Very interesting. Christensen would try to explain though, it is not that large international companies do it expressly on purpose. They end up doing it for a variety of reasons, which have a lot to do with how large successful companies operate. I guess governments are comfortable dealing with large successful international consultants, because they kind of match up size wise.

However, what Christensen is trying to explain in his books, is how a large institution can work with a smaller one, in a way that is productive for both.

Did you ever read Clayton Christensen’s books on Innovation and its funding within companies? Very interesting stuff.

His mantra is, if you are trying to innovate, be impatient for profit but patient for growth.

Unfortunately established companies used to operating in larger markets then to expect similarly impressive performance from younger innovative projects.

Often the small innovation project gets legs too fast and is pushed into the ‘big time’ by the established companies, and so they miss the whole point of the exercise to begin with.

Impatient for profit, patient for growth.

The established companies see the meagre profits of a small start up innovation within their own company and laugh at it. That will never challenge our mainstream business. Famous last words.

As zhou is busy pointing out above, ICT is a particular problem. The corruptions at FAS, in particular, but generally speaking across government are a result of ICT incompetence. It is not something that is particular to governments, many companies are guilty of it too. Luckily for those companies, budgetary rectitude usually kills the projects off before they do too much damage. Government has no such inhibitions (hence PPARs).

Ireland has a reasonably strong indigenous ICT sector. It is one of the genuine modern indigenous sectors in the country. So what do the government do when they have a project? Talk to the international consultancy companies. Companies that fail time and again to deliver. If I had a dollar for every ten million dollar project I had to deliver for under a million dollars ‘cos the international consultancy companies wasted 9 million and produced nothing useful, I’d have 2 dollars…

So anyway, back to the topic. The significance of the US Treasury department meeting particular bloggers is that they are meeting experienced practitioners. Clearly people who have impressed treasury officials. It is a willingness to at least appear to be listening that is absent in Ireland. And it is a hostage to fortune. Nobody in the Treasury will be able to say “gee, we didn’t expect this” when a host of bloggers have told them so.

The immediate equivalent in Ireland would be Damien Mulley meeting Eamonn Ryan on broadband strategy (remember that Mr. Ryan? Before you became chief spokesman for NAMA, that was your job). Or maybe John Gormley meeting 2pack to talk about demographics and housing need…

“You may be right, and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say,” Rayburn responded, “but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.”

Never a true-er word spoken.

This is what I was trying to dig up in my article at the Sunday Tribune most of all. My own background in architecture led me to this conclusion about the profession very early on.

Per person, the brain power was astonishing. But I always feel suspicious that, that much brain power aimed specifically at something as menial and raw as physical building construction, could only spell disaster.

Some of the contributors here have commented about the spate of fancy local authority headquarters built around Ireland in the past couple of years. I would feel a lot better had the same amount of brainpower been aimed at building something like a sustainable land tax base for the local authorities, instead of glass showpiece headquarters that look like over-sized automobile show rooms.

Good article by Tom Dunne here:

http://www.tribune.ie/business/news/article/2009/nov/15/a-yard-stick-for-working-out-property-taxes/

But architects don’t feel it is their job to get involve at grass roots economics and politic level to do stuff like land taxation. More is the pity. The point above, about our political system electing populist candidates rather than experts was well made above.

I always rue the fact that in China or Japan an engineer or architect can rise to the level of president of a country. But here in Ireland they don’t care to have a say at all. Not one single blurt of any description from the architects during the entire NAMA debate. Says it all.

All the best, B.

“Richard Tol’s comment about the crazy rotations system where senior officials with years of expertise in relation to an area are rotated to a totally different position is also valid.”

Rotations are something that Norman Bodek talks sometimes about, in relation to functions that people perform on a production plant floor. The rotation system helps to relief boredom of repetitive exercises. It also helps to teach the workers of the plant how the entire job is done, as opposed to the Taylorist approach, where you de-skill the workforce entirely.

