Apparently, Barack Obama has dropped the idea of a car czar after all. Instead, the automakers will have the pleasure of working with a "presidential task force" including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, whose lack of detailed plans for the banking industry last week sent the markets into freefall for a day, and Larry Summers, who I hear is going to make sure that no female engineers work for the auto companies. Teaming up with those two is Ron Bloom, a former investment banker who has worked with the United Steelmakers union for many years and who has had success getting better deals for employees. At Harvard Business School, he apparently found employee buyouts particularly fascinating. It should be interesting to see how he deals with Detroit.
Yet nowhere to be seen in this task force on autos is anyone with any auto experience. Then again, given how Detroit auto execs have run America's car industry into the ground, maybe that's not a bad thing.
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