Why Nations Fail

“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.” — James Madison, Essay on Property, National Gazette, March 29, 1792.

Some countries fail spectacularly, with a total collapse of all state institutions, as in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal and the hanging of President Mohammad Najibullah from a lamppost, or during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, where the government ceased to exist altogether.

Most countries that fall apart, however, do so not with a bang but with a whimper. They fail not in an explosion of war and violence but by being utterly unable to take advantage of their society's huge potential for growth, condemning their citizens to a lifetime of poverty. This type of slow, grinding failure leaves many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America with living standards far, far below those in the West.

What's tragic is that this failure is by design. These states collapse because they are ruled by what we call "extractive" economic institutions, which destroy incentives, discourage innovation, and sap the talent of their citizens by creating a tilted playing field and robbing them of opportunities. These institutions are not in place by mistake but on purpose. They're there for the benefit of elites who gain much from the extraction — whether in the form of valuable minerals, forced labor, or protected monopolies -- at the expense of society. Of course, such elites benefit from rigged political institutions too, wielding their power to tilt the system for their benefit.

States don't fail overnight. The seeds of their destruction are sown deep within their political institutions. States built on exploitation inevitably fail, taking an entire corrupt system down with them and often leading to immense suffering. Each year the Failed States Index charts the tragic stats of state failure. Here are a few major reasons these states fail.

According to Foreign Policy.com the number one reason nations fail is the lack of property rights:

“North Korea's economic institutions make it almost impossible for people to own property; the state owns everything, including nearly all land and capital. Agriculture is organized via collective farms. People work for the ruling Korean Workers' Party, not themselves, which destroys their incentive to succeed.

North Korea could be much wealthier. In 1998, a U.N. mission found that many of the country's tractors, trucks, and other farm machinery were simply unused or not maintained. Beginning in the 1980s, farmers were allowed to have their own small plots of land and sell what they grew. But even this hasn't created much incentive, given the country's endemic lack of property rights. In 2009, the government introduced a revalued currency and allowed people to convert only 100,000 to 150,000 won of the old currency into the new one (equivalent to about $35 to $40 at the black-market exchange rate). People who had worked and saved up stocks of the old currency found it to be worthless.

Not only has North Korea failed to grow economically -- while South Korea has grown rapidly -- but its people have literally failed to flourish. Trapped in this debilitating cycle, North Koreans are not only much poorer than South Koreans but also as much as 3 inches shorter on average than the neighbors from whom they have been cut off for the last six decades.”

While FP cites North Korea as a prime example of this factor I believe their view is far too narrow. The lack of protected property rights is a malady that affects almost 2 billion people on earth. Most of them live as serfs on the lands of their feudal lords.

Three years ago I posted a blog on “What Separates the Rich from the Poor” that preceded an article for American Surveyor Magazine. In the article I stated:

“Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don't build businesses, or if they do, they don't expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don't lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? What's the difference between them and us? Is it that we are smarter or better bred? Is it race or genetics? Or is it something else that these people have that the 2 billion poor do not?

When I was working as a contractor for the World Bank in Sri Lanka I was introduced to the writings of Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian economist through his book; The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.

In 1999 Time magazine chose de Soto as one of the five leading Latin American innovators of the century. Forbes magazine highlighted him as one of 15 innovators "who will re-invent your future." The New York Times Magazine wrote, "To the leaders of poor countries, de Soto's economic gospel is one of the most hopeful things they have heard in years." The Economist magazine identified his Institute for Liberty and Democracy as one of the top two think tanks in the world.

It's become clear by now the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in most places around the globe hasn't ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism in the developing and post-communist world. Western thinkers have blamed this on everything from these countries' lack of sellable assets to their inherently non-entrepreneurial "mindset." In his book de Soto proposes and argues another reason: it's not that poor, post-communist countries don't have the assets to make capitalism flourish. As de Soto points out by way of example, in Egypt, the wealth the poor have accumulated is worth 55 times as much as the sum of all direct foreign investment ever recorded there, including that spent on building the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam.

The real problem is that such countries have yet to establish and normalize the invisible network of laws that turns assets from "dead" into "liquid" capital. In the West, standardized laws allow us to mortgage a house to raise money for a new venture, permit the worth of a company to be broken up into so many publicly tradable stocks, and make it possible to govern and appraise property with agreed-upon rules that hold across neighborhoods, towns, or regions. This invisible infrastructure of "asset management" — so taken for granted in the West, even though it has only fully existed in the United States for the past 225 years — is the missing ingredient to success with capitalism, insists de Soto. But even though that link is primarily a legal one, he argues that the process of making it a normalized component of a society is more a political or attitude-changing challenge than anything else.

De Soto states that roughly 4 billion people in the world actually build their homes and own their businesses outside the legal system. But due to the lack of rule of law (and) the definition of who owns what, and because they don't have addresses, they can't get credit (for investment loans) nor pass their ownership on to their heirs or assignees."

In 1792 James Madison, considered to be the architect of our Constitution wrote an essay on property for the National Gazette. In that essay Madison wrote:

“This term in its particular application means “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

Not only did Madison believe man had unalienable of life and liberty, but in property. Our Declaration of Independence stated this certainty with the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

The term “Happiness”, in the view of the signers of the Declaration was not the joyful happiness of a child on Christmas morning, but the happiness as defined by John Locke as meaning “property.” As Madison stated:

“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his.”

…

“If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.”

Our Declaration of Independence stated this principle and our Constitution codified it in our organic law. Without eternal laws to protect one’s property rights on nation can prevail.

Forced Labor

Coercion is a surefire way to fail. Yet, until recently, at least in the scope of human history, most economies were based on the coercion of workers — think slavery, serfdom, and other forms of forced labor. In fact, the list of strategies for getting people to do what they don't want to do is as long as the list of societies that relied on them. Forced labor is also responsible for the lack of innovation and technological progress in most of these societies, ranging from ancient Rome to the U.S. South.

Modern Uzbekistan is a perfect example of what that tragic past looked like. Cotton is among Uzbekistan's biggest exports. In September, as the cotton bolls ripen, the schools empty of children, who are forced to pick the crop. Instead of educators, teachers become labor recruiters. Children are given daily quotas from between 40 to 120 pounds, depending on their age. The main beneficiaries of this system are President Islam Karimov and his cronies, who control the production and sale of the cotton. The losers are not only the 2.7 million children coerced to work under harsh conditions in the cotton fields instead of going to school, but also Uzbek society at large, which has failed to break out of poverty. Its per capita income today is not far from its low level when the Soviet Union collapsed — except for the income of Karimov's family, which, with its dominance of domestic oil and gas exploration, is doing quite well.

