Greed – the cancer
of America that killed good management.
or why we may see the end
of the age of American domination
Note: this piece
was sent to The
Atlantic, as a proof that no paper will ever print anything that may
greatly upset its readers (even edited and formatted for a print).
This
post is a part of the series about management and managing. To have the full
picture I would recommend to read also at least these:
In Management Thinking Makes All The Difference
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In the following text every link leads to a publication that presents more details on the mater. The chilling facts about America can be found in this book that unveils how an American dream has become an American myth.
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Everything dies.
People die,
animals die, plants die, stars die, oceans die, cities die, countries die.
It is impossible
to predict when exactly someone or something will die.
But he, she, or it
will eventually definitely decline, degrade, and die.
Death – in its
general sense – is inevitable and unavoidable.
For everyone.
For everything.
In the history of
mankind, mane countries – big and small – disappeared; empires have gone away.
If you are not
lazy, search for “world empires”. You’ll find a long list of them – they
existed and now they all are history.
Why?
Due to the exactly same reason – arrogance of their elites
that had led to detachment from reality, multiple wrong decisions, and,
finally, disappearance – sometimes a complete removal from a world map,
sometimes the name remains the same, but the actual state of the influence is
greatly diminished (hence, we don’t say “disappearance of a country”, we say
“disappearance of the influence of a country”).
These days, years,
decades we are witnessing how America is being transferred from the country
that used to dominate the whole world to just another big country.
This process has
been inevitable and unavoidable, like death.
We did not know
when would it start, we just knew that it would.
And now we know –
it has.
The process of
American transformation from a world dominating country to just another big country
has begun and is happening right in front of our eyes.
It will last for
at least a decade.
We cannot predict exactly
when it will end. On the other hand, we know with absolute certainty when
America has become the world leader.
In 1945.
Before the WWII
America was just one of many other large countries.
Although, the New
World had two important differences from the Old World.
Firstly, America
was young, hence it did not have yet formed a strong and rigid social
hierarchy; that allowed people from various backgrounds to rise up to the top
of a social ladder. American capitalism was democratic to people. Nowadays
American capitalism has a very rigid structure, major markets have been divided
between a small number of large corporations that also control the government,
there is no competition (hence, there is “natural” cartel-like price-fixing), an
American market is closed to the outsiders, the only way to move a product to an
American market is through one of the dominating companies (a mafia-style product
moving).
Secondly, America
was open to immigrants. Those newcomers wanted to become Americans not because
they wanted social security provided by a government, but because they believed
in themselves and wanted to realize their potential. Those people had been
bringing energy and social pressure that prevented social structures from
stagnation. Nowadays, a large part of potential immigrants seeks governmental
protection and insurances and does not bring much of energy to a job market.
Although, in a long run, strategically, the most important capital of any
country is human capital, hence, in general, an intake of people should always
be a good thing, without a specific long-term governmental policy for
accommodating newcomers, immigration may become a strain rather than a boost
for an economy.
The WWII changed
the world balance and transformed the world in the favor of America.
Major economies
were in ruins. But America was practically unharmed. America had very strong
economy. Plus, America was able to siphon into the country from the Old World various
multiple treasures – physical (things that can be touched) and intellectual
(i.e. knowledge and people with knowledge).
And due to its
economic strength America was able to infuse all world economies with its own
currency.
These factors
ensured that America would dominate the world, or at least the part of it that
was not controlled by the USSR and China.
Imagine Formula
One race.
All teams but one
have cars that are in a very bad shape; with broken parts; teams have no supplies,
no equipment, and the best and most experienced teammates have left.
Where?
For the last team;
the one that has a car in a perfectly working condition, and has plenty of
supplies, and plenty of parts.
This was the
economic state of the world in 1945 (guess, which Formula One team represented
America in my example?).
One could think
that this state of economic affairs would last forever.
And one would be
wrong (evidently).
Countries, like
people, like “fish” – “rot from the head down”.
When a
decision-making organ gets lazy and fat, its decisions get wrong.
And, unfortunately, because that is just a law of
nature (proven by thousands of years of human history), whether we like it or
not, every single decision-making organ,
– an individual one (a brain) or a collective one (a government, an elite) – always eventually gets fat and lazy (or
just old – same thing).
American elite –
like any other elite in the history of mankind – eventually got fat and lazy.
Eventually,
American elite forgot that the place America had in the world was a combination
of many factors, including the
economic state of the world after the WWII.
Eventually,
American elite has come to believe (like all elites before!) that the place
America had in the world was based on one and only one factor – them!
They – American
elite – were so damn smart that they – American elite – did all the right
things in order to keep America at its place.
Of course,
thinking that was just plain wrong, and arrogant, and illiterate, and ignorant,
and irresponsible.
But not new. This is what Aesop said about 2360 years ago:
Here “pride” means arrogance.
But not new. This is what Aesop said about 2360 years ago:
Because of that arrogant thinking, America now is in a turmoil, that may eventually end
American world domination.
The hardest part
will be decoupling from dollar – but it will
happen.
Like it happened
before to many other countries.
Because nothing
stays forever in the world.
Because everyone
and everything dies.
The End.
Well.
There are specific
factors that have plaid an important role in dethroning America.
The #1 is
uncontrollable greed.
Greed is a
“financial BED” (binge-eating disorder).
Some people never
feel full, they are always hungry, no matter how much food they intake.
That’s a disorder.
It can be managed, but that requires (1) acceptance that you are ill, (2) desire
to get better, (3) willpower to follow the right strategy (plus smart friends).
Some people never
feel that they have enough money or/and power (in the eyes of those people
money and power are two sides of the same coin).
Greed is also a
disorder, and as such it can be managed (on the governmental level, as well as
on an individual one).
But instead of
managing it, American economists, politicians, managers, all the American
establishment, praised greed as an engine of economy.
The only factor
that matters is how much money one has (the common economic “wisdom” says that
some part of it will eventually trickle down to regular less fortunate folks).
American economy (and, unfortunately, the whole world is following it, except China, where the remedy, a.k.a. soft dictatorship, is worse than the disease) was built on the importance
of one and only one factor – money. Especially, if we take a look at the last thirty
years, when it was carved in a stone that the only factor any manager must keep
in mind is the price of shares of his/her company.
It’s like saying
that the only factor that is important to our health is the amount of oxygen in
our blood. And just ignore the existence of microbes, bacteria, ferments, etc.
Of course, the consequences of this “medical” thinking would be very bad for
health.
The economic model of the American elite for the last thirty years is trivial and is described by one word - “a jungle”. There is only one goal - more money; and only one rule - eat or be eaten. It is essentially no different from ecology of a forest. Imagine the simplest model of a forest: grass, rabbits and wolves. The balance is self-sustained. For example, if wolves start eating too many rabbits, the amount of food for wolves drops down and eventually the population of wolves also decreases. Now, imagine that the wolves are barely intelligent, enough just to invent a better way to “hunt”. “Why do we have to run around for those damn rabbits? Let's build a rabbit farm! Then we can eat as many rabbits as possible!” In this analogy wolves represent American elite, that infamous 1 %. The everyone else are “rabbits”. And “wolves” believe that this is the way it is supposed to be. They believe that “rabbits” have to be happy in their “farm”; they live, they f#ck, they fulfill their purpose - to be eaten by a wolf. The problem is that many “rabbits” believe exactly the same. All that talk about
“self-making” and “pooling themselves up by bootstraps” is just a mirage. When the quality of life in a “farm” dropped, “rabbits” did not try to escape, did not jump over the “fence”. Instead they turned for the help to the “orange savior”. Well, some decided to call on a “socialist savior”, but the self-made failed “orange billionaire” won more support (in part, because “wolves” liked him more).
The social and economic consequences of “greed is good” thinking have been bad for the American economy (do not confuse with the stock market). Bad things (#1 was the loss of high-paying jobs) have been gradually accumulating and eventually led to Obama (who promised to change things, but didn’t), and then (because Obama did not change things) to Trump (with the promise of an even bigger change – which, of course, also will not be delivered). As I pointed out many times, Trump is not a problem, Trump is the symptom of a problem (Obama was the first symptom, but everyone overlooked it), or, rather, many problems accumulated in American society and ignored by American elites.
“self-making” and “pooling themselves up by bootstraps” is just a mirage. When the quality of life in a “farm” dropped, “rabbits” did not try to escape, did not jump over the “fence”. Instead they turned for the help to the “orange savior”. Well, some decided to call on a “socialist savior”, but the self-made failed “orange billionaire” won more support (in part, because “wolves” liked him more).
The social and economic consequences of “greed is good” thinking have been bad for the American economy (do not confuse with the stock market). Bad things (#1 was the loss of high-paying jobs) have been gradually accumulating and eventually led to Obama (who promised to change things, but didn’t), and then (because Obama did not change things) to Trump (with the promise of an even bigger change – which, of course, also will not be delivered). As I pointed out many times, Trump is not a problem, Trump is the symptom of a problem (Obama was the first symptom, but everyone overlooked it), or, rather, many problems accumulated in American society and ignored by American elites.
Right now, we see
three political forces fighting for the power.
Trump Republicans want to
return America to the “golden age” of the 80s, or even 60s (other so-called
Republicans/Conservatives
are simply in hiding).
Some Democrats
(represented by Biden) want to return America to late 90s, early 2000s.
And so-called
progressive Democrats want to turn America
into the former USSR (or current China). They feel, and feel right(!), that the greed must be
controlled, that the old free-market-based capitalism has gone away a long time ago and now just a few large corporations rule the country. But for them, the way to make things better is make the government bigger. As
a patchwork, it could work in a short term. But they ignore a social and
historic fact that
the size of corruption is directly proportional to the size of government (again, the treatment is worse than the disease). Like
all idealists/utopia-ists, they believe that if they write on paper a perfect
law, all people will immediately follow it. But that belief only makes them
unfit for governing - the do not know people and how a society works.
So, no one – not a single politician – offers new political and economic solutions. Mainly, because none of them (meaning, their ignorant advisers) offered a detailed political and economic analysis of the processes happening in America in the last thirty years. And no one had taken their responsibility for being a part of those degrading processes. That is one of the reasons why many Americans are looking for a political outsider (that image was projected by Obama, Trump and now by Sanders and Buttigieg).
Democrats still
could win in 2020. The winning strategy exists, but unfortunately, they do not
know it. As I pointed out before, the winning strategy must
be name-independent, and that is exactly why none of the Democratic
contenders is capable of seeing it (see – another proof of the degradation of white
male American elite – a rigid mind, an inability to search outside of
accustomed views).
Greed culture is
deeply connected to a culture of male domination. In America it may be not as
strong as in Africa or Arab world, or else, but it is strong. Every healthy
male has a genetically built-in desire to dominate. That is why when males meet
they immediately start measuring who has “a bigger dick” – figuratively
speaking, of course – in a form of a wrist watch, a car, a boat, a house, a
wife, a bank account. For males, greed is a natural continuation of heir male
nature.
The first fallen
hero of uncontrollable greed was and is – quality. Quality of everything –
goods, products, service, life. Well – of everything that does not fall under
specific federal regulations (although those are also being under attack by greed). It looks like the old-school business managers have forgotten what “professional pride” means (or retired), and the new-school business managers simple never learned its meaning. The business ideology changed from “we offer the best quality products and services” to “make money as fast as possible, is the quality good enough? Sell it!”
When you need to
cut your spending, what do you cut first? You cut the quality control, because
– what’s the point! “Consumers are stupid, they believe everything, so, cut the quality
and boost marketing” (and, my friends, is how marketing crossed the line between advertising and lying).
Examples are numerous and everywhere. At least three
quarters of all made in China and made of “stainless steel” items I’ve
purchased to my home started rotting in about half a year. Plastic or rubber parts of items made in China often stink – because companies use the cheapest materials. Sloppiness (i.e. low
quality work) has become a norm.
