… by enmeshing the White House so deeply into G.M., Obama has increased the odds that March\u2019s menacing threat will lead to June\u2019s wobbly wiggle-out. The Obama administration and the Democratic Party are now completely implicated in the coming G.M. wreck. Over the next few months, the White House will be subject to a gigantic lobbying barrage. The Midwestern delegations, swing states all, will pull out all the stops to prevent plant foreclosures. Unions will be furious if the Obama-run company rips up the union contract. Is the White House ready for the headline \u201cObama to Middle America: Drop Dead\u201d\u009d? It would take a party with a political death wish to see this through.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, there\u2019s no reason to think the umpteenth restructuring will produce compelling results. Cost control without a quality revolution will make little difference. There\u2019s no reason to think Americans are going to flock to G.M. cars. (The president lauded their fantabulousness, but G.M. sales fell 51 percent during the first two months of this year while the overall market declined by 39 percent.) Politically expedient environmental demands will make the odds of profitability even more remote.
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Corporate welfare rarely works when the government invests in rising firms. The odds are really grim when it tries to subsidize fading ones. (In the \u201980s, Chrysler already had the successful K-car in the pipeline.)<\/p>\n
The most likely outcome, sad to say, is some semiserious restructuring plan, with or without court involvement, to be followed by long-term government intervention and backdoor subsidies forever.<\/p>\n