Sunstein writes as if he "knows" Obama, so this may be an important view to understand.

Amberglow's commment.

"Visionary Minimalist"? Just what is that? Sort of status quo? Make no waves and somehow make changes with no ripples or above the surface effects? Huh??

Pretty scary stuff...to me. But maybe I'm just too skeptical....

Would love to see your take on this.

And, again, thnx to Amberglow for finding and posting this.

except for the uberwealthy.

And if Obama wants to increase the sense of economic security--and their actual security--for the vast majority of Americans, he cannot afford to not have universal healthcare. Healthcare is a right, he told us in the last debate. This must be done as part of his initial plans to stimulate the economy.

Do any of his advisers see things this way??? Will a Visionary Minimalist see things this way??

Right now, I'm listening to Gov. Paterson of NY laying out large cuts to school aid and healthcare, due to lack of tax revenues and need to cut budget for coming years. He calls them reductions in scheduled increases, which, as any follower of the Federal budget wars knows, means cuts in actual services due to inflation. Same dollar amounts, higher costs equals lower services.

Paterson will not raise taxes. Will cut aid to localities, including NYC.

Guess Dems can play the Repub budget game when it's their time to make cuts. Paterson has good standing with the public and could have been fully frank about the cuts, imho. Alas.

But, point being: states, municipalities, counties are all going to be cutting severely in the near and perhaps ongoing future. Healthcare is going to suffer. Previous cuts in NYC were to low income children's healthcare facilities, medical and dental.

Hard times.

The best aid to the auto industry, any industry, all small businesses, all levels of governments would be UHC.

What does Obama think and what will he do? Guessing game time.

an article in the Ann Arbor News about John Dingell battling Henry Waxman for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, a position Dingell held from 1981-95 and again since 2006.

Dingell, a staunch supporter of Detroit's automakers, has long squabbled with Waxman over tougher fuel-economy standards and anti-pollution standards for the auto industry. Waxman is the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I was never confident in Dingell's ability to bring about real improvements in the auto industry - he's too close to the offenders. Of course there's also this little relationship:

Dingell, 82, is the longest-serving member of the U.S. House. His wife, Debbie, is an executive with General Motors Corp.

I think a change in leadership is definitely in order.

Is there a difference?

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

I and my staff throw a ton or so of stuff in the back of my F250's, and an old GMC 2500, several times a day. My campground also uses some Rangers for smaller jobs. The Ford F150 is the best selling truck for a reason. Toyota makes good trucks, but so does Ford, and GM used to. Let's not lose sight of that. Whatever Ford's problems, truck design isn't its cause. GM's problems in this regard are fixable.

The source of Detroit's difficulty is easier to identify when one recognizes that our manufacturing firms are losing most global competitions. Auto manufacturing is simply the biggest and most visible of the problem sectors. The fact that there is a widespread, strikingly similar disfunction suggests that the fundamental issues do not lie in any particular company. This is not to say that individual differences don't matter, clearly they do. How many bailouts has Chrysler had already? Any restructuring must be individually tailored. However, the big picture is that Toyota, Honda, etc. are successful in the same climate where GM, Chrysler, and Ford are failing. What are the differences in corporate culture and their business environments that make it so. Attention must be paid to US industrial policies (including labor policies). Health care burdens are crushing the Big Three. I suspect that the biggest problem goes back to the US financial sector, which ties all these American companies together. Like throwing $85,000,000,000 at AIG without addressing the underlying corporate reasons for its failure, throwing $25,000,000,000 at the Big Three just postpones the day of reckoning.

We need to decide what parts of the Chrysler, GM, and Ford we need to preserve, and what the eventual structure of these firms should be. Throwing a life preserver to those is in our interest. Then, a broad policy debate needs to take place on what we want to do with our tax policies, labor policies, health care system, etc. We must not miss the opportunity this crisis presents and we must not squander the resources we have left preserving arrangements and institutions whose time has past. Most especially, when this is done, there better not be any of these corporate structures left which are too big to fail - who can say "stick-em up" again.

Obama's ground game was rightly lauded before 11/4. Let's see if his team can lay out a strategy and mobilize even a fraction of that enthusiasm for actual governance before 1/20.

I've tried to stay out of the talk about this because I have family that work for each of the Big Three, and for the fact that if either one of them fails, and it's distantly possible that all three could fail, Michigan would be toast. But, I think Salmo's post addresses the complexity of this, if even I disagree with some of the facts (i.e. every multi-national auto is having a very hard time, right now, and I don't believe Chrysler ever was bailed out rather offered loans that I'm pretty sure have long since been paid back in full).

I know we may hate the product, but in my mind the manufactures are far more important to save than the bankers for the simple fact that when the banking companies go under, most of their workers are educated enough to find other decent jobs. This is not to mention that the auto sector is THE largest sector in American manufacturing. They fail, and not only do the actual auto workers end up crushed, but the parts suppliers, auto dealers, foundry's, etc...I guess what I'm saying is that while NYC may be hurting, right now, the finance workers will largely be fine. The same can not be said if the autos fail. And, I guess it doesn't hurt that growing up in Michigan I've got a soft spot for labor who actually create things, as opposed to the paper-pushing bankers peddling imaginary derivatives and abstract 'investment instruments'.

I'd like to make it clear, though, that if the autos are to be bailed out that they be put through the ringer unlike what was done for the bankers. And, yes, if we had universal health care and the autos were still failing, I'd be much, much less forgiving. I really don't know what to think about all of this, anymore.

Blooomberg:

``A collapse of the American automobile industry would be the worst possible thing that could happen at a time when we are already weakened,'' Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

I agree with Damon on manufacturers before bankers; but, Barney, "whaddaya mean, we?" "We" ought to include homeowners, and the banks' balance sheets (hence everybody's balance sheets) will never be cleaned up until mortgages are brought into line with what people actually can pay. That's also the only way to put a size to the big Shitpile, and until that's done, things will stay frozen.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi