Slate: The Rise of American Incompetence

[marmar]

The Rise of American Incompetence
We used to be the world's most skillful entrepreneurs and managers. Now we're laughingstocks. What happened?
By Daniel Gross

Posted Saturday, March 15, 2008, at 7:12 AM ET

The dollar plunged to new lows against foreign currencies this week. There are plenty of reasons for its plunge, but at the most basic level, the dollar's weakness reflects the world's collective, two-thumbs-down verdict about the ability of the United States—businesses, individuals, the government, the Federal Reserve—to manage the global financial system and the world's largest economy. Countries that outsourced their monetary policy by pegging domestic currencies to the dollar are having second thoughts. Kuwait last year detached the dinar from the dollar, and Qatar government officials last week said they were considering doing the same with their currency. International financiers are unnerved by the toxic combination of "misplaced assumptions about housing, a lack of necessary regulation and irresponsible use of debt with sophisticated financial instruments," said Ashraf Laidi, currency strategist at CMC Markets.

Dissing American financial management is an affront to national pride tantamount to standing in Rome and asking, loudly, if Italians are able to make pasta. The United States invented the concept and practice of running large, complex systems. Along with baseball and deep-frying, management is one of our great national pastimes. The world's first MBAs were awarded by pioneering yuppie factories such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. (Wharton's founding in 1881 was quickly followed by the world's first time-share summer houses in the Hamptons.) Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line was the gold standard in global manufacturing for decades. Contemporary American institutions stand for excellence in managing everything from supply chains (Wal-Mart) to delivery services (Federal Express and UPS).

Americans' ability to manage complex systems has been the ultimate competitive advantage. It has allowed the United States to enjoy high growth and low inflation—a record we haven't hesitated to lord over our foreign friends. The shelves in the business section of a bookstore in a mall in Johannesburg, South Africa, are stocked with the same volumes you'll find in a Barnes & Noble in Pittsburgh, Pa.: memoirs by cornfed paragons of capitalism like Jack Welch, wealth-building advice from American money managers, large tomes on how Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller built global businesses from scratch. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.slate.com/id/2186547/

[Mind_your_head]

1. I think this part is wrong

"Americans' ability to manage complex systems has been the ultimate..."

Americans ability to create, imagine, innovate, and then turns those ideas into reality with an AMERICAN WORKFORCE and American quality products and resources is what made <--(past tense) America great.

Oh, and then there was adherence to the Constitution of the United States of America.....

We were the envy of the world!

Now....everyone's saying, 'What happened'?

Yes, indeed. What happened?

[Yavin4]

2. There Are Two Types of Managers: Those That Can and Those That Can Bullshit

I became a manager three years ago after being a technical analyst. I am more of a doer. I get projects done on time and within specifications. I work along side of bullshit artists in my own department, and you'd be amazed at how I am constantly criticized because I don't bullshit with other managers.

I know that my example is anecdotal. However, I imagine that this happens at a lot of companies. Higher ups prefer the people who shoot the shit with them over the people that can actually get the work completed.

[catnhatnh]

3. Maybe the "incompetence" grew as the rewards for "incompetence" did...

the great unlinking of performance from rewards of course began with "cost plus" contracts and moved thru the "no bid" wonderland.But the real start was Ronald Reagan and the de-regulation of trucking.The 20 mule team president picked out a few restrictive rules and turned them into a "welfare queen" narrative of how rules that had given us 50 years of responsible freight transport were protecting a few frauds and union drivers whom he hated....since he killed the trucking outfits and few Americans died in the few weeks after it was open market on ALL regulations...Regulation died, Restaint died, unions were blamed and demonized....nafta, cafta, outsoucing,....Gordon Gekko, Greed is Good,OPM leveraged buyouts, S&L, H1B visas, Tech Bubble, ownership society, sub-prime crisis, economic collapse......anyhow the whole deal was about showing profits THIS quarter and everything else was thrown away to do it.And now on the far side we find the lies and thefts and failures that steal as directly from the next generation as the theft of social security funds.There was never incompetence there-just a willingness to fuck others when doing so was not a criminal offense and the money was good.

[snot]

4. Competence isn't the issue--U.S. execs are still competent--at looting. nt