U.S. to Buy G.M.’s Healthy Assets

Just one year ago, the auto industry was powerful enough to block new fuel efficiency standards. Today, not so much. Yesterday, President Obama announced the creation of a single nationwide 35.5 miles per gallon standard, and Detroit went along because it is “flat on its back,” reports The New York Times. General Motors, meanwhile, is planning for a bankruptcy filing that will include a sale of all its healthy assets to a company owned by the U.S. government. The government’s company would honor the claims of its lenders, perhaps in full, while “the remaining assets of GM would stay in bankruptcy protection to satisfy other outstanding claims.”