Complacency and Scalability Traps

February 14, 2009

In addition to a baseless faith that yesterday's prosperity will magically reappear on its own, there is another kind of complacency: "This is the only way this system can work."

To help us grasp just how deep complacency runs in the U.S., I turn to knowledgeable correspondent K.D., who recently filed this report:
"I visited a friend of mine who lives in Fountain Hills Arizona. Nice 5000 sq ft house with a huge pool in back, and if you walk outside his house you can see the fountain in the middle of town shoot water about 500 ft. in the air. I think the rainfall in the area is abut 9 inches a year (qualifies it as a desert) with a summer temp of 105 or so.

I visited him a few years ago and there were many 5000+ sq ft houses under construction. At that time, he mentioned his house had doubled in value in just two years and people couldn't buy lots fast enough. This visit, as I went for a morning jog around the area, I couldn't help but notice that every other house or lot was for sale.

He had a Superbowl party and many of his neighbors came over. These were all highly educated affluent people, ages from 45-65ish (hard to tell the upper limit, plenty of nip/tuck work). I made it a point to ask a few of them about: 1. general state of the economy, 2. housing bubble, 3. energy/peak oil, and 4. water resources.

The unanimous responses (in order above): 1. just a blip, things will start looking up this summer once the stimulus hits, 2. no way prices will drop much more, it is a great time to buy, 3. there is plenty of oil, the recent price spike was do to speculators ("saw the same thing in the 70's..."), and if it does start to get expensive, we can run off of solar, 4. we have plenty of water - no way we can run out.
I won't bother with an analysis of the above - good times ahead for Fountain Hills, no doubt.... ;-)
I think this "scalability trap" that we find ourselves in (i.e. the more advanced we become, the more things scale, the fewer jobs we need) is like a hidden compounding tax on modernity (emphasis added: CHS) - and we are about at the place where that tax is going to break the current model of tech innovation and entertainment consumption. A new model will surely replace it, let's just hope it is not some kind of Mad Max paradigm."

Based on a Google search of "scalability trap", I believe K.D. has coined a new and tremendously insightful concept. If I understand the concept correctly, it refers to the inevitability of new scalable technologies replacing human labor.

The example that first comes to mind is agriculture; once the scalability of fossil-fuel equipment and fossil-fuel fertilizers was in place via assembly-line production (of tractors, etc.) and industrial-scale chemical plants. then it became inevitable that farm/agricultural labor would fall from 20% of the U.S. workforce to 2%.

In a completely different model with the same results, the entertainment industry is being gutted by the scalability trap of the Web. It now costs almost nothing (to the end user, not the economy as a whole) to bypass the gatekeepers and oligopolies of the recording industry and eliminate the entire staff of the Capitol Records tower (the iconic round building in Los Angeles which calls to mind a stack of old 45 RPM vinyl records).

As one example of this, here is a recent Wall Street Journal piece. Musician Finds a Following Online: Word-of-Mouth on Blogs and Other Sites Attracts Fans -- and a Record Deal
"In late 2006, Justin Vernon, a musician in Eau Claire, Wis., recorded nine songs while staying at his parents' hunting cabin in northern Wisconsin after a breakup with a girlfriend and his long-time band. He used just a desktop computer with recording software, a three-piece drum set and a guitar.
A few months later, Mr. Vernon posted the songs on his MySpace page, hoping to get some listeners and feedback. He also printed 500 copies of a CD with those songs to sell to friends and fans and send to music bloggers for review.
He got that and much more.
Thanks to the buzz his online tracks generated on music blogs and social-networking sites, Mr. Vernon has played at numerous venues and appeared on the "Late Show With David Letterman." He signed a record deal in October 2007, and his first album, "For Emma, Forever Ago," sold about 87,000 copies through mid-December, with about half of those downloaded online. With a band he formed early this year, called Bon Iver, Mr. Vernon is now playing sold-out concerts across the U.S. and abroad."

Was Justin's creative session in the cabin scalable? No; but his direct access to listeners and potential customers is not just scalable but even exponential. Furthermore, the tools he used to record are scalable; every PC is now a recording studio, with the addition of a decent microphone (which can be borrowed if need be).

Was his recording "work"? Of course it was, but not in the same sense as a paid A&R (Artist & Repertoire) employee in the Capitol Records Tower is "working": Justin wasn't paid, nor was he directed in his work toward some higher corporate function or goal.

