Pictures speak louder than words. Thank you for these excellent charts. I home educated my daughters. My oldest got a free ride to the college of her choice, decided it was a waste of time, and is now building her own business. There is a lot of propaganda telling parents they cannot educate their own. I've written 3 books to empower parents. The latest eBook is my most practical one with tons of links to resources that open minds and make homeschooling an obvious choice. https://capricethorsen.com/homeschooling/
We also homeschooled all our boys back in the 1980's when people were still asking us if it was legal. Our youngest started a business in 2009 and now employs his brothers and about a dozen other people, all are doing well, bought homes, not living in my basement.
You seem to be assuming that they care what will happen to the additional cannon fodder. Giving the military industrial complex more bodies will play out exactly the same way as giving them more money. Not my kids, thanks.
They dont care I get that, but neither do Americans because they have no skin in the game. Have you ever heard the phrase " All Volunteer Armed Services"? Nobody gives a shit that we were in Afganistan for 13 years for this very reason. If there was a draft this debacle would have never happened the way it did.
I understand many people hold that position, but I just don’t buy into the premise that a draft will end their indifference. As has always been the case from Vietnam onwards, the people making the decisions about war exempt generally their families from military service, at least in combat positions. And I completely share your frustration and care very much about how are military and vets are treated as expendable. The song Fortunate Son by Creedence said it all decades ago.
Having seen how this recent election played out, and the role that protecting children and women from incursions by post humanist fetishists p lol ayes in how people voted and what policies they were willing to back burner in order to vote against gender ideology, I suspect that a universal draft would get people’s attention and would lead to more assertive demands made on politicians vis a vis casual warfare.
I feel like a lot of our trouble with the 18-24 year olds would be mitigated if not eradicated by a mandatory 2 years in the military or peace corps after graduation. Most live in a bubble and have absolutely no idea what the rest of the world lives like. (Not 100% on the peace corps specifically, open to other ideas, but you get the point).
Yeah, it definitely depends on who’s running the show.
I’ve noticed DIMS always coddle up to, and sympathize with America’s very worst sworn enemies.
CHINA, RUSSIA, IRAN, and everywhere their seeds of violence have been sewn. Especially through islam.
Testimony to the effectiveness of their taking over almost all of our schools, internet, much of our military branches, newspapers, radio, television, etc. Just like YURI BEZMENOV promised would happen to us in the 1970’s & 1980’s.
None of us can say that he didn’t try hard enough. But the time has come now, to where we all need to rise to the level that YURI strived to attain to.
I pray that each of us come to love and appreciate liberty as much as he did.
He, like so many before him, went into harm’s way, and gave his all.
While I am inclined to agree with you, as an NCO (frontline supervisor/lower management) in a certain branch of our armed forces, I don't want them. I already have enough trouble with the shenanigans of the Zoomers that willingly signed a contract to be there. I already have enough trouble with kids bullshitting on TikTok when they should be standing a post or pulling security during a field op, or paying attention while operating a military vehicle.
I look at what the draft did to morale during Vietnam, and I think that it should be reserved only for dire staffing shortages in the case of existential conflict. GWOT was not that. Vietnam, while big, was not that. World War II was that.
Conversely, I think civil service (military/governmental/volunteer/etc.) could be brought into fashion in a way that exposes younger generations to servitude, which I would HOPE would make them more grateful to be Americans while helping out their communities, but I have little hope that the federal government could bring such a program to bear in a fashion consistent with its founding goals and ethos.
Looking over the long sweep of history, I can't detect a difference between wars fought with draftees vs wars fought with volunteers. Probably the most dreadful war for soldiers was WW1 which went on too long, was too bloody and was marked by the most incompetence ever seen in warfare. It was fought by draftees. In second place for dreadful was probably the 30 Years War fought by mercenaries. Both of these wars also wrecked civil society though not to the extent of WW2-draftees again. The Peloponnesian War which went on forever was fought by what was essentially militias on land and volunteers at sea.
Here is a retrospective (obviously pro but has a lot of history) on the US volunteer army.
My opinion of why we get in these messes and can't get out has nothing to do with the composition of the armed forces but is a combination of the Home by Christmas fallacy and the sunk cost fallacy.
It’s Parkinson’s Law in action: Bureaucrats create work for themselves, and only hire subordinates—never rivals. As the bureaucracies grow, they become dominated by these subordinates, who continually hire more subordinates until you have nothing but subordinates within the system.
Yes. They love us all equally. They replicate like mushrooms on a moist dark patch.
"Bureaucrats can neither be hurried in their deliberations nor made to see common sense Indeed, the very absurdity or pedantry of these deliberations is for them the guarantee of their own fair mindedness, impartiality, and disinterest. To treat all people with equal contempt and indifference is the bureaucrat's idea of equity."
