The Power of Stupid

A reader sent this story about his workplace.

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“A theme from many of your previous comics came true to life for us today. Quality in the workplace.

Yesterday, a pointy-haired boss decided our meeting room needed nice motivational pictures on the wall. Twelve by eight inch, wooden frame, 1940s-style motivational tools (think 'Rosie the Riveter' in artwork, color and font). So an assistant was ordered to procure such things.

The first mistake was where the artwork was obtained from. Rather than pay $15 per picture for the real thing, it was decided to take the small JPEG images of what we wanted from a website that sold these trinkets. Cheap picture frames were bought (from a dollar store, by the look of things).

When the images were enlarged to fit into the 12 by 8 frames, the pixelation was terrible. In itself, this was funny. A picture that celebrates the idea of quality in the workplace looked cheap, and knowing it was a stolen image lessens the impact of the message slightly.”
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This story made me think about one of the great wonders of capitalism: It is driven by morons who are circling the drain, and yet. . . it works!

Think about all the people working and earning paychecks from companies that will ultimately fail. It’s a lot of people. But until those companies fail, the employees are getting paid, buying goods, and contributing to the economy. After the failure, those employees hop over to another sinking ship, and so on.

Within successful companies, a huge portion of resources are dedicated to projects and products that will ultimately fail. But in the meantime, everyone is getting paid and propping up the economy.

I once worked in a bank, making loans to small business start-ups. Our rule of thumb was that 90% of new businesses fail. The exceptions were franchisees and pizza places. But we saw no shortage of people willing to mortgage their homes to start their own sporting good stores and boutique dress shops, despite the 90% chance of failure. Without clueless optimists, the economy would grind to a halt. My own career has been a long string of failures and a few notable successes.

I understand the math of capitalism, and how the few successes are so large they pay for all the failures and then some. But at any given moment, the majority of resources in a capitalist system are being pushed over a cliff by morons. This fascinates me. And it’s clearly the reason that humans rule the earth. We found a system to harness the power of stupid.

In the rest of the animal kingdom, being a moron is nothing but bad. A moron lion, for example, who can’t catch anything to eat, is adding nothing to the lion economy. But a moron human who starts a business selling garlic flavored mittens is stimulating the economy right up until the point of going out of business.

My point is that I hope the monkeys that already know how to use sticks for tools don’t start using leaves for money. If that happens, we’re screwed.

Comments

[Marry James]

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[Fred]

That is a great article. I would be a billionarie if leaves were money.

[Jackson]

The biggest requirement of any business, big or small, is money. There are a number of lenders who provide capital for your business in the form of loan. These are termed as business loans and are very popular in the market.Small Business Loans

[Jeff]

Actually, franchises fail every bit as often as independent businesses.

From Fortune magazine "In the early '90s Timothy Bates, a professor at Wayne State University, studied Census Bureau data on 20,000 new enterprises and found that 38% of franchise units failed over a four-year period, vs. 32% of independent startups."
Full story: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2005/12/01/8365371/index.htm

[markm]

Capitalism: Most projects fail and are shut down.

Government: Most projects fail but are kept going.

[Iain]

Free Market Capitalist:

To you I say - "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." - John Kenneth Galbraith. I guess you are some kind of crazy system zealot or something or I am just overly cynical. But seriously, whatever.

[Jim]

"F*** me with a boogie beat."

[Jonathan]

"This is the dark secret of modern life.... As technology improves, a smaller and smaller percentage of people are needed to work to actually produce things we need. The rest is just noise. 5000 years ago, everyone had their own farm to feed and cloth themselves... 4000 years ago economies and money starting making people rich so they only bought and sold things at market that other people made... 100 years ago, most people still worked at factories building things... now that's probably about 10%. I personally don't know anybody that builds anything tangible.

What I wonder, is what do we do when we get to the point that machines are producing 100% of everything we need... will everyone wake up and suddenly say "I don't need to work anymore!" ??? That's my dream... the machines will be producing everything, and the only "work" people will need to do is entertainment and recreational. Of course, distributing the money and resources becomes the real problem when nobody produces anything tangible anymore :)"

There's always making better and better machines to do those things. Unless we make intelligent, self-improving machines. At that point, I'd say we're not much further from welcoming our new AI overlords.

Then there's distribution of wealth as an occupation. That's all Wall Street is. You can argue that it wouldn't exist if there weren't actually companies out there producing things but really, that idea is really just an abstract. It's gambling, pure and simple. People speculate on whether a company will do well or not, and they, en mass, buy and sell and stocks become more or less valuable. The *actual* value of the company is only connected to the value of its stock by the mentality of the buyers and sellers. In reality, that stock could be anything. It could be how much a horse who runs in a race is worth, or what number a dice will roll on to. So all of the jobs involved in the stock market is completely separate from the world of tangible production and is only related to it due to some mass cognitive dissonance.