The Big Men get Greedy

When elites control an economy, they often use their power to create monopolies and block the entry of new people and firms. This was exactly how Egypt worked for three decades under Hosni Mubarak. The government and military owned vast swaths of the economy -- by some estimates, as much as 40 percent. Even when they did "liberalize," they privatized large parts of the economy right into the hands of Mubarak's friends and those of his son Gamal. Big businessmen close to the regime, such as Ahmed Ezz (iron and steel), the Sawiris family (multimedia, beverages, and telecommunications), and Mohamed Nosseir (beverages and telecommunications) received not only protection from the state but also government contracts and large bank loans without needing to put up collateral.

Together, these big businessmen were known as the "whales." Their stranglehold on the economy created fabulous profits for regime insiders, but blocked opportunities for the vast mass of Egyptians to move out of poverty. Meanwhile, the Mubarak family accumulated a vast fortune estimated as high as $70 billion.

Many in the west believed and told us that he “Arab Spring was about democracy. This was a delusion. It was more about the cost of a bag of wheat for the Egyptian family than democracy. Once they got their wheat they voted in the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia Law.

Elites Block New Technologies

New technologies are extremely disruptive. They sweep aside old business models and make existing skills and organizations obsolete. They redistribute not just income and wealth but also political power. This gives elites a big incentive to try to stop the march of progress. Good for them, but not for society.

Consider what happened in the 19th century, as railways were spreading across Britain and the United States. When a proposal to build a railway was put before Francis I, emperor of Austria, he was still haunted by the specter of the 1789 French Revolution and replied, "No, no, I will have nothing to do with it, lest the revolution might come into the country." The same thing happened in Russia until the 1860s. With new technologies blocked, the tsarist regime was safe, at least for a while. As Britain and the United States grew rapidly, however, Austria and Russia failed to do so. The track tells the tale: In the 1840s, tiny Britain was undergoing a railway mania in which more than 6,000 miles of track were built, while only one railway ran in vast continental Russia. Even this line was not built for the benefit of the Russian people; it ran 17 miles from St. Petersburg to the tsar's imperial residences at Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk.

This was also the case in the United States with electricity. As America began to electrify with Edison’s new light bulbs John D. Rockefeller’s monopoly on kerosene used for oil lamps began to fade. The difference was that Rockefeller’s Standard Oil foresight and saw many other uses for oil, including gasoline. This was due to Rockefeller’s entrepreneurial spirit, vision and his freedom to succeed.

No Law and Order

One must-have for successful economies is an effective centralized state. Without this, there is no hope of providing order, an effective system of laws, mechanisms for resolving disputes, or basic public goods.

Yet large parts of the world today are still dominated by stateless societies. Although countries like Somalia, Afghanistan or the new country of South Sudan do have internationally recognized governments, they exercise little power outside their capitals, and maybe not even there. Both countries have been built atop societies that historically never created a centralized state but were divided into clans or tribes where decisions were made by consensus among adult males. No clan was ever able to dominate or create a set of nationally respected laws or rules. There were no political positions, no administrators, no taxes, no government expenditures, no police, no lawyers — in other words, no government.

This situation persisted during the colonial period in Somalia, when the British were unable even to collect poll taxes, the usual fiscal basis for their African colonies. Since independence in 1960, attempts have been made to create an effective central state, for example, during the dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre, but after more than five decades it's fair and even obvious to say they have failed. Call it Somalia's law: Without a central state, there can be no law and order; without law and order, there can be no real economy; and without a real economy, a country is doomed to fail.

Our Founders realized this when the wrote and adopted our Constitution that gave us a form of federalism where they instituted a central government with limited enumerated powers and left the rest to the people and the states. No other nation on this planet has been able to replicate this form of government and probably never will. This is why we are unique and exceptional.

A Weak Central Government

Colombia isn't Somalia. All the same, its central government is unable or unwilling to exert control over probably half the country, which is dominated by left-wing guerrillas, most famously the FARC, and, increasingly, right-wing paramilitaries. The drug lords may be on the run, but the state's absence from much of the country leads not only to lack of public services such as roads and bridges, but also to lack of well-defined, institutionalized property rights.

Thousands of rural Colombians have only informal titles or titles lacking any legal validity. Although this does not stop people from buying and selling land, it undermines their incentives to invest — and the uncertainty often leads to violence. During the 1990s and early 2000s, for example, an estimated 12 million acres of land were expropriated in Colombia, typically at gunpoint. The situation got so bad that in 1997, the central government allowed local authorities to ban land transactions in rural areas. The result? Many parts of Colombia essentially fail to take part in modern economic activities, instead languishing in poverty, not to mention proving to be fertile havens for armed insurgents and paramilitary forces of both the left and right.

Bad or Non-existent Public Services

Calca and nearby Acomayo are two Peruvian provinces. Both are high in the mountains, and both are inhabited by the Quechua-speaking descendants of the Incas. Both grow the same crops, yet Acomayo is much poorer, with its inhabitants consuming about one-third less than those in Calca. The people know this. In Acomayo, they ask intrepid foreigners, "Don't you know that the people here are poorer than the people over there in Calca? Why would you ever want to come here?"

Indeed, it is much harder to get to Acomayo from the regional capital of Cusco, the ancient center of the Inca Empire, than it is to get to Calca. The road to Calca is paved, while the one to Acomayo is in terrible disrepair. To get beyond Acomayo you need a horse or a mule — not due to any differences in topography, but because there are no paved roads. In Calca, they sell their corn and beans on the market for money, while in Acomayo they grow the same crops for their own subsistence. Acomayo's people are one-third poorer than Calca's as a result. Infrastructure matters.

Political Exploitation

Bolivia has a long history of extractive institutions dating back to Spanish times — a history that has brewed resentment over the years. In 1952, Bolivians rose up en masse against the traditional elite of land and mine owners. The leaders of this revolution were mostly urbanites excluded from power and patronage under the previous regime. Once they seized power, the revolutionaries expropriated most of the land and the mines and created a political party, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR). Inequality fell sharply at first as a result of these land seizures, as well as the MNR's educational reforms. But the MNR set up a one-party state and gradually rescinded the political rights it had extended in 1952. By the late 1960s, inequality was actually higher than it had been before the revolution.

For the great mass of rural Bolivians, one elite had simply replaced another in what German sociologist Robert Michels called the "iron law of oligarchy." Rural people still had insecure property rights and still had to sell their votes for access to land, credit, or work. The main difference was that instead of providing these services to the traditional landowners, they now provided them to the MNR.

Fighting Over the Spoils

Intense extraction breeds instability and failure because, consistent with the iron law of oligarchy, it creates incentives for others to depose the existing elites and take over.

This is exactly what happened in Sierra Leone. Siaka Stevens and his All People's Congress (APC) party ran the country from 1967 until 1985 as their personal fiefdom. Little changed when Stevens stepped aside, passing the baton to his protégé, Joseph Momoh, who just continued the plunder.

The trouble is that this sort of extraction creates deep-seated grievances and invites contests for power from would-be strongmen hoping to get their hands on the loot. In March 1991, Foday Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front, (RUF) with the support and most likely the command of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, crossed into Sierra Leone and plunged the country into a vicious, decade-long civil war. Sankoh and Taylor were interested in only one thing: power, which they could use, among other things, to steal diamonds, and they could do so because of the regime that Stevens and his APC had created. The country soon descended into chaos, with the civil war taking the lives of about 1 percent of the population and maiming countless others. Sierra Leone's state and institutions totally collapsed. Government revenues went from 15 percent of national income to practically zero by 1991. The state, in other words, didn't so much fail as disappear entirely.

As is evident by these examples the root cause of these failed states if the lack of rights to your property and property in your rights. No matter the amount of foreign aid or technical assistance provided these states they will continue to fail and people will fall ill, starve, and die. They will suffer at the hands of their own governments as the serfs in the middle ages did at the hands of heir feudal lords and masters. Many are no more than tenant farmers seeking out sustenance on land belonging to the rich, powerful, and armed.

No matter what the UN does or how many small arms treaties are signed Ak-47s and RPGs will continue to flow into these countries an fall into the hands of those who want to rule. Tyranny is their goal and the AK-47 is their means.

As long a Mexico, while not a failed state certainly is a failing state. From Villa and Zapata to Juarez and Diaz revolutionaries have promised the Mexican people autonomy of their property rights. Yet none delivered when they reached the Zócalo in Mexico City. As long the iron law of oligarchy and the drug cartels rule Mexico PEMEX’s oil revenues will never trickle down to the peasants who occupy the lands. This will force the continuation of the migration of unskilled and uneducated to cross our southern border looking for prosperity and the benefits of our social welfare system. Without secure property rights this will never change.

Can You Believe the Brooklyn Bridge is 130 Years Old?

“Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships. — Ross Perot

As a child I was always interested in civil engineering and its related fields of land, engineering, and geodetic surveying. In fact I had dreams of attending the Colorado School of Mines. It didn’t quite work out the way I had envisioned so I had to do it the hard way by working in the field beginning as summer worker at the ripe age of 16 and continuing on with night school and correspondence education for the next 55 years. Throughout this period I never lost my love of civil engineering and surveying and was able to practice this profession on a global basis.

When I relocated to California in 1962 began 10 years of experience working as a highway engineer for the California Division of Highways (now Caltrans) where I learned a great deal about highway and bridge planning, design, and construction. One of the major bridge projects I worked on was the Vincent Thomas Suspension Bridge linking San Pedro, Los Angeles, with Terminal Island. It was while working on this project that I learned a great deal about bridge design and construction and increased my respect for those responsible designing and managing the construction of these magnificent transportation arteries.

On May 24, 1883 after 14 years and 27 deaths while being constructed, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River was opened, connecting the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date.

John Roebling, born in Germany in 1806, was a great pioneer in the design of steel suspension bridges. He studied industrial engineering in Berlin and at the age of 25 immigrated to western Pennsylvania, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to make his living as a farmer.

John Roebling and his brother arrived in the United States at an interesting time. The nation was in the later stages of an economic boom, which ended in the Panic of 1837. Farmers were deeply affected by it. A dominant mode of thought in America would be called manifest destiny by the 1840s. Transportation between eastern industrial hubs and frontier farming markets had become a matter of both national and popular interest. Many transportation projects were underway near the location he chose for his colony, but instead of continuing an engineering profession, he took up farming.

Agrarian work was unsatisfactory to John Roebling, and the colony attracted very few settlers. In 1837, after the death of his brother and the birth of his first child, he returned to engineering as a vocation.

Roebling's first engineering work in America was devoted to improving river navigation and canal building. He spent three years surveying for railway lines across the Allegheny Mountains, from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, for the state of Pennsylvania. In 1840 he wrote to suspension bridge designer Charles Ellet, Jr., offering to help with the design of a bridge near Philadelphia:

“The study of suspension bridges formed for the last few years of my residence in Europe my favourite occupation. Let but a single bridge of the kind be put up in Philadelphia, exhibiting all the beautiful forms of the system to full advantage, and it needs no prophecy to foretell the effect which the novel and useful features will produce upon the intelligent minds of the Americans.”

He later moved to the state capital in Harrisburg, where he found work as a civil engineer. He promoted the use of wire cable and established a successful wire-cable factory.

Roebling began producing “wire rope” in 1841. At that time canal boats from Philadelphia were transported over the Allegheny Mountains on railroad cars to access waterways on the other side of the mountains, so that the boats could continue to Pittsburgh. The system of inclines and levels that moved the boats and conventional railroad cars was a state-owned enterprise, the Allegheny Portage Railroad. The railroad cars were pulled up and down the inclines by a long loop of thick hemp rope, up to 2-1/2 inches thick. The hemp ropes were expensive and had to be replaced frequently. Roebling remembered an article he read about wire ropes. Soon after, he started developing a 7-strand wire rope at a ropewalk that he built on his farm.

In 1844 Roebling won a bid to replace the wooden canal aqueduct across the Allegheny River with the Allegheny Aqueduct. His design encompassed seven spans of 163 feet, each consisting of a wooden trunk to hold the water supported by a continuous cable made of many parallel wires, wrapped tightly together, on each side of the trunk. This was followed in 1845 by building a suspension bridge over the Monongahela River at Pittsburgh. In 1848 Roebling undertook the construction of four suspension aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. During this period, he moved to Trenton, New Jersey. In Trenton, Roebling built a large industrial complex for wire production. This complex inspired the Trenton, New Jersey motto of Trenton Makes – The World Takes” on Trenton's Lower Trenton Bridge.

Roebling's next project, starting in 1851, was a railroad bridge connecting the New York Central and Great Western Railway of Canada over the Niagara River, which would take four years. The bridge, with a clear span of 825 feet, was supported by four, ten-inch wire cables, and had two levels, one for vehicles and one for rail traffic.

Meanwhile, he earned a reputation as a designer of suspension bridges, which at the time were widely used but known to fail under strong winds or heavy loads. Roebling is credited with a major breakthrough in suspension-bridge technology: a web truss added to either side of the bridge roadway that greatly stabilized the structure. Using this model, Roebling successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, and the Ohio River at Cincinnati, Ohio. On the basis of these achievements, New York State accepted Roebling's design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan--with a span of 1,595 feet--and appointed him chief engineer. It was to be the world's first steel suspension bridge.

Unfortunately just before construction began in 1869, Roebling was fatally injured while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of tetanus. He was the first of more than two dozen people who would die building his bridge. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer. Roebling had worked with his father on several bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge.