"In any bureaucracy, people devoted to the benefit of bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals that bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and eventually are eliminated entirely."
I'm seeing a similar trend with manufactured food giving us diabetes and obesity, then giving us Ozempic to keep the weight off... Terrible for our health but great for the economy, which is what America was founded on, right? Shareholder portfolio values?
Governments at every level reflect the same. The administrative technocracy is smothering the economy and freedom, and will until the nation collapses like the Soviet Union did.
“Technocracy” is the justification for administrative bloat. These charts are the best illustration of the unproductivity of tech I’ve ever seen! Imagine what would happen to efficiency if all those administrator jobs were eliminated! You could be the new Gartner!
After looking at these charts, I'm convinced that Vivek Ramaswamy was onto something when he proposed eliminating the Department of Education. Milei wants to do the same thing in Argentina. Start at the top!
I've been suggesting this for quite a awhile: go to religious schools and homeschooling. It's been shown that religious people have better health and wellness and higher math and reading scores. Christian school enrollment and homeschooling has increased because they are better alternatives to the default.
I also recommend trade schools as well. It's quicker and cheaper and far less ideological. There are many vocational schools opening up, many of them Christian.
Basically, make the alternatives so good, they make the default options obsolete.
Plus, most of them can point the way to the straight and narrow pathway to God’s saving grace. (HEAVEN)
Sparing moms and dads and sons and daughters from untold heartaches and regrets. We all know there is an overwhelming concentration of commies in higher, as well as lower education, where anything goes.
‘Do not be deceived, for evil companions corrupt good morals.’
1 Cor 15:33
I’ve witnessed many young school girls become infatuated with their ever so clever teacher, instructor, or professor.
The word is CHARMED.
You have probably witnessed the same phenomenon.
And surprise! 53% of college age women vs 43% of college age men are firmly committed to casting their votes for O’harma.
While Canadians have declining healthcare services with waits at clinics and hospital emergency taking up a sizeable part of the day, and where I live less than 50% of the population have doctors the healthcare admin continues to grow. Fun facts: my province (British Columbia) still requires the jab for healthcare workers, and has not rehired any of the unvaccinated workers.
Meanwhile, at the provincial and federal levels the bureaucracy has increased by over 25% since 2015. Based on stories from friends working in government a lot of the new recruits do not do much.
Hilarious thing is I would be considered an old school leftie by many.
But I dislike overbearing technocratic neoliberal bureaucrats as much as anyone else. Even more so after the pandemic. And yes, I believe in free speech not triggered feelings.
I’m definitely liberal on social issues. I wish govt programs worked well but I can’t ignore the evidence everywhere you look. Not a libertarian by any means, just wish govt would stop reaching into all aspects of our lives and strangling. And Canadians need to stop looking to govt to solve every problem, perceived or otherwise - that’s our failing; one that politicians love to seduce us with.
After seeing this DEI personnel chart, if you’re a parent and your child is pondering which university to attend, you’ll know to send them to Baylor, Texas Christian or Miss St.
It would be interesting to see data comparing the ratios of administrative positions to providers (teachers and doctors) that various universities, public school systems, and hospitals have. I would think that, despite government requirements and mandates, there are still some organizations, outliers perhaps, that have resisted bloat. Perhaps we could learn from them.
I went to a very good high school, and the teacher / admin ratio was about 6 or 7 to one (discounting cafeteria and maintenance workers). I wonder what the average for a high school is now.
Great piece, by the way.. The insidious problem with government bloat is that it bloats everything else.
My 2800 student high school had like 3 front desk ladies and then a clerk for each grade 9-12. Vice principal for each grade and one head principal. That seemed reasonable.
Yuri, sheer brilliance. One of the most hard-hitting articles I’ve seen on substack, ever. Great job. And hat tip to the Free Press shout out. Let’s have another beer in the city.
Pictures speak louder than words. Thank you for these excellent charts. I home educated my daughters. My oldest got a free ride to the college of her choice, decided it was a waste of time, and is now building her own business. There is a lot of propaganda telling parents they cannot educate their own. I've written 3 books to empower parents. The latest eBook is my most practical one with tons of links to resources that open minds and make homeschooling an obvious choice. https://capricethorsen.com/homeschooling/
Respect to you for homeschooling and thanks for sharing your books!
Absolutely! I am adding a link to your excellent article and Substack to the eBook.
We also homeschooled all our boys back in the 1980's when people were still asking us if it was legal. Our youngest started a business in 2009 and now employs his brothers and about a dozen other people, all are doing well, bought homes, not living in my basement.
It's a shame I didn't know about your work when I posted this 'Teach Your Children Well' essay a couple of months back: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well I would have given you a shout out.
Bringing back the draft would alter our addiction to endless wars and make Americans much more in tune with American values. Imo.
Or mandatory two years military service after high school graduation for all citizens, male and female.
The price of citizenship.
