Comment by dlcarrier
12 days ago
Over time, any large business trends to increase in bloat and inefficiency, and focusing on inappropriate metrics is a big part of that.
This eventually leads to competitors taking over and those business failing, which usually results in people losing their jobs.
When governments get equally incapable, and competitors take over, it tends to be a lot more violent.
A lot of this is the direct result of trying to run a government like a business. If we instead left some things that are unprofitable but important to government then we'd probably get better results than having businesses do those things expecting a profit. This was the model in the 30's, 40's and 50's that led to the "golden age" that people are now trying to recapture.
You're describe an age where the government was a wash with surplus dollars. Secondly, most of these research institutions run as non-profits that effectively just cover costs (but run a large hedge fund as a side business)
The escalation in costs have come from: - Incentives around US News College rankings (and the amenities that drive the rankings) - Administrative (non-teaching, non-research) bloat
Research is definitely in need of reform though, but not sure these outcomes are actually causal or even corrilated.
>You're describe an age where the government was a wash with surplus dollars.
Hey, good point. We should really bring back that 90% top tax bracket rate to get the government back to being financially solvent again.
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you're describing this during an age where trillions of dollars are spent for the military industrial complex, which makes it hard to believe that there's not enough money. priorities are just...the way they are.
The golden age people are trying to recapture is the aftermath of a world war that decimated almost every major power except the US and then the US happily rebuilt everyone’s economies in exchange for riches and power. The 21st century looks very different and only really MAGA folks are looking to rewind the clock as a way to move forward.
The economic theory of MAGA, is that the united states yes rebuilt the world but also exported the US consumer economy through asymmetric nonreciprocal tariffs. Rebuilding countries made money by selling to the US consumer, not the other way around.
You can argue that it's overall bad for the economy, but I think you're missing the arguement.
The 1940s you get for free, what with the war and all nothing was ever going to be very tolerable. But what about the 1930s is a "golden age" in your opinion? What exactly is it from that era that you wish we had more of?
Look, I'm just trying to represent as best I can the sentiment that drives a lot of this regression to how things were in the early part of the 20th century. I agree completely the depression sucked. My grandparents on both sides lived through it and you could see how much it sucked in the habits they cultivated. You'll get no argument from me.
> This eventually leads to competitors taking over and those business failing
If only that fairytale were true. In the real world bloated inefficient companies bribe government, install themselves into government agencies directly (regulatory capture), and hire lobbyists to write laws which protect them from pesky upstarts through unchecked anti-competitive practices and anti-consumer regulation allowing them to stay wealthy and in power forever while killing off innovation and progress.
...which I suppose is why IBM is still the industry leader in computing, while Ford, GM, and Chrysler can't be competed with. Photographers always use Kodak film, and we all talk on our Nokia cell phones. We all shop at Sears, and fly on Pan Am.
>IBM is still the industry leader in computing
IBM's stock price is 10 times what it was in 1991. What the hell have they even done in that time?
They don't have to be whatever you think is "industry leading in computing", because apparently just once being worth something was enough to enrich an entire generation of management while the rest of us struggle.
>Ford
Despite decades of failure that led to their struggles in 2008 and an increase in energy costs, they didn't die, and despite then selling several lines of cars that had serious defects that should no longer happen, they abandoned selling anything other than overpriced trucks and are STILL doing just fine.
>Sears
Sears was murdered to enrich a few already wealthy people. At no point did it do worse business.
Do you know which companies you didn't even mention that do not support your claim? All the gigantic conglomerates that own you.
From Disney owning a giant chunk of all media and setting national IP policy, to Sysco being one of the only food service companies because they ate all the other ones so now every restaurant is stuck selling the same food as most prisons, to Nestle owning most of the grocery store so they can sell you water that they pumped out of your aquifer for crazy rates while complaining they couldn't be profitable without slave labor, to Dupont poisoning the entire earth, to fossil fuel companies that set national energy policy, to most farming in the US being beholden to a single legal entity, to the vast majority of "Brands" in the US just being a label change of a product they did not design.
You seem to be under this absurd notion that as long as the brand name on a couple consumer items changes occasionally (due to the kinds of technological innovations that we will never see again and cannot be predicted or relied upon), everything is fine?
I never claimed that companies can't fail or change, only that bloat and inefficiencies aren't a death sentence. Even several of your examples are still alive and well and it's telling that their major declines took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Companies have gotten a lot better at abusing government and law to protect their profits over the last 40 years.
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OK, look at Boeing. When is it going to improve or fold?
> This eventually leads to competitors taking over and those business failing
It's important to note that "eventually" usually takes so long that it might as well be forever.