RR: their last good president. The man who, with Gorby, ended the Cold War and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. Just another Literally Hitler, I suppose.
Norman
24 days ago
Tell you what though, his book Command and Control, the history of the US Bomb revealed through the story of a Titan rocket accident in 1980, is an absolute cracker. Perhaps unwittingly it proves Hayek to be absolutely right: the centre can never know enough of the right stuff.
That’s my drift, A: that corporations were making hay long before RR.
BTW, what might be another name for a military-industrial-congressional complex? Corporatism? What’s another name for that, according to Benito?
Last edited 24 days ago by Norman
Western Bloke
24 days ago
FFS McDonalds had served 50 billion burgers while Reagan was still in power. How do you spend 30 years on something, and to be that fucking wrong about it. It’s the sort of book written by a twat and read by other twats.
McDonalds happened because cars happened. And Richard and Maurice McDonald were smart guys who worked hard at optimising the operation to lower costs, maximise turnover and make more profits. How do you get food to people on the go, cheaply. And after they’d mastered it, Ray Kroc came along and realised the system could be replicated over and over. The system is the magic.
It’s just another version of stocking frames or the Ford Model T.
WB, “The Founder” with Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc is a great movie. I also like the song “Boom, like that” by Mark Knopfler (despite the artistic licence used after Kroc buys them out….).
“is a great movie” – no, it’s a cheap hit piece made by by arty types looking down their noses at ‘trade’. It should have been a work of love for McDonalds and what Ray Kroc built but it was far from that. The portrayal of the McDonald brothers was good however. I’ve watched it twice.
It’s the same tired, lazy story about how someone only got to the top by crushing little people.
And to be fair, Ray Kroc wasn’t a saint. But the McDonald brothers were kinda dicks too.
An interesting shift that’s going on in movies, and The Founder was late to this, is celebrating entrepreneurial success. The folk heroes, the men who stood alone, were once soldiers, cowboys. But in a time of peace, it’s entrepreneurs. These are the rebels. Like Michael Burry, Billy Beane or the guys at Nike that signed Michael Jordan.
post-Ronald Reagan America, not American post-Ronald Reagan. post-X is a *PRE*positional adjective.
Michael van der Riet
23 days ago
Unchecked corporate power didn’t work for (too lazy to Google so this probably misses the really good ones) Blockbuster, Kodak, Enron and Lehman. Some former giants living in severely reduced circumstances include IBM, General Motors, Sanyo and Stellantis. Volkswagen and Porsche are ailing, will anyone really miss Harley-Davidson, Boeing what the hell is actually going on there, Airbus looks a bit wobbly, Disney, and so on and so on. It looks almost as if the prime check and balance on megacorps is the humble and fickle consumer.
Cost-plus is essentially a removal of cost discipline and responsibility from the contractor. One can see when a contractor would need that – when the commissioner is in the habit of constantly changing requirements, for example – but under those circumstances the problem is actually the commissioner’s indiscipline.
RR: their last good president. The man who, with Gorby, ended the Cold War and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. Just another Literally Hitler, I suppose.
Tell you what though, his book Command and Control, the history of the US Bomb revealed through the story of a Titan rocket accident in 1980, is an absolute cracker. Perhaps unwittingly it proves Hayek to be absolutely right: the centre can never know enough of the right stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)
…the rise of unchecked corporate power in America post-Ronald Reagan.
So the military-industrial-congressional complex never existed, then?
Norm, didn’t Dwight D say something about the MIC when he retired in 1961?………
That’s my drift, A: that corporations were making hay long before RR.
BTW, what might be another name for a military-industrial-congressional complex? Corporatism? What’s another name for that, according to Benito?
FFS McDonalds had served 50 billion burgers while Reagan was still in power. How do you spend 30 years on something, and to be that fucking wrong about it. It’s the sort of book written by a twat and read by other twats.
McDonalds happened because cars happened. And Richard and Maurice McDonald were smart guys who worked hard at optimising the operation to lower costs, maximise turnover and make more profits. How do you get food to people on the go, cheaply. And after they’d mastered it, Ray Kroc came along and realised the system could be replicated over and over. The system is the magic.
It’s just another version of stocking frames or the Ford Model T.
WB, “The Founder” with Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc is a great movie. I also like the song “Boom, like that” by Mark Knopfler (despite the artistic licence used after Kroc buys them out….).
“is a great movie” – no, it’s a cheap hit piece made by by arty types looking down their noses at ‘trade’. It should have been a work of love for McDonalds and what Ray Kroc built but it was far from that. The portrayal of the McDonald brothers was good however.
I’ve watched it twice.
It’s the same tired, lazy story about how someone only got to the top by crushing little people.
And to be fair, Ray Kroc wasn’t a saint. But the McDonald brothers were kinda dicks too.
An interesting shift that’s going on in movies, and The Founder was late to this, is celebrating entrepreneurial success. The folk heroes, the men who stood alone, were once soldiers, cowboys. But in a time of peace, it’s entrepreneurs. These are the rebels. Like Michael Burry, Billy Beane or the guys at Nike that signed Michael Jordan.
I thought it was Ronald.
post-Ronald Reagan America, not American post-Ronald Reagan. post-X is a *PRE*positional adjective.
Unchecked corporate power didn’t work for (too lazy to Google so this probably misses the really good ones) Blockbuster, Kodak, Enron and Lehman. Some former giants living in severely reduced circumstances include IBM, General Motors, Sanyo and Stellantis. Volkswagen and Porsche are ailing, will anyone really miss Harley-Davidson, Boeing what the hell is actually going on there, Airbus looks a bit wobbly, Disney, and so on and so on. It looks almost as if the prime check and balance on megacorps is the humble and fickle consumer.
Cost-plus contracts can be useful in some limited circumstances. But they’ve become the default, and this makes for a company that depends on them.
Cost-plus is essentially a removal of cost discipline and responsibility from the contractor. One can see when a contractor would need that – when the commissioner is in the habit of constantly changing requirements, for example – but under those circumstances the problem is actually the commissioner’s indiscipline.