I used to live in
three “luxury” apartment buildings. In Russia those would be the cheapest
developments for people who can barely afford to own their own place.
They are
made by the cheapest design and from the cheapest materials (that stink, BTW). The
only insulation it provides is visual – thank God neighbors cannot see each
other. But they can hear, and even smell everything. God forbid is someone in your building smokes, especially marijuana. You are doomed!
Thermal insulation deserves only one word – it’s a joke. With such approach to thermal insulation one can only laugh at any attempts to lower energy consumption. Exhaust and air-conditioning pipes that run through the building have so bad junctions that every smell is leaking out through them and through the cracks in the structure. Gas-burning air and water heaters make you feel like you are in a car where the exhaust pipe has a crack. And on a cold winter night don't try to plug two extra heaters in your power outlets, because your circuit bakers will brake, because they can sustain only one, because the electric wiring is cheap. The only factor why developers call those buildings “luxury” is because those buildings are new – no one yet lived in them (I was the first or the second tenant). Those developers of “luxury” apartments are so cheap, they don't even install light switches with an LED in it, and a washing machine and a driver came right from the nearest laundromat. “Luxury”!
A Nigerian bought a hose and was shocked by its low quality – “we don’t have such poorly built houses in Nigeria” (naturally, we aren't talking here about slams). An Indian says “I cannot live in my new apartment, it’s like my neighbors live in it with me”.
But only few Americans can compare the quality of their products with the quality of products in other places. In fact, it has become more and more difficult to find a good quality product in America. For a decade I have been seeing how good high-quality products have been gradually replaced by cheap low-quality versions. If you find a good product, most probably it is made in Europe and has to be purchased online.
The quality of roads and many infrastructure objects is to be described by a single word - pathetic. Contractors use the oldest technologies and the cheapest materials but charge like it's the latest invention. This where greed crosses into fraud, like it always eventually does.
The internet in America is the slowest but the most expensive among all the developed countries. The only reason for that is greed - the providers (who divided the market between few big companies) use the cheapest solutions and also have the goverment in the pocket to set any price they want.
Every winter, a year after a year, a decade after a decade, thousands of Americans lose their electricity because electric companies are too cheap to move the wires from old wooden polls under the ground. Due to exactly same reason every year thousands of people lose their homes and displaced because of fires started buy crappy power lines.
Especially upsetting to see how greed affects medications. When Russian doctors learn what Americans have to use, often they cannot believe it – “that’s the 19th century!”. American pharmaceutical firms guard their market by not letting in medications from the European competitors. Greed literally kills Americans, or at least does not let them live longer and healthier (in general, American healthcare system can only thrive when the majority of Americans a sick).
Do you want to know the true sign of greed and being cheep? Every year the toilet paper in many institutions become thinner and thinner; it is almost as think now as a cigarette paper.
Thermal insulation deserves only one word – it’s a joke. With such approach to thermal insulation one can only laugh at any attempts to lower energy consumption. Exhaust and air-conditioning pipes that run through the building have so bad junctions that every smell is leaking out through them and through the cracks in the structure. Gas-burning air and water heaters make you feel like you are in a car where the exhaust pipe has a crack. And on a cold winter night don't try to plug two extra heaters in your power outlets, because your circuit bakers will brake, because they can sustain only one, because the electric wiring is cheap. The only factor why developers call those buildings “luxury” is because those buildings are new – no one yet lived in them (I was the first or the second tenant). Those developers of “luxury” apartments are so cheap, they don't even install light switches with an LED in it, and a washing machine and a driver came right from the nearest laundromat. “Luxury”!
A Nigerian bought a hose and was shocked by its low quality – “we don’t have such poorly built houses in Nigeria” (naturally, we aren't talking here about slams). An Indian says “I cannot live in my new apartment, it’s like my neighbors live in it with me”.
But only few Americans can compare the quality of their products with the quality of products in other places. In fact, it has become more and more difficult to find a good quality product in America. For a decade I have been seeing how good high-quality products have been gradually replaced by cheap low-quality versions. If you find a good product, most probably it is made in Europe and has to be purchased online.
