Economic Memo 11

Economic Memo #11

Why is America having so much trouble competing in the World Markets?

            So it was a great semester. How can I tell?  It’s easy! I just watch and see if my classes for next semester fill up at registration in late November within a day or so of when kids start to register. This year I was getting desperate emails, visits, and calls to get into my closed classes within hours of the beginning of registration. I have had to raise the class limits twice, but I love to teach so that’s not a problem. (Note, I did make a spot of the one student that said she wanted “to live the Hill experience” that a friend told her about my class. Now that was imaginative BS that had to be rewarded).

            Now there is a reason for my classes filling quickly. I firmly believe this is the best and brightest generation I have ever taught. The trouble is we have developed entertainment toys that have filled up their minds from the day they came home from the Hospital.

Think about it, we put them in a crib with a musical Fischer-Price toy that teaches them the ABC’s. They graduate to a Nintendo, X-boxes, Wii, computer games, texting for God’s sake, and don’t forget we sat them in the back seat of the van and showed them movies.

All the time we blast music at them that no one can understand the words that will make them deaf by the age of 30. (No Bill Haley and the Comets, No Paul Revere and the Raiders, not even a hint of  Sheb Wooley and Purple People Eater, Peter, Paul, and Mary, forget it).

They are the Nintendo Generation!

 My job is to find the hooks in their brains that are already tied to some piece of trivia or musical information and tie my economic concepts to that information so they remember it. You have to do that with the method they have been brought up on Entertainment. You have to continually make it fun to be in class and at the same time transfer the economic knowledge to them. This is a daunting task but it keeps you thinking. The balance between Scholar and Entertainer is critical to teaching this generation. If they say on the last day of class: ‘You worked me hard, you were fair, and I learned something valuable then you have done your job” It does not matter if you did it the tradition or non tradition way.

So I get this bright idea! I am going to raise the class to the next level next semester. I am thinking I will have built a small cart so I can have my computers (I use two now) and “props” right at my fingertips. Now I’m thinking that since the United States Economy is like one of our huge aircraft carriers that turns slowly and can not tilt more than 15 degrees without tipping over that would be a good concept to build it on. (Do you get the analogy that it takes months for stimulus and monetary changes to work out in the economy and there has to be a careful Captain at the controls………NOT George W. Bush!).

 I could shape the cart in the form of an aircraft carrier. I could put speakers and a LCD screen in it and set up entertaining computer driven clips and still keep my lecture on the other screen making my point.

So all I really need is a cart (2’ by 4’) with a couple of curved plywood panels painted gray that I could fold in front to look like the haul of the carrier. I could simply have another piece of plywood top painted as the deck of the carrier and unfold it and I have what I need.

I’d buy a LCD screen for $400 bucks myself so I could pull it out of the cart. This is really is not that complicated. I could take a few one by one boards, some screws, a little gray paint, a little plywood, some casters, a hammer, a saw, and in three hours and its done.  Nothing fancy but everyone will remember the economy is like a big aircraft carrier every time they see a picture, hear on the news, or see one of our aircraft carriers in person.

Now I will get to the economic point.

 I ask the College of Business secretary to have a Lewis carpenter come over since I figure a real carpenter could make it look better than I could. So I get the following message from a fellow I have known for decades back for Plant and Facility Services.

“I am not sure if Larry Hill is looking for Facilities to supply labor and material for his project? If he is he would need to meet with the Dean and make sure it is a priority for the College of Business and funded. Once that takes place and is approved it would go to the Provost and Administrative Council for final approval and priority/placement on the project list. You may or may not be aware that we have work scheduled through next semester and this is not on the list.

 If Larry Hill would like for one of our Carpenters to do this project on their own time and make arrangements to pay for it, I would need a detailed description of the project and some kind of sketch depicting the item he would like created. Once I have that, I will approach our carpenters to see if anyone would be willing to quote him a price for the project.”

            In 1968 when I first arrived on campus, I could walk up to Fred Ludemann, the only Carpenter/General maintenance person on campus, and say: “Hey Fred, I got this idea can you help me.” We would have had in class the next day.