From mid-1865 to 1867, Roebling worked with his father on the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge (now the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge). While traveling in Europe to research bridges and caisson foundations, his only son, John A. Roebling, II, was born. After returning in 1868, Washington became assistant engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, and was named chief engineer after his father's death in mid-1869. He made several important improvements on the bridge design and further developed bridge building techniques. Thus, he designed the two large pneumatic caissons that became the foundations for the two towers. In 1870, fire broke out in one of the caissons; from within the caisson, Roebling directed the efforts to extinguish the flames. Working in compressed air in these caissons under the river caused him to get decompression sickness ("the bends") shattering his health and rendering him unable to visit the site, yet he continued to oversee the Brooklyn project to successful completion in 1883. Besides the bends, he may have had additional afflictions, possible neurasthenia, side effects of treatments, and secondary drug addiction. His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who had taken it upon herself to learn bridge construction, became his nurse, companion, and confidant and took over much of the chief engineer's duties including day-to-day supervision and project management. Although husband and wife jointly planned the bridge's continued construction, Emily successfully lobbied for formal retention of Washington as chief engineer. David McCullough, in his book The Great Bridge, remarked that "nowhere in the history of great undertakings is there anything comparable to Roebling conducting the largest and most difficult engineering project ever in absentia".

Roebling would battle the after-effects from the caisson disease and its treatment the rest of his life.

The two granite foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge were built in timber caissons, or watertight chambers, sunk to depths of 44 feet on the Brooklyn side and 78 feet on the New York side. Compressed air pressurized the caissons, allowing underwater construction. At that time, little was known of the risks of working under such conditions, and more than a hundred workers suffered from cases of compression sickness. Decompression sickness, or the "bends," is caused by the appearance of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream that result from rapid decompression. Several died. Other workers died as a result of more conventional construction accidents, such as collapses and a fire.

After his falling to decompression sickness Roebling continued to direct construction operations from his home, and his wife, Emily, carried his instructions to the workers. In 1877, Washington and Emily moved into a home with a view of the bridge. Roebling's health gradually improved, but he remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. On May 24, 1883, Emily Roebling was given the first ride over the completed bridge, with a rooster, a symbol of victory, in her lap. Within 24 hours, an estimated 250,000 people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, using a broad promenade above the roadway that John Roebling designed solely for the enjoyment of pedestrians.

The Brooklyn Bridge, with its unprecedented length and two stately towers, was dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world." The connection it provided between the massive population centers of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed the course of New York City forever. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn formally merged with New York City, Staten Island, and a few farm towns, forming Greater New York.

Some facts about the Brooklyn Bridge:

• Carries Motor vehicles (cars only)
• Elevated trains (until 1944)
• Streetcars (until 1950)
• Pedestrians and bicycles
• Crosses East River
• Locale New York City (Manhattan–Brooklyn)
• Maintained by New York City Department of Transportation
• Designer John Augustus Roebling
• Design Suspension/Cable-stay Hybrid
• Total length 5,989 feet (1825 m)[1]
• Width 85 feet (26 m)
• Height 276.5 ft. (84.3 m) above mean high water[2]
• Longest span 1,595 feet 6 inches (486.3 m)
• Clearance below 135 feet (41 m) at mid-span
• Opened May 24, 1883; 130 years ago
• Toll Free both ways
• Daily traffic 123,781 (2008)[4]
• Coordinates 40.70569°N 73.99639°

Since its opening 4,194 people have jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. The first person to jump from the bridge was Robert Emmet Odlum, brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Odlum Smith, on May 19, 1885. He struck the water at an angle and died shortly thereafter from internal injuries. Steve Brodie was the most famous jumper, or self-proclaimed jumper (in 1886). Cartoonist Otto Eppers jumped and survived in 1910, and was then tried and acquitted for attempted suicide.

Currently about every 15 days someone has committed suicide by jumping off Brooklyn Bridge. They have been trying to make a suicide barrier but they couldn't because of cost and engineering difficulties.

And of course on of the most famous quips when debating someone unclear or ignoring the facts of the argument is: “there is a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you.”

I’ve written blogs about The Men who Built America and The Greatest Generations but have not included John Roebling in either. There are many more men and women who built this great nation. Some had formal technical educations while others were self-educated. But the four things they all had in common was their entrepreneurial spirit, a no quit attitude, the ability to get up and dust themselves off after set-backs and the love of this country. They all saw America as a land of great opportunity based on liberty where a person cold pursue their dream regardless of class or heritage of birth. This is something that our current generations should be made more aware of.

(Please note that all pictures may be enlarged by clicking on the image)

The Myth of Quality from Government Services

“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing layout, processes, and procedures.” — Tom Peters

On May 21, 2013 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki issued a press release addressing the problems with the VA and setting metrics for improvement:

“VA and Veterans Service Organizations Announce Claims Initiative to Reduce Claims Backlog - Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and The American Legion announced a new partnership to help reduce the compensation claims backlog for Veterans. The effort—the Fully Developed Claims (FDC) Community of Practice—is a key part of VA’s overall transformation plan to end the backlog in 2015 and process claims within 125 days at 98% accuracy. VA can process FDCs in half the time it takes for a traditionally filed claim.”

In a related report by Aaron Glantz of the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

“The Department of Veterans Affairs has systematically missed nearly all of its internal benchmarks for reducing a hulking backlog of benefits claims and has quietly backed away from repeated promises to give all veterans and family members speedier decisions by 2015.

Internal VA documents, obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, show the agency processed 260,000 fewer claims than it thought it would during the past year and a half – falling 130,000 short in fiscal 2012 and another 130,000 short of its goal between October and March.

The result: At a time when the number of veterans facing long waits was supposed to be going down, it instead went up.

On April 29, the VA began to qualify its promise, made repeatedly since 2009, that “all claims” would be processed within four months by 2015.

In a weekly performance report posted on its website, the agency excludes a host of benefits from the promise – including veterans’ burial subsidies, pensions sought by survivors and compensation claims from children of Vietnam veterans, who have birth defects caused by the defoliant Agent Orange.

In an emailed statement, the VA said its promise to eliminate the claims backlog was never meant to cover those types of benefits.

The agency also said it is “using all the tools in the toolbox” to expedite claims. It again repeated its mantra that the delays are “unacceptable.” It added that it fell nearly 17,000 claims short of its production goal for April.

But the VA did not address questions about the fundamental issue: Are the goals unrealistic, the execution flawed or both?

Instead, the agency cited yet another set of ambitious goals – an April vow to clear all 2-year-old claims by mid-June and an order, issued May 15 by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, instructing all claims staff to work 20 hours of overtime a month through September, which the agency said would have “a measurable impact by the end of the fiscal year.”

The long delays and seemingly intractable nature of the claims backlog has led some lawmakers to look into radically overhauling the process.

…

Earlier this month, Rep. Bill Enyart, an Illinois Democrat and former adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, introduced legislation to require the VA to begin providing partial compensation to all veterans with claims pending more than 125 days – even if their disabilities had not yet been verified. If a claim denial ultimately followed, veterans would have to pay back the money only if they were found to have consciously misled the agency.

