Rome News

President Barack Obama, according to a headline in The New York Times, is "Upbeat for G.M.'s Future."

That seems a bit, well, wacky. But then, this is the same guy who is "upbeat" about the Middle East peace process, according to AFP. So that puts the remark in perspective, I suppose. After all, as Justice-to-be Sonia Sotomayor now knows, context is everything.

Over at Out of Control, the Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia, with some entertaining snippiness followed by good economic analysis of G.M.'s situation: 

"I am confident that the steps I'm announcing will mark the end of the old G.M., and the beginning of a new G.M.," [Obama] said. Great! Then what do, we, the taxpayers, who have just been forced to fork over $50 billion to G.M.—in what is it? loans? stock?—have to worry about? The president is cool with it. And he, after all, has an Ivy League degree, a silver tongue, not to mention a glamorous wife with lovely arms who dotes on him. But even His Awesomeness can't command a drowning man to swim after tying lead weights around his ankles.

The president seems to think that there is nothing that G.M. has that a visit to bankruptcy court won't cure. Amputate its liabilities to bondholders, excise all its promises to unions (no, actually, scratch that one, that didn't quite happen) and, presto, it'll be ready, once again, to kick some foreign ass.

If only!

Read the whole thing, and stay tuned for an upcoming cover package on the GM fiasco in our next print edition.