic conditions justify a higher level of government involvement in managing corporate America in the first decade of the new century. The once disciplined Republican message machine was blindsided, lacking a unified message with John McCain even saying it didn’t go far enough. 

Chrysler is on a short leash to merge or cease operations. But the bigger focus is on General Motors and the fact that the White House and Treasury control the last mountains of cash available to keep it afloat.

Sanger has Obama seeming to say, in effect, what is good for America will have to be good enough for General Motors.

Mary Ann Keller, a longtime auto analyst and critic of G.M., accused the company of being perpetually two years behind the curve.

Suggesting that the government never said no to them before, Keller added, “When G, M. said it would be hurt by fuel efficiency standards, the standards were usually watered down.”

Excerpts from Syria Calling by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker online on the Obama administration’s chance to engage in a Middle East peace:

(Bashar Assad, the President of Syria) “said in an e-mail to me that although Israel was doing everything possible to undermine the prospects for peace,” he was still very interested in closing the deal. “We have to wait a little while to see how things evolve and how the situation will change. We still believe that we need to conclude a serious dialogue to lead us to peace.”

 

 

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