Minnesota Democrat Al Franken has introduced a similar measure in the Senate.

“I’m tired of meeting veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, who can’t work because they are disabled and are worried about losing their home,” Enyart said. “They deserve better than that.”

According to USA Today the VA has seen its budget increase 41% since 2009 to $140 billion this year. Meanwhile, the pace of incoming disability claims has stayed ahead of VA's ability to process them:

“Concerned about nearly 600,000 veterans waiting months or years for disability checks, Obama administration officials Friday lifted the veil on a corner of the president's upcoming 2014 budget, promising a hike in VA discretionary spending.

The proposal would boost non-entitlement spending to $63.5 billion for 2014, a 4% increase over this year, said Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough in a meeting with reporters at the Executive Office Building.

"We're bringing all the power of the government to bear ... to try to address the backlog," says McDonough, who added that Obama tracks the weekly numbers of pending cases. "We're involved in this ... on a daily basis, very aggressively to try to bring this (disability claims backlog) number down."

Shinseki in recent weeks has come under intense criticism for the backlog from a chorus ranging from comedian Jon Stewart to the House VA Committee chair, who called upon the department's Veterans Benefits Administration chief to resign because of it.

"I hear the criticism out there," Shinseki said Friday. "You make the tough decisions, and you deal with it."

McDonough seemed to reaffirm the White House's confidence in Shinseki, saying he is someone "the president relies on and leans on daily."

The VA has seen its budget increase 41% since 2009 to $140 billion this year. Meanwhile, the pace of incoming disability claims has stayed ahead of VA's ability to process them, and there are now nearly 900,000 pending claims from veterans, including about 600,000 waiting longer than four months.

McDonough stressed the administration's high priority on VA spending even as major reductions are considered elsewhere, citing news reports Friday that Obama would propose cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare.”

I also heard an audio clip from an interview with Shinseki today where he restated his goals for the VA and added that they were targeting a rating of 90% for customer service. When I heard this I almost drove the car off the road. I was flabbergasted by such a statement! This was just more big government BS. What about the 10%? I guess they are irrelevant. How about the 98% accuracy goal? Does this mean that 18,000 (2%) vets will have inaccurate medical and benefit records? They deserve much better than that.

In the late 1980s the civil engineering, land surveying, and environmental services I was a principle, part owner and vice-president of made an application to the committee overseeing the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. This is a very difficult award to receive and the firm was fortunate to make the top 100 national list.

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence serve two main purposes: (1) to identify Baldrige Award recipients that will serve as role models for other organizations and (2) to help organizations assess their improvement efforts, diagnose their overall performance management system, and identify their strengths and opportunities for improvement. In addition, the Criteria help strengthen U.S. competitiveness by:

• Improving organizational performance practices, capabilities, and results
• Facilitating communication and sharing of information on best practices among U.S. organizations of all types
• Serving as a tool for understanding and managing performance and for guiding planning and opportunities for learning

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence provide organizations with an integrated approach to performance management that results in:

• Delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, contributing to organizational sustainability
• Improved organizational effectiveness and capabilities
• Organizational and personal learning

During our award submittal process I had read an article about a Cadillac Dealership in Dallas, Texas that had received the award for excellence. During the award ceremony with the assembled dealership employees and their families when the Baldrige Committee representative he stated that he dealership had one of the highest customer service ratings in the nation at 98.5%. This brought a round of cheers and applause from the audience. The owner of the dealership stepped up to the podium to thank the committee and the employees Then he became very serious and stated he was not satisfied with 98.5%. He said there were 1.5% of his customers who were not satisfied with the performance of the dealership and he was very concerned with them and admonished his employees that he expected them to do better in the coming years. This was a serious and dedicated man to his customers.

One of my responsibilities during my 22 years as a manager and owner I was very involved in quality control and quality assurance. The three books that I kept above my desk were: In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman; The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull; and Out of Crisis by W. Edwards Deming. These three books could be considered my quality assurance and customer service bibles.

In Search of Excellence is considered the "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury UK), and has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table.

Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, In Search of Excellence describes eight basic principles of management — action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices — that made these organizations successful.

In Search of Excellence', co-authored with Bob Waterman, is Tom Peters first book and sold over 6 million copies. Its success surprised their colleagues at McKinsey, who had laughed at the idea that Peters and Waterman would keep the royalties, "should the book sell 50 000 copies".

Two decades later, In Search of Excellence is still one of the most readable management books. The eight characteristics of excellent companies, a bias for action, close to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands-on values driven, stick to the knitting, simple form and lean staff, simultaneous loose-tight properties are all still relevant and still ignored today. It is written clearly, painting vivid pictures with anecdotes and examples from real companies.

Peters and Waterman found eight common themes which they argued were responsible for the success of the chosen corporations. The book devotes one chapter to each theme.

1. A bias for action, active decision making — getting on with it. Facilitate quick decision making & problem solving tends to avoid bureaucratic control
2. Close to the customer — learning from the people served by the business.
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship — fostering innovation and nurturing champions.
4. Productivity through people — treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.
5. Hands-on, value-driven — management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.
6. Stick to the knitting — stay with the business that you know.
7. Simple form, lean staff — some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties — autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralized values.

None of these themes are present in the government civil service. I know because I worked as a supervisor for the California Division of Highways (now Caltrans) for ten years prior to going into business for myself. The civil service is managed by bureaucrats who are far more concerned with advancement in their civil service rating (GS rating for the federal government) and maintaining their longevity until their lucrative retirement benefits. It is a punitive system of management where “don’t rock the boat” far outweighs “thinking out of the box” and taking responsibility. Employees are managed and governed by policy manuals and memorandums and are far removed from their upper management. Customer (taxpayer) service ranks last on the list of concerns — personal advancement tops the list.

The main theme of The Peter Principle is rising to the level of incompetency. Back in 1969, Lawrence J. Peter created a cultural phenomenon with his brilliant, outrageous, hilarious, and all-too-true treatise on business and life, The Peter Principle — and his words and theories are as true today as they were then. By posing — and answering — the eternal question, “Why do things always go wrong?” Peter explores the incompetence that runs so rampant through our society, our workplace, and our world in an outrageously funny yet honest and eye-opening manner

The Peter Principle is a proposition that states that the members of an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently.

The principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Eventually they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. Peter's Corollary states that:

In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties"

Ads that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence." "Managing upward" is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly manipulate his or her superiors in order to prevent them from interfering with the subordinate's productive activity or to generally limit the damage done by the superiors' incompetence.

Another method is to refrain from promoting a worker until he or she shows the skills and work habits needed to succeed at the next higher job. Thus, a worker is not promoted to managing others if they do not already display management abilities.

