The Basic Economic Problem

Here's a very good post from Nicole Bell at C&L on some economic observations from Fareed Zakaria -- good, basic, core stuff that tells us a lot. I recommend it, but here's the key observation:

As Fareed Zakaria describes it, it's is because Germany is investing in its own long-term economic success, by focusing on strengthening their manufacturing base, educating future employees, and offering social safety nets to keep the workforce happy and secure.

I've talked to people in my private life who question whether we could actually adopt Germany's policies here, given that our GDP is exponentially much larger. I don't think it's an issue of GDP so much as it is a willingness to stop structuring all of our economic policies for the short-term benefit of corporations over everything else. (Emphasis mine.)

There are examples of what the Germans have been doing -- made possible, I suspect, because German corporations are not running the government the way American corporations do -- or maybe it's just that German CEOs are smarter than ours.

I have some fairly strong ideas about things like this, and I'm running into this Wall Street corporate think on a daily basis: staff is your key element in any business. Without staff, you're screwed, and if you don't value them, you're screwing yourself. The movers and shakers don't get it -- they think staff are like gears or something -- if upkeep gets to be too much, you get rid of it and get a cheaper one. (Although Zakaria has some good thoughts on that aspect, as well.) So now we're in a situation where the upper reaches of management are populated by frat boys with MBAs who have no idea what they're doing because anyone with experience and solid judgment (not to mention common sense) has been put out to pasture.

I have a history of successful staff management because my staff always knew that I supported them and would back them (although they also knew I would haul them into my office and rip them a new one if they really screwed up -- as soon as we got the screw-up fixed) and they also knew that they could talk to me. And I ran a couple of very efficient, productive and successful offices because of it.

Yeah, it's old-fashioned -- but it works.