The quality of roads and many infrastructure objects is to be described by a single word - pathetic. Contractors use the oldest technologies and the cheapest materials but charge like it's the latest invention. This where greed crosses into fraud, like it always eventually does.
The internet in America is the slowest but the most expensive among all the developed countries. The only reason for that is greed - the providers (who divided the market between few big companies) use the cheapest solutions and also have the goverment in the pocket to set any price they want.
Every winter, a year after a year, a decade after a decade, thousands of Americans lose their electricity because electric companies are too cheap to move the wires from old wooden polls under the ground. Due to exactly same reason every year thousands of people lose their homes and displaced because of fires started buy crappy power lines.
Especially upsetting to see how greed affects medications. When Russian doctors learn what Americans have to use, often they cannot believe it – “that’s the 19th century!”. American pharmaceutical firms guard their market by not letting in medications from the European competitors. Greed literally kills Americans, or at least does not let them live longer and healthier (in general, American healthcare system can only thrive when the majority of Americans a sick).
Do you want to know the true sign of greed and being cheep? Every year the toilet paper in many institutions become thinner and thinner; it is almost as think now as a cigarette paper.
The low quality of American
education deserves a special note.
America is the only developed country in the whole world that could not survive without
highly educated foreigners. And yet, there is no doubt in the mind of
anyone in American elite that this is not right, that this poses a potential
threat to the nation – “We got so much money, we can buy anyone, it’s just
cheaper than investing in American education” (hail to greed!).
And now we have to
turn our attention to one of the most threatening sources of American decline –
a low-quality work-force. This conversation is intimately connected to the
discussion of the race policies in America. Because a large part of a
low-quality work-force comes from minorities.
A nursing home. An
elderly patient in a wheelchair is calling for help – “Help! Help! Help!” Later
it was found that he was slowly sliding down the chair and was afraid to fall
on a floor. In fact, if that would have happened, the institution could have
been in serious troubles. But in a meantime, two black CNAs are sitting nearby
staring at the screens of their phones and do nothing.
Just one
illustration of many cases.
The two CNAs have
two superiors, one is white, another one is black.
The white one
says: “I cannot be hard on them, they will call me a racist”.
The black one
says: “I cannot be hard on them, we are friends”.
I am a good
observer. I see that in the last ten or so years, many work places that used to
be predominantly white now have much more non-white personal.
There is nothing wrong with that!
But I also observe
that often the quality of providing services declines with the increasing
number of non-white workers.
“Why didn’t you change
Mr. X?”
“I didn’t have
time.”
“But why other
(meaning – white) CNAs have time to go to all the patients and you don’t?”
“I don’t know, I
need to go to a restroom.”
I must stress that
all I want to do now is to provide an illustration to the statement I made
before, namely, quote “a large part of a low-quality work-force comes from
minorities.”
I do not have any specific data, I do not have
statistics, I do not know how many cases of a low-quality work is related to
white and non-white personal. All I know is that this issue exists, and that
according to my non-scientific observations, this issue is growing in volume (for example, for
a simple reason called – demographics).
Now I want to make
another important statement – when
people (of any race) demonstrate a low-quality work – it’s not
their fault, it’s the fault of the
management (e.g. I’ve collected
a small library of
samples of poor
management; one of the problems is that first managers are looking for “a pal” who will not disturb “the vibe”, and then, hopefully, also can do things.
I would assume
that many black CNAs and white CNAs are graduated from different programs with
different graduation criteria – set by the management.
We enter here a
touchy topic – affirmative action.
There is no doubt
in my mind that African-American community has been discriminated and is being
discriminated and requires a very special treatment in order to help tis
members to achieve professional success. But that special treatment must not
lead to the lowering criteria of quality of work.
If we randomly
choose a white 17en-year old guy and a black 17en-year old guy and compare
their average level of school preparation, I would expect that the white guy
would have a higher level of that. So, we want them both to enter the same
program and to achieve the same final
level of skills, but the black one has to start from a lower level of preparation. How can that be done? There is only one
reasonable answer – first, we need to help the black guy to close the gap in
his/her preparation level. But that requires extra resources! And now we run
into greed.
