It's often noted that American companies and institutions tend to be divided into dynamic new ones (Twitter, Facebook, SnatchChat, The Hunger Games) and sclerotic old ones (General Motors, government agencies). It's less often mentioned that there are policy reasons why this is so.
The longer an American institution is around, the more costs get piled on to it. For example, under the nearly unique American system of employer-provided health insurance, how much do you think Facebook pays per employee (average age: 28)? How much does General Motors pay (average age: gettin' up there)? It's not too surprising that Facebook's market capitalization is twice GM's.
(Fortunately, Congress is planning to help poor Mark Zuckerberg out next year with some immigration reform so he won't have to pay so much to greedy American programmers. Without more H-1B visas, Zuckerberg would have to hire some senile old bastards in their 40s, maybe even some of them ... women.)
Similarly, America's War on Racism targets slow-moving institutions. Jesse Jackson has repeatedly been frustrated at getting his hooks into Silicon Valley, with its constant churn. (Now that Silicon Valleyites prefer to live in San Francisco and reverse commute, you can hear old time pols like Willie Brown licking their chops, but in general Silicon Valley remains an elusive target.)
Hollywood movies are too short-lasting for the kind of endless EEOC investigations that bedraggle older companies, so they are almost immune too, which is why so few Latinos work in movie crafts jobs.
Hollywood movies are too short-lasting for the kind of endless EEOC investigations that bedraggle older companies, so they are almost immune too, which is why so few Latinos work in movie crafts jobs.
In contrast, municipal fire departments are old, established, and will be around forever, so they are subject to extraordinary amounts of attention over the racial/ethnic stats of their hires and promotions.
Other countries tend to see their giant institutions such as Daimler-Benz as long term investments in the future of their people. Rather than pillage their well-functioning institutions, most intelligent countries try hard to set up sustainable systems.
In America, however, our current ideology is focused on promoting churn. Lots of individual profit from this, but is it good for Americans as a whole?
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Steve Sailer 2013=Joseph Schumpeter 1942
Our host asked (rhetorically): Lots of individual profit from this, but is it good for Americans?
Hunsdon answered: No. Hell no.
It's often noted that American companies and institutions tend to be divided into dynamic new ones (Twitter, Facebook, The Hunger Games) and sclerotic old ones (General Motors, government agencies).
You sure about putting GM in the "sclerotic old" column? GM just hired a woman to be CEO, the first time a woman has become CEO at a major auto company. Sounds dynamic and new to me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/11/business/gm-names-first-female-chief-executive.html
I sometimes wonder what the cost of affirmative action is to organizations. Hiring minorities doesn't have to necessarily bring costs with it except that so often they are hired for positions for which they are not the best qualified. I would think that bringing what must be dead (or just plain incompetent) wood into any organization must be fairly costly. Has anyone ever done any sort of study to determine if there is any sort of cost and what that cost might be (including frustrations born by others who have to put up with the less than competent fellow employees)?
Very insightful post. I'd add that this dynamic exacerbates our political dysfunction. Businesses and other institutions realize that the government isn't going to look out for them and conclude (you can't blame them, really) that their best chance of sticking around is to buy influence over the government. Thus you get the revolving door between K Street and Capitol Hill and the hard-bitten resistance to sensible regulation of campaign finance, not to mention a tacit agreement among Dems and Repubs to box out third parties who haven't bought into the system of legalized bribery. In a country like Germany, companies like Siemens and BMW are fine allowing a modicum of real democratic governance because they know the government sees them as part of Germany's future.
The big losers in America are, of course, the working class and the middle class, who certainly don't have business looking after them and who can't buy Washington's ear.
It's often noted that American companies and institutions tend to be divided into dynamic new ones (Twitter, Facebook, The Hunger Games) and sclerotic old ones (General Motors, government agencies).
