Maybe this is an exaggeration. The Week talks about Brian Deese and his role in re-architecting Detroit and American capitalism.
“Brian Deese isn’t picking out Chevy Malibu’s colors for next year.”
That’s what President Obama’s press secretary said to assure Americans that the administration has no interest in micromanaging the newly-nationalized General Motors. Anyhow, Deese, a junior member of the White House economic policy staff, has bigger things to worry about—like “dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism,” as The New York Times put it. …
AdvertisementA fresh-faced 31-year-old, Deese dropped out of Yale Law School last year to work for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. When Clinton sank, Deese skipped over to the winning ship, impressed everybody who counts, and landed a desk in the White House. The big guns like Larry Summers and Christina Romer are busy cooking up hilariously sunny budget projections while trying to look like they’re keeping the economy from collapsing. So Deese, armed with an undergrad degree in political science, finds the GM portfolio and the fate of millions in his hands.
It’s not Mr. Deese’s fault for being selected for the job, though it might be someone else’s fault for creating the job in the first place. However, that’s a different story. The Week calls Deese the “Dauphin of Detroit”, which is alliterative but slightly misleading. Historically Dauphins have been rulers in waiting for the French throne. Deese is unlikely to be in line for anybody’s throne; and should more probably be styled Le Hatchetman — sent to do a job — on the auto industry and American capitalism. Which leads you to wonder, does President Obama actually want Detroit to survive?
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short answer: no
When I think of “Dauphin”, I think of the infamous Renault of the same name, generously a piece of junk compared to its VW competition.
Then I think of Mark Twain and the scurrilous pair of grifters…
*I* would not like to be called the Dauphin of anything…
Mr. Deese is about as qualified to do his job as I am to pilot the Space Shuttle, or built nuclear power plants.
He is the designated party to be thrown under the bus when this whole menagerie tanks.
tom
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
There is a danger in that. Not one story similar to this, outlining the President’s transparent lack of competence in management, causes so much as a shake of the head or a ’tisk-tisk’. I am actually losing interest. Is it just me? Are others out there unable to summon so much as a roll of the eyes? It is Obama overload of a different kind.
Obviously in Obamaland Liberal Arts degrees are no longer considered “worthless” or “unmarketable.” To really convince you Obama will next appoint a Basket Weaving graduate to Health Czar for the new Federal Health Insurance program.
I really think that Obama has it out for all business people in general. Once the machine is in motion Soros better watch out. His days are numbered.
Hmmm, I thought Obambi was all for creating a new ear of bipartisanship? I do believe that Mitt Romney is currently available. a.) Experienced turn-around artist b.) Connected to Detriot and the auto industry via his father c.) A Republican. The One could have brought in someone to give the car companies a fighting chance. Instead he opted for a snotty-nosed kid with zero experience. But then what experience did he have prior to sitting in the Big Chair in the Oval Office? Heaven help us.
But…I thought O was doing it for the children. That they could still have an America that makes things. (pardon me, I need to get a fresh barf bag…..)
Good point by Tarnsman about the appointment of someone like Romney.
How Deese can achieve economic policy advisor status in both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, and now in the Obama administration, with no visible economics training says something about the unseriousness of the Democrats. I guess one could call the phenomenon of appointing such people “Peacecorpsization,” an assumption that smart young people can do anything. The Cultural Revolution liked that approach also, although in a more radical form, e.g. putting a peasant in control of a music conservatory.
Obama wants Detroit to survive as another rung on the ladder down into the socialist future. Once you have indentured the population to payment of future national debt, and guaranteed low growth and economic hardship, people can turn only to the government for ‘relief,’ whatever that may be. Is this not the case in Britain?
In the WSJ today, Arthur Laffer writes: “For Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke it’s a Hobson’s choice. For me the issue is how to protect assets for my grandchildren.”
There you have it. Obama wants to give us—in a policy choice form now and in the institutionalized form later on—the “something or nothing” choice. Laffer wants to think about the future, and about inheritance. The laff is on Arthur, and us.
New bumper sticker: “I support Obama, and I’m spending your grandchildren’s inheritance.”
The monetary and the social inheritance we will leave to grandchildren will be less than what generations of Americans have traditionally hoped for.
That’s the problem with letting the government run the economy. People who get put in charge get their position through political connections. It is not considered necessary that they know one thing about the industry they are running. In the early days of the USSR political types were placed in control of the railroads. In their quest for improvement they increased the amount of goods carried by the system demonstrating a triumph of socialism. The problem was, as the people who designed the system tried to tell them to no avail, was that the overloaded trains were destroying the tracks–which happened.