“No extra resources for African-Americans! It’s
not fair for whites!”
Naturally, this is
one of many signs of racism in America.
There are three
groups of white Americans.
1. “White
Ostriches”, i.e. people who simply ignore any race-related issues, do not read
about it, do not talk about it, like it doesn’t exist.
2. White
supremacists, a.k.a. racists, i.e. people who would like to keep all minorities
in an eternal submission. Those people are scared of the growing population of
non-whites, including immigrants (hence – the wall). They would even converted
America to fascism if that would help them to keep their “white power”.
3. The other
whites. Those people call themselves “Democrats”, “Progressives”, etc., but in reality,
they use minorities for their own political gain – because without minority
voters they would have no chance to be elected.
The only people
who could really represent the true interests of minorities are the minorities,
but so far, they do not recognize this situation and let white “progressives”
represent their interests. In my view, that does not work very well
for them.
African-American
community has been culturally handicapped, and that was done on purpose by
white Americans. To remedy this historic fact, some people talk about
reparations. But that is exactly what white supremacists would do, if they
would have been forced in doing anything. “Give those n----rs money, let them
buy some stuff, drink more, smoke more, it’s gonna be fine, as long as they do
not mess with our power”. What African-American community needs is vast and
targeted investments into the culture of African-American community.
Number one must be
education.
Progressives of
all sorts have been reforming
education for about thirty years. And the result is, well, absent.
Politicians, non-profits, and university entities have been using schools and teachers
for their own needs – spending hundreds of millions of dollars on “research”,
fancy programs, expensive consulting, etc. If that money would go directly to
teachers’ salary, the effect already would be better than any of the “research”, simply by
attracting into schools better professionals. Improving education does not need research, it needs (a) improving
of teaching cadre, (b) improving teaching conditions. Period.
Knowledgeable and
passionate teachers teaching in fully equipped schools will bring the reform
education needs. And here we again run into greed. The most disadvantaged
schools and the least prepared teachers are the ones that serve minority
communities. Those educational zones need specific targeted investments. Not
research (sorry, NSF).
If money is limited, it must go into buildings, textbooks and teacher professional
development in the minority communities.
The problem is
that for many whites, race is a very difficult topic to discuss (one of the reason America is id bound to lose the world domination). If my employee
would tell me, paraphrase: “I’ m not going to work hard because my ancestors
were slaves and my community had a bad school”, I would fire that guy. And I
could present a solid argumentation to support my decision. But many Americans
always try to avoid a
difficult conversation – at work or in public.
Once I was getting
coffee in a Starbucks in Cambridge, MA. There was a short line of white folks,
men and women. And a black man with a cup in his hand was trying to get some
money from the folks. People tried to pretend that they did not see the guy,
they were looking anywhere but him. He came to me and asked for some change. I
looked him in the eyes and said “No, why?” Immediately I was called a racist, and
a slave owner. BTW: the guy did not look old, or week, or dirty, his clothes
looked clean. But he was agitated by the fact that someone talked back to him
in a firm manner. I looked at the guy and said: “You know, I am a Russian. My
ancestors had no slaves in America. In fact, my government was supporting the
fight of American Africans for their rights. Why should I give you any money?”
He just waved his hand and walked away. But everyone around was pretending that
neither guy nor I existed.
I was told that
many whites feel guilty about the history of slavery in America (Eddy Murphy has a great SNL sketch about this). My view is
simple – it does not matter what you feel, what matters is what you do (and I do my part and I'm very good at it). By my
observations, all those whites do is pleading to African-Americans: “Vote for
me and I will give you stuff”. I’m not sure for how much longer it’s going to
work.
As we can see,
greed has penetrated, distorted and degraded many aspects of American life.
That is why I call it “American cancer”.
Is it treatable?
Of course it is.
Every disease –
mental, physical, or social – is treatable.
But sometimes the
treatment is so strong, it alternates the body.
For America, there
is no going back. The processes of degradation have gone too deep.