Basically, rotation is useful, if you are trying to move away from a Taylorist kind of approach, towards a more value added one. I worked in Dell in 2002/03 and boxed 100k laptop systems. It was highly Taylor-istic. It had almost nothing to do with Lean or Toyota, which Dell is often compared with. Hence, why it was so easy to move Dell out of Limerick. There was no value being added at Limerick.

That is overly harsh on Limerick. I merely use the emphasis to make the point, albeit, in an over-simplified way.

I hadn’t realised the ‘rotation’ was a feature adopted in the civil service in Ireland. We seem to be using methods such as rotation in the wrong places in Ireland, and not using it where it is needed most of all. BTW, I was fired from Dell for a number of reasons, but uppermost amongst them, was I wanted to learn how the entire production line worked and not just a single segment of it. My aspirations were not appreciated by HR one bit. This is the wrong way to encourage our workforce in Ireland I am certain of it now. But heck, those suits and ties in the companies we have in Ireland should have been sent off to Japan years ago, to learn a few basic lessons.

I wrote an article in the Sunday Tribune not too long ago. I found positive elements in the work culture at Liam Carroll’s company, by comparison to Dell. A pity though, Carroll’s company was killed with excess credit.

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/aug/23/developing-on-the-back-of-a-cigarette-box/

I like the points you make above. Keep coming with that excellent input. It is very useful to read. I will hope to take a sabbatical from economic blogging and reading in the near future. I have some other things I would like to catch up such as Lean Design and Manufacture.

It is really great the discussion you have managed to foster here at the website. It has been a pleasure bouncing some of my daft ideas off the board here.

All the best, B.

Organisations like the ESRI and the 3 inside economists are like the RTE soccer panel. They have a tiny influence but overwhelmingly Trap does things his way. And once the crisis is over the economists will be eased out. They are probably being deftly managed as is.
This may work for the soccer team but after two economic crises and the colossal waste of the boom it is clearly not working for our political/administrative system.
I never remember Sir Humphrey bothering with economists.
But it wouldn’t surprise me that the Irish Civil Service is now more British than the British themselves.

I have felt this way about the civil service for a long time and have criticised their approach to ICT projects more than once. I welcome the initiative whereby one body will look at all ICT projects across the civil service. I would love to think that this is an initiative which politicians have lifted from the internet as Michael Hennigan thinks they may be wont to do!

I have changed my position on NAMA to being somewhat dissatisfied with risk sharing and proper incentivisation of the banks.

This is one reason why I prefer being an outsider.

However, it must be acknowledged that this development would be strange if it was replicated in Ireland - - not just because the Department of Finance is a slave to Victorian tradition, but the slow adoption of the Internet in Ireland since the mid-1995s, confirms that business and journalism are also stuck in a conservative warp.

I had to laugh last week when Rupert Murdoch threatened to sue the BBC for “stealing” content from his newspapers.

Mainstream journalists generally tend to look down on online outlets while in the US, representatives from sites such as Politico, are increasingly seen on television. Of course journalists and columnists have no reluctance to use online sources for ideas that are invariably not credited for.

2. On bankers and policymakers, it should be kept in mind that given that recessions are rare and near depressions rarer, it is rational in organisations to go with the flow.

Most times in the money economy, it pays dividends to keep the trap shut and follow orders.

Benchmarking? Maybe it was a fraud but if anyone at a senior level in the public service, had made a public issue of it, who would have remembered or cared a damn about them, in the absence of a crash?

Nobody of course did dare tell any little emperors some home truths — and now they are all on their high salaries or superannuated on super-pensions.

What’s the price of being a sacrificial lamb?

So like much else in life, it’s not an issue of being smart or intelligent but the balance of self interest and common interest.

Bottom feeders also have their role in the capitalist economy and they may well be chameleons.

Of course, there is a difference between selling a subprime mortgage and a book and that’s where regulation in an accountable system, has an important role.

