Speaking at Bloomberg Washington Summit Friday, Steven Rattner, the former head of the government's auto task force, wasn't exactly in the mood for pulling punches.
Referring to his time overseeing the government involvement in the auto industry, he said that "They were some of the worst-run companies I've ever seen in my life," and said there was plenty of blame to go around, including unions and the companies' executives.
He also blasted executive pay czar Kenneth Feinberg for imposing pay restrictions that may harm the industry's ability to attract the competent people it needs to execute a turnaround: "To jeopardize the return on that investment over whether, I don't mean to sound cavalier, but over whether some CEO has a $500,000 base salary or a $750,000 base salary strikes me as very short-sighted," he said.
Of course that seems blatantly office, but because of political pressure, it's unlikely that anything will come of it -- and that means General Motors (GRM) will be stuck with the same people that drove it into this ditch.
And therein lies the problem with the government oversight of the taxpayers' investment in the auto industry. Instead of being motivated by a cool-headed desire to maximize value, it's headline-driven and short-sighted. And that may well doom our investment in the U.S. auto industry.
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