It’s like
stretching a spring. If you stretch it not too much, when you release it, it
comes back to the original state. But if you stretch it too much, if you go
over a certain point, it will never go back to its original condition anymore.
Never. The only way to have a working spring again is to make a new spring –
i.e. to melt the old one and to go through the whole process of spring
development from a square one.
A country is not a
spring, and does not have to be completely melted, but the transformation can
go only in one direction – forward.
And that is the
problem with American politics – it has only people who want to move it
backwards. American politicians do not think (that includes their advisers),
they react. The number one rule of political strategy (or any strategy,
including American
security) is “we’ll deal with it when we get there”.
Imagine a Formula
One race. One team has been winning again, and again, and again, a year after a
year, after a year. But suddenly, one year, there was a tie. Managers did not
pay attention, just shrugged. Another year and the team lost. Manager got
worried. Managers started to think. But there was a problem. They forgot how to think. They got fat and lazy and they lost their edge a long time ago. They
have been running the team by inertia. No
innovations, no trying new things, no ability to even imagine anything new. There was a time when America was indeed the most innovative country in the world, but that time is long over. Now due to the pressure to demonstrate how “innovative” they are CEO invent fake innovation - anything to show off. That is why, for example, everyone is rushing to adopt AI, even though they do not yet understand what AI is and how it can be used.
They have become incapable of
doing anything different from what they have been doing for a long time. They
should step down and let in some fresh blood, or at least to hire someone who can think. But they are too arrogant to
accept this. This is a good illustration of this fact (borrowed from here)
U.S. students consistently perform worse than their peers in other developed countries, but consistently feel that they know everything they are supposed to know. The same is true for the majority of American managers - all types, all levels (they grow up from those students, don't they?).
As the folk wisdom
goes, it’s got to get worse before it gets better.
The current layer
of politicians will have to fail first, and only then a new politician will
emerge, the one who will be able to offer new ideas, new vision, new path for new
America (America that will not dominate the whole world anymore, cause time
does not go back).
That someone will
have to start from accepting the fact that his or her old political knowledge
has become irrelevant.
“I know that I know
nothing” – must be his/her first words.
What’s next?
Or, like Russian used to say for centuries: “Whose fault is that, and what to do about it?”
Or, like Russian used to say for centuries: “Whose fault is that, and what to do about it?”
Well, I can give a
hint.
Embrace the unusual.
You’re welcome.
1. American
Federal Reserve and Wall-Street have created “dollar pyramid” that allows
creating significant amount of wealth by printing dollars and then transferring
them into stocks options. On one hand, financial institutions and some
individuals love it because it gives them an opportunity to get very rich very
quickly (while the
masses remain outside of the wealth-production avenue). On another hand,
that makes the world economics unsustainable.
This will
eventually lead to decoupling from dollar. For example, the biggest American
rivals, Russia and China, can create their own “world bank”.
2. American
richest people do not see any danger to their future, or to the future of their
loved ones. They spend billions of dollars on their pet projects and completely
oblivious of the social tremors that may break America. Otherwise they would
turn their attention to the most fundamental issue of this century – intellectual health of
the population.
3. Greed made
Americans to love smells. Everything has to have a scent. Your clothes stink?
Spray on it! Your garbage stinks? Spray on it! Your air stinks? Spray on it!
This is one of the
dumbest/smartest deceiving ideas forced on people who have no habit of thinking
for themselves.
Your clothes
stink? Wash it up!
Your garbage stinks?
Dump it!
Your air stinks? Ventilate
it!
Fresh air has no
smell. That what makes it fresh.
Clean things have
no smell. That what makes them clean.
However, the “smell
hysteria” has gone so far that now scents are being used to deliberately cover up
things.
If a cleaning crew
used a cleaning supply with a strong smell, look closely and you find a that a
lot of dirt has been left untouched.
When a nursing
home patient has a senior moment, a lazy CNA does not change his/her diaper,
but takes a spray and splash it around.
When you enter a
new “luxury” building, the first thing you feel is a smell of cleaning supplies
– everywhere! Everything smells, walls, carpets, laminate on a floor, kitchen
cabinets, a washing machine, a dishwasher. In a store it is hard to find
anything unscented. People do not like it anymore.