You sure about putting government agencies in the "sclerotic old" column? The Pentagon just hired a woman to its No. 2 job, making her the highest ranking woman in Pentagon history. Sounds dynamic and new to me:
www.newsmax.com/TheWire/top-gun-christine-fox-pentagon/2013/12/04/id/540039
"You sure about putting GM in the "sclerotic old" column? GM just hired a woman to be CEO, the first time a woman has become CEO at a major auto company. Sounds dynamic and new to me:"
Naaah, that actually fits his point--they hung around too long and the diversity machine got into them. The feminists are attacking tech--let's hope for the sake of this country they don't succeed.
Incidentally, I think this is less planned than it is an unintended consequence of a free market (compared to Europe) and a relatively high degree of antigovernment ideology. Remember, big German car companies are subject to heavy government oversight too.
You see this parallel in South Africa and Zimbabwe where Blacks seek to siphon off from large private companies with minority set asides in ownership and employment.
Most of the new Black rich got rich this way. They can't create anything. Of course this incompetence and extortion inevitably bleeds the institution dry and you end up with a country like Nigeria. Where nothing works and you have to import refined oil and food even though you have the capabilities of producing it yourself.
Steve,
Perhaps you should write about the current buffoonery of the Republican consultants in regards to Obamacare.
Here in Indianapolis our local Neocon approved talkradio goyim Greg Garrison is telling us Hoosiers that opposing Obamacare will be the ticket for the GOP for taking back the White House.
Problem is that corporate America can not wait to end the last vestiges of post WWII welfare capitalism like employer based health insurance. The only thing standing in the way is that no CEO wants to be the first heartless bastard who gets symbolically roasted by the MSM for forcing his workforce in mass onto Obamacare. After that happens goodbye employer based health insurance. Is anybody noticing how well the stock market is performing lately.
Us stupid goyim know darn well that the Masters of the Universe not only want to replace us with the Third World, they want us to pay for Obamacare not just for ourselves but for the huddled masses as well.
Still, the mega donor teat sucking consultant class believes that if they can just teach the GOP politicians to learn to say OBAMACARE!!! like it was a vile curse word, us rubes are going to line up around the block to vote Republican.
Of course the GOP knows it does not have an alternative solution for the destruction of employer based health insurance made inevitable by Open Borders. When folks figure out that Obamacare as pathetic a life raft it is, it's still better than no life raft at all, the GOP will suffer another very low base turn out collapse in 2016 if not 2014.
Maybe Americans need a fashionable buzzphrase of "creative conservation" to go along with Schumpeter's "creative destruction"?
"You sure about putting GM in the "sclerotic old" column? GM just hired a woman to be CEO, the first time a woman has become CEO at a major auto company. Sounds dynamic and new to me."
Yep. Old companies are under more pressure to be 'diverse' and 'vibrant'.
I think another crucial divide is between cutting-edge technology requiring super-talent AND low(or lower)level-talent industries/organizations that can be performed by most above-intelligence people.
Even during the hellish yrs of the Cultural Revolution, Mao protected China's nuclear scientists from the 'red over expert' madness of the Red Guards. Even a leftist radical like Mao knew that when it came to bombs, he needed REAL talent and not just some moron reciting phrases from the Little Red Book.
Silicon Valley requires top-notch talent, and such talents are relatively rare in society. Even egalitarians know that most people cannot do the kind of super-geeky stuff required in the cutting-edge high-tech industries. One has to be really smart to do really challenging tasks. We saw with Obamacare online glitches what flawed technology can lead to.
But the fire department requires lower skills. Of course, it requires some skills, and training, studying, and experience are crucial, but it's not something only really smart people can do. Though blacks and browns--and Jews who support them against whites--play fast and loose with the rules of testing, they do have one valid point, which is that testing should be commensurate to the task at hand. The fact is your average person can be trained to be a pretty good fireman even if he's not very smart or remember every obscure technical detail.
To be an ace computer programmer, you really have to be supersmart. But to be a fireman, you can be reasonably smart or above-average. Thus, there's less need and less justification to intellectualize fire-fighting.
It's like most people can train to be pretty good carpenters--even if they are highschool dropouts and don't have the best reading skills. So, while selecting carpenters on the basis of overly intellectualized tests may be fair in the sense that everyone is handed the same exam, it's not fair in the sense that it tests for things that are irrelevant to the basic task of carpentry. Besides, firemen spend most of their time playing cards or videogames anyway.
