Thursday 6 March 2008

It's The Stupid Economy !!

It was the successful Bill Clinton Presidential campaign in 1992 which allegedly launched the phrase "It's The Economy, Stupid" as a way of making sure the campaign concentrated on what the Americans call "pocketbook" issues.

This afternoon, I was in a meeting with the Chief Executive of a prominent southeastern local authority and this man, paid I would imagine in excess of £100k per year, was struggling with the most basic concepts of information management and business continuity. It suddenly occurred to me that if he knew how to do his job, I wouldn't have a job myself. In other words, my economic wellbeing was a direct result of this man's stupidity.

It then occurred to me that millions of other jobs wouldn't exist if people were sensible. Would we need as many policemen, doctors, nurses, firemen and ambulance crew if people didn't either act stupidly or endanger their lives via stupidity ? Would we need a plethora of laws, rules and regulations if more people used a fraction more commonsense ?

It's probably true to say many people aren't competent at the jobs they do but are able to get away with it because there is no one intelligent enough to realise they can't cope or can't do sometimes the most basic things.

Perhaps the real truth is that it's only stupidity that keeps the economy going....

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