Considering how much of today's "jobs" revolve around the stock market, I don't think we'll have anything to worry about in terms of creating trivial, useless things for people to occupy their time with. There will always be something that you could argue humans do better than a machine (note, I said argue) even if it is something as trivial as how much money the same mass of people are willing to pay for part ownership in an abstract entity. And there will always be a mass acceptance of this and mass employment of those people.

[Mark]

I worked for a publishing company about 7 years ago or so. They wanted their new quality-centric slogan printed on all the boxes being sent out from their warehouse (you know, book orders, etc).

They had thousands of these printed, each with the words "Comitted to Quality" :) Even the editorial department had cleared it!

[Robert Roaldi]

You might be interested in this blog piece I wrote nearly 2 years ago on motivational posters.

http://roberts-rants.blogspot.com/2006/02/motivation-posters.html

Robert

[le Big MAC]

I will read every post, I just wanted to get this in early. RE:
"Our rule of thumb was that 90% of new businesses fail. The exceptions were franchisees and pizza places. But we saw no shortage of people willing to mortgage their homes to start their own sporting good stores and boutique dress shops, despite the 90% chance of failure. Without clueless optimists, the economy would grind to a halt."

The overly optimistic entrepreneurs and the brain-dead office drones are quite often the same people. There are many exceptions, but generally I find many small business owners get into it because no company would hire them. And you Dilbert fans know how DUMB you have to be to not at least get temp work.

Seriously though, there are also just idealistic people who just KNOW that a DIY pottery shop would be the greatest gig ever. And what do you know, it worked! We enjoy low-budget movies, rent DVDs (*ahemDilbert, the TV Series-ahem) and hang out in restaurants, cafes or bars because some very idealistic, driven and probably desperate person just KNEW that it was a good idea. And that creating yet another Starbucks wasn't where it's at for them. And guess what, it works! Sometimes.
At the very least, it beats what you do at work.

[adora]

Thanks for this post. I now understand the importance of solar-powered torch.

[Sondra]

But nor everybody is useless.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070825/ap_on_hi_te/iphone_unlocked

[kgotthardt]

Garlic flavored mittens??????? ROTFL

I just love that. What a freaking riot.

I have some counter-arguments, but they need to wait until I discuss animals on my blog.

Small and medium businesses going out of business are never a good thing for employees or otherwise. My quick 2 cents. (Where the heck is the cent sign on this keyboard anyway? Cents don't count? Sense don't count?)

[Olli Lindholm]

That is brilliant

[Arturo]

"Says the man who decided to try to start up a restaurant."

Says the man who decided to try to start up a restaurant .... and then asks us for advice on how to attract more customers.

- Fixed it for ya.

[Joel]

Spend a couple of bucks for the company.

http://www.despair.com/viewall.html

This one seems to apply: http://www.despair.com/dysfunction.html

[Tom Gao]

Just a suggestion for boosting office morale:

1. Write a bunch of fictitious compliments and praise letters from "customers". Use a random name generator or a phone directory if you have any trouble.

2. Collate these into a commendation album and make several copies.

3. Place these artifacts in strategic locations around the office for staff and customers to see.

4. Sit back and let the business run itself.

Note: I haven't actually put this theory to practice. If someone out there is stupid and daring enough to pull this off, please let me know the outcome. Don't forget to treat me dinner when you're rich.

[Noah Vaile]

I protest, sir!! It is not the power of "stupid" but the strength of human will to achieve. Every one of those little start-ups representedan individual's dream of being a success. And if the bank did not believe that it least it (the bank) wouldn't make money on the venture then the loan would not have been made. Yes, 90% may fail (seems high) but that is not due to the 'stupidity' of the entrepreneur but rather to the vagaries of the market or a lacking in the business model. Sometimes, certainly it is stupidity, but perhaps as often cupidity or even felony contribute to the demise.

Nor does the ul;timate failure of a business indicate a lack of success. The old "iceman" was a successful business model. I can still remember the 'iceman coningth'. No one would consider taking up that business/profession today, but in it's time it was quite successful. And of course the freezer full of ice is still a staple at most markets and 7-11s. Today's equivalent of the iceman.

Finally the fact that a business "failed" does not mean that it was not a success for a period of time. The Saber-tooth Tiger and T-Rex are fine examples of "failed" animals yet both had runs that lasted longer than man's has as yet. And the saber-tooths keep coming back- they're just not here right now.

Want to buy an electric glass? Battery operated it can heat or cool your drink with a flip of a switch.

[DEC]

That story reminded me of a visit to a major customer a few years ago. They had a number of plaques in the hallway, and one of them espoused the virtues of the company's quality program. This company was in China, and the English translation apparently lacked quality since they had hastily covered up a misspelled word. We waited until the hallway was empty and snapped a picture. I still laugh about that.

