A Modest Proposal for the Making of A Model Mom & Pop Gub'mint Shop
If the U.S. Gub'mint or institutions tied to it such as Freddie Mac should indeed function more as a large corporation, as a few of the Libertarian brethren suggest, then first we have to look at what government produces. It produces Social Security checks and weaponry. It also operates an exclusive franchise in collecting federal taxes and does a little side business in legislation, although that trade is strictly for the high-end consumer as no one else can afford to get the laws they want actually passed. So for the most part, it is data-entry/manufacturing type labor and we could find some nimble fingered foreigners to do much of it.
Obviously, expensive D.C. operations must be maintained to cater to the lobbyists who represent the top 2% of the populace. They shouldn't be required to establish overseas offices simply because there is a need for the gub'mint to lower its operating costs. But other than that we could quickly fire up some call centers and phone trees in a labor-friendly locale to handle most of the routine client inquiries. I estimate we could do away with 70-80% of the congressional representives in this manner alone. Why spend more money on maintaining an old-line social club preserving quaint debating customs? Fee based legislation can work and be affordable for those who truly need it as evidenced by the encouraging results the current administration has produced in disentangling costly environmental regulations for the corporate legislative consumer and providing them a value-added, incentivized product they couldn't have gotten any where else. They were happy to pay the tariff, so to speak.
In this day and age, much of representative gub'mint is loss leader services. The core business should be catering warfare to underdeveloped foreign states. Nothing but upside there. Who else out there can excel in that industry? It probably won't be the French. As GWB has pointed out, "The trouble with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur". However, modern warfare is increasingly risky because much of the necessary hardware is too costly to produce efficiently due to the continuing rise in the cost of armor plating.
The fact is there are cheaper alternatives in certain high-grade plastics that, I'm told, can produce results similar to traditional armor and could be made very competitively. Now, there is bound to be some squawking from the mewling, perpetually-disgruntled classes because this increases safety risks out in the field and our own personnel frequently have to do more and more of the warfarin' chores. No one values worker safety more than I do (it is practically sacrosanct), but let's be honest: professional fighting personnel know of the risks going in, and regardless we have signed waivers attesting to that point on file. If the OSHA types think they can make the warfare industry safe as milk and perfectly tort free, they are mare than welcome to try.
One rather unsavory and unmentioned aspect of this business sector is that to gain market share, we may simply have to nuke other arms producers and severly limit their productivity. This has worked in the past, and we shouldn't always be reinventing the wheel here; we can and should learn wisely from what has worked back in Grandad's age.
Gub'mint as a business can work, but only if we cut costs and streamline the heck out of it. One thing is we are going to have to raise executive compensation at the most senior levels to attract the kind of folk who can get things done. It is good and all that we have a Harvard MBA running the day to day, but c'mon, to turn this ship around it is going to take someone who can steer a steady clear path amid the squalls and doesn't rattle easily. That kind of level-headedness is of limited availabilty but can be had. High caliber talent such as this usually is expensive as well it should be, and shall command a commensurate price to the value it generates.
As the dollar rides high, We the People will prosper. It ain't a-gonna be easy, but hard work never is.
Read more!
Obviously, expensive D.C. operations must be maintained to cater to the lobbyists who represent the top 2% of the populace. They shouldn't be required to establish overseas offices simply because there is a need for the gub'mint to lower its operating costs. But other than that we could quickly fire up some call centers and phone trees in a labor-friendly locale to handle most of the routine client inquiries. I estimate we could do away with 70-80% of the congressional representives in this manner alone. Why spend more money on maintaining an old-line social club preserving quaint debating customs? Fee based legislation can work and be affordable for those who truly need it as evidenced by the encouraging results the current administration has produced in disentangling costly environmental regulations for the corporate legislative consumer and providing them a value-added, incentivized product they couldn't have gotten any where else. They were happy to pay the tariff, so to speak.
In this day and age, much of representative gub'mint is loss leader services. The core business should be catering warfare to underdeveloped foreign states. Nothing but upside there. Who else out there can excel in that industry? It probably won't be the French. As GWB has pointed out, "The trouble with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur". However, modern warfare is increasingly risky because much of the necessary hardware is too costly to produce efficiently due to the continuing rise in the cost of armor plating.
The fact is there are cheaper alternatives in certain high-grade plastics that, I'm told, can produce results similar to traditional armor and could be made very competitively. Now, there is bound to be some squawking from the mewling, perpetually-disgruntled classes because this increases safety risks out in the field and our own personnel frequently have to do more and more of the warfarin' chores. No one values worker safety more than I do (it is practically sacrosanct), but let's be honest: professional fighting personnel know of the risks going in, and regardless we have signed waivers attesting to that point on file. If the OSHA types think they can make the warfare industry safe as milk and perfectly tort free, they are mare than welcome to try.
One rather unsavory and unmentioned aspect of this business sector is that to gain market share, we may simply have to nuke other arms producers and severly limit their productivity. This has worked in the past, and we shouldn't always be reinventing the wheel here; we can and should learn wisely from what has worked back in Grandad's age.
Gub'mint as a business can work, but only if we cut costs and streamline the heck out of it. One thing is we are going to have to raise executive compensation at the most senior levels to attract the kind of folk who can get things done. It is good and all that we have a Harvard MBA running the day to day, but c'mon, to turn this ship around it is going to take someone who can steer a steady clear path amid the squalls and doesn't rattle easily. That kind of level-headedness is of limited availabilty but can be had. High caliber talent such as this usually is expensive as well it should be, and shall command a commensurate price to the value it generates.
As the dollar rides high, We the People will prosper. It ain't a-gonna be easy, but hard work never is.
Read more!
posted by obelus at 10/30/2005 09:34:00 AM
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