And A&R is itself being taken out of the hands of record companies: Taxi: the world's leading independent A&R company.

I would agree with K.D.'s brilliant assessment that "we are about at the place where that tax is going to break the current model of tech innovation and entertainment consumption." For really, what exactly is the zeitgeist of complacency based on but the twin ideas that tech innovations will "save" our lifestyle of 24/7 entertainment consumption?

Speaking of jobs vanishing: Astute reader R.D. recently critiqued my call for the inevitability of white-collar staffing being slashed in this recession/Depression: (White Collar, Blue Collar, No Collar February 9, 2009)
"Today's entry does, as usual, stand to reason. However, it also is, as usual, reductive and superficial. The best way to keep cops on the beat is to have a large support staff to do the time consuming paperwork following any arrest. An arrest at the beginning of a shift meant hours at the desk filling out forms; at the end of a shift it meant the same hours, but on overtime. In the military, for every combat troop in the field, there are 10 support troops-medical, culinary, clerical, supply, legal, transport, etc., etc., all essential. Get a job in the real world and see! "

As I wrote R.D.: excellent point, and I did not do a good job of making my primary point, which was: is all this "work" necessary or even useful? Examples that spring to mind:

1. Since R.D. mentioned the Armed Forces, we might wonder why the number of generals and other staff officers exceeds the number of generals, admirals, etc. in World War II when the military had 10 times more enlisted personnel.

2. We might also inquire why the Navy's new DD(X) destroyer ship design slashes crew size by more than two-thirds: DD(X) specifications (navy.com):
Crew: Many of the functions performed by crews on conventional destroyers will be automated on the DD(X). That means a reduction in crew size – 330 fewer sailors than the Spruance class destroyers and 200 fewer sailors than the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. The crew will also be able to focus on fighting versus ship maintenance. "

Why is reducing crew size critical to the future of the Navy? Here is the GAO's answer: Military Personnel: Navy Actions Needed to Optimize Ship Crew Size and Reduce Total Ownership Costs:
The cost of a ship's crew is the single largest incurred over the ship's life cycle. The Navy's goal is to cut personnel on the DD(X) by about 70 percent from that of the previous destroyer class--a reduction GAO estimated could eventually save about $18 billion over the life of a 32-ship class."

Is that "real world" enough for you? The U.S. Navy cannot afford to overstaff its ships, period.
Now let's turn to two other "real world" examples from my own family. My cousin is a senior police officer in a California city police department with a budget of around $46 million. His department is facing an $8 million reduction.

So where do you cut? Not cutting, i.e. the status quo, business as usual, is no longer an option. Every employee of the department, uniformed and support staff, could take a 20% pay cut; I doubt that would prove the most popular option.

Or the PD could look at what my cousin noted: the department has more physical paper than ever before, and computers seem to have only added to the amassing of paper.
Hmm. Does this situation seem ripe for some major ESSA--eliminate, simplify, standardize and automate, similar to what the Navy has managed with the DD(X) design? To deny the potential of ESSA to cut duplicate, inefficient or unnecessary "work" is denial of the first order.
This is complacency of the "this is the only way the system works" variety.

Here is another example from the "real world." My sister works for a large healthcare non-profit. Her division of about 130 people recently went paperless, as in, no printing of files, period. As a result, 17 file clerks no longer have "work." Roughly 15% of the entire division's staff has been eliminated by rather straightforward ESSA procedures which, while complicated on a software level, are extremely intuitive: leave digital files digital, eliminate procedures whose origins or purpose has been lost in the accretion of "prosperity," simplify, standardize and automate what is truly essential.

Prosperity enables all sorts of inefficiencies, redundancies, complexities and self-serving self-absorption (i.e. endless meetings in which little is actually decided or accomplished). We as a nation are entering a period in which a 10% reduction in income/revenues is not followed the next year by a 20% increase back to prosperity, but by another 10% cut in income/revenue. The third year requires another reduction, as do years four and five.

Is ESSA (eliminate, simplify, standardize and automate) scalable? Absolutely.

That is "the real world," and complacency/denial on all levels is slowly being eroded by reality. The 500-foot useless fountains are about to be turned off because the water and money have run out.