Oh, and I'm also afraid of monkeys with leaf money.

[Free Market Capitalist]

What make capitalism infinitely better than socialism or communism is simple: A stupid capitalist wastes all of his money, but a stupid communist wastes all of yours.

[Lee]

Scott,

See #69 on the following list and you will be proud that you have influenced a generation that sees office work only through Dilbert's eyes.

http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/2011.php

[Eric]

A few weeks ago, my non-PHB manager said something funny, in mockery of upper management: "We're building programmers, not programs!"

I think that is actually rather true, in the bigger picture. Who cares if a company fails? Most of the companies I've worked for have failed, but I just obtained the skills I wanted, got paid for my time, and abandoned ship when the time was ripe.

People are really what matter, not products or corporations. Failing companies tend to be educational to all involved, and hopefully no lives are ruined in the process.

Just my $0.02.

[Okgenuine]

I read if you throw money at a problem in business, that always works. That posters' story is classic anti-psychology management. Which I call super capitalism. What, you're merely a capitalist? Why be that when you can become rich, and people who don't make the super-capitalist cut can be bet on like horses! It's wonderful! Eh, this is probably one post too many for me. I couldn't help myself.

[D. Mented]

I worked temp for a company that was VERY badly run by an egotistical control freak who puts most pointy haired bosses to shame before she gets her morning coffee, and gets worse with the stimulants.
A year later I worked temp for them again, this time run by a good manager, and the difference was night and day...We worked a regular schedule instead of Bitchy-Poo's whim of the day, got materials in when we needed them, and did our work.Morale was high, and the pay was better than average for that type of work. I was invited to come back in 6 months to work there permanently when they moved to their bigger location.
I checked back in 6 months, but the proffessional manager had quit to run a print shop (because that was his true love) and the owner had decided to just go back to Bitchy-Poo rather than pay the expense of hiring another trained manager.
I did not go to work there.
The company was out of business before the end of the year.
The owner wasn't a bad guy - he just didn't want to believe the worst about his heaving, slobbering she-devil supervisor.
One more business shot down by bad management.
(not the worst I've seen just the only one short enough to post)
D. Mented

[Sean]

This post got me thinking about, of all things, agriculture.

I remember reading that pre-Middle Ages it took 10 farmers to feed 1 non-farmer (in addition to themselves and their families). This was a huge limitation on countries because it meant that 91% of their workforce was unavailable to do the things that tend to advance society. (its also why fishing societies did so well; a fisherman is much more productive)

The other thing all this would mean though is that the entire country would be dependent on these farmers not being lazy asses like, well just about everyone is today.

I can't help but wonder what the relationship is between agricutural technology and laziness in a society.

[Conor]

A thought-provoking post, as ever, but I think it's a bit misguided. I agree that the continual redistribution of wealth leads to a healthy economy, but I don't think that capitalism is the best way to accomplish this. In fact, I think that capitalism built on the industrial mode of production most often leads to consolidation of wealth, and this is bad.

Hopping from sinking ships is possible in virtually any economic system, such as socialism: just switch projects. The key factor is that the money is moving, and I don't see the need to make the argument that money=capitalism.

[Dabo]

Capitalism for the most part works exactly like nature - it's called evolution. Nature blindly (or stupidly) throws out all possible combinations to see what "sticks" or survives - witness the countless billions of species that have gone extinct. Similarly, capitalism "stupidly" throws out business ideas, and whichever survives thrives, and the rest is your 90%. Short of a having a time machine that predicts what businesses will survive in the future - or an omnipotent god of capitalism (Bob?) who can tell the successfull business from the dud - this "stupid" model will have to do.

[Roger The Shrubber]

Scott,

Things are worse than you think. The problem is that failings are not well documented.

This will help: http://worsethanfailure.com/

[Mike in Cleveland]

Monkeys already can use money .. many psychological studies regarding "token economies" using primates have demonstrated they understand the concept and will work to obtain a reward that can, in turn, be exchanged for something else (food, etc).

Yes, money is a "token" .. money by itself isn't useful for much on a basic level (other than burning it for warmth).

[Zach]

It amazes me how many people constantly buy stuff they don't need. The entire economy is founded on impulse buying!

[Drone74B]

I can soooooo relate to what your reader is talking about. I work in publishing, and the amount of miracles I'm expected to work...

Why can't business be more like the military? The one thing I miss about the Army is the knowledge that everyone above you has already walked in your shoes. There's a definite progression of rank in the military. No one starts out at the top, and more often than not, your leaders started out where you are and know what it takes to do your job. Can't say that in the civilian world.

[sally]

Oh, monkeys know how to use money already:

But in a clean and spacious laboratory at Yale-New Haven Hospital, seven capuchin monkeys have been taught to use money, and a comparison of capuchin behavior and human behavior will either surprise you very much or not at all, depending on your view of humans.

