The 31-year-old in charge of dismantling General Motors

June 2, 2009 9:24 PM

"There was a time between 4 November and mid-February when I was the only full-time member of the auto task force,” Deese, a special assistant to the president for economic policy, acknowledged recently as he hurried between his desk at the White House and the treasury building next door. “It was a little scary.”

Finish his law degree? No, Brian Deese has G.M. to dismantle.

He was also part of the transition team (video).

posted by 445supermag (26 comments total)

If there's anything Detroit needs to make a fresh start, it's young blood.

I've seen Christine.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:28 PM on June 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

To the victor go the spoils.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:38 PM on June 2, 2009

He's the same age as me. That doesn't make me feel like I'm wasting my life at all, oh no.
posted by lunasol at 9:53 PM on June 2, 2009

As a self-confessed "Obamabot" this Deese thing gives me the willies, and not in a good way.

This is either what meritocracy or Inner Party cronyism looks like, and I'll be damned if I had to pick which at this stage.
posted by @troy at 10:53 PM on June 2, 2009 [3 favorites]

Yea, I don't feel so great about this. I used to know a couple under-30 people who are now working in the White House. It may be 'cronyism' but it's a funny type. Obama seems to seek out a certain 'Yes We Can' optimistic type. Those people tend to be young and under-experienced (the same could be said of the man himself). They tend to be aware of this, and seek out outside advice.

It's a risky and bold move. It may force old jaded establishment types to work towards different goals. However, I think its more likely that the administration Hope and Change Baptists may be getting their advice from Bootleggers.
posted by FuManchu at 11:19 PM on June 2, 2009

Seconding the willies. I'm pretty much speechless at this.
posted by Jeff_Larson at 1:26 AM on June 3, 2009

This kind of thing already led to a serious incident with Germany. The Germans were livid that the guy sent by the US Treasury to negotiate the spinning-off of GM Europe (over 50000 employees, and far more jobs among their suppliers) was a very low-level consultant, with no power of attorney. On the German side, half the cabinet, including Chancellor Merkel, took part in the negotiations.

At the end, Oba-man himself had to save the day.
posted by Skeptic at 2:33 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

My first thought was of the 30something ideologues Bush sent to Baghdad.
posted by nax at 4:53 AM on June 3, 2009

Have we really reached the point where someone in his 30s is considered helplessly young?
posted by sevenyearlurk at 4:58 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

They tend to be aware of this, and seek out outside advice.

On one hand, I'm thankful they're humble enough to recognize their own deficiencies and seek outside consultation with, say, professionals.

On the other hand, I'm weary that the people they wind up getting this advice from are the same old vision-lacking farts that got us into this mess to begin with.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:59 AM on June 3, 2009

I have a lot of beefs with Obama... pause while you come to terms with your astonishment... but one thing I'd never accuse him of is not knowing how to staff. The man did build the most effective campaign machine in several decades, after all.

So in light of my more profound disagreements with his Presidency - not to mention how fucked up GM is already - I'm comfortable sitting back and letting the kid show what he's got.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:40 AM on June 3, 2009 [2 favorites]

this Deese thing gives me the willies
Seconding the willies. I'm pretty much speechless at this.
My first thought was of the 30something ideologues Bush sent to Baghdad.


Jesus Christ died at 33, for fuck's sake. I'm not particularly religious or trying to make a direct comparison, but the idea that a 31-year-old might be competent, intelligent, and motivated doesn't seem to be that cripplingly bizarre.

Yes, I'm older than him, and yes, that also makes me feel a bit inadequate, but I'm not trying to make myself feel better by saying "oh he's obviously not up to the task and it makes me nervous."

Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Ghandi, even freakin' Stan Lee -- people have built empires and led countries at around this guy's age. I'm willing to see what he's got going on before dismissing him solely on how many times he's been around the sun.
posted by Shepherd at 6:15 AM on June 3, 2009

(fact-checking, I may have been overreaching with Ghandi, but you see my point.)
posted by Shepherd at 6:17 AM on June 3, 2009

So in light of my more profound disagreements with his Presidency - not to mention how fucked up GM is already - I'm comfortable sitting back and letting the kid show what he's got.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:40 AM on June 3

The kid is not running GM, despite how this article reads. The person running GM is Henderson, the former head of GM Europe. And the dismantling of GM is following a years old plan to restructure the company that start with shutter Oldsmobile in 2000-2001. But that plan did not include letting unions own the company.

What this "kid" is responsible for is ensuring that GM is saddled with union troubles far into the distant future. With its union (and government) ownership, GM will never have the labor flexibility that Honda or Toyota enjoy in the US. It means they can't engage labor in innovative contracts, and it means the government will second guess every major decision they make. It has been known for years that GM's problem is it's pension obligations and union contracts that prevent it from being able to manufacture cars that compete against US built Hondas and Toyotas, and that also limited the extent to which GM could import into the US that cars it builds in Europe.