3. Years after its first publication in 1972, David Halberstam wrote that his favourite passage in his book, “The Best and the Brightest” was the one where V-P Lyndon Johnson, after his first Kennedy cabinet meeting, raved to his mentor, the speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, about all the president’s brilliant men. “You may be right, and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say,” Rayburn responded, “but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.”

It helps when advisers have a mix of work experiences.

Colm McCarthy and Jim O’Leary spent years in the private sector, which must be useful now when they give advice as academics.

What struck me, particularly during the first Lisbon Treaty campaign when almost all the high earning Irish journalists argued for rejection, that possibly not one of them had ever been past a factory gate.

One has to have a pretty sheltered existence to believe that the EU would launch a resource war in Africa!

As to who is viewed as a credible “expert,” Paul MacDonnell rightly suggests that an individual has to spend time developing a “media personality” to be tagged by journalists as a “leading” economist and thereby noticed by the policymakers.

The alternative of being a good teacher and researcher may lead to the Nobel Prize some day, or maybe not!

Ironically a key figure in the development of economics expertise in the UK civil service was an Irishman, Norman Glass, now sadly deceased.”

This is the core point. We have a structural/organisational problem that our civil service lacks the necessary expertise to do its job. This affects just about all branches of the Civil Service and is has caused us major problems over a number of years.

The money wasted on ICT and ICT projects is one example. The communications debacle after Eircom was privatised is another example. The money wasted on Delloitte’s report on health and the PPARs scandal are more examples. The Dublin Bay sewage treatment plant may be another example.

Richard Tol’s comment about the crazy rotations system where senior officials with years of expertise in relation to an area are rotated to a totally different position is also valid.

We are suffering death by a thousand cuts. The problems in the DoF are but one manifestation of the structural problem of the deficit of expertise, knowledge and effective systems to manage knowledge within the Civil Service. [The plethora of Human Resources processes in the Civil Service are irrelevant to this problem as HR people do not know how to manage knowledge.]

It would be good if this thread were “mostly been about good decision making and the processes around same”. My understanding (and I would be pleased to be corrected) is that the main features of economic policy are conceived by a relatively small number of senior officials in the DoF. The policies are fleshed out in exchanges between officials and Ministers’ special advisers - with the occasional input of an external adviser such as Peter Bacon or Alan Ahearne. Where necessary, the next step is engagement with the “social partners”. The appropriate spin on any policy announcements is developed in parallel. The Government’s budgetary strategy is being developed along these lines - and in a manner which effectively bypasses the Oireachtas. NAMA evolved in a similar manner (but without, in this one instance, the engagement of the “social partners”).

Richard Tol’s points about the type of public representative the electoral system produces and the development of core competences in the civil service are valid and relevant, but there is a requirement (1) for transparency. a “competition of ideas” and competence in the design of policy, (2) to empower and resource the Oireachtas to function effectively as a legislature that holds the executive to account and (3) for effective scrutiny of policy implementation.

The current institutional arrangements and process prevent these requirements being met and that is the case for thorough-going reform.

That is simply not true, and I note that no one has offered any empirical evidence (apart from the Lenihan/McWilliams story — why would someone seek economic advise from a publicist?)

As I’ve argued before, the issue is not the quantity or the quality of academic advice. Rather, the Irish electoral system favours the election of populists over experts; and there is too much rotation in the civil service.

There is plenty of communication, though. And don’t forget that Ahearne, Clinch and Honohan are now “in the government” — that’s 2% of the population of academic economists, a fraction comparable to that in the USA.

I like that point, it more or less gives an overview of where we are at, and where we should be aiming to go.