...

But these facts remain: When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for food and, on occasion, sex.

Monkey prostitution. For real.

[Dee]

They stole jpeg images from a website?????

[rita mae]

My head hurts. REALLY. I was trying to read all the comments from your last posting and I can't concentrate on this blog. Couldn't make it through the whole comment section. I think that blog got the most comments I have seen here. Holy shit! I have never used 99.9999% of those words/sayings.

Most of your readers are relatively young, going by your second to last posting. Scott, go wash your eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and anything else you think deserves it, with a good bar of Dial Soap. Someone's going to be smoking turds in hell for that one.

Keep up the good work, Scott, I bet at least one or two people will get fired for spending too much time on the computer at work on that one. Hey, that ties in with this post. If you fuck off at work, then you either get your "titty in a wringer" or "your balls in a vise" and the work force goes on. Maybe we ARE all hypnotized and you are working for the capitalists so the weaker ones of us can be weeded out. Another conspiracy theory?

Scott, still love you, but still too old to stalk you.

[Behemoth]

Of course, if the monkey do start using leaves as currency, they're going to be in for some pretty serious inflation come spring time.

[DontYouHatePants?]

I work as one of only 2 'tech guys' at (name of half-retarded internet company). We have existed for 8 years in one form or another, from 2 guys in a garage (successful) to 100+ employees in a single large office/warehouse (clusterf$%k). The founder, our "Idea Guy", comes up with half a dozen new ideas for our business each year. If we are lucky, the ideas are merely foolish, and only lose us face; the unlucky ones result in us blatantly hemorrhaging cash from evey corporate orifice.

But it is true. No matter how close we come to the brink of doom, our neverending string of catastrofucks still pays the bills. I have never missed a paycheck, and we have literally HUNDREDS of client companies (some of the VERY big... call 'em Mal-Wart, i guess...) waiting for us to unveil our newest dumb-ass idea. And after it fails, they pay us to find a new way to waste still more resources... and of course there are still VCs waiting in the wings to throw literally millions at us when we screw up and are about to go under (again...).

Anybody else feel strangely comforted by this? Somehow there's a lot of satisfaction in the idea that a bunch of goons with all the grace and intellect of a monkey fucking a football can still make progress.... or maybe i'm too damn cynical for my own good. whichever.

-D

[Craig Fluck]

It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.

[gr8hands]

Scott,

I absolutely guarantee that at the bank where you worked, only a small percentage of the business they did was "making loans to small business start-ups." And since those losses incurred are often tax deductible (and certainly spread out among the remaining customers in the form of fees), it is a not-much-chance-for-a-loss situation for the bank. BOCTAPE.

Where do you get the figure that 90% of new businesses fail? That's an urban myth. Perhaps the guys around the watercooler at the bank bandied that figure back and forth, but it isn't accurate or based on facts.

You have the degree in economics, so please provide the source for that assumption.

Barring that, because I know it to be false, even when businesses fail, it stimulates the economy. You have to have repossessors, servers of paperwork, people at the bank doing the paper-pushing (electronically now, of course), movers, demolition crews, security personnel, attorneys, secretaries, etc. I mean, all that work of moving someone out of their office doesn't just happen by itself -- someone has to pay someone to do that, and everyone involved gets a paycheck!

So success stimulates the most, economically, but failure does also.

[Kenpachi]

Interesting post Scott. Some interesting comments too. I am going to reiterate whats been said here :). 'Harnessing the power of stupidity' hmmm...is that the right conclusion?....nobody harnesses anything...components of such a system play their own self motivated role (a defining characteristic of capitalism). It is natural that resources flow from less inefficiency and/or poorer services to more efficiency and/or better services. Nothing is wasted per se. Moron bosses will eventually fall. Even if they are large in number and have a strong clout in decision making.

Weak lion reminds me of the Tofu eating lion from Futurama. Anybody seen it?

But "Never underestimate the power of a mass stupidity" someone said here...how true.

[Ray]

I call it Corporate Welfare. It never ceases to amaze me how filthy-rich this country is, when we it only takes the 10% who actually work to support the 90% who never do anything productive.

[Neighbor Dave]

Truer words are hard to come by. Being a product developer I've definitely changed my direction over the years from quality to mass appeal (I like to eat), and yes they are generally exclusive of each other.

I bow at the feet of the guy that came up with the pet rock.

I keep looking for the Scarecrow (Wizard of OZ) to head up new development. He'd have to be a success.

[Drew]

I'm wondering where I can get some of those garlic flavored mittens.

[Bryan]

Where I work, we work a lot of hours. This got to us, so without management approval we spent thousands of dollars of our own money to fill the central, open area of an oval-shaped conference room with ball pit balls (Think Chuck E Cheese). It's still there. And even though it was organized by a few key people, it made everybody at the company a lot happier.