The first corollary is that employees who are dedicated to their current jobs should not be promoted for their competence, but should instead be rewarded with, say, a pay rise, and remain in their current position; they should also not be promoted in response to their lack of competence at their current job.

The second corollary is that employees might be promoted only after being sufficiently trained to the new position. This places the burden of discovering individuals with poor managerial capabilities before (as opposed to after) they are promoted.

As a manger I saw this numerous times within the organization. We would have project engineers who were crackerjacks at their job. They were technical competent, if not superior, they loved their work, and were constantly striving for excellence in engineering. But when they were promoted to the level of project manager where they had to deal with subordinates and more importantly clients and contract issues many would fail and would ether resign or asked to leave. Their client service skills were weak, if not nil, due to the introverted nature of an engineer. They were more comfortable with the computer than the telephone of a face-to-face client meeting. This was unfair to a technically sound and dedicated employee. It would have been far better to reward his or her performance with monetary and educational perks.

This also applies to the civil service. Promotions come via civil service exams and longevity. If a GS 9 studies and keeps his or her nose clean they will eventually be promoted to GS 10 and so on and on until they reach their level of incompetence and sit there until retirement. If you doubt this just look at the current spate of hearings regarding the maleficence and criminal behavior of the IRS and Justice Department.

In the late 1980s I was introduced to the work of W. Edwards Deming through his book Out of Crisis. was an American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. He is perhaps best known for the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle popularly named after him. In Japan, from 1950 onwards, he taught top management how to improve design (and thus service), product quality, testing, and sales (the last through global markets) through various methods, including the application of statistical methods.

Deming made a significant contribution to Japan's later reputation for innovative high-quality products and its economic power. He is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage. Despite being considered something of a hero in Japan, he was only just beginning to win widespread recognition in the U.S. at the time of his death. President Reagan awarded the National Medal of Technology to Deming in 1987. He received in 1988 the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences.

Deming's teachings and philosophy are best illustrated by examining the results they produced after they were adopted by Japanese industry, as the following example shows: Ford Motor Company was simultaneously manufacturing a car model with transmissions made in Japan and the United States. Soon after the car model was on the market, Ford customers were requesting the model with Japanese transmission over the US-made transmission, and they were willing to wait for the Japanese model. As both transmissions were made to the same specifications, Ford engineers could not understand the customer preference for the model with Japanese transmission. Finally, Ford engineers decided to take apart the two different transmissions. The American-made car parts were all within specified tolerance levels. On the other hand, the Japanese car parts were virtually identical to each other, and much closer to the nominal values for the parts – e.g., if a part was supposed to be one foot long, plus or minus 1/8 of an inch – then the Japanese parts were all within 1/16 of an inch. This made the Japanese cars run more smoothly and customers experienced fewer problems.

My cousin worked for Ford Motors at the Cleveland Engine plant for 25 years as a general foreman. In the late 1980s he told me, while on a visit to Cleveland, that his plant had a very high rejection rate of cast engine blocks. He claimed this was due to union work rules and the company’s lack of willingness to challenge the union for fear of work slow-downs or strikes. He told me that Japanese auto manufactures, even the non-union shops in the United States, were delivering cars of higher quality and dependability. The Japanese, adhering to principles espoused by Deming were even surpassing the Germans in quality.

Deming offered fourteen key principles to managers for transforming business effectiveness. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. Although Deming does not use the term in his book, it is credited with launching the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, in order to foresee problems of production and usage that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership. b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. b Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objectives.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

"Massive training is required to instill the courage to break with tradition. Every activity and every job is a part of the process."

Seven Deadly Diseases

The "Seven Deadly Diseases" include:

1. Lack of constancy of purpose
2. Emphasis on short-term profits
3. Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance
4. Mobility of management
5. Running a company on visible figures alone
6. Excessive medical costs
7. Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees

A Lesser Category of Obstacles" includes:

1. Neglecting long-range planning
2. Relying on technology to solve problems
3. Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
4. Excuses, such as "our problems are different"
5. Obsolescence in school that management skill can be taught in classes
6. Reliance on quality control departments rather than management, supervisors, managers of purchasing, and production workers
7. Placing blame on workforces who are only responsible for 15% of mistakes where the system designed by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences
8. Relying on quality inspection rather than improving product quality

Deming's advocacy of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, his 14 Points and Seven Deadly Diseases have had tremendous influence outside manufacturing and have been applied in other arenas, such as in the relatively new field of sales process engineering.

It was Deming’s principles and theories that put the issues of quality assurance, quality control, and client service in to total context for me. In 2006 I wrote a series of three articles for American Surveyor magazine where I stated:

“In 2003 the Mercedes Benz motorcar company had dropped from No.1 to 26th place on the J.D. Powers and Associates, Inc.* rating of auto manufacturers in the category of quality. This was eight slots below the industry average, trailing Chrysler and Ford. In 1991 Mercedes ranked No. 1 in quality and customer satisfaction; by 2000 they had dropped to No. 6 and by 2003 to 26th. Some of the problems cited in the J.D. Powers reports were handling, braking, shocks and struts, electronic window controls, and inaccurate fuel gauges. How did this one-time industry nameplate fall on such hard times?

The problems cited in the survey arose from three models from the year 2000, including the midsize E-Class sedan, Mercedes' big money maker. In the 1990s Toyota and Nissan stormed the U.S. market with lower-priced luxury cars such as the Lexus and Infiniti. To compete, Mercedes' engineers had to overhaul their process of building cars. Instead of letting design determine the cost, engineers had to design cars to meet a target price. These German engineers, accustomed to designing for quality, weren't very good at this practice. Quality took a back seat. Fortunately for Mercedes this situation did not last long and the company regrouped and went back to its roots, designing for quality and value.

Several years ago the firm I work for received a call from a Mercedes engineer in Stuttgart, Germany requesting that we take elevations on a section of the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles. They wanted elevations taken to 3 millimeters on a ten-foot-by-ten-foot grid along a very rough section of this heavily traveled roadway. The Mercedes engineers wanted to use this data to create a digital terrain model of the roadway so they could design their front-end suspension for California drivers, many of which had been complaining about the stability and durability of the suspension systems. We carried out this assignment using the Vangarde 505 remote sensing pavement survey system. Due to the density of the grid, heavy traffic conditions requiring working off hours and nights, and coordinating with Caltrans, this was a very costly survey. It was also quite a change in philosophy from designing for cost rather than quality and customer satisfaction.”

…

“Both TQM and ISO 9000 (and its deviants) are very complex programs requiring a great deal of management's time and training throughout the enterprise. I will refrain from referring to these programs as in my opinion they do not address the focus of my articles. They are valuable programs and for many large private and public sector contracts the qualifying firms must demonstrate either ISO 9000 or a TQM certification. Keep in mind that both of these programs require external and internal audits of a company's business and client service practices, and run the gamut from accounting systems to answering the phone. ISO 9000 covers the basics of what quality management systems are and also contains the core language of the ISO 9000 series of standards. ISO 9001 is intended for use in any organization that designs, develops, manufactures, installs and/or services any product or provides any form of service. It provides a number of requirements which an organization needs to fulfill if it is to achieve customer satisfaction through consistent products and services that meet customer expectations.

