Free Republic

One summary of the Peter Principle, named after psychologist Laurence J. Peters, is that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.” Three Italian physicists—Pluchino, Rapisarda, and Garofalo—claim to have put proof to this puzzling problem. Today, we examine their paper, which is making the rounds, and has even won an Ig Nobel! Peter’s perplexing promotional principal runs like this: a vacancy in an organization appears, and somebody in that organization who had heretofore labored somewhere in the lower ranks is elevated to a new eminence. Peter assumes that when people are promoted they will...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (C) talks with Senator Joe Lieberman (L) and Senator Carl Levin after she testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on "Nine Years After 9/11: Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland" on Capitol Hill in Washington September 22, 2010. U.S. authorities are having a harder time detecting terrorism threats on American soil, top U.S. officials said on Wednesday, more than nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks thrust the United States into a global struggle with Islamist militancy.

Juan Williams — to the amazement of some of his co-panelists — let it rip on Fox News Sunday [1]. The subject was nominally the Sestak and Romanoff scandals, but Williams found the bigger theme: I think the problem here is this is an administration that, as Hillary Clinton famously pointed out, you may not want to have answer the 3:00 a.m. call. These are guys who have tremendous vision about legislative achievements and specific things like health care, going forward on immigration, those difficult issues for America that America so far has failed to deal with. But when it...

Here's a theory about why President Obama is having a tough political time right now: He doesn't seem all that happy being president. ...I started thinking about this a few weeks ago when Obama confidant David Axelrod, noting that the president always makes time for his daughters' recitals and soccer games, told the New York Times, "I think that's part of how he sustains himself through all this." Really? Is the presidency something to sustain yourself through? He did ask for this job; we didn't make him take it. And so it seems fair to ask: What part of it...

Justice Napolitano? The homeland security secretary might just like the ring of it. Janet Napolitano declined to rule out being interested in an appointment to the Supreme Court when she was asked on "FOX News Sunday" about speculation that she might be on the list of potential candidates to replace outgoing Justice David Souter. "I've got my hands full with the flu right now, and I'm just going to stick with that," she said. When host Chris Wallace told Napolitano, "That's a non-answer," she replied: "That's all you're gonna get."

Trillion-dollar deficit? First, I am doubtful when the Old Grey Prostitute tells us about fighting off Great Depression v2.0. That suggests to me that when it does not come, they can bless Bambi for the protection. By setting the mark so high, they set themselves up for kissing the ring of the savior (and asking us to join).

The Chicago Public Schools, whose superintendent, Arne Duncan, has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be the next education secretary, failed to meet the Illinois state standards set under the No Child Left Behind Act every single year the standards have been in force. For the last five school years (2004-2008), the Chicago district (District 299) failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) in key areas, according to the district’s progress report on the Illinois State Board of Education Web site. Under the No Child Left Behind Act that Congress passed in 2003, each state must “develop and implement...

Obama: Targeting Michelle Was Low GOP Blow Nov. 3, 2008(CBS) CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric caught up with Barack Obama Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, and they sat down for an exclusive interview. Couric asked about reports that an Obama aunt from Kenya may be in the U.S. illegally. Couric also inquired, among other things, about the thing that made Obama the angriest as the campaign unfolded. Portions of the interview were shown on The Early Show Monday, and more will be broadcast in a special Monday edition of the CBS Evening News. Below is a transcript of the portion...

Lavish Payout, Perks for Failed Mortgage CEO His Severance Package Includes Jet Use, Country Club Dues and a Hefty Payout By DANIEL ARNALL ABC NEWS Business Unit Jan. 11, 2008 — Angelo Mozilo, the co-founder and public face of troubled mortgage giant Countrywide, is eligible for tens if not hundreds of millions in compensation and perks on the sale of the company to Bank of America. During calendar 2006, the latest period available for review in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Mozilo took home $48.1 million in compensation. An early analysis of SEC filings by the Los Angeles Times suggests...

Bad bosses get promoted, not punished Fri 03 Aug, 2007 04:32 By Rachel Breitman NEW YORK (Reuters) - How do people get ahead in the workplace? One way seems to be by making their subordinates miserable, according to a study released on Friday. In the study to be presented at a conference on management this weekend, almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways. "The fact that 64.2 percent of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to...