[David]

You really haven't named a post 'The Power of Stupid' yet? Damn.
Also http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070823_baby-talk.htm , for some reason.

[spiffy]

The genius of capitalism is that no one is in charge. If someone were, that someone would be a moron.

Unfortunately, capitalism is under constant threat from people who, being morons, think that things would be better if only the right someone were in charge.

Lord Acton got it wrong: Power enfeebles the mind, and absolute power enfeebles it absolutely.

[Amir]

The 90% failure is a myth, never been proven, and when anyone does any research on it, they find that it's GREATLY exaggerated.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2007/february/173214.html

http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2004-05-06-success_x.htm

[Biff]

"You don't need to hit the ball "out of the park" every time. Just getting on base is valuable. And sometimes, bunting into an intentional sacrifice brings in runs too."

I think I will put that on a highly pixellated poster and sell it online so that others can steal the jpegs.

[friskybeaver]

Says the man who decided to try to start up a restaurant.

[DF]

To Snappy Bob- "Great blog today. This one is so good that I will print it out and post it on the bulletin board in my office. As soon as the IT poeple fix the printer. It could be awhile."

As the only tech support guy here, I'm not coming to fix your printer today. I got called back off my lunch because the girl at the front desk was complaining that her keyboard was not working, and therefore she couldn't work. The keyboard was fine, she just could not remember her password correctly. From now on, I have fulfilled my quota of dealing with stupid people with stupid problems for the year. Deal with it.

[QwkDrw]

No, no, no ... I don't have time to completely explain the analogy's imperfection right now.

In a second, I'm meeting with a pod of monkeys in the backyard to arrange for my sale and their purchase of this year's projected crop of Fall leaves on my property -- they're into futures.

[DML]

'Tis a beautiful system, isn't it? Greed + hubris = capitalism. We all want more than we have, we all think we can do it better than the other guy and we're not afraid to spend money trying to prove it.

I love this system!

[the man in the trout mask]

I'm opening up a pizza place soon - "The Garlic Monkey" - actually,it will be a combination restaurant/dry cleaning store - fully integrated with tables,cleaning machines,ovens and presses all in the same area - foodstuffs and clothing, cooking ingredients and cleaning solvents will be distributed at random - the menu will include dry cleaning prices. The employees will be cross trained and skilled in all areas - the chef will also press pants,waiters will make alterations etc. - and there will be a continuous and free flowing interchange of duties.
Also,business hours will be flexible and varying - we could be open 72 hrs.straight or 30mins a day.

Also,free mittens might be available.

Hope to see you soon.

[VJ]

Your today's comic is hilarious

[RPK]

Check out this site for a great way to counter-act those 'inspirational' posters:

http://www.despair.com

They have a large selection of 'Demotivators', posters that celebrate the futility of everything. Some of them are hilarious...

My favorites are:

Irresponsibility
Meetings
Motivation
Effort
Discovery
Delusions
Achievement
Change
Idiocy
Individuality
Potential
Sacrifice

I think I'll order a calendar made of these, I just hope they don't screw it up, or go out of business before I get it.

[SJ]

Same with movie-making many of them don't make money but still they have to be made so that one movie will luck out.

[Sondra]

We are also breeding lesser quality humans. Those of us with poor eyesight have a better shot at survival and reproduction since the invention of corrective lenses.

You can be born with one of your major organs on the outside of your body, and they'll just put right back in. Does that defect get passed down?

[Todd]

If the monkeys use leaves for money, soon they will burn down all the forests to control inflation.

[Jerry]

It seems to me that nature works exactly like captialism. I'd bet over 90% of the species that have ever existed are now extinct, but like the failed start-ups, have contributed to the success of those that are not (mostly by being eaten). It all works out :)

[Avi]

And I thought you read fellow comic Pearls Before Swine!

And don't you read books either? They already tried leaves in The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe. Massive inflation ensued, and the solution was to burn down the forests so the leaves they had on them would skyrocket in value. They also declared war on a uninhabited landmass......and became the anscetors of us humans. It sounds funny when I write it because Douglas Adams is already funny.

[Ben]

Capitalism is abstract. As a culture, we succeed so well at fulfilling our basic needs that it gives us the freedom to fail at endeavors that are ultimately irrelevant.

While ML (Moron Lion) deaths might not stimulate the lion, er, "economy", they absolutely work to strengthen the lion as a species.

I may be misquoting you something awful, but didn't you one say you failed at %90 of your personal endeavors, but it was %10 success rate that really mattered?

The other lesson I took from this post is that in an economy of white collar labor and intellectual property, it's all too easy to rest on the laurels of one's "ideas". Theory is bullshit. Execution, everything.

[GLK]

As a former business owner my best advice to 90% of the blindly optimistic entrepreneurs out there is: Own the building you're operating out of. Do not under any circumstances pay rent or sign a lease. That way when your business fails, as 99.8% ultimately do, you'll be able to cash-in your equity and not be totally broke.

