The Stevens rule

Very old rule: Tight budgets cause smart plans and smart designs. Unlimited money causes stupid plans and stupid designs.

The rule is clear with designs.

My favorite example is Brooks Stevens. His 1947 design for the Willys wagon was TIGHTLY constrained by postwar restrictions. Willys was last on the priority list for bodymakers and machine tools. Charles Sorenson, CEO at the time, was a top expert in production. He engaged the only available bodybuilder, an appliance plant with unused capacity. He told Stevens to design an attractive vehicle using only the minimum amount of stretching and bending, nothing more complex than a refrigerator door. The result was timeless. 75 years later, his styling cues are still present on Jeep vehicles: the hood shape, the slotted grille, and the trapezoidal fenders.

Later Stevens was hired by rich playboys with unlimited budgets, and he produced the Excalibur and Gaylord. Horrible and impractical. Timeless in the opposite sense: There was never a time when these shitboxes would look good.

The rule also applies to business plans. Look at the plans created by tech tyrants with unlimited QE money. LBOs, Bitcoin, Metaverse, Mortgage-backed securities, SPACs. Crazy nonsense that couldn’t possibly work or create a profit. The purpose was simply to BURN UP MONEY for tax advantage.

The same rule applies to government designs.

FDR had no money available. The country was flat broke and the banks were bankrupt. He had to rule by consent because ruling by consent is CHEAP. When the people understand what you want and why it’s needed, they will eagerly help, contributing free labor. No secret police or censorship needed.

Modern psychopathic tyranny is EXPENSIVE. Everything in the world has to be organized and regimented and blackmailed into perfectly timed submission, with vast armies of jackbooted thugs and heavy-handed censors operating everywhere all the time.

2020 was only possible with QE, and the central banks recognized the fact by pumping the largest counterfeit in history into the greatest crime in history.