The GM Executioner Wore Abercrombie

Who is Brian Deese?

You’re going to love this one. He’s the latest heartthrob out of the Obama administration who’s been called up to run the GM bailout/ bankruptcy/ clusterf&ck. And he’s, like, 31 years old.

From the New York Times:

A bit laconic and looking every bit the just-out-of-graduate-school student adjusting to life in the West Wing — “he’s got this beard that appears and disappears,” says Steven Rattner, one of the leaders of President Obama’s automotive task force — Mr. Deese was thrown into the auto industry’s maelstrom as soon the election-night parties ended.

OMG, he has a little scruffy beard… adorable!

So Deese, who has clearly worked hard to get to his position, now finds himself at the center of the General Motors dismantling process. He’s been on Obama’s “Auto Taskforce” aka Mission Completely Impossible since last November.

It seems that Deese was one of the most important voices behind allowing Fiat to take over Chrysler, as opposed to just allowing it to liquidate:

Mr. Deese was not the only one favoring the Fiat deal, but his lengthy memorandum on how liquidation would increase Medicaid costs, unemployment insurance and municipal bankruptcies ended the debate.

So where did this kid grown-up come from?

Mr. Deese’s role is unusual for someone who is neither a formally trained economist nor a business school graduate, and who never spent much time flipping through the endless studies about the future of the American and Japanese auto industries.

Deese paid his dues working under Gene Sperling for the Clinton White House, then became the top economic staffer for Hillary’s campaign. When she conceded, Deese signed on to the Obama cause.

Good luck, Brian Deese… the taxpayers and auto industry totally got your back, dog.

Full Story: The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling GM (NYT)

Comments

[Car Guy 1999:]

His experience level fits in perfectly with the rest of the auto task force. No automotive experience between any of them!

Jun 01 12:15 PM

[Bot:]

Every bankruptcy, every unwinding should have as one of its primary goals the creation of jobs that are: A. value adding (labor contributes to value) and B. not on the government payroll. Under our current paradigm someone has to pay taxes and that is left to two classes of people. 1. those that add value through labor (manufacturing, construction, etc). 2. those that add no value but recycle money back into the economy (bankers, lawyers, government .. other service employees).

With 45% of US GDP coming from government and supposedly over 40% of corporate profits coming from banking it is getting hard to conceive of our capitalistic representative democracy model being sustainable unless we revert our path and change some fundamental economic realities that we have reintroduced over the past 20 years.

Jun 01 12:23 PM

[TraderMark:]

Scary

Jun 01 01:11 PM

[Whippet:]

They wouldn't have even casted this guy in the West Wing- no viewer would believe it. Just another Leisure-Suit-Larry Summers pet poodle. Absolutely terrifying stuff.

Jun 01 01:28 PM

[Mad Hedge F...:]

Let the ax fall. I'll tell you what GM's problem is. My dad was a lifetime GM customer, religiously buying a new Oldsmobile every five years. Once he even flew to Detroit for a factory tour and drove his new prize home. Thirty years ago I told him he was doing GM no favors by buying their cars, and the only way to force them to improve a tragically deteriorating product was to buy better made German and Japanese vehicles. This was right after the State of California forced auto makers to install seatbelts on new cars. Airbags and ABS brake systems were still years away. His response, "I didn't fight the Japanese for four years so I could buy their cars." (He was a Marine). GM's problem is that my Dad passed away seven years ago. Of the original 17 million WWII veterans, 1,500 a day are dying, and there are only 1.5 million left. All of them loved Detroit because it built great Jeeps, Sherman tanks, and half tracks that brought them home from harm's way. Their kids prefer German, Japanese, Italian, Korean, and soon, Chinese and Indian vehicles. It is no coincidence that GM's problems really accelerated with the passing of the "greatest generation." During the last 35 years, when Japan's share of the US car market climbed from 1% to 40%, I begged GM to mend their ways and build a quality, price competitive product that Americans wanted to buy. They answer was always the same: "Nobody can tell GM how to build cars." Maybe someone should tell them.

Jun 01 01:44 PM

[Hot Richard:]

Was it Harold or Kumar that joined Obama's team (I believe he's heading up International Nuclear Security and White Castle Sliders Agency)?

Jun 01 04:53 PM

[HardwoodFlo...:]

It really is like a bunch of kids there in Washington- this guys just the personification of it. It's a program a day (talk about ADD) and a bunch of knee jerk reactions. If this wasn't so scary it would be hilarious. 31 and calling the shots with $50 billion of your money behind him. When has anything run by the government not been a total cock-up?

What a disaster...

Jun 01 06:11 PM

[casey00001:]

On the job training just like Barry O.

Jun 02 01:16 AM

[Ridecool:]

I reeally appreciate all the BS about Mr. Deese>
It would be interesting to know family/business relations to the Obama/Biden dynasty.

Jun 02 09:11 PM