It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.
But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry.
Nor, for that matter, had he given much thought to what ailed an industry that had been in decline ever since he was born....
Mr. Deese's role is unusual for someone who is neither a formally trained economist nor a business school graduate, and who never spent much time flipping through the endless studies about the future of the American and Japanese auto industries.
It's funny, but just the other day I was telling my wife that I hope the automobile industry's future [and, more broadly, the economy's] is in the hands of early 30-something political operatives with working on law degrees from Yale who have no formal background in business, economics, engineering, or marketing.