A Czar, A Czarina, or A Dis-czar-ster?

Now that the jury has mostly come in on the fall-out that was has been called a bail-out of Wall Street, most opinions are that it did too little, too late, or did nothing at all to stave off economic mayhem. We saved the bankers’ salaries and paid for parties for brokers and hedge fund hedge hogs, and the banks that got the money used it to pay off stockholders and invest it to make money elsewhere. Seemingly none of it went out as loans to help anyone who needed it: Republic Door and Window in Chicago is an example of how not to manage money, save jobs and work in the interest of the public good. The employees are sitting in, the company is sitting out, the bank is sitting pat and everyone will not have a Merry Christmas. Obama has said the workers have his support: he should be grabbing B Of A by the throat and making them turn blue. I doubt anyone at that bank will go without a turkey or ham on Dec. 25.

I have lost track of the numbers involved: Faced with a huge public outcry, the congress said no to a $700B deal for Wall Street. The weekend passed and then so did a new bill, for $850B. To date, there has been about $152B (?) spent with no visible effect. There is another story (or group of them) that Paulson and his minions have doled out about $2T (yes, trillion) which is largely unaccounted for. All that seems certain I that the Paulsonites will certainly have jobs after Jan. 20. Somewhere on Wall Street. And today the CEO of Merrill cavalierly asked to receive his $10M bonus, anyway. How did we manage to raise and propagate these idiot totems of industry? This man has inadvertently stuck his head up his own posterior. No mean trick but he is clearly a mean man: why should we be surprised? Tar and feathers would be good, here.

But, while the current Governor of Illinois is whisked off by the feds for selling government congressional seats (hell, he was only fulfilling his traditional role in IL politics), there is the ongoing, low-level blip on the radar screen in Detroit, the Big used-to-be Three and the paltry matter of somewhere between $15 and 34B. This is another public display of bail-out or life-line or bridge loan or congressional pocket change change rattling. I have never seen a story grow up so fast over so little, change as rapidly, get twisted so violently or produce so few results as this one has. Whatever this amount of money eventually turns out to be (if it does at all), it will be, by any reasonable estimate, like pouring a bucket of warm water into an Olympic-sized swimming pool to heat it up. Most believe that whatever forms this measure takes, it will only stave off a manufacturing holocaust for a few months…if that. You might read www.alertnet.org/workplace/111029, if you want to hear more. The biggest and most startling line in that article is that the business of Detroit is “more transparent” than that of Wall Street: “With Wall street, lack of clarity, helped bag the money”.

Enter Uncle Sam and the regulatory watchdogs (just when I thought this could not get worse, it gets worse).

It has been suggested that any bail-out/bridgeloan/lifeline/credit extension bring along with it the appointment of a “Car Czar”. Oh joy.

Before I tell you why I think this idea stinks and what might be an alternative, just let me remind you of two or three other events in our history that have been much ballyhooed and accomplished little or nothing. Several years ago, our sense of societal guilt/philanthropy/elitism led to us to appoint a “Drug Czar”. We could have just said “NO”, but we bought off on the idea anyway. For all of the clamor and cheering, today we have more drugs on the street than ever, more law enforcement time and money engaged in drug traffic fighting than ever and more people incarcerated for petty drug crimes per 100 members of the population (more than any other country in the world) than ever. This has been a spectacular accomplishment, along with winning the war in Viet Nam, eradicating poverty and homelessness in the US, making all educational programs equal in quality and introducing “Intelligent Design” (with saddles on dinosaurs) as a way to interpret science. For all of our “fundamental” beliefs, we are fundamentally screwed up.

Yu might remember that more recently, the Bush administration promoted the position of a “war czar” (how did we get so tied up in Russian history, anyway?). We had so many wars (like the old woman who lived in a shoe), that we didn’t know what to do. The notion was that we should consolidate, oversee and coordinate our comprehensive plans to implant democracy all over the world (in order to lower oil prices and eradicate terrorism). Well, we all know how well that has worked out, as well. My heart is warmed by both little nuggets of American ingenuity in action.

The notion of a “car Czar” is preposterous and laughable from almost any angle. Already today a TV pundit has recommended brain-dead, non-managerial “mental recession” Phil Gramm for the Job. Hell, we might as well appoint “Heckuva Job Brownie”: the next fuel efficient car off of the Detroit assembly line could be called a “Katrina”. It could run on crawfish ettoufee’ and warm beer.

I have no doubt whatsoever than anyone appointed by our government to oversee the American car industry, for a week or a month or a year, would have a snowball’s chance in hell of having any positive impact on this floundering manufacturing beast. They can barely manage themselves and the insertion of government interference will simply exacerbate the nightmare of needed reform and re-structure. Despite his pedigree, Mitt Romney would be a joke; any past auto insider would have no ability to see beyond the way things have always been done; a neophyte or Wharton school guy would have no clue about where to start. The Board would give a new car, an allowance and the keys to the executive dining room, and that would be that.

This is all comes , of course, before you realize that the money will be used to shore up failing pieces of Detroit, scattered and battered around the world and will not save any American jobs? Probably? Anyone who cannot se that boondoggle coming deserves dog food for breakfast.

If we are going to do this (I am on my hands and knees praying as I have seldom ever done that we don’t) maybe we should appoint a “Czarina”, and I don’t mean Fiorina. A woman would understand better how to manage a day-to-day budget. Women probably write more checks to Chrysler Finance, FoMoCo and GMAC than anyone else (they know how much money those clowns get now, much better than anyone else) and they do not believe that monster pick-up trucks with nudie profiles on the rear mudflaps will help the country’s transportation woes. They drive more mini-vans and cross-overs and hate the smell that gasoline leaves on their clothing, and are mostly correct in believing that all big truck drivers are red-necked a**holes who cause accidents, drive drunk and clog the highways. Give the job to a bright, economically minded, stiff—necked woman, throw away the keys to the “privileged” men’s room and clubhouse and the company limo and let ‘er rip. Testicles in the auto industry will shrink up and recede, nation-wide, but some good decisions might be made. (The boards of directors of all three “giants” would have to be replaced with women, too, if this is going to work).

Waggoner should be given a wagon to ride upon, Mulalay should go back to building model airplanes (Bill Ford can be a stay-at-home dad) and that Chrysler guy should go back to moving 2X4’s at Home Depot or be shipped back to Italy (Iacocca is waiting).

Someone just recently said (oh, that was me I the last blog or so) that Chrysler is already on life support and someone should just pull the plug. It was a bad product buy by the investors, like when I by a cheap lawnmower at Wal-Mart, and GM should just do what very red-oil-blooded American entrepreneur does and file for re-organization in bankruptcy court. Somebody in Tokyo will pickup the pieces, and American ingenuity will find something else to do with our tooling and resources. Ford seems to be holding up. Henry may be only rolling half-way over in his grave.

This situation has become ludicrous, in its’ scope and disproportionate media coverage. The pickets have been circling the fences in Detroit for years, holding signs that say, “The end is near”, and until gas went to $4.00 and Dishes on Wall Street ran away with the spoons, nobody noticed that more members of Congress drive Hondas than Chevys.

A car czar is a pending dis-czar-ster. As surely as the polar ice caps are melting and there is no such things as clean coal, Detroit is on the skids. The world is changing. And you can’t freaking drive your big pick-up to the hardware store anymore anyway: there aren’t any left.