The ignorance of these people never ceases to astound me. Such practices are tantamount to giving a three year old child the keys to the family car and encouraging them to take it for a spin. Many things may happen, but the odds are that whatever does will be something bad.
And for all of those folks out there who think knowledge of the subject is not a prerequisite for applying it, maybe we can just appoint someone from one of the “right” colleges with a degree in Transgender Studies to be your heart surgeon should you need one.
Deese confirms Obama’s score plus mores worth of “Czars” are in fact mere figureheads to aid in satisfying The One’s obsessive need to control the lives of others.
-
“We have no desire to run GM or any auto company”
…but we must.
-
W confided to Limbaugh:
“He’s going to have all these Czars who will be accountable to no one.”
…except The Messiah.
Hidden massacre of Tamils – Slide Show
Dauphin? More like the “Duck of Death”.
This does bring CHANGE to the big picture though, as candidate Obama promised.
Does that leave you any HOPE?
Deese’s appt is just a continuation of our modern cultural mode where plodding ol’ experience is seen as inferior to quick-footed and glib cleverness. Obama’s election is the best demonstration of this phenomenon.
I guess events in this country haven’t ‘progressed’ quite far enough to reveal how dumb we’ve become. Yet.
Voight calls Obama “good actor”
Mr. Voight likens the Obama administration to a Hollywood script, rife with technique and craft, very compelling but not necessarily real.
“It is a very, very slick, relentless campaign to build Obama as the answer to all our needs. They know what people want and they give it in a package that can be read off a teleprompter. That’s not what our country is based upon,”
Mr. Voight said.
He offered a terse review of the principal player.
“Obama is a very good actor. He knows how to play it. And he is very adept at creating this ‘Obama’ – this character who is there whenever the world needs something,”
he said.
There is a really great article in the current Forbes magazine about the rise of “professional politicans” in England and what havoc it has caused. We have an excessively politized system. It is our systemic risk. How to we reign these guys in?
Ideas; term limits, shorter sessions, limits on their political pay?
After putting a 47-year-old with no management or real-world experience in charge of the country, putting a similarly credentialed 31-year-old in charge of the auto industry is nothing.
So Deese, armed with an undergrad degree in political science,
……….
Speaking from personal experience, a person armed with an undergrad degree in poly sci from an ivy league school is functionally qualified to be a pretty good cab driver.
I once heard Zbignew Brzezinski talk about poli sci majors in government. He said there are lots of lawyers but (at the time)very few poli sci majors in the upper levels of government. He was one. But he said he could count on one hand the number of other political science majors in government. This was back in 1986.
Why?Typically poly sci majors become department administrators below the political apointee level–where their level of advancement roughly corresponds to the the level and number of their degrees. They need to look good on paper first.
Poly sci majors don’t make policy. Rather what they do is learn to follow the party line. Their expertise is in implementing policy is such a way as not to embarrass themselves first or their boss second.
Deese sounds like a guy with super social skills who will carry out well his bosses orders.
He also sounds like a guy without a clue as to what effects the policies he’s implementing will have in the real world.
“I don’t know anything about the car business” Whitacre, also didn’t know much about the phone business either. G.M. will be sold off in pieces within 5 years if there lucky.
“Which leads you to wonder, does President Obama actually want Detroit to survive?”
“Deese isn’t getting near the color samples. He’s just revising the rules that shape our futures as he oversees the reorganization of one of the world’s largest corporations.”
There are many hard men who can use a an order pad to navigate through a bankruptcy. There are talented administrators, deft bureaucrats, savvy political infighters, and flint eyed financial lawyers. Why a 31 year old academic dropout? Why such an intellectually unprepared man? Who sent him? Who was so arrogant as to think his minion was the only one to be sent on this endeavor that has intruded into the everyday lives of our mid western states.
If there was ever a time for bipartisanship the rescue of the industrial heartland was that event. Not the deep ever expanding demands of socialized Health care, not global banks, not Wall Street, and certainly not the statistical house of cards known as global warming.
It was the one thing that had a chance. A re commitment to quality manufacturing. A re commitment to fair wages and solid pension benefits. A dedication to achieve the fruits of prosperity.
But no. It was consigned to the underpowered, ineffective, inexperienced, and under networked, soon to be lower echelon of the Obama administration.
Look at the CV obsessed crew working on the health care agenda. Who bothers with nuts and bolt factories anymore. Yet whereas the health care answer is going to be rationing no matter what you may think,the answer for Detroit could have been profitable industries and jobs. Which Gordian knot takes the real talent to cut it?
How Deese can achieve economic policy advisor status in both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, and now in the Obama administration, with no visible economics training says something about the unseriousness of the Democrats.
