THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

The most effective attack on regulation I ever ran across was recounted by Albert Speer in explaining how he went about expanding German war production in the face of relentless Allied bombing.

He redefined the meaning of the word "transaction" from its financial meaning to a social meaning: "Any thing two or more humans must meet or communicate with each other to resolve".

He then ordered senior management to count the "transactions" involved in the production chains and organizational structures they oversaw. He then ordered them to reduce the "transactions" in their operations by 50% within a period of three weeks, putting on a specially missioned audit team to measure compliance.

This forced his senior management to get rid of the bullshit. After satisfying compliance, Speer ordered further reductions in "transactions" forcing ever-greater efficiency in achieving results.

It is well known with enduring amazement Germany's ability to maintain output in the face of such heavy damage to its infrastructure during the latter phase of WWII. Albert Speer's management genius played a major part.

Of course, for reasons of political correctness, Albert Speer is never taught in business schools. But in learning of Albert Speer's methods, I came to realize that there isn't a politician in existence who has the slightness clue as to how to actually reduce regulation, yet with the right method, it can be done in a heartbeat.

It's like what BW says, "There are times when the adults must take over" and the very notion of accountable government is that elected representatives must control public money, how much is spent and what it is spent for. Yet without control of "transactions" in the Albert Speer sense, this cannot be accomplished.

Instead our government relies on mandated financial and performance audits, forever measuring what is irrelevant and supporting yet another industry (e.g. the audit industry) with pork of no social value. Regularly state legislatures and Congress are informed of gigantic unauthorized expenditures, and regularly state legislatures and Congress levy no sanctions whatsoever for the violation of contracts the very essence of which constitutes their power as elected officials.

When anybody says America is a "democracy" I know they are clueless as to what they are talking about. To be a democracy elected officials must have effective control over public expenditure. Nowhere does this exist in America.

Comment by Dave

ME:

You may wonder why I put Dave's discussion of economics up front. Dave and I both know that economic theory is of little interest to real people. But he and I both have separate and original points to make here.

Like German rocket scientists, Albert Speer and Leni Riefenstahl were German geniuses. But since Germany lost the war, credit goes elsewhere.

I taught basic economics, so I am puzzled as to why people waste money on Ambien, Lunesta, or even Sleep Aid. I also wonder why people are so impressed by hypnotists. I was able to put everybody in the room to sleep in half an hour.

Including me.

But that is real economics. Marxism killed, conservatively speaking, a hundred million people in the last century. It is an ECONOMIC fanaticism.

Dave's discussion of Albert Speer brings up a point about history no one has stated but me, so I want to put it on record. Speer was far, far ahead of the Nobel Laureates who taught me, but that is for later, if ever.

Let me get onto politics and history and the silly masturbation generation obsession with economics.

Hitler was a hell of a politician. He said in Mein Kampf that he had not the slightest interest in economics, but all the parties he was competing with were based on economic theories, communists, socialists, and the old Nationalist Party whose real aim was to use nationalism to keep the Krupps types in power.

So, Hitler said, he needed SOME economic theory, so he grabbed one. I doubt the economist whose ideas he adopted ever actually READ Mein Kampf, and Hitler obviously never expected him to, so his ego was never deflated.

That was raw politics, stated so flatly that it fascinated me.

Nothing is more forgettable than another economic theory, so I forget what it was. It is hard to imagine anything sillier than the whole twentieth century obsession with economic dogma.

So much of what I say is so simple it sounds like a joke. But the fact is that when he took power Hitler regarded the Depression as a bother, so he got rid of it. John Maynard Keynes published his groundbreaking theories about how to deal with the Depression in 1937. By 1937 Hitler has already ended the German Depression using the obvious methods Galbraith proposed.

Hitler invented the Volkswagen. The "bug" shape is on a sketch with his name on it. He built the Autobahn to run the VW on, what we now call the Interstate Highway System.

In 1936, Hitler was the most popular head of state on earth.

As I have said, in 1619 the present Virginia state legislature began with the election of the first Virginia House of Burgesses. In 1619 the first boatload of white women came to Jamestown. In 1619 the first boatload of what John Smith called "twenty niggurs" came to Virginia as indentured servants, to help with the tobacco type John Rolphe had developed that was selling like hot cakes in England.

Spaniards had been here for over a century but they never developed a palatable tobacco before. The year 1619 saw Jamestown prosper. After all the starvation before, it was never again to be as poor as the Englishmen who stayed home.

So 1619 was a banner year.

Then in November 1620 the Pilgrim got to Massachusetts and founded America.

So in 1936 Hitler had used public works to end the German Depression. In 1937 John Maynard Keynes wrote the book that founded the whole idea of ending a Depression with public works.

The Pilgrims founded America because the South lost the Civil War. Keynes founded Modern Economics because Hitler lost World War II.