Even egalitarians know that if Silicon Valley were forced to hire people as fire departments are required to do, American high tech sector will collapse overnight. So, they target industries and organizations that attract less-than-sterling talent.
'Dummies' will mess up Silicon Valley totally. In contrast, 'dummies' may make fire departments less good, but they will still be able to carry the basic load of what is required of firemanery.
The feminists are attacking tech--let's hope for the sake of this country they don't succeed.
They won't. Tech has maths.
*Other countries tend to see their giant institutions such as Daimler-Benz as long term investments in the future of their people. Rather than pillage their well-functioning institutions, most intelligent countries try hard to set up sustainable systems.*
That's the big secret of America's better economic performance, isn't it? In most advanced countries, bureaucracy and corruption in established companies create waste and misery. In America, we eventually destroy those old institutions by sucking them dry and new, dynamic innovators can replace them. In those other countries, they'd establish subsidies, monopolies, and protection for those old sclerotic companies.
It's probably part of our best dynamic inventive cultural practices that we do things the way we do.
Anyone else getting a "threat warning" from Amber.gif?
Manufacturing hires a lot of low-talent to build stuff. So, GM ended up hiring up lots of blacks in Detroit. That will tend to cause big problems down the line.
But high-tech companies only hire smarties.
Making things is so old. Modern bidness in America is more about setting up the big con. You know, packaging up shit and selling it as shinola on the market. I mean, what else is the lumpen for but to be skinned (and not just in America but any foreigner stupid enough to buy that shit). Right? So who cares about sustaining the institutions created by the evil white man.?
A nice distinction. Never heard it before.
"Lots of individual profit from this, but is it good for Americans as a whole?"
Its good for the 'right' Americans
"maybe even some of them ... women."
Steve, please don't pander like this. It's unlike you.
"Steve, please don't pander like this. It's unlike you."
He's not pandering; he's making the point that if someone really cares about promoting women in STEM then that person should oppose the immigration "reform" backed by Zuckerberg et al.
Even if the institution or industry is 'old and slow', it will be left alone if dominated by Jews. Jews in the media will make sure of that.
I mean NY Times is still Jewish-heavy and with only token blacks and Hispanics.
The fact is that there is a lot of lower level programming work that requires a person to be reasonably bright, but not brilliant. I know, because I do it and I'm a woman. It's also very different from the truly creative software engineering my husband has done when working in high tech. H1-Bs are often doing relatively low level code monkey work that could be done by the bright but not brilliant. There are lots of bright women but relatively few brilliant ones. Lower level coding work also doesn't require you to stay as on top of your industry, so it's better suited to the kinds of career interruptions women have.
Employers know this and they know an Indian programmer won't jeopardize their immigration status to have a baby.
Fortuna commented: "Its good for the 'right' Americans." That sentence applies equally when rewritten thusly: It's good for the right "Americans."
http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/12/12/obamas-illegal-alien-aunt-obligation-make-citizen/
http://vitaminl.tv/video/1599?fb_comment_id=fbc_629016390477339_6009134_629428533769458#f94334b7
Hillbilly creativity?
"SnatchChat?" This app is actually called Snapchat.
But given the content of some of those messages, Steve's Freudian slip is probably a more accurate description.
I also have the amber.gif warning when I go to Steve's homepage.
What is amber.gif?
You don't have to be especially smart to be a fireman, but you can't be as dumb as the average Black either. And keep in mind, smart techies: When you make a simple error, you can just hit "delete". When firemen make errors, people can die. Errors in any sort of physical work cause damage, immediately. In manufacturing we call it "rework", and it's expensive when we catch it and fix it. When we don't catch it, it's dangerous.
Race quotas are allowed to exist in the country only because smart jackasses have no idea what it takes to do a good job with their hands, and figure that any dullard can build a house or make a widget.