All of these quality assurance programs are rooted in the teachings of W. Edwards Deming. Deming is to quality as Peter Drucker is to management (Management by Objectives) and Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence) is to client service.

William Edwards Deming (1900-1993) was an American statistician, widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II. He is perhaps best known for his work in Japan, where from 1950 onward he taught top management the principles of Statistical process control (SPC), a forerunner of TQM. During the post-war reconstruction of Japan General Douglas MacArthur invited Deming to assist in the rebuilding of Japanese industry. At that time products made in Japan were considered to be of very low quality. Some Japanese cottage industries had located in the village of Usa so they could claim the their products were made in the USA! This did not help very much. When Japanese cars began arriving in the United States in 1960, Detroit automakers sneered. But we all know the end of the story. It is the Japanese and Korean automakers that are now building their cars in the "real" USA, and they are known for quality.

Under Deming's stewardship Japan became renowned for producing innovative high quality products. Deming is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other non-Japanese individual.

Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of management, organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing loyalty) The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and pieces. In 1960, Deming became the first American to receive the Second Order of the Sacred Treasures from Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. An accompanying citation stated that the people of Japan attributed the rebirth and success of their industry to his work. Today the highest prize awarded by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) for industrial achievement is the Deming prize. This is comparable to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, established by the U.S. Congress in 1987 to recognize quality and business achievements of U.S. organizations.”

(These articles are available in a PDF format by click on the appropriate part of the series; Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

I have given lectures at seminars for both the private and public sector of quality assurance, quality control, and client service. After my retirement I was contracted to write the quality assurance, quality control, and client service manual for my previous firm. It was the first interactive, hyperlinked manual of its kind the firm had ever had.

Of course I had to tailor my presentations to address the needs and concerns of the private and public sectors. This was difficult as the public sector, as stated above, is quite different from the private. To the private sector profit and sustainability are paramount and to achieve these firms are dependent on the highest quality, superb client service and retaining he best employees while keeping costs as low as possible. This is a very delicate balancing act, but Deming’s principles are most applicable.

In the public sector we have a different culture and management style. There is no realization of profit in the public sector. Why should there be? They have a unlimited source of capitalization — it’s called taxpayer money. Cost control is not an issue as most agencies are not aware of their real costs of doing business as they do not take into account the costs of employee productivity. They staff by available budget and each year they request budget increases. If they do not use their entire budget in any fiscal reporting period they lose the funds. This encourages them to spend until all the money is gone. There is no reward for saving money.

They have a punitive management style based on policies and memorandums that issue from some unknown mastermind in another department, building or state. Cross communication is something to be avoided as it only creates potential conflict.

I present all of this as an argument to show how the VA with its 41% increase in budget is still doing a lousy job and not meeting its goals and metrics.

This condition is not exclusive to the VA, but to almost every federal and state agency in the nation, including the military. They obfuscate with government doublespeak to a pint where the Congress and taxpayer is bamboozled over and over again. A recent example is the collapse of a bridge on I-5 over the Skagit River in the state of Washington. It did not take lone for the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee (D), to call for more money from the people of Washington and the federal government to repair and replace the ailing and failing transportation infrastructure. The New York Times reports:

“Mr. Inslee said in an interview that a broader message of the collapse is that state financing for state transportation projects — now under consideration in a special session of the Legislature — can no longer wait, especially for the long-delayed Columbia River project.

“It shouldn’t take an oversize load to let us know we have an oversized problem,” he said.

Washington State faces a deadline this year to find money for the $3.2 billion project over the Columbia River, or risk losing up to $1.2 billion in federal financing. Oregon’s Legislature has approved $450 million, but Washington State’s $450 million share has been stalled. About $1 billion would come from tolls.

Building America’s Future, an advocacy group founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and two former governors, Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, also issued a statement characterizing the bridge collapse as a “call to action.”

“Regardless of how this happened, the collapse of the Skagit River Bridge in Washington State is a timely reminder of our nation’s need to invest in critical infrastructure upgrades,” Mr. Rendell said. “Our nation’s bridges, roads and highways are deteriorating before our eyes.”

Over the years the federal and state governments have collected excise taxes from the sale of gasoline, diesel fuel, tires, auto and truck registrations, and tolls to pay for the nation’s roads. Where does the money go? In states like Washington and California a large percentage of those excise go to bloated state employee staffs within the departments of transportation along with pensions and health care benefits for retiring state employees. Washington, as California, is restricted from outsourcing much of its design and maintenance programs to the private sector. Until these government union controlled agencies take a different course our infrastructure will continue to age and fail. Of course we can always take the train.

Long, Boring and Typical Obama

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” — Benjamin Franklin

Today President Obama gave a major televised foreign policy speech at the National Defense University where he addressed the issues of terrorism, drones and Gitmo.

The speech was way too long (one hour) and left you wondering at times what his point was. He drew sharp criticism from Republican senators for urging the repeal of the 2001 law that effectively authorized the war on terror.

The president addressed the law, known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), toward the end of an hour-long speech largely devoted to explaining and defending his administration's lethal drone program. He even referenced the fact that America is at war in defending the legality of the drone strikes. Obama stated:

“All these issues remind us that the choices we make about war can impact - in sometimes unintended ways - the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends. And that is why I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing.

The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core Al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves Al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., claimed the president was assuming Al Qaeda is "on the run," calling that mindset "really incredible."

But Obama made clear that his ultimate goal is to update, and then repeal, the use of force law, saying he wants to fight terrorism without keeping the country on a "perpetual war-time footing."

"The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core Al Qaeda is a shell of its former self," Obama said. "Unless we discipline our thinking our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.

"So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further," he said. "Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands."

The resolution was passed by Congress three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It authorized the military and president to use all necessary force to go after those responsible, and prevent future acts of terror. It remains in effect.

Obama will find support in Congress for revising and updating the law. Before the president's speech, Republican Sen. Bob Corker, top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the original law is "increasingly unrelated to current terrorist threats."

But the call to repeal it stirred protests from some Republicans.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said she was "troubled" to hear that.

"We remain at war with terrorists," she said, pointing to activity in Yemen and Somalia and the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. "Now is not the time where we can consider repealing the authorization for the use of military force."

McCain agreed. "I believe we are still in a long drawn-out conflict with Al Qaeda. To somehow argue that Al Qaeda is on the run, comes from a degree of unreality that to me is really incredible," he said, saying the terror network is "expanding" across the Middle East. "To somehow think that we can bring the authorization of the use of military force to a complete closure contradicts reality of the facts on the ground," he said.