Well, wait a minute. Doesn’t Rahm Emmanuel’s CV include studies of ballet with a degree from Sarah Lawrence? I tell you, this Administration values its hatchet men explicitly for their ability to push the party line. Knowlege of economics, or business, or other areas presumed to be useful in governing an enormous electorate with a complex economy, is wholly secondary.
They’re not in it for the public welfare, they’re in it for aggrandizement of their own power and the demonization of their opponents.
And that applies double for the President.
So, Bush had “Brownie” at FEMA, and Julie (I don’t have any experience in immigration law) Myers at ICE. Stupid cronyism, to be sure, but Obama has pushed this crony-crazy penchant to new heights.
“”"”"Well, wait a minute. Doesn’t Rahm Emmanuel’s CV include studies of ballet with a degree from Sarah Lawrence?”"”"
Which is why his Secret Service nickname is “Twinkletoes.”
If this trend of political corruption continues, expect the possibility of the following:
This administration will try to extend its influence beyond those companies that received bailout money by finding ways to install friends on the boards of directors of all sorts of firms, and not just one or two here and there, but they will try to pack those boards, if possible. Beyond that step could come an even more brazen one: deliberate takeover through either one of two mechanisms: 1) forcing a bailout on a “floundering” company in a still moribund economy, or 2) using the takeover/buyout mechanisms already existing for publicly-owned companies and then installing friends of the adminstration as CEO’s and other high positions as a reward. The last, and most brazen, would be to cook up malfeasance charges against the owners of succesful private companies and then seizing them and turning them over to cronies. Crazy? Over the top? Maybe, but why would it be inconceivable that Al Sharpton (a frequent White House visitor these days), and Jesse Jackson — among others — find themselves on the boards of major corporations they’ve sparred with (and extorted from) before?
Also, I want to interject a related matter, the one of succession. There had been a few rumors floating around that Obama, or others on his behalf, would try to find ways to remove a two-term limit. I think that’s over-the-top, frankly, and besides, there is another way to “run for two more terms:” run Michelle Obama in 2016. The assumption is that the Obamas survive politically that long. Far-fetched? Remains to be seen.
In any other administration this would be the source of an outrage, in the current one it is just another sorry example of the arrogance and incompetence will will go down as their hallmark. The hubris required to think that this child drop-out is prepared to run anything at all staggers the imagination.
BTW he is 31 years old and hasn’t finished law-school? This does not bose well at all.
Say what you want, but I’m reflexively suspicious of any male who devotes his time to campaigning for a carnivore, alpha-female like Hillary.
Testosterone level check, anyone?
OT #10 Doug:
Isnt all this on the eastern side of the island where the tsunami came in? Is it possible that alReuters, AFP et al were told it was war devastation and since that met the narrative….
Back on the subject: I dont think the survival of Detroit is all that important to Him. Its the UAW that must survive. Instapundit found this: Union officer pension plans remain flush as rank-and-file retirement plans deteriorate Perhaps this is the part thats important so they can organize the Japanese, Koreans, and Germans.
Cronyism, in and of itself, is not really my problem. However, the most successful people learned early that there is nothing wrong with the act of developing a cadre of cronies, because it is necessary, but WHO you pick to be your cronies.
I don’t like the phrase ‘cadre of cronies’ as much as like ‘posse’. The hero in the classic Western, after all, had his posse, but they were the best shots, the most trusted, the hardest working… you get the point. Right now we have the local accountant/lawyer leading a posse of French aristocrats.
We have the Zelig President leading a posse of Chicago aristocrats, if I may.
“Chicago aristocrat” is a good example of an oxymoron– like “honest lawyer” and “objective journalist.”
Anton:
re:
“This does not bose well at all.”
—
It does sound ominous, otoh, the sound is clear.
heck it’s room-filling. Once you hear it, nothing else sounds quite the same.
I like bofe words, bose and bode.
I think the right term for these sorts of people is “commissar”, in both intent and meaning.
Commissar Brian Deese is not to be held particularly accountable for the survival or prosperity of GM; there is still more money available from the Treasury to prop it up until the 2012 elections are over.
But it all has to be done with the right political orthodoxy, with respect to the Obama Administration’s relations with all the factional interest groups that got him elected. That’s why the Bright Young Mr. Deese has the job, because he can be trusted to apply the proper political orthodoxy to his task.
In short, the idea of meritocracy, whatever shortcomings can be cited from previous presidential administrations, is completely inverted for the Obama Administration. The whole idea is to conform to a political ideology, regardless of success or failure. Success and failure are intellectual constructs of the Western white-man power structure, and hence non-sequiturs in the bright new age of Obama politics.
Hence Biden as VP. A gaffe-prone puppet, token Old White Male (OWM) in office; for the laughs.
Chu at DOE. Credentialed regarding AGW.
