Little Dingleberries of Wisdom

My Dear Barack,

I have thrown together some disparate items to add to your leadership toolbox. These little bits will insure that you continue your predecessor’s tradition of aiming the ship of state for the nearest shoal of rocks.

Have you wondered why Congress was so quick to provide a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry, yet is dragging its feet over a bailout for the auto industry? The reason is quite simple.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson did more than posit Parkinson’s Law, which states that work expands to fill the time available for its consumption, along with its corollary that bureaucracies expand regardless of utility or need.

He also gave the example of a board of directors faced with two decisions: the building of a multimillion dollar dam, and the purchase of a $29.95 coffee machine. According to Parkinson, the decision on the dam will be made in minutes, while the decision on the coffee machine will involve hours of debate. The reason is simple: nobody knows a damn thing about dams, but everyone is an expert on making coffee.

To comment on what you know nothing about is to display your ignorance. Hence, it is much better to nod knowingly and approve it since voting against it would require an explanation, and it’s hard to explain what you don’t understand in the first place.

Congress was asked to bail out a financial industry even financial experts don’t understand. So it approved it. Unfortunately for General Motors, everyone understands cars, so its request was doomed to fail.

Moving on to another subject, you greatest gift as a leader is your legerdemainic rhetoric. Your gift of gab will easily convince the public that, even in the depths of despair, there is hope even though they haven’t got a prayer.

And one final point: Efficient leadership demands a sociopathic belief in charts, diagrams, spreadsheets, and graphs until what are simply reflections of reality become reality itself. You must surround yourself with syncopphants who believe that these items create reality, i.e. that by arcing the line on a graph upwards, one creates growth in the real world. In effect, you create a parallel universe that shelters you from the real one. This is especially important since your greatest challenge will be the preservation of a corporate capitalism that has outlived its usefulness and is simply too profitable to scrap. You’ve got to keep the dinosaur on life support.

Remember these, and history will remember you with the same affection it remembers your predecessor.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones