March 12, 2004
SO FAR, SO GOOD (via Mike Herdegen)
Timid cost drives, tinkering and lip-services to reform are so much part of the European scene that we no longer take any notice of the kind of declaration from last week's ‘directorate’ meeting. But even if the Europeans were serious about reform, on current trends, they are likely to be swamped before they can act.
Fresh from an agreement to push through restructuring with his European ‘Big Three’ colleagues, Tony Blair today announced a shake up of the British civil service to meet the challenges of the future.
“The Civil Service will be slimmed down, procurement will be tightened, and value gains will be expected across the board”, Blair said.
“The UK population has expectations of Government services that are rising remorselessly. People no longer take what is given to them and are grateful. (They) see the revolutionary effect of IT and want it applied across the public sector too.”
Translation: Blair’s New-Labour Government has lost control of spending, built a massive bureaucratic mess in place of reforming the public sector and is squeezing the taxpayer to pay for it. (He wonders if maybe the errr… “IT” ‘thing’ can get us out of it).
In the Magnificent Seven, Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen try to persuade one old codger to move into the village where they can protect him from the bandits, but he refuses because they haven't bothered him yet. McQueen says he reminds him of the fella who fell off the roof of a building and as he was falling people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." . Europe too figures: so far, so good...
As sensitive as it is politically, outsourcing is one of the reasons that American industry is so flexible.
When US electronics companies sent their assembly work to Taiwan, it put a number of Americans out of work, but cheaper computers allowed almost ALL US companies, even Mom & Pop shops, to become more efficient, and create jobs economy-wide.
(Which, IIRC, was a point brought up as part of a past post at BrosJudd).
Jobs heading to India and China are bound to be even more explosive in countries where it's tough to fire any worker, once hired.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 12, 2004 1:17 PM