And then people
wonder why do they have allergies, why is their nose blocked, why do their eyes
water?
They have hard time
to connect two dots:
* an intake of vast amounts of unnatural chemicals – * the
natural reaction of a body with the intention to clean itself.
4.
4.
Recently The
Atlantic “exposed” a sad fact that American managers cannot manage (anymore), because
they do not know what a manager does, what
management is, and how to do it.
When they need to make a decision, to cover
their “a$$e$” (picture a “flipped” 🖤), they call on a consulting firm and pay it millions
of dollars. Now, if things go south, they can blame it on the firm. No risk! No
thinking!
Well, I have been exposing this fact since I started blogging.
For example, read “Why did Hillary Clinton
lose the race?” (an illustration about bad political management).
Over time, I've been collecting more and more examples
of mismanagement.
For example:
Well, actually, “mismanagement” is a way too nice word
for describing the actual level of “management”.
We should call it “the absence of a basic ability to
manage”, but there is no single word for that (and here I explain why did
it happen).
There are two fundamental deficiencies many American
managers share:
1. they
cannot think;
2. they
are way too arrogant to accept this fact and start learning how to think.
Most people think that any activity happening a brain is
“thinking”.
Well, that is a matter of terminology.
When a mouse is trying to get out of a maze – does it
think?
Some people say “yes”, others “no”.
I think we can agree that thinking may have several
levels, and what the mouse’s brain does is the “animal-level thinking”.
Many people exhibit a very similar level of thinking
in their every-day life. And there is nothing wrong with that, because the vast
majority of every-day activities do not require higher levels of thinking. The
question is, can they produce a high-level of thinking what that level is needed?
A high-level of thinking, or a human-level thinking,
or what I call – thinking, is, by my
definition, a deliberate manipulation with abstract mental entities in order to
achieve a specific mental goal, i.e. to develop/construct/design a specific
mental object/construct/concept/model.
Once more, by a definition
thinking, is a deliberate manipulation with
abstract mental entities in order to achieve a
specific mental goal, i.e. to develop/construct/design
a specific mental object/construct/concept/model.
As a human activity, thinking has a specific goal. As
a process, thinking has a structure and a time-line. An ability to think is why
we call humans “intelligent
species”.
A very good example of thinking is the mental work a
chess master does when he/she is practicing a game. The master makes a move,
then turns the board and makes a move as the opponent, then turns the board
again, and makes a move, and etc. Sometime, he/she makes several steps back and
tries a different line/set/chain/sequence of moves. The same type of a mental
work is happening in the brain when a master plays an actual game of chess. Some chess masters can
even play with several opponents not
looking at a single board, just using their mind.
“Paul Morphy held in
1858 a blindfold exhibition against the eight strongest players in Paris
with the stunning result of six wins and two draws.”
American managers do not possess this thinking
ability.
They can only participate in a group thinking – when one
participant says out-loud one though, that though excites a reaction in another
participant who says one thought, etc.
This is also the reason that many educators heavily
advocate for a group work for students – because this is the only
way they can think.
As I described many times, thinking ability is heavily
correlated with the level of brain development.
Brain development is heavily correlated with the main brain activities of
students during their school years. Since
many managers are the product is the American education system, the main
activity for them was memorizing, and that is NOT thinking.
The highest level of thinking is the one used in
developed sciences, like mathematics, chemistry, physics.
It is called – scientific thinking.
Not many managers can think scientifically.
In particular, they cannot think from the first
principle. Hence, they cannot see a big picture. Hence, they have no vision and cannot devise a long-term strategy. That is why they demand “data” even though in many cases a decision
can be logically derived from one or two fundamental principles of management.
Of course, having data is important, but only when the person who wants to use
that data is smart and clever enough to know what data he/she needs and how
he/she will use it – even before any data have become available.
P.S. For the difference between “smart” and “clever”
visit “What does it mean
to be smart” and scroll down to the disclosure.
5. From "Who I Am"
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