One writer in my New Right Papers anthology talked about an experience he had in the USSR when it was still ruled by Social Progress. Apparently to show the flaws in capitalist production, he was shown the hula hoops. There was a giant warehouse containing millions of hula hoops the USSR had produced at the time of that craze in the 50s.
They still had them. It is an example of what I said before, that Communists have no way to figure out what consumer goods to produce, so they produce whatever the market economy produces. But to them, what they were showing him was how his wonderful market economy produced things nobody wanted.
But the hula hoop was not a planned event. They just grew and manufacturers produced them. Then the craze died and they stopped producing them. That’s what you get when Mommy Professor doesn’t do your planning for you.
To my writer, that was an example of how stupid the planned economy was. But to them, the fact that they couldn’t give the damned things away to their citizens demonstrated how ridiculous this capitalist product was.
My point is that the Soviets had no more idea what was going on than the CIA did. They had more agents there than we did by a LONG shot, “the KGB is everywhere.” The CIA budget is a secret, and I can tell you as a staffer for the ranking member of the Internal Security Committee, formerly House Un-American Activities Committee, that if you saw their expenditures you would be as lost as you are now.
But between the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and the others, we spent billions on knowing what went on inside the USSR, from qualified experts.
Lots of information was produced, tens of millions of words poured out, but nobody saw the USSR coming down, here or there. This never seemed to bother anybody, and certainly nobody in the Intelligence Community was ever criticized for it or lost a night’s sleep over it.
So back to one of our basic questions: Why was this information PRODUCED? Why were all those people paid so much and no one ever asked why they didn’t see the whole thing coming down? If Pepsi-Cola went out of business, went out of business next week, and no one in the Coca-Cola Company had any idea it was happening or why it happened, I guarantee you there would be a LOT of empty seats to be filled in the Executive Suites in Atlanta.
We know all those executives and experts WERE hired, and we know they had not the slightest hint the USSR was going to disappear overnight. We also know that those who haven’t retired are now promoted and well-paid in the Department of Homeland Security.
In fact it was exactly those same executives and experts and the people they hired and trained who were in charge on September 11, 2001. By now almost all of those who missed on the Soviet Incident AND on 9/11 have gotten fat pensions and/or big-pay jobs as Advisors in the private sector. But their spirit, and their level of competence, lives on in those they made experts to succeed them.
And no one notices.
#1 by backbaygrouch4 on 05/22/2010 - 7:52 am
Ivy Leaguers have nothing on Old Man River. The words just keep rolling along, and in greater volume too. Their analyses may miss points here and there but they do discover plots. That is an important upside. The downside, however, is that the plots are often the ones their agents instigated.
Many moons past I chummed with a geezer, ex state rep from the 30s, in some gin mills where the elite did not meet. {Bob, remember Whitey McGrail’s bar on West Broadway?] He had retired from the legislature for health reasons [the voters had gotten sick of him]. He copped a spot checking the dogs at Wonderland. To supplement the state check he had two nephews hawk tout sheets at the gate. There were many such operations at the time as the tracks were the only legit game in town. The traffic was good.
He put out over a half dozen of them. As he did not know a thing about greyhounds he did a wheel through the various sheets. That way every day one would score. Of course, the next day the boys would be shouting, “Get the whatever, yesterday – six winners.” He could not lose.
Lest you object to his method, remember, it was the late thirties, FDR had been fighting the Depression since 1933 and he was doing worse than Hoover. It put food on the table. It was a living. That is why the tout sheets were printed. Sort of like the intelligence industry in Washington.The guy belonged in the CIA or Homeland Security. He had their system down pat. And he did without a sheepskin from Hahvahd.
#2 by BGLass on 05/22/2010 - 8:48 am
Every system wastes things. But planners can only count on basics like food. Even by Marx’s terms, this then characterizes the perceptions of citizens, (who begin to see the world, like their government, as about predictable things like wanting food). So, the system necessarily CREATES PEOPLE whose minds wind up mired in the reality of subsistence. Worse, planners always find hungrier people OVER THERE, so everybody secretly (and reasonably) worries about starving.
So, only “the left” could construe the “American Dream” of a house as ABOUT a HOUSE. For Americans, without property tax, and with gun rights, it meant you could finally have digs the state couldn’t take away. Only somebody with a bigger gun could push you off—so you had a place to DO it FROM, from which to CREATE THINGS–kids, gardens, artworks, whatever. It was a place to be creative IN, b/c you didn’t have to worry about moving every five seconds. It wasn’t an “investment” as now (an indicator of inflation), and often got “handed down.”
Now the state owns all houses, either through taxes, mortgages, eminent domain, whatever, so HOUSES have come to represent the OPPOSITE of the “American Dream.” Now the HOUSE just means you happened to be the right color, or were nice to somebody in government.
So, the whole country is awash with these Hula-Hoop-Houses.
