juicycouturewatches

The latest news out of Detroit city hall is quite a punch in the gut for those who thought the election of Dave Bing would be, at the very least, an end to mayoral incompetence and triviality. No one is suggesting the in-fighting among Bing's staff sinks anywhere near the depths of Kwame Kilpatrick-type stuff, but maybe the idea people had of Bing the business executive was more image than reality.

Even so, I think something more systemic and fundamental is at work here, and we can find plenty of examples of it throughout the state. The bigger government gets, the harder it is to find enough competent people to manage it properly.

This, by the way, is why I don't tend to join with libertarian-types who fear that the creep of Big Government will ultimately result in the usurpation of liberty.juicy couture handbag For the most part, it seems that the people who run Big Government are too incompetent to perform basic tasks, let alone figure out how to control my life.

We see this in lots of other places besides Detroit.

Pontiac is broke, and its leaders are so completely out of ideas, they're asking for solutions that don't even exist, like "merging" with Oakland County. (Can a city un-incorporate? Has one ever tried to? Outside-the-box thinking in Pontiac!) The problems of management in other public entities, like the Detroit Public Schools and the Detroit Public Library, are the stuff of legends.

And if we tried to get into examples from Washington, this column would surely exceed this site's bandwidth limitations.

All you have to do to understand the phenomenon is consider a few things. First, successful organizations are usually those that focus on what's called "core competencies." For example, Pepsi is really good at making soft drinks. (Granted, I'm a Coke drinker, but someone must like the stuff!) A few years ago, Pepsi came out with a line of clothing. Successful? No. Because clothing isn't Pepsi's thing. When Pepsi focuses on soft drinks, it does well, because making soft drinks is Pepsi's core competency.

What is government's core competency? Public safety, maybe? Running elections? Taking care of infrastructure? You might have your own ideas, but surely it doesn't qualify as a core competency when government gets into the business of just about everything. If there's a problem in society 鈥?whether we're talking local, state or national 鈥?there's an awful lot of sentiment that says government has to "do something" to solve it, and that usually means a new department, a new agency, a new initiative.

So the bigger government gets,juicy couture jewelry the more it gets away from core competency. That's the first part of the problem.

The second part comes with the challenge of staffing these departments. There are certainly a lot of people working in the public sector who are competent and dedicated,facial tissue and paper handkerchief refers to a class of soft, absorbent, disposable papers that is suitable for use on the face. and isn't fair to tar them all 鈥?as conservatives too often do 鈥?as worthless, paper-pushing bureaucrats. But you have to recognize that the talent pool for public service comes largely from people who have spent their entire careers in the public sector and the political realm. They are used to advancing via political skills as much as by performance. Those skills are very different from the ones you need to manage an organization effectively, or to produce something of quality at a reasonable cost on a consistent basis.

So the bigger government becomes, the harder it is to put good people in the most important positions to ensure that everything is managed well.

Some argue that you need to pay people in public service more, so "good people" will want to work in government. But the fact of the matter is that most good people with any sort of business background don't want to work in government. They prefer the merit-and-reward culture of the private sector, and it's not hard to see why.