The Black Vault

Pure Genius Mr. Geithner

Having a hard time finding a job? Well here is the reason why. Let me tell you the story. Way back in the 1970's you had this company called IBM. IBM started out as a tiny company which grew into an international powerhouse, a monolithic monstrosity. They made a lot of money along the way. They were the Microsoft before Microsoft. So along comes the 70's and all the business analysts said, "hey, how come IBM isn't prospering as much anymore?". The answer turned out to be that IBM had too much management. It had this massive hierarchy of managers who were sucking all the profits out of the company and producing an inefficient business as each of these managers engaged in empire building which did nothing to improve the company's profits.

So IBM wisely embarked on a program to flatten its management structure. Lo and behold, other companies followed suit, eliminating all kinds of management positions. Now you would think that this would result in huge numbers of managers in the unemployment line and initially it did. But, quickly these managers created NEW companies of their own, many of which became huge, successful monoliths themselves.

The benefit to this streamlining was that they found out that people were being OVER managed unnecessarily. They found that people can manage themselves and are usually willing to do so. So the responsibilities of managers began to decline. As they did, companies became more efficient. Very interesting, if the story ended here.

But the story does not end there. What happened in the 80's, and 90's was that companies turned around and re-created the large hierarchy of managers again. This time though, the duties of the managers had nothing to do with managing people. Instead they took on new responsibilities as the world, technology and capitalism itself became more complex. The information age was in full swing and that needed managers to manage the resulting complexities of new technologies emerging almost daily and the necessary changes that companies had to undergo.

While all of this was going on another change was happening, POLITICS. The politics of the United States was changing. And that political change was being forced onto companies and they needed even more managers to mange that. As part of this political change, and the nature of the change in duties of managers, the STATUS of management also changed. No longer were mangers people who were promoted from the troops. They became ELITE, separate from the employees. Managers no longer associated with employees and eventually even stopped participating in the hiring process, especially in tech businesses, as managers did not have the knowledge or skills to know who to hire. It was the self-managing employees who now had that skill. So they were tasked with doing the hiring.

The effects of this are complex and striking. Managers were no longer made responsible for employees. If something didn't work, it was the responsibility of the employees, not management. When something went wrong, employees were fired, not management. This situation was primarily a result of the political change which led to lawsuits against companies when employees were fired. By making the employees manage themselves, management could no longer be blamed for failures and any failure could be used as an excuse to get rid of an employee and it was usually the other employees who called for the person's dismissal, not management. Since managers no longer even dealt with the employees they could not be accused of any violation of the new laws.

Of course this change has brought about other unintended consequences. Companies today, especially in tech, are primarily operated by the employees. Projects are run by the member employees assigned to the project. They conceive, research, schedule, and implement the projects with amazingly little input or oversight from managers. Some people might think this is a good thing but hold on.

Along with the political change, and the resulting disconnect between managers and employees, there has been a fundamental change in the nature of the workplace. Today it has become a substitute culture for the societal culture that was wiped out during the 60's - 80's. People found happiness at work. But in order to maintain happiness at work they had to control the environment. And they did that by controlling who was allowed to work there and as a result the workplace culture itself became political, social. And this fundamental shift has once again made companies inefficient. Over time companies have lost smart, productive employees who did not fit in well with the company's culture. And, companies have filled up with lesser skilled, unproductive employees who fit in well with the culture. Its no longer about making the company more profitable. Its about keeping the work environment pleasant.

The corporate culture today is bifurcated, employees and management, and the two cultures shall never mix. The culture at the management level has also become political as managers too want a pleasant workplace but they define "pleasant" differently. Managers, usually being ambitious people, have changed their goals and tactics to take advantage of the new politics. Today managers are often not punished for failing businesses. In fact they are often rewarded. This is a result of their elite status which has changed how corporate managers deal with each other. "You scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Who cares about the company? If we can vote ourselves a huge compensation package then the company's success or failure is irrelevant. It only needs to last long enough to make us rich."

And, not surprisingly, what do you see as one of the major political movements today based on? Answer: Corporate Elitism. And guess what. They're right. Corporate elitism has become one of the biggest threats to the United States. Why? Because you cannot have a successful civilization without a successful economy. And you can't have a successful economy without successful businesses. And you cannot have successful businesses where the goals of the management are in conflict with the success of the company. And you cannot solve this problem by having government take over businesses. Government does not know how to run these businesses. And it was government who created the corporate elitism problem in the first place with their truly foolish changes in the laws, forcing companies to do things that damaged them.

If the people of the United States are not able to determine the cause of the problem then the problem will get steadily worse and the US economy will fail. People today with certain political beliefs think that government can solve this problem, but they are sadly mistaken. It cannot. And if the problem is not solved the United States will cease to be a super power on Earth and become just another banana republic or socialist stagnation, a path the country is currently on.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner think they can FIX the banking system. And this is based on what, their extensive knowledge of the banking industry? Or their extensive business experience? Or is it their extreme political beliefs, that they are elite and know better than corporate leaders?

Government elitism caused corporate elitism and they will be our downfall.

Just one more indication of the problem
Why? Managers today need to be fed because they do not have the technical skills to run companies. So they get the employees to do it. Those who do, make more money. Pretty simple.

And More
"Go on, take the money and run."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFGZufk4HFs

The beat goes on...
Rule #1 of running a scam: Don't scam yourself. CEO pay never goes down. Smoke and mirrors.

Good Stuff CB.


It's unfortunate that the mass of uniformed voters opened this plague upon us. They think they know what to do, when all they are doing is pushing their socialist agenda down our throats, but hey at least half the country likes it.

This will take decades to dig out of, if we dig out at all. It truely is the end of capatalism in this country.



BloodStone...

CodeBlack....I bow. Greatly put...if only Bloodstone weren't right...the minions of obfuscating politics need to hammered away. If this trend keeps up...well, I don't like the worst case scenario. It's me in the mountains...the mountain part I like...the survival part will probably shorten my life span...but that's o.k.

I just pray that the multiple conservative moments, the conservative manifesto and the movement it engenders, become endeared with and imbued within the Tea Party Spirit of a solidarity with a purple vengeance. That's a movement the socialist squids won't be able to stop when once the momentum sets in. If we could direct the twisted greed and shoot it towards real capitalism...that might gain enough fresh air for a political culture change. The socialist hammer has got to go.

"They" just need to make it real, real easy to start a damn business. A lot of people would do it. Taxes and regs are thorns and tumors.

BloodStone wrote:
It's unfortunate that the mass of uniformed voters opened this plague upon us.




BloodStone...

You're one to talk, considering your local congress critter.

But seriously, interesting read CodeBlack. And I still haven't read all the links yet.

"It is the folly of men that they forget." -Merlin

I hate to be a negative Nancy but I think Americans today just don't get it. You would think with thousands of years of history demonstrating what happens when you give too much power to a government that people would want to prevent that. People today are ignorant.