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Friday Quiz: COPD and CO2 Retainers

What Is COPD?
COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary (PULL-mun-ary) disease, is a progressive disease that makes it hard to breathe. "Progressive" means the disease gets worse over time.
COPD can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus (a slimy substance), wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms.

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD. Most people who have COPD smoke or used to smoke. Long-term exposure to other lung irritants, such as air pollution, chemical fumes, or dust, also may contribute to COPD.

In the United States, the term "COPD" includes two main conditions—emphysema (em-fi-SE-ma) and chronic obstructive bronchitis (bron-KI-tis).

In emphysema, the walls between many of the air sacs are damaged, causing them to lose their shape and become floppy. This damage also can destroy the walls of the air sacs, leading to fewer and larger air sacs instead of many tiny ones.

In chronic obstructive bronchitis, the lining of the airways is constantly irritated and inflamed. This causes the lining to thicken. Lots of thick mucus forms in the airways, making it hard to breathe.

Most people who have COPD have both emphysema and chronic obstructive bronchitis. Thus, the general term "COPD" is more accurate.

COPD is a major cause of disability, and it's the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. More than 12 million people are currently diagnosed with COPD. An additional 12 million likely have the disease and don't even know it.

Bonus question: What is a "CO2 Retainer"?

A CO2 retainer is a person who has become conditioned to chronically high levels of CO2.

The hypoxic drive theory: The CO2 retainer

Usually, increases and decreases in carbon dioxide levels detected by the central chemo receptors is what causes people to breathe. When a person is in respiratory failure, and the carbon dioxide level is high, decreasing levels of oxygen as detected by the peripheral chemo receptors then takes over as the drive to breathe.

Thus, if a person has a chronically high carbon dioxide level, and you give this person 100% oxygen, you knock out their drive to breathe. This, my friends, is what we call the hypoxic drive theory. Actually, this is the gold standard of respiratory care. It is what helped to establish us as a profession.

This is what happened to my father when he was admitted to the hospital with a suspected case of bacterial pneumonia. Since he was having trouble breathing, the attendants gave him 100% oxygen.
Unbeknownst to them, he was a "CO2 retainer," and so the 100% oxygen, rather than aid his breathing, essentially signalled his body to stop breathing.

As I understand it, it works like this in CO2 retainers: when levels of CO2 reach a certain high level, then the lungs are signaled to rid the body of excess CO2 by exhaling and inhaling, i.e. breathing. If CO2 levels are very low, as is the case when a patient is breathing 100% oxygen (recall that normal air is only 20% oxygen), then the body never gets a signal to breathe because, well, there's apparently no need to as CO2 levels are low.

Apparently not everyone buys into this theory; but in any event, my father basically stopped breathing, which triggered a reaction by the emergency room staff. Since it was late at night, my stepmother had gone home, so we don't know exactly what happened, but it seems a breathing tube was inserted down my Dad's throat to restore normal breathing.

My Dad is 82 and suffers from a host of chronic illnesses. He never smoked, so we surmise he contracted COPD as a result of living his entire life in the smog-laden Los Angeles basin. He has multiple myeloma and severe osteoporosis as well as COPD. Since he'd already had pneumonia last year, my stepmother was very worried, so his surviving offspring rallied round, my brother flying in from France and my sister and I making the much-less arduous 400-mile trek to their house.

My Dad was released from the hospital and is recovering pretty well at home, but all the issues of at-home assisted care are now on the table. My sister researched the Medicare coverage, and well, most of you middle-aged and elderly folk can fill in the blanks.

What can I say but the obvious: try to keep whatever health you currently possess by whatever preventative measures are still within reach.


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Complacency and The Will To Radical Reform

Despite the current gloom, the U.S. is firmly entrenched in a complacent faith that traditional methods like Keynsian borrowing/spending will "repair" the U.S. economy. For an explication of just how destructive such deep complacency can be, I turn to the excellent account of the causes of the Roman Empire's collapse by Michael Grant, The Fall of the Roman Empire .

Enmeshed in classical history, all he can do is lapse into vague sermonizing, telling the Romans, as many a moralist had told them throughout the centuries, that they must undergo an ethical regeneration and return to the simplicities and self-sacrifices of their ancestors.

There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. His whole attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea.

This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.

This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all."

