Dublin Opinion

Posted in fuckwits | 5 Comments

5 Responses to “OVERHEARD IN HYPERSPACE, pt.34”

1. on 24 Nov 2008 at 4:43 pm1Longman Oz

   Perhaps we should also get a bit of an auld pogrom going to smash the windows of immigrant businesses? While we are at it, better get all of the kids into the Cowen Youth.

2. on 24 Nov 2008 at 5:24 pm2Conor McCabe

   I mean, I know it’s a comment and all that, and none of us are perfect with regard our comments, but Jesus! It worked well for the Nazis? Bloody ‘ell!!!

3. on 24 Nov 2008 at 5:40 pm3KesheR

   Wow. That was hardcore.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin_Law

4. on 25 Nov 2008 at 9:43 am4Seán Báite

   Had suspected Murphy’s Law was running the world over the last 6 months or so - but that Godwin’s Law makes sense too.. thanks for the enlightenment KesheR…

5. on 25 Nov 2008 at 2:57 pm5Hugh Green

   Oh I wouldn’t be too harsh Conor: emulating the Nazis is more widespread than you think! Was talking to a friend in the UK who works for a major corporation. Had been in a recent HR meeting, in which they announced their new pay strategy. Basically they were told that there’s a fixed sum of money available for pay increases, and who gets the increases will be determined by performance. The upshot is that 50% of the workforce will receive no pay rise for underperforming, and the money will be divided out among the rest, based on their relative performance.

   I thought: now where did I hear that principle applied before?

   ‘Bonuses of various kinds were widely used by German employers. But Guenther Falkenhahn, the Generaldirektor of the Plessschen Werke, a mine that supplied IG Farben’s Silesian chemicals complex, took bonuses to a new, existential level. Under a system he dubbed Leistungsernaehrun, or ‘performance feeding’, he divided his Ostarbeiter into three classes. Only those achieving an adequate, average performance would receive the normal ration. Those underperforming would have deductions made from their rations. These deductions would then serve as bonuses for the above-average performers. The system was designed to manage scarcity. It implied no overall increase in the food ration. It simply rewarded the strong at the expense of the weak. The key idea was to concentrate the available food on those workers who were providing the best return per unit of calories. For the Ostarbeiter it implied a form of triage. Those falling below the norm were threatened by a fatal spiral of malnutrition and underperformance. Falkenhahn doubled as the chairman of the Reich coal organization in Upper Silesia and with his encouragement the system of performance feeding was soon adopted as best practice throughout the region. By 1943 it was getting national recognition. In his end-of-year message Albert Speer personally recommended the system. By the end of 1944 ‘performance feeding’ had been promulgated by order of the Armaments Ministry as standard practice in the employment of Ostarbeiter’

   - Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction.

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