During a contentious Senate hearing last week, State Department consular chief Maura Harty took personal responsibility for the backlog of two million passport applications—leading to wait times of 12 weeks or more—that has wreaked havoc on honeymoons, family getaways, and business trips. She was hailed by many for her contrite performance. Unfortunately, though Harty was apologetic, she was not entirely honest. Not only that, the Senate did not learn the full extent of her personal culpability in creating the passport mess with a series of blunders. And on the heels of creating a backlog of two million passport applications and...

This just in across the wires: NEWS ALERT from The Wall Street Journal Nov. 29, 2006 Leaving behind a Republican void in the South, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he has put aside plans to run for the White House in 2008. In an interview, the Tennessee Republican said he wanted a "sabbatical from public life," suggesting the 54-year-old heart surgeon-turned-politician could very well return to politics in the future. For more information, see: http://www.rightsideredux.com/2006/11/frist-admits-defeat.html Is John McCain next? Don't hold your breath. Anyway, thanks for your service Senator. Regardless of your surgeon skills to carve out bleeding hearts....

Playing By Our Own Rules My Two Cents on Overdoing It By David J. Aland 7 April 2006 Homeowners Associations are a mixed blessing. On the face, they are governmental microcosms – Jeffersonian democracies in miniature; but they can also be a pain, albeit a necessary one. Essentially, all governments are a mutual agreement to limitations for the common good, but that only works when the governed agree to play by the very rules they have agreed upon. Recently, I watched a gentleman rant at a homeowners meeting, because his property had been cited for stained siding. As he spluttered...

Put a public school teacher in the governor's mansion and you'll have a pedagogue as the chief executive every time. It really doesn't matter how long she's in office, she'll always be a schoolmarm who's out of her element and in over her head—the Peter Principle epitomized. Unfortunately for the people of New Orleans, it took a crisis of cataclysmic proportions in which thousands of people suffered physical deprivation and emotional humiliation—and hundreds died before anyone realized that when you elect a follower as your leader, no one makes realistic plans for the crisis until a catastrophe occurs, and while...

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows. And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position. The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA. The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster. ``I look at FEMA and I shake...

TODAY'S FREE TRADE IS NOT ABOUT THE FREE MARKET We are in a very real battle in this nation and it is a battle for our heart and soul. It is spread out on many, many fronts...education, foreign policy, work ethic (individually and societally), immigration, the economy, moral values...and the list goes on. Let's focus on the economy and one significant part of it...a major, growing part of it. Free Trade and foreign outsourcing. I was going to entitle this article..."I used to make something"...or..."We used to make something in this country". But, I thought better of it and realized...

We have been inundated with messages responding to our posts on the graduation remarks by PepsiCo president Indra Nooyi at the Columbia Business School MBA recognition ceremony of this past Sunday. Many readers (approximately a third) have written to comment that, unlike our rapporteur -- graduating Columbia MBA Wes Martin -- they did not find Ms. Nooyi's remarks objectionable. I am grateful that PepsiCo posted the remarks today (together with the accompanying statement) and that we can all determine the issue for ourselves based on "the ocular proof." The Harvard-Yale game this year was played in Cambridge. Consistent with some...

<p>"For a list of all the ways that technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."</p> <p>Twenty years ago, the majority of newly recruited executives failed. Now, thanks to two decades of evolving human-resources philosophy, research, testing and execution, the majority of newly recruited executives "leave to pursue other opportunities."</p>

The Peter Principle: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. The author provides an insightful analysis of why so many positions in so many organizations seem to be populated by employees who exhibit signs of incompetence which is a most disturbing since we all tend to all rise to our own level of incompetence. This concept is likely to be ignored by most senior managers and consultants since to admit it is to admit that we may also be at our own level incompetence. Ignorance is bliss? The end result is that non-growing companies...

The Peter Principle Proven In case you've ever wondered why ignorance rises to the executive level, here is a simple explanation that is also a mathematical proof: Knowledge is Power. Time is Money. And, as every actuary (with some physics training) knows: Work ---------- = Power Time So, if Knowledge = Power and Time = Money then through simple substitutions, Work ---------- = Knowledge Money Solving for Money, we get: Work -------------- = Money Knowledge Thus, If Work is held constant as a positive number (no matter how small!) Money approaches infinity as Knowledge approaches zero. What this means is:...