True in general, perhaps, but there are a number of notable exceptions. Exxon seems to have remained fairly unscathed. Its foundation doles out a few dollars to girls-in-STEM initiatives, but the company largely remains a competently run meritocracy.
Oh, fwiw, Twitter was just successfully brow-beaten into adding a woman director.
The divide is beween regulated and the yet unregulated areas. As soon a business area is established, regulation captures it and suffocates its further progress. As soon the internet is trapped in the regulatory web, Silicon Valley will have to move on and invent new frontiers to conquer.
@Discard said..12/12/13, 9:51 PM
When you make a simple error, you can just hit "delete". When firemen make errors, people can die.
Not true:
On 25 February 1991, an Iraqi Scud hit the barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers from the U.S. Army.
A government investigation revealed that the failed intercept at Dhahran had been caused by a software error in the system's clock. The Patriot missile battery at Dhahran had been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the system's internal clock had drifted by one third of a second. Due to the closure speed of the interceptor and the target, this resulted in a miss distance of 600 meters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Failure_at_Dhahran
"In America, however, our current ideology is focused on promoting churn."
Steve, I thought I was right with you until this statement. But I'm not sure I understand what you mean by it
Whose ideology, and churning what, please?
FWIW I don't see any 'Amber.gif', but, I've got some sanitizing extensions (disconnect.me if anyone cares).
But if Anonymous 12/12/13, 6:25 PM or anyone wants to look, there are tools built in to Firefox (any recent version) that will show you what's loaded, and from where: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Network_Monitor
Chrome has the equivalent, just search around.
Amber Richardson, opinion columnist for The Onion.
Are old US companies really more sclerotic than old European (e.g. German, French) companies?
If this is real at all, might it not just be a side effect of the US's ability to get new companies which suck up talent? Or an unwillingness for "national champions" to be protected?
When you think about a well-functioning institution designed as a long term investment in citizenhood, naturally Twitter comes to mind
There was a good Ted Rall cartoon on this once. It's a mall Santa, and the kid on Santa's lap asks for something public-spirited. Santa explains that would destroy the economy
We have no institutions, just idiots, at every income level. On The Today Show they were praising a woman who became locked in the office bathroom after hours without a phone and destroyed the drywall and metal door in order to "escape." The newsbots compared it to "The Shawshank Redemption"
Your theory is sort of like Lord Matt Ridley's "The Red Queen" except applied to the biz realm. It's only rational that companies engaged in tactical/mercurial pursuit are fitter to survive the game of life and outwit a predatory "public" sector.
Wily high IQ people are good at creating amorphous progressive-seeming money stashes like Google, Twitter or the Leland Stanford Jr. University of California, and reshuffling the deck at the right time. Lady Fortune's regulatory bludgeon isn't going to fall on these people often, stochastically.
Others who may or may not have the same smarts but are still able to count will devote themselves to seizing the levers of The Government. This has been the M.O. of petit-bourgeois educated-affluent types since time immemorial; as Eric Hoffer pointed out the French Revolution like every other one was instigated by the uppermost middle class. You can tap a large supply of duller proles for any jihad clothed in Democracy or Equality.
This arms race between the Filthy Lucre Gang and the Goo-Goo Clique can never really end, because the mother's milk of both politics and mega-bureaucracy is the wealth gushing out of the former's iPad assembly line. The Gov't side may think it's combating evil globalist capitalists but from its behavior seems more mindful of perpetuating its own existence first and taking down the villains after that. Unlike Batman, cops don't pursue crooks with the power and pull to get them kicked off the job. To use the unfortunate media cliche, it's all a 2-way street, really. The worst part is that the "capitalist" wildcatters readily grok the human limitations of their "rivals." Hey, they're even sympathetic to it. The only question then is, how to best use it?
Current Wall Street Journal consistent with Steve's post:
Startups Are Quick to Fire:
New Hires Who Don't Measure Up Can Be Gone in Days or Weeks
By STEPHANIE GLEASON and RACHEL FEINTZEIG CONNECT
Dec. 12, 2013 8:02 p.m. ET
How does this work with regards to America's sclerotic old computer company - the venerable IBM?
