Courtesy Jeff Koopersmith.

February 16, 2009 – Geneva (apj.us) – President Obama has decided to chuck his idea of appointing a Car Czar. Instead he’s chosen Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner and the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers who, between them, know absolutely nothing about cars, to supervise the $17 plus billion General Motors and Chrysler already have in “loan” agreements.

It is yet to be learned how the two major automakers plan to pay America back.  The President is on pins and needles waiting to decide whether the automakers are “viable”.  We think they are – in Russia. 

That’s why we urge the White House to keep the “Czar” in Car Czar(s).

President Obama, who is now forced to drive around in a General Motors limo, most likely already knows that GM and Chrysler are “goners”.   He is said to be thinking of putting the two mega-companies in some sort of Bankruptcy Hospice or Managed Liquidation Care sooner than later.

Yet perhaps the President is right.  Why appoint a single Car Czar when there are two companies to conduct into oblivion?

Dave Axelrod, our favorite White House insider told someone on Meet the Press –
“We’re going to need a restructuring of these companies”.

In straight talk this means the workers, the unions, the stockholders, and you and me are going to have to bite the American bullet.

Geithner and Summers have already flipped this heavy burden to “agency officials” from Treasury, Labor, Transportation, Commerce, and Energy.  This will make a fine auto salad.

Both General Motors which is thinking of changing its name to Sergeant or Corporal Motors and Chrysler who was once thinking about changing it’s name to Mercedes Benz are also lining up to borrow a few more billion dollars from the taxpayers.  After all – it has not been a good year for car sales.

Why not?  A few billion here, a few billion there, what’s the difference?  We think it’s important – just from a historical point of view to keep our men and women in Detroit and elsewhere on the job preserving American’s love affair with the automobile.

GM claims to have a secret plan to make it viable, and it can’t wait to share it with the new Presidential Task Force on Autos according to insiders.

Chrysler, so far, isn’t even pretending it has such a plan.  I would recommend JEEP as a starting point, and perhaps a re-purchase of Studebaker.

Ford Motor Company, my personal favorite, has its lips sealed.  I might guess it is salivating like a male Rottweiler in a room filled with dogs in heat.  Just think, with GM and Chrysler gone – and a “Buy American” program slipped between the lines of some pork barrel legislation – Ford will be able to bring back the Model T – running on batteries.

Our friends at the United Auto Workers are taking no baloney from Detroit.  They have already walked out on talks more than once and as the Big Three’s largest creditor-in-fact, we hope they do not abandon their pensioners and young people who are loyal to the union and to the automobile.

GM and Chrysler have raucously revealed at least part of their “viability” plans.  They are offering all hundred thousand of their employees “early retirement” with “buyouts”.  The employees are wondering where they will get the money to “buy them out” and so we.

Both giants – just to get the loonies on Wall Street excited - plan to cut hourly rates for autoworkers by as much or more than 50%.  Of course, that is incomprehensively reasonable - it surely must have been the guys and gals on the line who forced these manufacturers to design cars that nobody wants except for your 87 year old neighbor lady who still drives a Chrysler Imperial with those new power windows.

Believe it or not, Wall Street thinks there are 10 million people in the United States who might just buy these cars. GM and Chrysler think so too, conveniently. 

Then again, they thought they’d sell 17 million last year.

Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.