My absurd schedule continues to leave me perpetually scrambling to keep up with the website. But even after putting up that sarcastic post on the FSK Bridge collapse I feel I must make some comments on it. Whether the crash was the result of equipment failure, sabotage or somebody doing something unbelievably stupid, we can’t ignore the fact that our country seems to be slipping into disorder. The systems and protocols that allow a complex society to function are no longer functioning correctly. Jet planes are falling apart in mid-air. The power grid is failing over large swaths of the country because of too much rain or too little rain or no reason at all. Things are beginning to break down.
And it’s not as if people in positions of responsibility haven’t noticed these things. For the last ten years safety has been one of the holy words in corporate America. I was involved in a Fortune 100 company’s engineering planning and all they ever talked about was multiply redundant systems. The planning was scheduled twenty years in advance to replace and enlarge all the important equipment and systems. These weren’t people who ignored the big picture. But what they seemed oblivious to was the human factor.
They had built up this highly complicated, highly precise way of producing very valuable materials but what they ignored was who they had running these systems. They had felt no compunction about shedding the people who built up this machine and replacing them with diversity hires who really didn’t get the job done. And slowly over the course of a dozen years they hollowed out the human capital they had working for them. Then the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the works and all hell broke loose. Suddenly their competition was poaching what was left of their upper management and even the few diversity hires who were halfway competent left for big signing bonuses and salaries.
And as they scraped the bottom of the barrel serious problems began to erupt. Key production personnel called in sick during critical operations and the people left were essentially useless and caused the loss of millions of dollars of product. The C-suite was not amused. Diversity is our strength but if local management starts losing money, heads must roll and it won’t be the CEO’s.
So a hatchetman will be despatched to punish the innocent, promote the guilty and declare victory. But once the rot is too far advanced the parent company will probably prefer to shut down the operation and buy a new smaller company whose IP and human capital is sufficiently attractive and valuable to raise the quarterly dividend and allow them to forget those losers they fired out in the sticks.
So that’s how it works in corporate America. But what about just plain America? All those blue cities are beginning to discover that allowing the complete breakdown of law and order is really, really bad for business. Today I went through a run down New England mill town. It’s a depressing place where police cars are always clustered like angry wasps around some local affront to normal life. There used to be an enormous Rite Aid store in the middle of a strip mall in that place. All the other stores have long ago closed down. Now they have removed the sign letters from the side of the Rite Aid building and the big windows looked in on nothing. And that’s blue city America 2024. Hollowed out and dead.
Adam Smith allegedly said “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation.” That may be true but we’ve reached a tipping point in a lot of these places. Companies are abandoning leases and even mortgages on buildings in places like San Francisco and New York. Certainly, even the captains of industry may be wondering if it’s time to pull the plug on the progressives. And that may be the only reason why Donald Trump might be allowed to regain the White House strictly on the grounds of self-preservation.
But is it too late?
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity……”
(The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)