Obama’s Auto Industry Repair Dream Team
Of course there’s more to a vehicle than the power plant, so I’ve picked Ralph Lauren to oversee styling. Here’s a guy that has great taste and a car collection that rivals Leno’s. Even small, inexpensive cars could have style and elegance that might help ward off the feeling that we had to take this poverty thing too seriously.
When Steve Jobs recovers his health, he would be the perfect pick for the driver/vehicle interaction, a function that’s currently labeled multimedia interface. No one would be better able to direct a team to make the instrumentation, navigation, phone, and entertainment work without hours of practice and endless menus to click and point through. And it would look smart and contemporary.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has embraced the environment with a giant bear hug, so he’ll be in charge of fuel economy and pollution. As part of his responsibilities, the former terminator will have to drive whatever mean, green machine he mandates. In other words, he can’t ride around in big Ford Crown Vics, Hummers, and Lincoln Town Cars while demanding that the rest of us leave a tiny carbon footprint.
We keep hearing about how car buyers would rather get a root canal than visit a dealership. So to change this dynamic, I’ve selected John Nordstrom to not only enhance the shopping experience, but to assure that the sales staff is fashionably attired. Under Nordstrom, if for any reason you aren’t pleased with your purchase, just bring it back for a cheerful refund. How’s that for painless?
We’ll need to finance all this, so Warren Buffett will be recruited to handle the money. With Buffett aboard, we won’t need those obstinate banks or the former captive financial arms like GMAC that don’t want to make car loans these days. Warren can lend the money directly and make a reasonable return on his capital.
So there you have it. My simple yet elegant solution to an auto industry restructuring board. Of course there’s no way the administration will buy into the plan. Beltway panels are picked for politics, not skill, so we’ll get a gaggle of connected pundits from the Obama team. If there’s any good news from D.C., it’s that a couple of administration choices, including Ron Bloom, are tough negotiators. But they’re up against a variety of competing interests that are all well represented and politically connected. This whole affair should be entertaining to watch, unless you’re a Detroit car executive.
You forgot the service department. I vote for Carlos Mencia. He has great common sense, and those Mexicans know how to keep a vehicle running for a long time.
I vote for Nancy Pelosi. Anyone who can take not only the sow’s ear, but the tail, feet, snout and innards (pork waste)…and sell them to the American people as a silk purse (Swindle-Us package)…could probably turn a profit in Detroit before the spring thaw.
Great idea and a good article.
IMHO, anyone picked to oversee the auto industry needs to, at the very least, know how to tune up a car. However, this makes sense, so it will not be considered in Washington.
Ha. Nice, Mr. Douglas. Its amazing that your joke picks are better qualified than many in Obama’s cabinet. I think they’re up to date on their taxes too.
Hey Brian,
this is a nice page
What auto brand is the car on the picture? Can you tell me this auto brand? This would be very nice
@ Marc Malone: He forgot the service department?
goodbye Kathrin
“I’ve come up with my own panel of people who could give automakers advice that they could actually put to use.”
You are engaging in well meaning but intrinsically absurd behavior. The most brilliant people who have ever lived cannot provide such information. Ultimately, only the free market can perform this service.
At this point in time, these automakers do not have to primarily satisfy the desires of the buyers. That is a secondary consideration. Nope, they must first, last, and foremost keep the politicians happy. In such an environment, it is next to impossible to create popular vehicles.
Mr Douglas:
“Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers. The two will oversee an across-the-government panel of officials from the Treasury, Labor, Transportation, Commerce and Energy departments, as well as the National Economic Council, the White House Office of Energy and Environment, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Be afraid…be VERY afraid.
It appears that most of this Automobile Stavka will be composed of long-term DC bureaucrats.
Anyone who has paid their dues commuting into or out of DC on Interstate 66 will be intimately acquainted with the horrendous traffic jams that occur every morning and evening.
More often than not, when you finally see what the cause of the congestion is, it turns out to be someone whose vision is impaired by sunlight.
You will see them, motoring along at 35 mph on a 55 mph thruway, eyes squinted and their bodies hunched over the wheel, veritably coiled springs from the stress and the tension of “driving blind”.
Now understand the context…these are folks who every workday morning drive east into the rising sun, and every eveneing drive west into the sunset, sometimes for DECADES.
But they fail to have a good set of sunglasses in their vehicles.
This is our government, folks!
These are the people who actually press the buttons and pull the levers and stoke the boilers that keep the Great Big Federal Merry-go-Round a-spinnin’.
You are invited to draw your own conclusions about how well they will run Detroit.
Leno couldn’t handle the job; He’s too busy trying to come up with Bush jokes.
Unions. Protect the unions. the sacred core of the Democrat party.
Obama can’t afford to bankrupt the GM machine because it pays health benefits for it’s retired and the day that stopes, more medicare costs. Billions per year.
I am going to the old Eastern Block to see if I can lay my hands on a Trebbie(sp) factory, I’m sure it will be cheap and it is certainly the car of OUR future.
Actually thebest person for Car Czar will never get it becuase he has been par of the evil empire. And that is Bob Lutz who worked in top executive positions an all the Big Three companies. He is the person who could look at the design of a new car a say that will sell or it won’t. No monster focus groups needed. And almost always he was right.
Most recently he has been spearheading the Chevy Volt, but alas he is taking retirement rather than becoming the target of the geniuses from Capitol Hill.
To sell cars you need to generate excitement. Lutz and Leno know that. Faceless bureaucrats at the EPA don’t.
“Faceless bureaucrats at the EPA don’t.”
So what? Your point is essentially meaningless. It does not matter what Lutz and Leno know about vehicles. Those faceless and the politicians are in control.
Man, that was an excellent list. I personally would choose Chip Foose for the exterior, Jobs for the instrumentation, and Lauren for the interior. I think you should get the Carmax people to handle the dealerships. Awesome place! no haggle, no pressure.
You are also going to need a labor guy. I say the go for the use Goodell(NFL Commish, no nonsense, make people accountable type.
My vision person would be whoever it is that handles Hyundai. Talk about going from a “throw away” car to now making a car that rivals the best luxury sport names in the business. There my friend is your brand image.
Politicians can’t manage themselves, this whole mess is pretty scary.
ANTON
#10
MY GOD ! YOU ARE SOOOOOO RIGHT.
The problem I see with the idea suggested is that market-based creativity and results-oriented expectations would come along with the package of Jay Leno.
If we don’t know anything else about the Obamians, we know they are firmly opposed to both of those.
ANTON
#10
YOU ARE SOOOOOO RIGHT !!!!!
On a side note I find it troubling that politicians keep trying to appoint Czars. And yes I have a problem with more than just the term itself.
While JAY LENO is a fine comedian, being famous does not qualify him as an expert on the automobile industry. The nature of the question indicates one of the worse media problems. Why are we assigning expert status to people who are NOT EXPERTS? Since when did a politician become an economics expert just because they are politicians? Since when did an actor become an “expert” just because they are celebrities? Since when did a media figure become an expert just because they are on tv? Im still waiting for a satisfactory answer.
LETS SEE-PUT NASTY PIGLOSI IN CHARGE OF GM AD WATCH THE FOLLOWING HAPPEN-(1) A RUSTY PAINT JOB(2) PERPETUALLY FLAT TIRES (3) THE ENGINE WILL LOOK LIKE A NASCAR VEHICLE AFTER AN 18 CAR PILE UP. GUARANTEED.
HEY CYBERSTOOPID-FUNNY, IVE HEARD THAT LENO STILL HAS ABOUT TWO MILLION LEWINSKY JOKES HES REVIVING NOW. AD IVE NEVER HEARD BUSH AND LEWINSKY BJ QUEEN IN THE SAME SENTENCE. FUNNY, BUT EVERY TIME IVE HEARD A MONICA JOKE, THERES BEEN THE NAME CLINTON ATTACHED TO IT SOMEWHERE.
If you made Pelosi or Rangel the tsarina or tsar of the auto industry, they would run it into the ground with burdensome regulation, pay off the unions with public money for early retirement (at 150% of last wage, plus OT), and then convince the press that they had done a great service to the environment and to public transit.
This is a no-win situation for anyone who doesn’t hold high office with a D before hir name.
The reason Bambi hasn`t named his Car Czar yet is because his secret police still haven`t found thee guy that invented the Yugo