Car industry in crisis To hear it from the US administration, it was pulled kicking and screaming into becoming the majority owner of General Motors. Denying plans for European-style industrial policy, the government promises to unwind its involvement as soon as possible, and to stay out of day-to-day management. It is the right road to take. It is also easier said than done.
GM’s and Chrysler’s state of chronic disease would have posed a dilemma to any American leader. On the one hand, US government involvement in private business provokes denunciations from the apostles of the free market. On the other, no buffer of political capital would have been able to withstand an uncontrolled GM collapse, with all its collateral damage.