4 years for non-citizens.
Life inside the Beltway for those deemed mentally unfit to serve.
I prefer whole scale deportations.
They’ll fit right in!
You seem to be assuming that they care what will happen to the additional cannon fodder. Giving the military industrial complex more bodies will play out exactly the same way as giving them more money. Not my kids, thanks.
They dont care I get that, but neither do Americans because they have no skin in the game. Have you ever heard the phrase " All Volunteer Armed Services"? Nobody gives a shit that we were in Afganistan for 13 years for this very reason. If there was a draft this debacle would have never happened the way it did.
I understand many people hold that position, but I just don’t buy into the premise that a draft will end their indifference. As has always been the case from Vietnam onwards, the people making the decisions about war exempt generally their families from military service, at least in combat positions. And I completely share your frustration and care very much about how are military and vets are treated as expendable. The song Fortunate Son by Creedence said it all decades ago.
Having seen how this recent election played out, and the role that protecting children and women from incursions by post humanist fetishists p lol ayes in how people voted and what policies they were willing to back burner in order to vote against gender ideology, I suspect that a universal draft would get people’s attention and would lead to more assertive demands made on politicians vis a vis casual warfare.
I feel like a lot of our trouble with the 18-24 year olds would be mitigated if not eradicated by a mandatory 2 years in the military or peace corps after graduation. Most live in a bubble and have absolutely no idea what the rest of the world lives like. (Not 100% on the peace corps specifically, open to other ideas, but you get the point).
Yeah, it definitely depends on who’s running the show.
I’ve noticed DIMS always coddle up to, and sympathize with America’s very worst sworn enemies.
CHINA, RUSSIA, IRAN, and everywhere their seeds of violence have been sewn. Especially through islam.
Testimony to the effectiveness of their taking over almost all of our schools, internet, much of our military branches, newspapers, radio, television, etc. Just like YURI BEZMENOV promised would happen to us in the 1970’s & 1980’s.
None of us can say that he didn’t try hard enough. But the time has come now, to where we all need to rise to the level that YURI strived to attain to.
I pray that each of us come to love and appreciate liberty as much as he did.
He, like so many before him, went into harm’s way, and gave his all.
I could not agree more.
And nobody should be exempt regardless what family they come from government employees or the wealthy, they should all have to participate.
While I am inclined to agree with you, as an NCO (frontline supervisor/lower management) in a certain branch of our armed forces, I don't want them. I already have enough trouble with the shenanigans of the Zoomers that willingly signed a contract to be there. I already have enough trouble with kids bullshitting on TikTok when they should be standing a post or pulling security during a field op, or paying attention while operating a military vehicle.
I look at what the draft did to morale during Vietnam, and I think that it should be reserved only for dire staffing shortages in the case of existential conflict. GWOT was not that. Vietnam, while big, was not that. World War II was that.
Conversely, I think civil service (military/governmental/volunteer/etc.) could be brought into fashion in a way that exposes younger generations to servitude, which I would HOPE would make them more grateful to be Americans while helping out their communities, but I have little hope that the federal government could bring such a program to bear in a fashion consistent with its founding goals and ethos.
Looking over the long sweep of history, I can't detect a difference between wars fought with draftees vs wars fought with volunteers. Probably the most dreadful war for soldiers was WW1 which went on too long, was too bloody and was marked by the most incompetence ever seen in warfare. It was fought by draftees. In second place for dreadful was probably the 30 Years War fought by mercenaries. Both of these wars also wrecked civil society though not to the extent of WW2-draftees again. The Peloponnesian War which went on forever was fought by what was essentially militias on land and volunteers at sea.
Here is a retrospective (obviously pro but has a lot of history) on the US volunteer army.
https://warontherocks.com/2020/02/fifty-years-after-the-presidents-commission-on-an-all-volunteer-armed-force/
My opinion of why we get in these messes and can't get out has nothing to do with the composition of the armed forces but is a combination of the Home by Christmas fallacy and the sunk cost fallacy.
It’s Parkinson’s Law in action: Bureaucrats create work for themselves, and only hire subordinates—never rivals. As the bureaucracies grow, they become dominated by these subordinates, who continually hire more subordinates until you have nothing but subordinates within the system.
Yes. They love us all equally. They replicate like mushrooms on a moist dark patch.
"Bureaucrats can neither be hurried in their deliberations nor made to see common sense Indeed, the very absurdity or pedantry of these deliberations is for them the guarantee of their own fair mindedness, impartiality, and disinterest. To treat all people with equal contempt and indifference is the bureaucrat's idea of equity."
- Theodore Dalrymple
Pournelle's Law
"In any bureaucracy, people devoted to the benefit of bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals that bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and eventually are eliminated entirely."
superb
Like
I'm seeing a similar trend with manufactured food giving us diabetes and obesity, then giving us Ozempic to keep the weight off... Terrible for our health but great for the economy, which is what America was founded on, right? Shareholder portfolio values?