When does supreme confidence turn into supremely dangerous complacency? When you read fawning accounts of U.S. innovation saving the day. The mainstream media is chockful of predictably mealy-mouthed mea culpas: OK, we missed the subprime meltdown, the housing bubble, the derivatives insanity, the inevitable collapse of over-leveraged lenders and insurers, the corruption and lax oversight--but really, some of our reporters did cover these things--on page B-11...occasionally....

And when the MSM isn't pronouncing its innocence, it's running over-confident, hubris-choked paens to American innovation and entrepreneural drive, blah blah blah. In other words, we don't need to do anything about the current Depression except stand back and watch that good old American "can-do" attitude and spirit of innovation run right through this "temporary downturn."

Nice--but too bad they're not reporting the decline of the engine of innovation: small business. As described here numerous times, what few are willing to look at squarely is the crushing of small business by high junk fees and taxes, high rents and a general disdain for business by government at all levels.

If you look at BusinessWeek and other "standard-bearers" of the status quo, bookending their now-rabid attacks on zombie banks (where were you guys 2 years ago, huh?) and lax regulation are happy-happy stories about some new tech innovation or new start-up which is just about to bust out and repeat the meteoric rise of Apple or Google.

Maybe, but what if the situation is no longer favorable for start-ups? What if the regulatory and other cost barriers are now so high that the garage tinkerers are doomed to be stuck in the garage?

Meanwhile, back in the bankrupt state of California, the state's political "leaders" are proposing a mere $10 billion in new borrowing to bridge the deficit--along with $15 billion in new taxes and $10 billion in cuts. Hmm, how exactly is adding yet another $10 billion in borrowed money a solution to a deficit which grows larger by the day? Isn't that the very acme of irresponsibility and complacency?

The basic complacency is this: "Everything will bounce back in a quarter or two; all we need to do is patch things over until 2010, when everything will return to endless prosperity." But what if the $40 billion deficit facing the state widens even further in 2010? What's the "leaders'" plan then? Borrow $20 billion more?

Would someone on Wall Street please become an adult long enough to tell the state of California, "No, we're not rating your new bond A, or B or even C. They're rated junk, and nobody will buy them." That is expecting too much, of course; Wall Street will palm off the guaranteed-to-default California bonds as "safe" and collect the fat fees: business as usual.

There can be no will to radical reform as long as a deep, untouchable complacency is the status quo. The MSM consensus is that this "recession" will be like every other recession of the post-war era--two or three quarters of declining consumer spending and then it's back to rising assets, lending and spending.

Just like the Romans of the fast-crumbling Empire circa 450 A.D., our "leaders" are pontificating about illusory strengths and making pious appeals to past glories (we beat the last Great Depression, and by golly, we're not making those mistakes again! We're going to lick this thing right now, etc.)

Yet as we examine the "solutions" being offered--borrow and spend, borrow and spend, brawk!--we see the same old tired script being played out. New ideas? Basically zero, at least to date. Where is the recognition that any economy fundamentally dependent on cheap, abundant oil and ever-rising debt, tax revenues and consumer spending is mortally wounded?

The Barbarians of Depression are metaphorically already across the Rhine and Gaul and heading straight for Rome. Will our leaders continue wrapping themselves in the false confidence of complacency until our latter-day Rome is surrounded and the Empire totters? The will to radical reform is presently non-existent in the halls of power and influence, and that does not inspire confidence that our leaders recognize their own complacency is perhaps our greatest enemy.


NOTE: I just returned from a week of dealing with a family medical emergency which has fortunately passed from critical to watchful. My attention is still spread thin; my apologies for the missed entry and my generally haphazard presence the past 7 days.

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Media Models Failing

February 11, 2009

The media is finding that merely cutting staff is not saving their business model.

For those who see a strong, skeptical media as a key bulwark of democracy and liberty, these are perilous times. I have been accused of taking perverse delight in the travails of the mainstream media; I have responded that it is not delight, but more a sober recognition that the old business models of the print media, network/broadcast television, radio, recording industry and Hollywood are already irreconcilably broken, and we are all participants and observers of the next iteration of media.

No dinosaur pondered the collapse of the "dinosaur model" of domination until the sky had already darkened. Now, long after the Internet/Web doomed the business models underlying all mainstream media, the dinosaurs are struggling to adapt as quickly and successfully as the smaller, easily dismissed mammals which scurried around underfoot.

