We Have Nothing To Lose But Our Tire Chains... Or Something

For years, people who watch the car industry, especially the American makers, wondered aloud how long Rick Wagoner would remain CEO of General Motors, given that by almost any measure - especially basic ones like "share price" and "profit margin", GM failed to deliver, repeatedly; and had been struggling, for years, to adjust to new market realities. When I used to work for one of GM's marketing agencies, I asked one of our key strategists (who advised them on ways to grow and change their business) what the issue for GM was and he said (this was about 4 years ago), basically, what's been said a lot this week - that GM needs to make significant changes in management and offerings... but is too big and slow to basically know how to go about it.

I think of all of that while watching the - largely humorous - howls on the right that Barack Obama was somehow shockingly overly invasive by asking Wagoner to step down as a condition of any future GM bailout. GM has needed a management upheaval for years; ousting Wagoner now, probably, is more "too little too late" than "grand socialist scheming." As David Brooks quite sagely points out, GM has been "restructuring" for decades... with almost nothing to show for it (except, really killing Oldsmobile... the one car line of theirs I always liked - my childhood was marked by a very grand Delta 88).

Mostly, though, anger over the "auto intervention" was pretty much this past week's rage-o-matic; it was amazing how quickly "those evil banks" devolved into some mix "those evil unions/evil car executives/evil government interventionists" in some collective anger breakdown of right and left. And already, we're leaping past that to our new anger phase... where the G-20 meeting has people blaming Europe... or Obama. Again.

Focus, people, focus... until we figure out what to be mad at... I think we've got the same old rage, with no real answers.

I'm generally more struck by the rage on the right, because the backpedaling and point-changing - all in service of finding a new way to blame everything on Obama - just adds to the general sense of GOP failure these days. Fine, be opposed to massive interventions... but if Obama says "we won't bail you out," how is that intervening? And really... what would you have us do instead?  It's not just that conservatives have no alternatives to Geithner's asset auctions, or another proposal about the carmakers... it's that the absence of proposals, and the presence of simply undiluted rage makes their impotence so glaringly clear: Barack Obama is winning these debates because no one, really, has another idea. I know I'd welcome hearing one; and I bet a lot of others would as well.

That's one of the mistakes, I think, of this angry moment: it's easy to mistake outrage and "hell no" for a position, when they aren't really. A real set of alternatives, a real "let's do this stuff differently" set of options... and no question, the right would have something formidable. But instead they have anger and tea parties, and the usual sarcasm (and now, Glenn Beck, trying to out-Rush El Rushbo. The mind reels). That's not a plan, and as I keep saying... that's not a conservative policy you've got there, no matter how much you insist that it is.

Still, gloating or teasing isn't an answer either; reactions on the left to the auto news, or to the bank crisis are really just as incoherent, just as unable to counter the poorer aspects of Obama's policy decisions. The discussion of objections to Geithner's plan has devolved into "pick your favorite lefty economist"... or "I hate banking fat cats! I hate them! Bleeargh!" The Auto Bailout's biggest problem - giving the companies more time to prove they've failed - got pushed aside in hashing over Wagoner and in Chrysler's case, the merits of a weak plan to merge somehow with Fiat. And as we watch the G20, we obssess over dresses and curtsies, and ignore the debatable plan, at best, to flood the IMF and World Bank with one trillion dollars to lend to smaller countries... as if more lending solves anything, these days. (And PS - who has one trillion dollars? Not us. Not even $500 billion to spare, really.)

Whether it's tea parties, or protests in London, or Glenn Beck's histrionics, the hallmark of protests at this moment is a heyday of the kind of protesting I remember in college - it's entertaining, and the chants are bracing... but all of this energy will go nowhere unless someone, quick, comes up with actual policy alternatives that make sense. We're all angry, about so many things... we can hardly keep track of all the things to be pissed about. The cries get louder, the chants more shrill, the impotence behind the rage all the more pronounced. And call me crazy... but an angry mob, feeling they're not being heard, looking for a way to show their rage... well, "powder keg" and "match" come to mind... metaphorically, anyway. I'd like to keep away from the explosion... and I think it might help us to defuse the anger bomb waiting to happen. But hey... it's just a suggestion. Vive la revolucion!

Comments

[jinb]

so...we're supposed to be angry at the car folks but not the bankers?

It's the imbalance that grates.

[weboy]

I don't know what we're supposed to be angry about... I've lost track.