Governments at every level reflect the same. The administrative technocracy is smothering the economy and freedom, and will until the nation collapses like the Soviet Union did.
“Technocracy” is the justification for administrative bloat. These charts are the best illustration of the unproductivity of tech I’ve ever seen! Imagine what would happen to efficiency if all those administrator jobs were eliminated! You could be the new Gartner!
After looking at these charts, I'm convinced that Vivek Ramaswamy was onto something when he proposed eliminating the Department of Education. Milei wants to do the same thing in Argentina. Start at the top!
Or perhaps honestly ascribe it as
Dept Of Mass Hysteria
I've been suggesting this for quite a awhile: go to religious schools and homeschooling. It's been shown that religious people have better health and wellness and higher math and reading scores. Christian school enrollment and homeschooling has increased because they are better alternatives to the default.
I also recommend trade schools as well. It's quicker and cheaper and far less ideological. There are many vocational schools opening up, many of them Christian.
Basically, make the alternatives so good, they make the default options obsolete.
Plus, most of them can point the way to the straight and narrow pathway to God’s saving grace. (HEAVEN)
Sparing moms and dads and sons and daughters from untold heartaches and regrets. We all know there is an overwhelming concentration of commies in higher, as well as lower education, where anything goes.
‘Do not be deceived, for evil companions corrupt good morals.’
1 Cor 15:33
I’ve witnessed many young school girls become infatuated with their ever so clever teacher, instructor, or professor.
The word is CHARMED.
You have probably witnessed the same phenomenon.
And surprise! 53% of college age women vs 43% of college age men are firmly committed to casting their votes for O’harma.
Kinda like a no brainer..🧐
Bureaucraps.
While Canadians have declining healthcare services with waits at clinics and hospital emergency taking up a sizeable part of the day, and where I live less than 50% of the population have doctors the healthcare admin continues to grow. Fun facts: my province (British Columbia) still requires the jab for healthcare workers, and has not rehired any of the unvaccinated workers.
Meanwhile, at the provincial and federal levels the bureaucracy has increased by over 25% since 2015. Based on stories from friends working in government a lot of the new recruits do not do much.
Canada aka Commissar Nation.
I second that opinion. Also a resident of the Great Red North.
Hilarious thing is I would be considered an old school leftie by many.
But I dislike overbearing technocratic neoliberal bureaucrats as much as anyone else. Even more so after the pandemic. And yes, I believe in free speech not triggered feelings.
I’m definitely liberal on social issues. I wish govt programs worked well but I can’t ignore the evidence everywhere you look. Not a libertarian by any means, just wish govt would stop reaching into all aspects of our lives and strangling. And Canadians need to stop looking to govt to solve every problem, perceived or otherwise - that’s our failing; one that politicians love to seduce us with.
You truly have my deepest sympathy.
A lot of wonderful men and women are possibly doomed to an earlier death.
And I pray the unvaxxed find new livelihoods that they love even more.
After seeing this DEI personnel chart, if you’re a parent and your child is pondering which university to attend, you’ll know to send them to Baylor, Texas Christian or Miss St.
DISCRIMINATION
EXCLUSION
INDOCTRINATION
It would be interesting to see data comparing the ratios of administrative positions to providers (teachers and doctors) that various universities, public school systems, and hospitals have. I would think that, despite government requirements and mandates, there are still some organizations, outliers perhaps, that have resisted bloat. Perhaps we could learn from them.
I went to a very good high school, and the teacher / admin ratio was about 6 or 7 to one (discounting cafeteria and maintenance workers). I wonder what the average for a high school is now.
Great piece, by the way.. The insidious problem with government bloat is that it bloats everything else.
My 2800 student high school had like 3 front desk ladies and then a clerk for each grade 9-12. Vice principal for each grade and one head principal. That seemed reasonable.
Yikes!
Good luck finding a current USA 8th Grader who can accomplish even half of the tasks in that 1912 Exam prep. material for schools in Bullitt County.
One suspects a similar search on almost any US college campus would yield equally disheartening results.
Or college graduate
But...but...one more round of QE will fix all this!...
If the Joshua Tree abomination isn't the Pareto Tipping Point event for the Eco Commie Czars, we're doomed. This will be featured in PTP Watch #2.
https://cheapthoughts.substack.com/s/pareto-tipping-point-watch
Well done, comrade. I "love" the smell of communism in the morning!
- Fidel Castro
Discriminate
Exclude
Indoctrinate
Or “DIE, Whitey!”
All of this
Thanks for making a comprehensive analysis of the ailments
Yuri, sheer brilliance. One of the most hard-hitting articles I’ve seen on substack, ever. Great job. And hat tip to the Free Press shout out. Let’s have another beer in the city.