Let's take a quick overview. Recent headlines in Los Angeles: local TV stations' revenues drop by 10%, Disney lays off 700 in Burbank, major studios slash the number of feature films scheduled for production in 2009.

Headlines everywhere: newspaper staffs reduced via buyouts, early retirement and/or layoffs, CD sales are falling off a cliff, pirated DVDs are available the day films open at theaters, most recorded music and digitized films are available on "free" peer-to-peer servers on the Web, etc.

As noted here in "conversation with Richard Metzger": the meteor which has struck the Media at 100,000 miles an hour is the Web, and its enabling of "free" everything: news, content, books, films, music, dialog, commentary, data, photos, videos, either posted in violation of copyright or posted for free by media companies seeking to retain audiences, or created and posted by creators previously locked out of the Mainstream Media (MSM).

The secondary effect of the Web's impact is generational: few under the age of 40 desire a physical newspaper or book enough to shell out significant money for either product. The fact is that newspaper readership is dropping precipitously among the younger citizenry.

As noted here by readers, the Web holds major advantages over a product produced hours, days or even weeks behind the present news (newspapers, weeklies and monthlies). In addition to this time advantage, it enables a variety of commentary/opinion that users seem to value as much as "paid punditry" that dominates the fee MSM editorial pages. Lastly, the Web creates opportunities for dialog and exchange (however low-value much of that exchange might be) which are simply impossible to match with a handful of "letters to the editor" or "man/woman on the street" video clips.

The weakness of the unedited Web is also its strength. Without any editorial filters, then much of what is posted on the Web fails to attract an audience. But it also allows us unknowns who have largely been filtered out by the MSM gatekeepers as insufficiently credentialed to be worthy of precious column inches or seconds of broadcast time a nearly-perfect Darwinian forum: access to the Web is virtually unlimited, so the competition is about as unfettered as possible.

In such a Darwinian world, the value of any content is constantly under comparison to millions of alternative voices, creations and sources which are available for free.

One way to address this competition is to raise the price of your product. That is the path being chosen by my hometown newspaper that has published dozens of my free-lance articles: the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chronicle, which has been losing millions of dollars a year, has shed staff like most other newspapers, but they also have a strategy for survival: charge those who want and value physical newspapers enough to support their business.

The Chronicle recently raised its rate for 365-days a year home delivery by $100 to about $400. It also raised its Sunday-only delivery $100 to $208 and its 5-day limited delivery by $100 as well. The paper also moved its most popular features sections (Home, Food, Wine, etc.) to Sunday, boosting the appeal and heft of the Sunday product. In announcing the changes, the Managing Editor noted that producing the Sunday paper cost about $10 each. With a street price of $2, that means the paper has to generate well over $8 of advertising revenue to cover its costs and make a profit.

In a world in which Web advertising strategies and options are exploding, that is a tall order--especially if the you're losing the key under-40 demographic. Not that declining advertising revenues are unique to newspapers; as noted here recently, local and network TV are also losing viewers and ad revenue--eroded by the Web. the same is also true of radio ad revenues.

I sincerely hope the Chronicle's strategy succeeds. If it costs $200 to print and deliver a Sunday paper even when it is largely supported by adverts, then customers who want a Sunday paper will simply have to pony up that sum.

Alternatively, home delivery of a printed paper will go the way of the dodo, and the production staff of newspapers will no longer have jobs. The content-side (the newsroom) will have to be sized to match the revenues generated by the adverts on the newspaper website, podcasts and other Web content.

In other words, the print media will enter a flat landscape shared by broadcast and radio in which few viewers/listeners/readers are paying directly for content; instead they pay only for the "pipe" which delivers their "free" content.

With the proliferation of shows and video content available to those with fast Internet connections, then the stranglehold cable and broadcast TV has had on video content is eroding fast.

A number of teens I know no longer bug their parents for a cable TV connection; they watch whatever programs they desire on thier laptops via the Web. Thus the stranglehold on the TV "pipe" (cable TV) is also endangered by the Web, which is fast becoming ubiquitous via fast wireless connections shared by many.

There is no small irony in the possibility that the enduring model of media may well be PBS. Perhaps as in Renaissance Europe, creators (and even networks/media channels) will seek wealthy patrons who front their cost of living, production and server costs. It is worth recalling that Leonardo Da Vinci was supported by wealthy patrons, and was in service to one such personage in France when he died. In the PBS model, the patronage of the wealthy is augmented by the voluntary support of many non-wealthy but willing patrons.

