“We are big believers in dentist-chair bargaining,” he told a gathering of insolvency lawyers and accountants. “For those of you not familiar with this approach, it is inspired by the story of the man who walks into his dentist’s office, grabs the dentist by the balls, and says, ‘Now, let’s not hurt each other.'”
Ron Bloom, financial strategist and member of the president’s auto-industry task force quoted by Peter J. Boyer in The World of Business: The Road Ahead in this week’s New Yorker. Online article available only to subscribers, but an excellent read on the current state of the auto-industry.
Aside factoid. Honda has 1,300 U.S. dealers. Toyota has about 1,500 dealers. GM has more than 6,000 dealers (all protected by state franchise laws).