The U.S. citizens’ taxes paid bureaucrats to administer to the new colonists a salary to build these houses, putting American construction workers out of work, and then, the colonists were supposed to move into the houses at 0% down. But then what, lol? They have SHELTER. A predictable need like food in the materialist conception. But THEN WHAT?
The only way to keep it going is to keep bringing foreign construction workers to build their own new houses. AND THEN WHAT?
So, even people who can afford the state-mortgages (or can buy outright and pay the taxes) are walking away at a loss, just hoping to distance themselves from what “home ownership” implies. Now the coveted thing is the month-to-month rental lease, previously held by only the poorest of the poor.
They can think only of Food, Shelter, Water and Energy. Jesus said Man can’t live by bread alone. He should have said SOME MEN, lol.
#3 by Dave on 05/22/2010 - 11:31 am
Their solution to anything is a big difficult project.
That lets you know right there they are incapable of effective solutions.
The DOD procurement arm has 22,000 personnel.
In contrast, Israel gets by with 40.
To say there is something wrong doesn’t even begin to get at it.
Everything, absolutely everything, is fundamentally wrong.
It is all FUBAR on whole new level. Bigger than anything that has ever existed.
#4 by Simmons on 05/22/2010 - 12:24 pm
Its really quite simple, ask them.
No one ever asked them anything, for decades we did get the usual hysterical screaming one way or another, which only feeds the beast.
I could care less about the CIA, one day Uncle Sugar will run out of real sugar and the employees at Langley will steal the furniture and the building will house pigeons.
The USSR foundered once a few simple concise questions were asked of it and its ComSymps here in this country. Thanks Bob, no thanks Comsymps Best Buddy Buckley.
The supposedly omnipotent anti-white machine will collapse once “our side” learns to ask of it basically Mantraesqe questions. Then one day the likes of the SPLC will have its employees steal the furniture and pigeons and blacks will live in its buildings.
#5 by shari on 05/22/2010 - 1:58 pm
Maybe their eyes have been made blind and their ears deaf,lest they wise up and change course, or something like that.
#6 by backbaygrouch4 on 05/22/2010 - 2:09 pm
Dave,
You state, “The DOD procurement arm has 22,000 personnel. In contrast, Israel gets by with 40.” Could you put a footnote on that? To me the idea that any government agency the size of the IDF gets by with a procurement staff of 40 is silly.
From the official website of Israel’s Defense Ministry:
“The Procurement and Production Directorate (PPD) handles procurement and oversees the manufacture of systems and products, maintenance services for the military and civilian defense systems, and ministry agencies’ overseas procurement activities. The PPD also oversees the development of the country’s military-industrial infrastructure, thus facilitating more extensive and intensive local production and reducing defense imports. The PPD operates with the defense system’s future needs and the country’s industrial-technological potential in mind. The PPD also administers the maritime and air transport of equipment and goods acquired abroad for MoD and other government ministries, as well as equipment and goods exported from Israel.
The PPD is composed of five executive and several staff units. Four executive units, organized as divisions, deal with procurement. Each of these (Air, Land, Maintenance, and Sea) coordinates its operations with a corresponding logistical center in one of the IDF branches, two or three specific-area systems, and one or two branches located in IDF logistical centers, in charge of rapid procurement entailing small-scale expenditure. The “office” or unit is the basic entity that performs most procurement coordination work, specializing in procurement areas according to types of equipment and technologies. Each such unit has a corresponding procurement agency in one of the IDF logistical units, and several such units are organized within a divisional framework. The fifth division – Overseas Handling and Transport – arranges the handling and shipping of import and export cargoes of the defense system and other government ministries, draws up contracts and agreements for the purchase of air and maritime shipping and handling services, and is responsible for paying import taxes (customs).”
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00h20
As anyone can see there are more subdivisions than personnel by your reckoning. Of course, Israel should have a leaner procurement department than the US has since most of the quality control and standards establishment is done gratis by the US Defense Department.and the goods are shipped, again gratis, to the IDF.
In any case it is difficult to the point of futility to compare one government’s departmental structure with another’s. There will be different systems, categories, definitions and so on. Many experts deem Israel’s military even more bloated than ours. And why should it not be? Some one else is picking up the tab.
Perhaps the 40 member procurement staff you are referring to consists of American Senators, Congressmen and Executive Department plants, people like Charles Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Jane Harmon, Gerald Nadler, Henry Waxman, Rahm Emanuel, etc.
#7 by Dave on 05/22/2010 - 5:49 pm
Backbaygrouch,
I can’t foot note it, but my sense is that the IDF backoffice is incredibly lean by American standards.
We have to remember that generally speaking, Israel is a bureaucratic mess, actually worse than America.
We know because of the failure of Israel’s last attack on Hezbollah, that they have a very faulty system for the assessment and approval of battle plans, but I have heard that Israel is the world leader regarding effective and lean weapons procurement.
Of course, that is Israel’s history. If you read the story of Israel’s arms in 1947, the story is simply amazing how they pulled it off, getting the weapons that they did.