The elite long ago stopped worrying about what is good for the citizens of their own countries.
"......, but is it good for Americans as a whole?"
America is not good for Americans as a whole. And perhaps never has been.
Fifteen years back I was doing some post-doc work in fluid dynamics at UCLA, and worked with a bunch of Korean grad students. It came up that one of their friends in Korea was trying to start a small manufacturing business making hot-wire anemometers. The low cost of manufacturing in Korea would make the products very competitive, but the problem they said was that compared to the United States,the obstacles to starting a new company in Korea were almost unsurmountable.
The governing elites, especially Leftists, are essentially "busting out" the American economy in the same way that the Mafia busts out a lounge, restaurant or other business that has fallen into their hands. They just milk it for all its worth and then let the official owner take the heat for the inevitable bankruptcy.
At this time in our history it is the literal truth that the government is just another criminal gang that is the parasitic enemy of its own country.
Steve has it right about GM and other legacy industries, watch the Oscar-nominated HBO documentary "The Last Truck". It's about the closing of the assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio in 2008 and the filmmakers interview a variety of line workers. Most of them are women or blacks, groups not known for mechanical aptitude. We can only conclude that the diversity industry has well and truly worked its way onto the shop floor.
As for health insurance, by 2000 GM was paying more for employee and retiree health benefits than for steel used in production. Commentators began calling GM a health care company with a sideline in vehicle manufacturing. I do not know if the "bankruptcy" changed this.
the hidden divide is the new companies do not have to make or produce anything, including a profit, and they just automatically get a market capitalization of 50 billion ridicubucks.
if you have a zero revenue company that millions of people under 30 use for free, the most important thing you can do is IPO.
government motors even actually turned a real profit, and still lost the federal government over 10 billion dollars.
unlike the internet stock bubble of 2000 however, i don't see how this one is going to end, exactly. oh sure, there is a major crash coming in a few years thanks to the federal reserve. but is that going to take out zero value companies like twitter? will their preposterous billions in stock value dissappear into thin air or will they just drop in proportion with the market? a mere 50% drop, instead of the 99% drop which reality would seem demand.
LOL, SnatchChat. That had to be intentional though I know Steve would never admit it.
Columnist George Will referred to GM as a health plan with an auto subsidiary. He never has suggest that the US military is a health plan with a military subsidiary.
The crucial divide be between fixed assets and mobile assets. I work in the electric utility business and the politicians have found all sorts of ways to use the electric utility as a backdoor tax collector.
Facebook or whatnot could move most operations out to a tax haven; the wires and generators and substations are rooted, as are the customers.
Uh, I dunno about Schumpeter, but George Will wrote something similar in the Washington Post this week ("Obama’s tardy epiphany about government’s flaws," Dec. 11)
Speaking of sclerotic obsolete institutions, how about straight marriage? For that we've now substituted a society where parasite singles spend huge amounts of time/money on sexual competition for additional decades well past menopause. Though for males, rather than money it seems more to be time... (such as: creating PUA blogs to try to imitate the megafauna)
re: the economy being diverted to dating expenditures
That's the difference right there, innit? Men want it more badly than anything yet are surprisingly congenitally cheap when it gets to agreeing on a price; whereas women don't really want it so much but will spend whatever it takes to get it.
"Steve has it right about GM and other legacy industries, watch the Oscar-nominated HBO documentary "The Last Truck". It's about the closing of the assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio in 2008 and the filmmakers interview a variety of line workers. Most of them are women or blacks, groups not known for mechanical aptitude. We can only conclude that the diversity industry has well and truly worked its way onto the shop floor."
Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Subaru, etc. all build quality cars in the US with similarly diverse workforces, and Mercedes in particular has instituted some German-style vocational education in the US in partnership with some local schools.
Gubbler, I guess you didn't see the codicil in the ACA mandating outreach to the infamous "under-served communities" for medical training. Do you think the medical schools will stand on principle or take the Danesgeld?
Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Subaru, etc. all build quality cars in the US with similarly diverse workforce ...
