Musing of One Watching a Guy Who Fell Out of an Antique Biplame at the Top of a Loop, Landed on the Side of a Haystack, Slid All the Way Through It...

...And Set It on Fire by Friction of His Pants.


Semi-fantasy #1:

The board of directors of a large corporation finished its review of a proposal for production of the goozlemawhatchit, a new product. It exhaustively studied the market analysis, the facility requirements, profit and loss projections etc. Having done so, the board decided to approve the project and duly notified the CEO of that decision. The CEO hired a plant manager who in turn hired a controller, a director of human resources, and director of industrial engineering and they began work. Before the workforce requirement had been determined the board sent a letter to the CEO specifying the skills and pay grades of the people to be hired. The director of industrial resources began struggling with this since it did not conform to general labor practices in the area. While he was doing so, the board sent another letter to the CEO specifying the types of accounting systems and banking arrangements that were to be used. This resulted in confusing the controller, who nevertheless began to try to comply with the letter. While he was so engaged the board sent another letter to the CEO specifying the size of the new facility, its layout and the manufacturing flow. The industrial engineers climbed up the wall trying to figure this one out.
As a result of all this, the whole project became enmeshed in a tangle of conflicting requirements and solutions. The project fell behind schedule by about a year. Meanwhile, a competitor began producing a similar product and garnered about 2/3 of the market.
In the light of all this, the board finally decided to cancel the project with a substantial loss to the company. Because of this the plant manager was summarily fired, the CEO lost his annual bonus and two directors decided not to stand for re-election.
The foregoing is the fantasy part.
Reality - Congress does the same thing with much of its legislation, an outstanding example being the health care law. Instead of acting as the policy-making board of directors which it is supposed to be, Congress has become mesmerized with the details of upper- and middle-management, for which it is not qualified and which should be properly left to the executive department.
Sic transit gloria mundi.