Friday, July 25, 2014

More thoughts about - A New Day

I trust you recognize the name of George Gilder, author of the book "Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism"  (Regenery, 2013)  I will admit, I have not read this book, but when I hear of George Gilder, I stop and listen and have never regretted the time spent, reviewing his thoughts.  I trust you will feel the same after reading the following:

"In 1966, the eminent management sage, Peter Drucker wrote about government regulation in his book, "The Effective Executive" that "at a guess, at least half the bureaus and agencies in government regulate what NO LONGER NEEDS TO BE REGULATED."   (My emphasis - SM).  He added, "There is a serious need for a new principle of effective administration under which every act. every agency, and every program of government is conceived as temporary and as expiring automatically after a fixed number of years - maybe ten, unless specifically prolonged by new legislation following careful outside study.

When Drucker wrote, the U.S. was by far the leading force in world capitalism, and most regulatory bodies were relatively new.  Today, the U.S. is falling behind Asian leaders in capitalistic vitality.  Not only is the U.S. less free than Hong Kong, it is less capitalistic by many measures than China, allegedly a Communist country, China now boasts of government revenues of just 17% of GDP, compared to U.S. revenues of 26% of GDP.

The key problem is the same one that Drucker identified in 1966 - a glut of regulations and programs that that no longer serve their purposes, but which constitute a nearly insuperable barrier to creative new enterprise.  Twenty years ago, initial public offerings in crucial technology domains exceeded mergers and acquisitions by a factor of 20.  Today, there are eight mergers and acquisitions for every IPO.  Large companies that can deal with the mazes of government rules increase their dominance by purchasing potential rivals.

Most efforts focus on making regulations more efficient.  But efficient performance of futile or obstructive functions make the problems worse.  What we need is what Peter Drucker recommended, expiration dates for regulations."

I have to ask, do you - as a voter, as one who serves to elect the people who will - hopefully, go to Washington to heed Drucker's counsel, do you think it will ever happen?  Personally, I doubt it as I have spent far too much of my time attempting to counsel potential voters.  To most, a job is merely a paycheck and the success of their employer hardly ever enters their mind.  When they go to vote, it is far more easier to vote for the Party that seemed to impress the "father/mother" figures at home and they have no concept of the expanding economies that provide the revenues on which our economy is based.

Case in point, many, many years ago, I heard that the government was considering replacing many of the people in their "Department of Employment" offices. as they were known in those years.  The problem as I saw it was the fact that the local employment offices were staffed with people who knew where all of the jobs existed in their area.  They did not need to know the names of the people seeking a job, all they needed to know was their skill and they could identify that by referring to their copy of the D.O.T, a Dictionary of Occupational Terms.   By comparing the individual's code to the codes that were part of every employer's 941 report that was sent to Washington, every fiscal quarter, they could tell whether the job prospects were good or perhaps, not so good.  All they to do was call the employer and inquire about the possibilities.   I went to Washington armed with the suggestion that the applicant could do that and reduce the cost of having employees carry that burden.

What I did not realize was the fact that the people in Washington wanted to do was increase their stature (their incomes) by having "high tech" equipment available in all of their offices - that told them what the applicant's name was, but paid no attention to the D.O.T. knowledge that I understood could be used to facilitate an applicant's job search.  I cannot speak for other areas, but I can assure you that no one in the local Human Resources offices have a clue as to what I am referring to and if they did, nothing could be done until it was forwarded on to Washington and probably be lost in the maze of computer information that has little or nothing to facilitate putting people to work.

For decades I have searched for just one candidate for Federal office who would take the time to sit and listen, with no results.  And I happen to believe, my example is merely one of the thousands that float around only because we prefer to have politicians to represent us rather than skilled technicians. 

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