I admit that I have a low tolerance for buffoons, bimbos, and bureaucrats. Specifically, I dislike working with people who consciously choose not to use their God given ability to think. I do believe that there are people with beans for brains.
Most of the times people do not think because it is easier to just do what has been done, cite the precedent, and not think of possible consequences to their actions. We have come to the point now that we even applaud those who “think outside of the box;” with the emphasis being on “THINK”. Because ‘that is the way it is done’, or ‘we have always done it that way’, has become the mantra of an entire working generation. Oh how I long for the days when a manager would say, “This is what we’re going to do and I will bear the consequences of that decision.” I have always felt that an average manager would make 70% correct decisions, an above average manager would make at least 80% correct decisions, and executive material would be correct 90% of the time.
I have had several jobs involving International Business Development. In one of those jobs I was part of an industry that, like much of America, was eager to outsource their products to overseas developing countries. I was actually hired to bring down the unacceptably high rate of return of merchandise due to poor quality coming from those overseas sources. I readily solved the problem by visiting the factories and finding two of the highest quality vendors who understood statistical quality control. I would always ask the plant manager if they knew what Mil Spec 104D was and how it worked. Those that would tell me that every worker was responsible for quality would be immediately dismissed as a potential vendor. It was impossible for me to believe that a worker living in a house without electricity or running water could possibly know the level of quality that would be acceptable to an American consumer.
The sad part about this particular industry was that the operating overhead was absorbed over the cost of labor just as it had been done for years. That meant that the cost reflected on the books as MLB was much higher than the incremental cost of the product. Consequently, the importation of products always looked very attractive to the executive leadership of companies in the industry; and, since everybody else was doing it, they too went to outsourcing. The obvious problem with this action was that as the plant-wide total of labor diminished then the overhead would be absorbed over dwindling labor costs such that outsourced products became even more attractive. The end result was that the manufacturers in the industry became only distributors of products manufactured by others. It has been a death spiral for American manufacturing.
The inability to think is not limited to the manufacturing industry. It is rampant through the financial businesses that are regulated by the government. Finance greases the wheels of manufacturing, distribution, real estate, retail, and personal credit. When we cannot get money to the places where wheels need to turn then we will soon see the economy grind to a halt. That is precisely what is holding back the recovery from our current slump. In my opinion we are in a recession because government intervention and regulations have clogged the wheels of the individuals and small businesses that make, buy, and sell what is consumed. There is no incentive for financial institutions to operate efficiently or help others operate at all. They have been given money and, without having to think, can loan it back to the government and reap the profits. The old adage of banks handing out umbrellas when the sun shines and taking them back when it rains is nowhere more true than in today’s environment.
Buffoons, bimbos, and bureaucrats are ruining our nation. They are neither contributing productivity nor facilitating anyone else’s contribution. Ayn Rand called them moochers in her book Atlas Shrugged and she just might have a point. We should really sit up and take notice of what has happened to our Great Society.
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