The current alternative media model--"free" content supported by adverts--is now entering waters roiled by recession and perhaps Depression. As you notice, this very site runs adverts in an attempt to offset some of the costs of producing this content (which is "free", heh). This site also gratefully accepts patronage by a "Remnant"-sized slice of the readership--a patronage which is financially and spiritually far more important than adverts.

This model of many patrons voluntarily providing financial support may well be a model a variety of media which could support or enable Web-based radio, commentary, video, original music, and perhaps even film production without a subscription-based model. Is such a voluntary model viable across a broad spectrum of media? No one knows; all we do know is that the gatekeepers who once limited access to the media has lost their stranglehold, and the new price of all media is "free."

NOTE: I will be hard-pressed to respond to email for the next day or so--my apologies to all correspondents.

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White Collar, Blue Collar, No Collar

February 9, 2009

The "soft middle" of non-technics white collar work is the only remaining target for cost-cutting; in a reversal of post-industrial recession pattern, the blue-collar technics jobs will remain while middle-management and other "soft" positions will be slashed.

Here is what happened in every post-war recession: blue-collar manufacturing and construction-related jobs were cut as factories lowered production, while the white-collar strongholds in government and corporate structures were relatively untouched. The cuts were on the production side, not the marketing/management /reporting side.

As the economy started a new cycle of growth (and borrowing for new cars, homes, appliances, etc. rose), then production on the factory floor was ramped up to meet resurgent demand.

This time it will be different. All the blue collar positions have already been trimmed over the past five decades: where there were once three school janitors, now there is one. Where there were 300,000 steel workers, now there are 65,000--and so on.

What is dawning is a new appreciation for technics-related work. By that I mean what was once known as "skilled labor": the welders who keep refineries on line, the folks who keep the canning machines working, the employees who know how to repair the glass-coating ovens, etc.

Within technics I would add all essential IT (information-technology) work: those who keep security up to date, the servers on line, etc.

In a bizarre, nonsensical twist, we as a nation have denigrated the welders and technics workers by lumping them into assembly-line work which required five minutes of learning for a lifetime of work. Those jobs are gone from the U.S.

It takes longer to learn how to be a truly skilled welder than it does to earn a marketing or business degree. It takes longer to learn the tricks of industrial ovens than it does to earn an MBA.

We as a culture have assumed technics workers are interchangable and easily replaceable; we are about to learn they are irreplaceable and it's the white collar middle-class jobs which are expendable. Where there were once two support staff per 20 teachers, now there are 10 or more support staff in school district offices for 20 teachers. The decision now faces us: either eliminate the teachers from the classrooms or cut the support staffing to historic levels--roughly 50%-80% of what exists today.

We as a nation will have to start looking at what constitutes productive work, and start making what are currently considered "impossible" choices: either keep your mainline teachers and get rid of bilingual education, all the masses of mostly useless reporting performed by support staff, or keep the support staff, bilingual ed, etc., and fire the teachers. Absurd? So it sounds now, but there is really no other choice.

The can be said of every government department, where support staff has doubled and tripled from historic levels in police departments, city halls, etc. We as a nation have had the luxury of demanding ever more reporting, data massaging, and politically correct programs on both the left and right to placate various political groups and special interests.

Now we will have to choose between keeping police on the beat, teachers in the classroom and technics staff actually keeping the refineries going or maintaining top-heavy overhead staffs of white-collar workers spending their careers meeting endless demands for reports, meeting agendas, marketing plans, etc.

It seems obvious to me that the great blade which has cut through blue-collar work for decades is about to begin work on the great "soft middle" of white-collar work. We as a nation are about to realize facilitators, project managers, HR coordinators, marketing assistants, etc. are far more interchangable and dispensible than those technics-related jobs which actually keep the infrastructure of energy, transportation, manufacturing and education working.


NOTE: I will be hard-pressed to respond to email for the next week or so--my apologies to all correspondents.

New Readers Comments 2/5/09.
New readers forum up and running! Thank you, reader D.K. for putting this together. Please note I am NOT a moderator and will only be able to drop in sporadically. Other readers have volunteered to moderate, so please be as respectful and cogent as when you write me directly.
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Operation SERF, Part 9
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