what happened to taking pride in your work

westom wrote:

laknox wrote:
As a bit of a "car guy", I'll firmly dispute your statement that v-8s are obsolete. If they were, don't you think that race cars would all be running 4-cyl engines?

Technologies in race car circuits (Indy, Formula 1) tend to appear decades later in conventional cars. For example, the engine that made V-8s obsolete is the 70 Hp per liter engine that (if I remember) won Indy in 1948. If your car does not do that today, then it is obsolete. And it is obviously defective. You can hear its loud exhaust. Low performance engines make more noise. And therefore require more pistons to replace energy wasted making noise.

Indy no longer races V-8 engines.

BTW, when the GM vice president of drive train development was discussing a decade previous development of 70 HP/liter engines in the mid-1970s, he was also discussing development of variable valve timing and electrically driven valves (manufactured by Magnavox - yes the TV company). Those technologies were that old and stifled when business school graduates started designing cars in the 1970s.

Nardelli was running Home Depot into the ground. So they paid him $200 million to leave. Nardelli does what business school trained management does - enrich themselves.

Nardelli then ran Chrysler into backruptcy by doing what business school grads do. Nardelli's manaagement company is now running Acme Supermarkets where store close to make spread sheets look more profitable.

Is Nardelli knowledgeable of hardware, autos, and groceries? Of course not. He understand cash flow, cost controls, and other support functions. Therefore innovation was impossible. Costs increased. Innovators were stifled. Management padded their compensation packages. Employees and customers became victims. Nardelli got rich at their expense. He did what is taught in business schools.

Remember Flint's water? All key decision makers were business school graduates. Flint was created by cost controls.

What is the employment experience of each RV manufacturer's top management?

First off, race engines only have to last a few hundred miles. You ever hear of a race engine lasting 200k miles? Didn't think so. Fine with me if you want to re-engine your car every 5k miles because that Cox .049 producing 200 hp gives up the ghost. Me, I can't afford it. Indy no longer races v-8s because they're trying to =limit= horsepower to =limit= speed. Same with NASCAR only running small blocks. How fast do you think the Cup guys would be going with 427/429/454/455-sized engines today? D@mn scary speeds, is what. Even the NRA dropped the "quarter mile" for Top Fuel to 1k feet for safety, rather than mess with the engines any more than they already do. I do agree that we =can= make more h.p. =reliably= with much smaller engines, but for performance, there still is "no replacement for displacement".

Again, I do not disagree with you about MBAs FUBARing companies, but there are plenty of instances of "pure" engineers FUBARing companies, too, simply because of a lack of business acumen. A good business leader tries to find the balance between innovation and profits; an =excellent= leader finds that line and walks it, acknowledging mistakes along the way, but working for the long-term success of the company before his own. The rest are mercenaries, intent on lining their pockets at the expense of everyone else.

Lyle