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And this guy wanted Rick Wagoner to go?

Friday, April 17th, 2009 By David Hansen
UPDATE OF “WE’RE NOT MAKING THIS UP”:
According to the Wall Street Journal:  “Steven Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration’s auto task force, was one of the investment-firm executives involved with payments now under scrutiny in a state and federal investigation into an alleged kickback scheme at New York state’s pension fund…”
  
Oh, of course!  It is Mr. Rattner’s little known expertise in public pension funds that makes him a wise appointment by the President.  After all, what are the Big Three but pension and benefit funds?  And since General Motors is essentially Government Motors, their pensions now essentially public obligations.
Or perhaps the President saw that Mr. Rattner’s particular skill at landing investment banking accounts will serve him well in dealing with the UAW?
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ORIGINAL POST…

The Wall Street Journal fills us in about how last week in the White House a “group of senior economic advisers began the job of remaking the American automobile industry.”  Their work began with ‘deciding’ on the departure GM CEO Rick Wagoner, an act that marked the end of GM as a private corporation and the beginning of its new life as a nationalized economic entity along the lines of Amtrak.

The leader of the auto advisory group is one Mr. Steven Rattner, an investment banker.

Let’s take a look at the experience upon which Mr. Rattner draws when advising the President and the Treasury Secretary about the automotive industry. According to Wikipedia:

A graduate of Brown University, Rattner started his career as a reporter with The New York Times, first at the Washington bureau, where he became close friends with Times’ ownership-family member Arthur Sulzberger, who also was at the time working as a reporter; and then at the London bureau. Subsequently, Rattner quit journalism and joined Morgan Stanley, where he founded their Communications Group. In 1989 he joined Lazard as a General Partner; he founded their Media and Communications Group and became their deputy chairman and deputy CEO before leaving to found Quadrangle [a private investment firm...which invests in media and communications companies globally] in 2000.

Oh, and then there’s this:

He is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party. 

So, calling the shots for large parts of the US auto industry today is an ex-New York Times reporter whose investment background is rooted in the media industry and whose ties to the Democratic Party money machine are probably pretty extensive, but who has no known connection or experience with manufacturing of any kind, let alone auto manufacturing, auto research and development, auto sales and marketing, auto suppliers, auto dealers, auto pensions, auto health care, the United Auto Workers, or auto-dependent towns in Ohio including Lordstown, Defiance, Toledo just to name a few.

Where is P.J. O’Rourke when you need him?

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 11:36 am and is filed under Economic Freedom, Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “And this guy wanted Rick Wagoner to go?”

  1. token liberal Says:
    April 10th, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    When you get billions from the government, it comes with some strings. If you don’t want this, then run your business better, or file for bankruptcy. P.J. O’Rourke, unlike GM, is off somewhere supporting himself.

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