One more point, I will add about McWilliams, based on this familiarity with certain media. I think that McWilliams was somewhat beyond his comfort zone in doing the Farmleigh thing. I believe that McWilliams knows himself it wasn’t quite his ideal format. He requires a slightly different set of skills, and perhaps deeper knowledge of industry to mix it with the head of Intel Ireland, never mind a past head of Intel global corporation. I don’t think that McWilliams has that industry sense in spades. I don’t believe that himself and Jack Welsh are cut from the same cloth either. I think that industry leaders have a certain ruthlessness about them in getting things done and dealing with colleagues fairly but firmly.

But the thing is, Ireland in 2009 has been good to economists in general. Colm McCarthy in particular might reflect on his accomplishments and feel satisfied he managed to portray a good media image of economics as a profession. That is something it lacked for a long time. Other economics contributors here have laid fundamental groundwork that will last and will stand to the profession in terms of raising its image. Colm McCarthy will not last forever. I am sure there are several capable people of coming forth in the future.

To see my point, you should contrast the achievements of Irish economists in the last year with that of young elected Dail representatives. I know the names of more (still young) economists now than I do young Irish Dail politicians. How must the young elected members of political parties feel? They got even less exposure than economists did. I don’t know exactly what the proceedure is for a young politician in terms of doing interviews etc. I would welcome a movement in the future, whereby young economists and young politicians could gain more experience in working with the media and being involved in national debates. That would be something positive to see.

No I am referring to our govt our DoF our regulators and Banks.

All of whom have a vested interest in not admitting fully the depth of our plight hence the preference for managing( or mismanaging ) our Banking crisis rather than real attempts to solve it.

All of the above would have to own up to serious mistakes if not serious misconduct if they were to seek outside advice.

Nothing can move forward until they have been removed. Until then no outside academic advice will be sought nor taken.

Our budgetary requirements are a different matter entirely as it is obvious considering the arrival of some big players from the OECD last week that the EU has played a big part in the construction of our next buget.

Busywork is always useful, whether it actually addresses the predicament or something else is irrelevant - to those making the most moves! But not to the contrary types. Logic and rationality will not work - you do not convince with logic - sentiment always trumps!! So forget the experts at this time.

The financial situation is dire, and will remain so as long as the massive debts remain and the means to repay them is not at hand, nor is it likely to be - outside of significant monetary inflation. The unfortunate taxpayer will, slowly, become aware of their predicament and the outcome may be socially and politically unpredictable.

B Peter

You seem to be under the impression that I myself have produced the health service rankings. Emphatically not! In this instance, I am merely the messenger. I am simply reporting what the Swedish healthcare consultants, Health Consumer Powerhouse, published in their most recent survey. As you have obviously never heard of them, I’m kindly providing you with a link below. If you disagree with their findings, write to them, rather than objecting to me posting here what they found. If you can convince them of your expertise on the subject, I’m sure they’ll take your views into account in next year’s report.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0928/breaking40.htm

“But you are assuming they are looking for solutions and not some sort of political cover up”

Are you referring to Lenihan/McW there? It was DMcW who told everyone about the meeting, not Lenihan, and this is more than a year after it took place. Hardly a “political cover up” if no one actually knows about it.

i used to really like DMcW, but the whole “Ireland out of the Euro” thing was downright dangerous in my view. A small, open and massive deficit running economy leaving a stable currency union in the middle of the biggest credit and funding crisis of the last 80 years? Really? It smacked of ‘headline grabbing’ rather than ‘firmly held belief’.

His behaviour over the last few weeks (the book revelations, him hosting the Panel) seems to suggest that he’s decided on a career change from economic punditry to more general media work. Fair play n all that, but its maybe going to change how people perceive his opinions going forward.

On reflection, I do not think we are as anti intellectual as you think. In this country our nobel laureates, WB Yates, Heaney are venerated (maybe not by Dunphy. We glory in Wilde, Shaw, Casey and even Wm. Shakespeare (from Meath dont u know). At our firesides, we read JB Keane, Flan OBrien etc. That is a lot of intellectual firepower.

Maybe if we have a short coming we don’t think much of macro economists and financial gurus. Is that a problem?