Car Czar - Steve Rattner [resigned 13 Jul 2009] - Ron Bloom

Car Czar - Steve Rattner [resigned] - Ron Bloom

Title: Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury

Ron Bloom:

NOTE: on July 13, 2009, Bloom took over as head of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, replacing Steven Rattner

Salary: unknown

Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council head Larry Summers

Appointed: July 2009

Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury

• A leader of the White House task force overseeing auto company bailouts; worked on restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler LLC.

• Was special assistant to president of the United Steelworkers union from 1996-Feb 2009

• Has negotiated restructuring deals for more than 50 companies, getting major concessions from unions and companies.

• Was raised in New York in a pro-union family, which included a schoolteacher mother and unionized relatives.

• After working for the [SEIU] Service Employees International Union, got an MBA from Harvard University because he thought unions lacked business smarts, he said in a 1996 interview in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

• From 1985 to 1990, he worked as an investment banker with Lazard Freres & Co., which specializes in mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring, before co-founding the investment-banking firm Keilin and Bloom.

(SOURCE: List of Obama Czars by Glenn Beck
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Auto Union worker.
Anti business & anti nuclear.
Has worked hard to force US auto makers out of business.
Sits on the Board of Chrysler which is now Auto Union owned.

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Steve Rattner - [resigned 13 Jul 2009]

Steve Rattner is the most troubled of Obama's many picks thanks to a burgeoning kickbacks scandal. A former New York Times journalist and investment banker, he was picked by Obama to oversee the government's efforts to rescue America's flailing car companies.

Rattner was reportedly behind the White House's recent decision to demand GM's Rick Wagoner resign as CEO, signaling a hard line against simple handouts for the auto industry. Earlier this month, it came to light that the SEC and New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo are both investigating a case in which officials in the New York state comptroller's officer allegedly accepted millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for investing in various funds, one of which was an affiliate of Quadrangle, a firm Rattner co-founded. Rattner, however, hasn't been targeted in the investigation and Obama says the White House was aware of the investigation before they hired him. As columnist Michael Kinsley writes in the Washington Post: "Before we decide whether to hang him or chop off his head, I think we can all agree that [Rattner] is totally innocent." Kinsley argues that "Somewhere there's a line where legal bribery turns into illegal bribery"--a line that Rattner didn't cross.

SOURCE: Get To Know Your Czars - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-21/get-to-know-obamas-czars/

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