I come to Steven Rattner’s Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry from a very particular perspective. As a Michigander whose husband still works in the auto industry and whose town has benefited from battery subsidies, I’m a grateful direct beneficiary of the work the Obama Administration did to save the auto industry. But that also means I read this book, which might have been subtitled, “Wall Street gapes at Detroit” from the perspective, “Detroit gapes back at Wall Street.”

Remember when the right was calling Adolf Hussein Obamastalin’s rescue of the auto industry some sort of Communist plot? Remember all the “Government Motors” jokes? Here’s what today’s WSJ has to say about all that.

Remember this? “In the effort to reverse this lurch beyond the farthest left fringe of previous Democratic statist urges, individual Americans have a role to play. They have to say no to GM products and services until such time as the denationalization occurs,” said Hugh Hewitt.

The House Rules Committee released a very tight rule, with basically no amendments, for the regulatory reform effort being headed up by Barney Frank. This did not please members of the New Democrats, who are notoriously friendly with banking lobbyists. So they threatened to vote against the rule. This is from Congress Daily (sub. reqd.): [...]

In short, even after the auto task force pulled off what I consider a least worst solution, I’m not convinced Rattner, at least, fully understands the market.

Geoffrey Gwin runs a Vulture Capital Fund, buying debt on the cheap and trying to profit when the company fails or recapitalizes. He hates it, but his duty is to drive Chrysler into bankruptcy, screw the workers and the retirees. After all, that’s what Delta did to his dad.

Conservative ideologues looking to punish workers and the American middle class for auto industry failures are driven by an authoritarian worldview George Lakoff calls the strict parent model.