"It is not our desire to either own or run one of the auto companies," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. It may not be, as if saying so makes it so, but that's the practical effect.
And it has potentially profound implications for industry players -- starting with Ford -- who aren't in the same situation but nevertheless would be forced to manage the repercussions on relations with dealers, suppliers, customers, organized labor and a diverse financial community of lenders, equity investors and bondholders.
"We're trying to understand how we can remain competitive," a Ford source familiar with the internal deliberations told me Tuesday. "It's on everyone's radar screen that the government will be a big owner and will have a big interest in making it successful. It's uncharted waters for us -- again. The government can do just about anything it wants."
For months as GM, Chrysler, the UAW, members of Congress and the Obama administration have careened toward this mind-numbing culmination, I've been asking myself what we're saving by asking the feds to keep big chunks of Detroit Auto on life support.
Already, tens of thousands of jobs have been wiped out. Plants closed. Retirements induced or destroyed. Dealers starved into submission. Suppliers pushed into liquidation. Local and state budgets decimated by the loss of tax revenue. And, now, investors short-changed with a strong arm that would make Tony Soprano proud.
We're saving -- or trying to save -- the political capital of those in power, the outsized obligations of GM and Chrysler to the UAW, and whatever jobs, union and salaried, may be left when this enabled nightmare finally comes to an end.
The Spies wonder if Detroit will lose the monikers, Motown or HockeyTown in favor of Moscow, USA.
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