Yes, I’ve just completed Ted Turner’s autobiography a man. His who flew by the seat of his pants chasing what would be the next widespread innovation that would captivate Americans. His parallel successes in sailing intstilled in him the grit to take chances where others wouldn’t and to start over when others would have been defeated. For all that he accomplished, Turner considered his children, his World Cup and his ownership of more open land in the U.S.than anyone else his greatest achievements. Peace and grace

should be ‘a man who flew by the seat of his pants,

The American captains of industry focused on short-term gains instead of long term profit. In the past engineers who understood the process of the industries they worked for worked hand in hand with management. They scheduled shut downs and routine maintenance. It was understood that money had to be spent on the equipment if they expected to make money from the process. Over the years MBA’s who had never worked in the field and accountants called the shots for industry across the land. Their solutions were to let go of key senior people because they could hire newbies cheaper. The new people were not up to speed and did not know the processes so they made mistakes that cost many people jobs and often ruined equipment. Some of them hid behind their degrees often refusing to listen to people who had been with the company when they gave suggestions that could make the plants more self-sustaining. Manufacturing anything from textiles to paper means maintaining the equipment for it to work at an optimum level. Many of the new managers or those in charge chose to defer or simply not keep up the equipment because it saved money for the current fiscal year. They did not look at the fact that breakdowns equal lost profit because customer orders couldn’t be filled. That profit would have more than paid for plant maintenance. In some cases the cheapening of the process meant an inferior product that customers rejected. Many legitimate customer complaints went unheeded until those former customers took their orders and money elsewhere. Profit they could have had went to companies overseas. Some of the new directors thought it would be cheaper to move some of the plants overseas. The people making those decisions didn’t factor in such costs as foreign graft, or higher operating costs because of government regulations. Nobody did the math to see how much it cost for shipping raw materials to and from the US or teaching the process to new hires with no skills with a language barrier. They learned the hard way that the salaries of American workers were not a bottleneck to success. If we want American industry to return to real productivity it is time to go back to the roots of the businesses. Study the process from the ground up to see what it takes to make it a success. Hire more engineers to maintain the plants. Allow them to study the processes so they can remain competitive with foreign imports.