[SJA]

In my Church, The First Church of Experimental Metaphysics, Garlic mittens are a part of the rubbing ceremony.

[The Needler]

You speak for the entrepreneurial world and "The Peter Principle" speaks for the corporate world. Remember "The Peter Principle"? I still think that it is an inspired concept; everyone rises to their own level of incompetence.

[jerry w.]

Someone's already making garlic flavored mittens?

Crap, back to the drawing board.

Anyone interested in a shitload of garlic?

Some already wrapped in mittens?

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[bcammack]

You _must_ check out the offerings at www.despair.com

[Deadprogrammer]

I've read somewhere that ants do not really cooperate when dragging a caterpillar into their anthill. Instead, they all pull in whatever direction they want. The caterpillar ends up in the anthill because the forces applied average out.

[ebmade.com]

up

http://www.ebmade.com
http://pbiz.ebmade.com

[Josh]

You've hit on why capitalism works and socialism/communism doesn't:

A few million morons will make better decisions, on average, than a few thousand morons.

We may lose money on every business, but we make it up in volume!

[richsp]

An obvious sign monkeys have been using leaves as money for some time is when you see people posting "invented" cuss phrases on this post.

[Doug Withau]

This is why capitalism is better than any of the other 'isms (communism and socialism). It is a million monkey's thing. You can not let a small group decide what is and is not a good idea. No one really knows.
It is best for everyone, us poor performers and the high flyer's, to let anyone try any idea that strikes their fancy. Some lucky bastard will be Bill Gates. The rest of us can work for him.
What really makes the USA great is the fact you can go bankrupt 5 times and still buy a house, car, and get a pizza franchise loan.
I for one am glad that China and India have huge corrupt bureaucratizes. It is the only thing saving my lazy, fat American butt. You can't start a business or go bankrupt without three bribes and six official stamps. I just have to run by the county clerks office at lunch. Sweet!

[Sam Davis]

Depends on which aspect of the capitalist system you're looking at, and, for that matter, which companies, how old the companies are, and what they do, etc.

In my experience, smaller and newer businesses tend to be much more, shall we say, thoughtful about such things than large ones. And service companies, Southwest Airlines and FedEx come to mind instantly, tend to be downright mindful in a Buddhist way. (I can't imagine Fred Smith's crew doing anything that chintzy, ever. FedEx has, btw, a facility in California that's nearly 100% solar powered. That's fairly mindful. Southwest, flying fewer flights and all of them domestic, is making more money than the "big" airlines, the latter seeming to stay in Chapter 11 all the time.)

Another factor: there's a difference between truly capitalist (i.e., free market) companies and "rent-seekers." The latter are companies which use political means to get their money - defense contractors, agribusinesses, etc., all on the federal dole - or various professions that protect themselves from too much competition through state licensing laws.

The "rent-seekers" tend to have corporate or business cultures much like government bureaucracies, with the corresponding level of attention to detail, quality and customer service: in other words, slim and none.

[Billy Arvia]

Scott

The thing that always amazes me is the support industries that grow up around these failures. Someone starts a willie waxing boutique and immediately a pubic hair cleaning shop opens next door with a nut polishing parlor across the street. Then,the willie waxer goes out of business followed by the pubic hair cleaner and, amazingly, the nut polisher thrives and turns it into a franchise operation. People then wonder where the gonad guru got his idea from.

I can't wait to see how many comments you get on this. I will guess not many. The more intelligent the posting, the less comments there are (until you appease the majority by a posting like cuss words - 700 comments and still climbing). I get very few comments on my serious or political blogs but devote a whole column to flatulating...

http://triplebee.squarespace.com/journal/2007/7/11/they-are-just-funny.html

http://triplebee.squarespace.com

[Mukund Mohan]

"My own career has been a long string of failures and a few notable successes."

I like the humility with a sure hint of truth.

[mjc jr]

Nice piece today. Sounds like a bit of subject matter for those Freakonomics guys. (Freakonomists? Freakonomicists?)

[DJH]

Why are you so surprised? When the dollar was first backed with silver and gold people were willing to exchange things of value (food nd clothing) for slips of paper backed by stuff dug up out of the ground that did nothing and was not useful for anything in its current shape. Now that the dollar is only backed up by the promise of the US Government we are exchanging our labor for slips of paper, sometimes not even that, that are nothing but promises.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

[My point is that I hope the monkeys that already know how to use sticks for tools don’t start using leaves for money. If that happens, we’re screwed.]

Monkey sex! Yes!

(Going off on tangent time!)