And no U.A.W.
Steve, we're waiting for your comment on a woman being made boss at GM.
THE UNCTUOUS PRICK TAKES HIS LEAVE AND SCREWS GM ONE LAST TIME
THE AUTOEXTREMIST - RANTS
THE UNCTUOUS PRICK TAKES HIS LEAVE AND SCREWS GM ONE LAST TIME.
DateTUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013 AT 12:14PM
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
... The bottom line? Akerson has just royally screwed General Motors and he may have set the stage for a mass exodus of the company's True Believers all in one fell swoop.
We should have all seen it coming. After all, Selim Bingol, Akerson's bagman and credibility-challenged PR savant had been beating the drums for Akerson and Akerson's handpicked successor - Mary Barra - for months. ...
... Akerson's so-called "logic" at work here is indefensible as well. It's as if Akerson would rather remake GM in his likeness - a truly ugly thought indeed - by promoting bureaucratic functionaries like Mary Barra and a glorified bean counter ...
4 Dec 2013 "Kyle Bass'(s) Hayman Capital has taken a stake in General Motors, betting that the once bankrupt company is undervalued".
Whitehall said "Facebook or whatnot could move most operations out to a tax haven".
No, they could not leave California any more than the porn industry could. Silly girls want to be in LA, just like Facebook's foreign employeees.
After all, Selim Bingol, Akerson's bagman and credibility-challenged PR savant ...
GM's PR savant is somebody name of Selim Bingol?
Chevrolet = American Pie, dunnit?
"Bye, bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy ..."
I notice this now, there are more low rider clubs for cars and bicycles in California than surfers but it still has the surfer image since most folks into low riders are 2nd and 3rd generation Mexicans. The white surfer is kind of lazy and has the laid back image and the media likes them better than the Mexicans with the low riders.
Good thoughts, Steve. Also look at "Good to Great" by Jim Collins who argues that most companies do not survive past their founders as it's hard to find new leadership and ideas that equal the founders' abilities. Where are all the 1st generations computer companies? DEC, Wang, Varian? HP is dying. IBM is one of the few that are still successful.
"The fact is your average person can be trained to be a pretty good fireman even if he's not very smart or remember every obscure technical detail."
1. If i had to guess i'd say that argument applied to paramedics is the most likely reason why Chicago's homicide rate is unusually high.
2. The synergy from having a *group* of not average people is very high.
3. Having a very sought after, stable, relatively well-paid blue collar job with a lot of competition is highly eugenic.
The problem is lots of folks are not covered by employer health insurance and believe e employer health insurance has limits. I'm not in favor of one payer but lots of Republicans never think that the tax credit scheme doesn't work since most people can't afford their own insurance that why Obamacare came in,its got its holes but its aim at the lower middle class which is in jobs without health insurance. The Republicans say basically private charity and states like Texas have lots of native born whites and mexicans not covered by health insurance because Texas unlike the Northeast has lots of small employers that never covered the health insurance in the first place. Sure, the illegal immigration population is part of the stats but many whites in Texas don't worked for the fortune 500 or the oil companies.
Here in Indianapolis our local Neocon approved talkradio goyim Greg Garrison is telling us Hoosiers that opposing Obamacare will be the ticket for the GOP for taking back the White House.
Its not the neo cons who are the biggest problem it is the Tea Party which is opposed to illegal immigration but get lots of money from the Koch machine which supports it. Tea Party no amnesty but if illegals come in and business hire them its OK. In fact about half of the Tea Party opposed e-verify that's why we see secure the border from those people. They support the free market in the extreme too much and hurt poorer whites by opposing wages rising in service jobs and cutting welfare for poor whites not just blacks and Mexicans.
Tea Party no amnesty but if illegals come in and business hire them its OK. In fact about half of the Tea Party opposed e-verify that's why we see secure the border from those people.
Mr. Very Literate iSteve commenter:
Can you cite any evidence for those assertions?
////
Bye, bye Miss America Pie,
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry,
Good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye,
Saying this will be the day that I die ..."
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