            Now don’t get me wrong, I am not crabbing at Lewis or my friend of decades who wrote the email. What he wrote and the procedure he spelled out is endemic to the US economy today.

            I can not get a bright idea (or not so bright if it doesn’t work) and want pursue it while the thought is fresh. I must follow this procedure.

Step #1 Draw up a detailed plan.

 (No back of the envelope hen scratching here. Thomas Edison, get two draftsmen before you complete the thought……….I should note that due to a quirk in my education I am a fairly competent draftsman. It seems that in Junior High the “powers to be” ticketed me as not being able to succeed in college so I was thrown into two years of drafting classes. It probably had to do with me screwing around a lot. So here is what I would come with.) So this task only took me a couple of hours.

Step #2. Get permission from the boss and hand him a detailed plan. On pain of death do not bring a work in progress or just a concept to him. (There goes the discovery of the double helix and DNA. Did you know, the discoverer of insulin actually did not write down the formula and could not reproduce insulin for six months)? Ok, that is going to take a month. No, great loss yet!

Step #3. The idea must be designated as a priority for the College of Business. (OK, that probably ought to go through a committee or maybe two committees. Certainly it should go to the Business faculty for a vote.)  The next faculty meeting is in February, so there goes having it done by the first day of school.

Now you know they are going to want to know what the outcomes are and the results of surveying the students and a list of critical thinking methods to measure the progress of the students given this new methodology. Well the outcomes will have to have a subcommittee to set up the framework of the structure of the study. There will have to been meetings to go over and improve the structure, and then we will have to survey the students. This process will take a minimum of a year.

That is ok though because I am confident that it will pass all measures with flying colors. Now I am not complaining here. I recognize this is the way education and business work now. It is the norm not the exception. I really do appreciate the work Bill Marker, George Klemic and others of our College who do this work and pass on the results. They help me to understand why I do certain things and how to change the course to further my objectives. But the point is there is getting less and less room for experimentation and spontaneous creativity.

Let’s see, where am I time wise? Oh, February, 2012.

Step #4. Now I can go to the Provost.

The Provost will certainly take a deep look at this and lo and behold it turns out there are human subjects involved. Now we have to go to the human subjects committee, write a plan, evaluate it, chew over it, and submit it. That will take six months conservatively. (July, 2012 now)

Step #5. We finally get the Provost’s approval and off to the Administrative Council we go. (Frankly, I really don’t know what the Administrative Council is or who sits on it, but there is always a group like this in an organization and my gut tells me this is not going to be good for Larry!.)

            Now the Administrative Council takes a couple of months to review it and of course they determine it needs a National Environment and Preservation Act review. This takes another couple of months and it is determined that the report must be sent to Springfield and the State Historic Preservation Committee. Now mind you everyone agrees that there is not historic content here but we need the piece of paper from the State. That takes another two months.

Now were are in January, 2013, but we are getting there. The trouble is that the carpentry projects for the spring semester are already prioritized and in place. So we will have to wait for the fall of 2013 to get on the list.

My colleague, Dr. Bill Marker, after my last memo engaged me on the subject that service labor was very productive using the example that the people who plan the making of a forklift are really just as important and the foreigner who makes the forklift and ships it to the US. His reasoning is that the end product increased productivity and lowered costs. So the service labor value ultimately came out in the manufactured good. Given that reasoning I guess the two a half year delay in my getting the cart is the way to go.

This, of course, has it merits. As noted, I have learned a great deal from Bill and George Klemic and others that focus on outcomes and critical thinking about why I do certain things in class and how I can do them better.

In the end, I’m old school though. I will over Christmas break put together my cart. Take it to class and see if it works. Modify it, tinker with it, and in the end if I feel it takes away for the scholarship I will dump it.

Economically my point is that the US has set up government, business, social, politically correct and other constraints that business, industry, and governments outside the US are not constrained by. Is it a no wonder that we are having trouble competing.

I sound like a Tea Partier but I am not for throwing out the bathwater. I do not believe that all regulation and all review should be removed. I am however, in favor of revisiting how we stifle true creativity with our political, social, governmental and business norms today.