The president tackled a host of tricky subjects in his speech today. He defended his administration's drone program, while saying his administration is setting new guidelines and opening the door to new levels of congressional oversight.

On his administrations drone policy Obama had this to say:

“It is in this context that the United States has taken lethal, targeted action against Al Qaeda and its associated forces, including with remotely piloted aircraft commonly referred to as drones. As was true in previous armed conflicts, this new technology raises profound questions - about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies; about the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about accountability and morality.

Let me address these questions. To begin with, our actions are effective. Don't take my word for it. In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden's compound, we found that he wrote, “we could lose the reserves to the enemy's air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.'' Other communications from Al Qaeda operatives confirm this as well. Dozens of highly skilled Al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers, and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, U.S. transit systems, European cities and our troops in Afghanistan. Simply put, these strikes have saved lives.

Moreover, America's actions are legal. We were attacked on 9/11. Within a week, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of force. Under domestic law, and international law, the United States is at war with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war - a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.

And yet as our fight enters a new phase, America's legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion. To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power - or risk abusing it. That's why, over the last four years, my Administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists - insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday.”

He also renewed his call to close Guantanamo Bay, pushing to resume transfers of detainees from the prison camp. This is where this long, boring and repetitive speech got a bit interesting.

“The glaring exception to this time-tested approach is the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The original premise for opening GTMO - that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention - was found unconstitutional five years ago. In the meantime, GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law. Our allies won't cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at GTMO. During a time of budget cuts, we spend $150 million each year to imprison 166 people -almost $1 million per prisoner. And the Department of Defense estimates that we must spend another $200 million to keep GTMO open at a time when we are cutting investments in education and research here at home.

As President, I have tried to close GTMO. I transferred 67 detainees to other countries before Congress imposed restrictions to effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other countries, or imprisoning them in the United States. These restrictions make no sense. After all, under President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from GTMO with Congress's support. When I ran for President the first time, John McCain supported closing GTMO. No person has ever escaped from one of our super-max or military prisons in the United States. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism-related offenses, including some who are more dangerous than most GTMO detainees. Given my Administration's relentless pursuit of Al Qaeda's leadership, there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened.

Today, I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from GTMO. I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries. I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries. Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.

Even after we take these steps, one issue will remain: how to deal with those GTMO detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted - for example because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of closing GTMO, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved, consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.”

It was at this point of his speech that President Obama was interrupted three times by a woman who shouted about drones and detainees in Cuba as he delivered a speech on national security.

The woman was identified as Medea Benjamin from the anti-war group Code Pink. Benjamin yelled from behind a bank of cameras before security removed her from the hall at National Defense University in Washington.

Obama said at one point he was willing to "cut the young lady some slack" because the issues he was addressing are worth being passionate about.

Benjamin shouted, quote, "86 were cleared already. Release them today!"

It was almost as if Benjamin was a plant by the White House to give Obama some simpatico. He allowed her some time to mouth off with Code Pink’s blabber for quite a while before she was escorted from the building, something she was used to and is often her goal.

Two more points Obama made before leaving this topic. Firstly were his remarks about leakers and journalists. Where he said:

“The Justice Department's investigation of national security leaks offers a recent example of the challenges involved in striking the right balance between our security and our open society. As Commander- in Chief, I believe we must keep information secret that protects our operations and our people in the field. To do so, we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also essential for our democracy. I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.

Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law. That is why I have called on Congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government over- reach. I have raised these issues with the Attorney General, who shares my concern. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and will convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I have directed the Attorney General to report back to me by July 12th.”

Who is he kidding? Eric Holder to come back with a report is like having the fox guard the chicken house. It was Holder’s Justice Department that initiated investigations into the AP and Fox News’ James Rosen. What he should have said is I have asked for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation and urged him to appear before a Congressional committee and tell the truth. I know that is a fantasy and won’t happen. I wonder what Holder, like J. Edgar Hoover had on almost everyone in Washington, D.C., has on Obama.

Finally he said the War on terror must end:

“Now make no mistake: our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. We must recognize, however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience to draw from, now is the time to ask ourselves hard questions - about the nature of today's threats, and how we should confront them.

These questions matter to every American. For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over a trillion dollars on war, exploding our deficits and constraining our ability to nation build here at home. Our service-members and their families have sacrificed far more on our behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the shadows of battle back home. From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions we are making will define the type of nation - and world - that we leave to our children.

So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison's warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.'' Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. What we can do - what we must do - is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. To define that strategy, we must make decisions based not on fear, but hard-earned wisdom. And that begins with understanding the threat we face.”

For Obama to quote James Madison borders on sacrilegious. During his entire political career Obama has never expressed any of the principles of Madison or any other Founders.

In order to end any war you need two sides to agree to do so. This happened in 1918, 1945, and 1954. So far there is no indication that the jihadists have given any indication that are willing to negotiate an end to their terrorism. As long as they want to kill us the war will go no matter what form it takes.

The question that comes to mind is the timing of this speech. Obama gave this address on Thursday, the day before the government and the press begins to close down for the long Memorial Day Weekend. It was an opportunity to deflect the story from the Benghazi, IRS, and journalist scandals.

The Weekly Standard reported that early this week liberal pundits gathered in the West Wing. National Public Radio reporter Ari Shapiro reports that liberal pundits were seen entering the West Wing. The pundits include Jonathan Capehart, Josh Marshall, and Ezra Klein.

It also should be noted that Lois Lerner was placed on administrative leave today. Once again the announcement was made prior to the beginning of the long Memorial Day Weekend. Fox News reported:

“Sources confirmed to Fox News earlier Thursday that Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversaw the unit targeting conservative groups, had been placed on administrative leave, with pay.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, claimed she was only put in that status after refusing to step down.

He said the commissioner was in his right to demand her resignation, and said taxpayers should not continue to pay her salary indefinitely.

“She had an opportunity to disclose the targeting to Congress days before her disclosure at a legal conference and didn't do it,” Grassley said in a statement. “Then she gave the impression that the issue came up independently at the conference, when it really was a plant that she arranged. The IRS owes it to taxpayers to resolve her situation quickly. The agency needs to move on to fix the conditions that led to the targeting debacle."

Capitol Hill sources said Lerner, the director of exempt organizations, was placed on paid leave Thursday, amid calls from some lawmakers for her to be suspended or fired. In her absence, Ken Corbin, the current deputy director of the submission processing, wage and investment division, will take over her duties, according to an internal IRS memo obtained by Fox News.”

This will give the Obama media plenty of time to send their acolytes out on the talk shows over the weekend to push Obama’s national security speech and obfuscate the Benghazi, IRS and journalism scandals while Congress is not in town for the next week and the hearings are in recess. This is a good time to have your barbeque with your burgers and hot dogs, remember our fallen and visit the local office of your representative to make your beliefs