What this is is a test case. Let's see how well a government & labor owned auto company can compete in the market against a scared-straight Ford and an empowered Honda and Toyota. Let's see how they handle Chinese imports that are coming in 5 years. Let's see how they innovate, and more importantly, how they adapt to rapidly changing market conditions.

It's not his age that concerns me, it's that he has no economics, industry, or business background whatsoever - not so much as a lemonade stand - and the spin on it is that not only do those things not matter, it's actually good that he doesn't have them. It's a bizarre form of anti-intellectualism that has also showed up in their handling of the economy, and it caught me completely by surprise. This isn't the Democratic party, it's the Technocratic party.
posted by Pastabagel at 6:38 AM on June 3, 2009 [6 favorites]

Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Ghandi, even freakin' Stan Lee -- people have built empires and led countries at around this guy's age. I'm willing to see what he's got going on before dismissing him solely on how many times he's been around the sun.

I don't think that's really the concern. It's more the absolutely-zero-real-world-experience aspect which is the problem. Alexander was leading armies at 16. Napoleon served in artillery. This guy wrote a wonky memo that gave a reasoning to the decision the administration had already made.

At his age, there are hundreds of elite ex-consultants who have worked on issues similar to this. At his age, there are hundreds of cutthroat ex-bankers who understand the economics and would be hell to negotiate against. Maybe the administration hired some of those guys as well, and they're just not getting any coverage. But instead it looks like they were desperate for headcount, and hired the friends of campaign volunteers.

On preview, what Pastabagel said.
posted by FuManchu at 6:52 AM on June 3, 2009

Have we really reached the point where someone in his 30s is considered helplessly young?

Jesus Christ died at 33, for fuck's sake. I'm not particularly religious or trying to make a direct comparison, but the idea that a 31-year-old might be competent, intelligent, and motivated doesn't seem to be that cripplingly bizarre.

If only intelligence and motivation was all you needed to be effective.
posted by anniecat at 7:30 AM on June 3, 2009

As for Jesus, remember that he only got his position because of his father.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:34 AM on June 3, 2009 [11 favorites]

My first thought was of the 30something ideologues Bush sent to Baghdad.

It's not a problem that we sent 30something year olds to Baghdad. It's that they were vetted for conforming with GOP worldviews, not for competence in diplomacy.

If it turns out that a 13 year old has the ability to manage this crisis, I have no problems appointing that teenager to the job. I do have a problem if the slection criteria for this office is based on video game and pop consumption, rather than "ability to deal with a major industry in failure."
posted by eriko at 7:44 AM on June 3, 2009

Listening to the "hundreds of cutthroat ex-bankers" is what got us into this mess.
posted by vibrotronica at 8:57 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

As Calvin said to Hobbes after selling the earth for fifty alien leaves, it's not like the grown-ups have been doing such a bang-up job of it.
posted by enn at 9:18 AM on June 3, 2009

It means they can't engage labor in innovative contracts

I'll admit I've never before heard anyone call stripping benefits an "innovation", not even on WSJ. We truly live in a wonderous, triplegolden age of doublespeak.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:24 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Ghandi, even freakin' Stan Lee -- people have built empires and led countries at around this guy's age.

stan lee aside, 20 years later, those empires were falling apart

but what bugs me isn't the guy's age or experience - it's that he was the only full time person working on this for a good long time

what that says to me is that gm's just not that important to the obama administration - there's a certain casual "oh, we'll let so and so take care of it and not worry about it" attitude i find disturbing
posted by pyramid termite at 10:11 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Christ, you people can't be pleased. If the guy was older, he would almost certainly have ties to the Clinton administration and/or to private industry, which would also taint him. Or his knowledge would be out of date. Or something else.
posted by clockworkjoe at 11:47 AM on June 3, 2009

If the guy was older, he would almost certainly have ties to the Clinton administration and/or to private industry, which would also taint him.

I don't care if they pick someone "tainted" by real, actual experience.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:35 PM on June 3, 2009

'As goes GM, so goes the nation.'

"their plans to revive themselves did not address the erosion of their revenues."

Sounds *just* like what Bernanke just told Congress. And it's going to be hard to tax people who aren't being paid. So: where's the jobs program?
posted by Twang at 11:36 PM on June 3, 2009

Like a fish, GM apparently rotted from the head, down -- from the front page of the June 6, 2009 WaPo -- a profile of deposed GM head, Jim Lutz:

"Some people don't care for those kinds of descriptions today -- it's a different time," says Lutz, who drives a gas-thirsty 2009 Corvette, a dream car of muscle lovers. "But we have new vehicles, too. We have the Volt. We are committed to the electrification of the automobile. We know this is the time."

6 months after $4/g. gas and on the cusp of bankruptcy and this is the best he can do.
posted by vhsiv at 11:17 AM on June 7, 2009