Sotomayor as Scotus designate. Wise Latina!
Hillary! as SoS. Three out of four of our last SoS’s were women; how’s that working out?
Gates remains at DoD until that part of the government is designated to join in the Obama ideology universe, where the new political orthodoxy trumps reality.
Defeat is victory. Failure is success. Disarmnament is security. You get the idea??
It’s eerie how much this era is actually starting to resemble “Atlas Shrugged”.
And it’s Orwellian how the news media reports it all.
Wretchard: it is very much like the French system. France is run by the “enarques”, so-called because they have graduated from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), who are most of the cabinet officers, prefects of the departments, and top management of public companies. It is a frightening thought.
Caller into Rush today said; “When 0 gets his national healthcare all of the bailout money we sent to the UAW to prop up their legacy costs will be a windfall to them.”
Imagine that! Talk about wealth redistribution.
FM/34; -The French system even has a word: “dirigisme” –considered a rightist system, at least under de Gaulle, when the word flourished.
JFS/35; -Then, if the current union boss parking lots are any clue, they’ll go buy new Mercedes, Toyotas, Hondas, and Nissans.
“Which leads you to wonder, does President Obama actually want Detroit to survive?”
Dauphin, no. Beria, yes.
“When I think of “Dauphin”, I think of the infamous Renault of the same name, generously a piece of junk compared to its VW competition.”
so, we can see which regime you would side (Roosvelt too) LMAO
In the US, too comme nous, a prime is offered for getting rid of the old cars “prime à la casse” http://tinyurl.com/muxqrp
Mark @7: an assumption that smart young people can do anything.
This is all in keeping with current modes in education. Forget facts — they are such fascistic, constraining things. Instead, we teach the little rug rats “how to think.”
Of course, since the teachers provide nothing for them to think about, the effort is wasted. It’s like turning on a dim light in an endless, pitch-black cave. You still can’t see more than two feet ahead of you. Yet we’ve convinced not only the education establishment that facts are useless, but a vast portion of the public feels the same way.
Hence, the emergence of the fact-free man. Much like Obama himself. Glib, able to glad-hand and spin, and great at reading from a script. But his knowledge even of academic theory is an inch deep — all buzzwords and Leftist tropes (note Obama’s relentless movement toward “the other,” that trope de tutti tropes in academe). Forget about knowledge of anything concrete and substantive. It would be hilarious to give Obama one of those general knowledge teacher tests, those idiot exams that any eighth grader fifty years ago could have gotten a 100% on with his eyes closed.
I bet Obama couldn’t even pass it.
Anton & Doug,
This administration would give a set of sub cabinet posts to two guys named Bang & Olufsen, just to be cool.
E. Nigma,
4 out of 4 Secretaries of State. I’ll argue that Powell turned into an old woman.
LotM
Yeah, that thought crossed my mind when I first wrote that.
On a slightly different subject, Greg Mankiv is reporting that the new Cap and Trade bill will demand 30% greater energy efficiency in new buildings by 2012 and 50% by 2016.
Simply can’t be done on efficiency alone. We have already wrung out well over 90% of the efficiency out of new buildings in places like California . They might as well have asked for a 98% increase. The only way to comply would be for a new building to produce a significant amount of energy.
Oh well, just another Bama fantasy to bear.
Deficits? Hah. It’s official, Obama has almost nothing to do with it. It’s true, I just read it on the internet.
Read this if you want to experience some whiz-bang spin doctoring, courtesy of the New York Times.
http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/107173/us-sea-perilous-red-ink-years-making
Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies [doh! Bush's fault!]… About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.
A measly three percent to remake the world! Cheap at the price.
And then there’s this little gem.
Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, don’t cost the government any money.
Hell, they don’t cost anyone any money. It’s Obamagical!
God i wish Rupert Murdoch would buy the NYTimes –those people over there are gonna ruin us. If they haven’t already.
Wretchard linked to an article in another thread questioning Obama’s sanity. I don’t know that he is nuts, any more than Cassius Clay was, or any less either. But this article
http://www.esquire.com/features/obama-crazy-0709
Misses a huge element of president Obama’s MO.
For all the talk about big government, the decisions are made within a very small circle. there is no way to work the devils out in the details, just the broad and grandiose scheme. And even these are left in unseasoned hands to outline. Pity the government workers who must make the plans function within the framework of the law.
Unsk,
Much like requiring Californina standards for cars nationwide, today’s cars being so clean that the cost/benefit just is not there to demand they wring out those last few molecules of hydrocarbon.
But, hey, it’s all about control w/BHO, so why not?
In the New World Order, doug, life itself is a scandal.
…unless of course one is some sort of insect or lizard, or a philosopher & connoisseur of rank dumbass.