Actually if they start using leaves for money that would be extra-ordinary to the point of being fantastic. What is more likely is barter first, using tools or food as values (the first money), then inventing placeholders for value (leaves never work; rocks, beads, ornaments.) By the way, the ancient Babylonians may have written the first check (a clay cuneiform tablet) eight to ten thousand years ago. The value would have been in amounts of grains (bushels, baskets, silos, etc.) and gone towards goods and services the ancient Babylonian wanted when stranded in Babylonian equivalent of hicksville. Undoubtedly, the check issuer would have been famous or known (powerful merchant, king or criminal extortionist), the check/clay tablet would be cashed for its value where the goods were kept. Some "checks" were exchanged from one trader to another trader before they were ultimately cashed in because the check issuer's good name was good enough. Hence, the idea of money or currency, a type where you redeem the place holder for its stated value (specie, goods, services, etc)

It's going to be interesting and scary when people simultaneously agree the money being spent ain't worth the promise that's printed on it and anarchy begins - Bill Gates will have just a big house in the forest and no clue how to
keep it warm or cool or well stocked or secure because forty billion dollars will be worthless,
and invisible, since he doesn't keep that much cash lying around.
My gosh, most money is invisible!
There's a conversation starter!

[tim shepard]

I hope our CEO Robert Fitzgerald is reading this.

[Matt]

AJ, learn to spell. It was painful reading your post. Half the words were spelled wrong, and some of them I never did decipher.

Other than that I thought the story was funny, if a little depressing.

[Scottupnorth]

The beauty of harnessing the power of stupid is that its a perpetually renewable resource.

I think another part of this wraps to something you've touched on in a previous post. The big successes are often unapproached but brilliant ideas, and most people can't tell the difference between brilliant ideas and incredibly stupid ones. So many people in their pursuit of their brilliance find themselves closing the business feeling very stupid.

There are only a small number of really good ideas and alot of stupid variations. So statistically it makes sense.

[macuga]

Actually, those 90% failed businesses aren't a total loss. You make it sound like a business that will *ultimately* fail contributes nothing to the economy, but that's hardly the case.

A hair stylist's shop that is slightly under the minimum competitiveness needed to stay afloat still gives thousands of haircuts before going out of business. The employees' salaries haven't gone to "waste," since they've been providing valuable services. The only one whose resources have been "wasted" is the proprietor (plus any other backers). And many business-owners are "serial" entrepreneurs--they will use their experience from the first business to start another, probably more successful business.

[ND]

Oddly enough, I have a story very similar to the one that you just posted. There are copies of my employer's quality policy posted all around my workplace. They're also roughly 8" x 12" framed documents containing a blurb that extols the company's quality vision and its commitment to meet or exceed its customers' expectations and the usual rhetoric.

One of these apparently fell to the ground one day, and the high-quality plastic frame housing it broke from the impact. It appears that somebody picked it up, hung it back on the wall, and tried to fix the frame with a piece of transparent tape.

So there it hangs, the company's quality policy, in a broken plastic frame, held together by a bit of transparent tape. And nobody except for me seems to see the ironic humor in this!

[JBert]

With regards to another posted comment:

Jay,

You basically described a book called "End of Work" by Rifkin, were machines do all the work and we (humans) live in a leisure society. I had to read that in university for a class us engineers had to take. It's a socialogical perspective, I guess they figured they needed to feed us more than just theory...

[Mark Thorson]

What's the failure rate on
pizza places? That sounds
like an easy business. Is
there anything special that
makes one pizza place more
likely to succeed than
another? Location, of
course, but what about the
pizza? Would a simple pizza
at a low price be more
successful than the goat
cheese and prosciutto pizza
at a high price?

[me]

A favorite quote

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers."

[dave]

From Snappy Bob- "Great blog today. This one is so good that I will print it out and post it on the bulletin board in my office. As soon as the IT poeple fix the printer. It could be awhile."

As an IT person, I can tell you that this morning I was pulled out of meeting to go "fix" a monitor in the accounting department. I had to push the "on" button.

[MikeR]

My Manager of my last job was such a moron I almost ordered a custom despair.com poster to put in his cube. Picture a serene Bavarian village on a hill side in the mountains of Germany. The slogan: It takes a village to raise an idiot.

[Diana W]

My favorite Quality screw up was when our company won the prestigious Malcomb Baldrige Quality Award. Huge 6' x 4' posters were ordered to flaunt our win and they were placed in every building where customers could see them. Only problem was that Baldrige was misspelled - they'd added an extra 'd'.

[Frank]

To put things in perspective...
The sun will eventually burn out, the Earth and the Moon will someday collide, and at some point Oprah will reach critical mass and explode. Until then, parasites will attach themselves and live a good life.

