Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Maybe a "car czar" would be less silly

Obama says he's not going to have a single "car czar," but that Tim Geithner and Larry Summers will take the lead and he'll make the final decisions -- and bureaucrats from other departments will be involved. Great! In today's Register editorial I quoted Don Boudreaux, chairman of the econ department at George Mason U. in Virginia, who put it rather succinctly:

"All are very smart men, but Mr. Geithner is a lobbyist-turned-international-finance-expert-turned-central-banker, Dr. Summers is an academic economist, and Mr. Obama is a lawyer-turned-politician. None of them, as far as the public record shows, has any experience running private, for-profit firms; none has worked in the auto industry; and none (unless you count a lobbying firm as a private enterprise) seems ever to have worked in the private, for-profit sector. The rule of experts would be troubling enough, but here we have the rule of non-experts."

I highly recommend Cafe Hayek, where Don, Russell Roberts, Tyler Cowen and other mostly GMU economists blog regularly. Very lively.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are looking for car finance then go to http://www.rainbowgrp.co.uk

Anonymous said...

From:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aNpLdwT2Frs4&refer=news

“There needs to be a trail boss here,” said Andrew Gross, chairman and chief executive officer of Automotive Consulting Services LLC in Clackamas, Oregon, in a phone interview today. “Typically when you have a committee set-up it provides cover. Everyone’s responsible, but no one’s accountable.”

Geithner has “got his hands full” trying to rescue the banking industry, Gross said.

______________________________

This would be me.

Regards,

Andy Gross
andy@autoconsult.us