The Wall Street Journal’s Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. suggests there’s far too much “Rube Goldbergism” going on in the economy and too much avoidance of tough, simple solutions. He writes:

We need to simple-down. The economy has a giant adjustment ahead, paying off debts, going from a heavy absorber of foreign capital and goods to a rebalanced relationship with the world.

As far as the car companies, he offers up two ideas — both utterly sound and alas, politically unthinkable:

Here’s a plan, but it requires Mr. Obama to play a role too, finally relinquishing such chronic free-lunchism where autos are concerned. He should simply get rid of the CAFE rules and impose a gasoline tax to move the country to a “new energy economy,” if he really believes in panicky climate predictions and/or that “energy independence” would be a net improver of American welfare. And be prepared for Detroit to shift jobs offshore if the UAW won’t concede competitive labor agreements.

Not acceptable? Here’s an alternative plan: Buy out the UAW with taxpayer dollars and free the Big Three to staff their factories with nonunion workers the way Toyota and Honda and BMW do. Last week’s Hill circus notwithstanding, the negotiation that really needs to take place now is between Democrats and their union allies. The Big Three executives are just in the way.

In a sense the oohs and aaahs about cabinet personnel and the precise size of the massive stimulus are a distraction from hard choices. Truth be told, there is no bailout big enough to make the Big Three profitable if they don’t adopt one of these solutions ( or throw in the towel and let bankruptcy judges reconstruct them). There is not a WPA-style jobs program of road-building and bridge repair that can be mounted fast enough and can employ enough people to replace private sector jobs being lost. ( And by the way — are stock brokers, bankers, and insurance salesmen going to start working in the construction trades?)

All the Obama bells and whistles — primarily spending on steroids — is only delaying the inevitable. Some businesses must fail and some homeowners must become renters. And it would be nice to stop spending money we don’t have.

If the President-elect wants to do something positive rather than replay failed Keynesian tactics, he might think about ways to help businesses grow and hire workers. That might suggest some very un-Democratic tax policies. But for now it is just Rube Goldbergism as far as the eye can see.