My absurd schedule continues to leave me perpetually scrambling to keep up with the website.\u00a0 But even after putting up that sarcastic post on the FSK Bridge collapse I feel I must make some comments on it.\u00a0 Whether the crash was the result of equipment failure, sabotage or somebody doing something unbelievably stupid, we can\u2019t ignore the fact that our country seems to be slipping into disorder.\u00a0 The systems and protocols that allow a complex society to function are no longer functioning correctly.\u00a0 Jet planes are falling apart in mid-air.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Things are beginning to break down.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not as if people in positions of responsibility haven\u2019t noticed these things.\u00a0 For the last ten years safety has been one of the holy words in corporate America.\u00a0 I was involved in a Fortune 100 company\u2019s engineering planning and all they ever talked about was multiply redundant systems.\u00a0 The planning was scheduled twenty years in advance to replace and enlarge all the important equipment and systems.\u00a0 These weren\u2019t people who ignored the big picture.\u00a0 But what they seemed oblivious to was the human factor.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 They had felt no compunction about shedding the people who built up this machine and replacing them with diversity hires who really didn\u2019t get the job done.\u00a0 And slowly over the course of a dozen years they hollowed out the human capital they had working for them.\u00a0 Then the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the works and all hell broke loose.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
And as they scraped the bottom of the barrel serious problems began to erupt.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The C-suite was not amused.\u00a0 Diversity is our strength but if local management starts losing money, heads must roll and it won\u2019t be the CEO\u2019s.<\/p>\n
So a hatchetman will be despatched to punish the innocent, promote the guilty and declare victory.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s how it works in corporate America.\u00a0 But what about just plain America?\u00a0 All those blue cities are beginning to discover that allowing the complete breakdown of law and order is really, really bad for business.\u00a0 Today I went through a run down New England mill town.\u00a0 It\u2019s a depressing place where police cars are always clustered like angry wasps around some local affront to normal life.\u00a0 There used to be an enormous Rite Aid store in the middle of a strip mall in that place.\u00a0 All the other stores have long ago closed down.\u00a0 Now they have removed the sign letters from the side of the Rite Aid building and the big windows looked in on nothing.\u00a0 And that\u2019s blue city America 2024.\u00a0 Hollowed out and dead.<\/p>\n
Adam Smith allegedly said \u201cthere’s a lot of ruin in a nation.\u201d\u00a0 That may be true but we\u2019ve reached a tipping point in a lot of these places.\u00a0 Companies are abandoning leases and even mortgages on buildings in places like San Francisco and New York.\u00a0 Certainly, even the captains of industry may be wondering if it\u2019s time to pull the plug on the progressives.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
But is it too late?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The falcon cannot hear the falconer;<\/strong><\/p>\n Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;<\/strong><\/p>\n Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,<\/strong><\/p>\n The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The ceremony of innocence is drowned;<\/strong><\/p>\n The best lack all conviction, while the worst\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Are full of passionate intensity\u2026\u2026”<\/strong><\/p>\n (The Second Coming <\/em><\/p>\n BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My absurd schedule continues to leave me perpetually scrambling to keep up with the website.\u00a0 But even after putting up that sarcastic post on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2574,4474,4473],"class_list":["post-28210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-law-and-order","tag-things-fall-apart","tag-urban-decay"],"yoast_head":"\n