[Steven]

Launch the same product 3 times, because you had to recall the previous 2 due to crap design, poor ergonomics and failure to understand what the customer requested. 3x the charm, NOT, the customers kept requesting the old product because they could actually use it. To top off the embarrassment the new product was called evolution (Irony maybe, more like unf**k 'n believable) and guess what? the company still made a profit. Goes to show you that in this world you can be incompetent mediocre and a total screw up and still survive. Just look at George B (Shrub)!!!! We are all doomed and or maybe if we are lucky as Scott suggests, we are part of a large computer program with a couple of glitches which means it is not real and neither is this posting.

[Real Live Girl]

The system works as long as the balance between morons and successes doesn't tip to the lowest common denominator. If there's a moron surge, next thing you know the crops are being watered with Gatorade (as foretold by Mike Judge). After that, the leaf picking monkeys wait us out.

[DennisB]

Where can I get some of these garlic flavored mittens you speak of?

[Simon]

I just saw I monkey counting leaves. The end is near.

[Iain]

Careful. If you start insulting (or at least give the impression of insulting) capitalists it's bound to get your fellow americans annoyed. They'll be calling you 'liberal' before you know it. The shame.

[Billy B]

I've sure worked for some stupid monkeys that failed in their business's. But they wouldn't listen to me.

I spent my last ten working years working for myself, that works well for me. I also had a few small business's over the years that treated me okay.

I've always said that if I'm going to work for an idiot that it should be me.
Billy B

[Jay]

This is the dark secret of modern life.... As technology improves, a smaller and smaller percentage of people are needed to work to actually produce things we need. The rest is just noise. 5000 years ago, everyone had their own farm to feed and cloth themselves... 4000 years ago economies and money starting making people rich so they only bought and sold things at market that other people made... 100 years ago, most people still worked at factories building things... now that's probably about 10%. I personally don't know anybody that builds anything tangible.

What I wonder, is what do we do when we get to the point that machines are producing 100% of everything we need... will everyone wake up and suddenly say "I don't need to work anymore!" ??? That's my dream... the machines will be producing everything, and the only "work" people will need to do is entertainment and recreational. Of course, distributing the money and resources becomes the real problem when nobody produces anything tangible anymore :)

[Manual]

Holy Scott!!! I've found enlightenment!

Now let's turn this one unassailable truth into a religion!

:)

[Steph]

Garlic flavored mittens!!!??? Ah HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Thanks :)

[AJ]

every company will inevetably fail no company will last forever it just cant happen due to the nature of things.

here is an idea bill gate the richest man in the world has left the majprity of his fortune the the charitable foundation that he runs right giving only aobut 10 mill to each of his kids(my heart bleads how will they ever cope i amgin a reality show about them after bill pegs it) n im not sure how much to his wife.
but and here is the point

about 95% of his net worht is in microsoft shares
the moent he dies or is on his deathbed all thsoe shares are going to be worht less that half the amount they are now also his wife cant liquidise the moent in the shares for the foundation due to death tax capital gains etc i know you can get around this with charities but if 40% of the shares in MS are sudenyly being sold 1 there wil lprob be an audit into it and 2 all the rest of the share price goes to crap right with it

it goes from being enougth to ptu every steet sleeping kid through colege and cover africa in grass to givening all the street sleepers a coupon for starbucks and a few guys in kenya a packit of seeds long live capitolism yah

[Scottin08!]

Creepy Coincidence. I just spent the morning corresponding with the stupidest human alive.
"The info is in the attached excel file"
RE: "can you send me that info?"
RE:RE: "it's in the excel file I attached to the original email"
*Phone rings*
"can you send me that info"
"it's in the frackin excel file you mouthbreathing sheepf*cker"
"oh! there it is!"

That about sums up the last couple blogs, no?

[Brian MacInnes]

What the hell kingdom do we belong to, Protista?

[SnappyBob]

Great blog today. This one is so good that I will print it out and post it on the bulletin board in my office. As soon as the IT poeple fix the printer. It could be awhile.

[Justin Fabian]

Well, if the exception to the 90% failure rate is franchises and pizza places, I can only imagine the success rate of a franchised pizza place.

Mmmm, pizza. Is it lunch time yet?

[Tim]

We have a similar curse in sunny Stoke, Bugger me with a barge pole.

Tim..

[AllanL5]

In a related note, I've often felt that American culture celebrates "excellence" way too much, when what's really needed is an effective mediocracy.

You don't need to hit the ball "out of the park" every time. Just getting on base is valuable. And sometimes, bunting into an intentional sacrifice brings in runs too.

[Paul K]

I'm happy to report that a coworker of mine has recently been promoted to a management position. The first thing he did was take down the inspirational posters of the previous guy, and is vowing to replace them with posters of muscle cars.

There's still hope!

[Brad]

For the creative cussing;

Fuckin A Bon Bon

It can be used for any type of emphasis. Good, bad.

e.g. "That was cool Scott." Scott replies, "Fuckin A Bon Bon Brad."

[AllanL5]

Because, after all, we all KNOW Money doesn't grow on trees. But leaves do.