Aside: this was clearly the OG example of the Mac vs PC pattern. Dunno why I didn’t see it before. Probably because this is the first time I’ve read about the Chevrolet story.
Conversation
Kaiser was a dropout hustler who led with sales looks like. Makes his start in photography in upstate NY, then heads west to grow a hardware business, then lands in highway construction. So a hacker-hustler pair saved the US in WW2.
1
10
Kaiser builds thriving road construction business in BC but WW1 makes the name Kaiser acliability do he he adds back to US and grows big there.
2
6
Kaiser building thousands of miles of roads in the west. Early adopter of innovations. Steve Ballmer type seems like. Hard driving and hard working but subtler than Ballmer... not a bull type. Seems like he elevated roadwork from mostly manual labor to mostly machine.
1
5
Now we have Kaiser orchestrating the Six Companies to build Hoover Dam. He spent most of the time in DC managing the political bosses.
1
7
Huh, Kaiser apparently pioneered the internal competition model with Grand Coulee dam, which he later used in WW2 work. I guess that’s where the X/Y flyoff model originated perhaps?
1
6
Okay. Chapter on 1939-40 world fairs as transition, and we’re finally into WW2. Knudsen meets FDR.
1
3
Interior secretary Harold Ickes skeptical of Knudsen; “I have heard that Knudsen even makes his own notes in handwriting” (presumably as opposed to a secretary transcribing shorthand into typewritten notes)
Moron. If you aren’t taking your own notes you’re not thinking.
1
15
Knudsen pulls together a sort of fellowship of the ring from across industry. They have to figure out what the military needs and tell them, because the military if 1940 doesn’t know.
1
10
Finally into the war production story proper. We’re talking tanks, airplanes, engines. Building for US, British, and French needs all at once, 1939-41. Just a vast amount of action getting underway.
1
6
Lessons and anecdotes at every level from rivets vs welding through contract laws to amortization regulations, to foreign policy. “Reality has a surprising amount of detail” is a good side read here. This is that times a million. johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/real
Replying to
Nice anecdote: a banker who has to transfer top secret Merlin engine plans meets the battleship bringing them from the UK with an empty suitcase. The captain laughs: the plans occupy a whole railroad-car sized crate of paper (would be a container today... or a largish USB stick)
4
1
12
I’m honestly kinda excited for the post-covid rebuilding.
1
1
17
Spark plug and steering gear auto subsidiary companies commandeered into making machine guns. We’re still on Knudsen. Kaiser is trying to get in on the action but Knudsen doesn’t trust him. Yet.
1
4
The auto industry had 1050 factories and $3B in facilities and largest pool of engineering talent. Like Silicon Valley today. Except luckily SV capability is a better match for Covid response.
1
5
“It was also an industry of associations” 850 companies, 1/20 of workforce,... saw this while at grad school at UM. Auto industry is ridiculously full of industry orgs associations densely knitting it together. SV is much looser.
1
5
“What Knudsen saw in the defense buildup was more than just rearmament... he saw a way to revitalize American business and industry”
1
5
“The arsenal of democracy” has a nice ring to it. Need something similar to capture strengths for pandemic. China may have started it and democracies may have suffered way more casualties but I suspect long term liberal democracies will win the war against covid better.
1
9
Vignette about unions opposing Knudsen and proposing alt Reuther plan by UAW chief Walter Reuther. Book is clearly anti-union but Reuther’s plan does look like stupid wrong-problem (fighters overran bombers) vaporware objectively speaking, from engineering and other lenses.
1
2
Why FDR resisted urge to appoint war czar and take over all econon: “A victory small enough to be organized is too small to be decisive” — Eliot Janeway (who? an economist who influenced FDR it seems)
2
5
17
Alright Kaiser back in the story to build merchant freighters for British because America’s biggest shipyards were at capacity for navy orders.
1
1
4
Knudsen gets full authoritah over Office of Production Management (OPM) but FDR sez he has to share authoritah with a labor leader. Guy named Hillman.
1
3
Now we have Kaiser going brrr. Gets shipyard location swamp drained in 3 weeks instead of 6 months that people expect. Richmond shipyards. So that’s the story behind that huh.
1
11
Apparently Kaiser revolutionized shipbuilding by treating it like a construction industry rather than a steel industry.
1
10
Ship building go brr. Knudsens people are now making a huge Soviet style central production planning and demand forecasting ledger.
1
4
Guy named Stacy May did a massive project to compile the ledger but is now forgotten. Not even a Wikipedia page smh
1
5
The production priority lists of “strategic”, “critical” and “essential” had to be repeatedly redone to balance regular and military economy needs.
1
5
Everybody cool in 1940s USA had quoted nicknames.
“Babe” Meigs, “Powder” Johnson.
Still at 34% on this book. Slow going since I’m dividing limited reading time between 2 books rn,
1
1
6
“That was the magic number: 18 mo. That’s how long Knudsen estimated it would take for American business and industry to make the arsenal of democracy a reality. One year to build new plants and retool the old ones, 6 mo for conversion. Everywhere he looked that number held true”
2
8
Fraught period of Knudsen jockeying for position with labor leaders and losing, and FDR vacillating on commitment to war effort under pressure from isolationists. But crucial period of ramping up machine tools is underway so big risk mitigated.
1
2
Interesting that 2nd gen companies like Cincinnati milling machine stole a march over first-gen more artisan NE tool makers in this period, including sneaking large naval gun drill out of Nazi germany.
1
5
Fascinating glimpse of balancing civilian and military production. No point diverting raw materials to military if you then can’t build houses for civilians to work on it, or roads to transport material to factories. Economy is intertwingled. Military/civilian is fake divide.
1
10
The breakdown of various attempts to partition the economic web by fiat in human meaningful terms (civilian/military, essential/non-essential, strategic/non-strategic) is like the explainable AI problem. Like declaring pi=3 like Arizona once tried to do. Might blog this.
2
2
9
Picking this one back up after a while. Now into 1941. Defense spending up 12x through the year. US approaching Nazi germany in output. 1942 overtake. Capitalist exponential network effects slower to start, but faster once past a point.
1
5
Now at Pearl Harbor... “[the army plan]... still saw Japan as a problem to be put off until at least July 1943. The timetable had suddenly, catastrophically speeds up.”
Timetables speeding up is a general theme across everything I’m reading right now. “Slowly, then suddenly”
1
1
9
The auto industry was like Silicon Valley of 1940-45 looks like. Knudsen weathered the 1940s techlash by simply ignoring it, refusing to defend himself, and just doing what he thought necessary. You can do that if you’re kinda indispensable.
1
1
7
Though this book is obviously strongly pro-capitalism/anti new-deal crowd, the state of play still filters through. Looks like Big Labor at its height was as corrupt as Big Finance at its height today. Absolute power corrupts absolutely etc.
1
1
8
New dealers get Knudsen fired from OPM. OPM and SPAB replaces by new agency WPB. War Production Board. Knudsen devastated but lands 3-star generalship on military side of effort. Only civilian to get that. Kicked... sideways?
1
1
4
Rule of three: In the first year after a production order output was bound to 3x. In second year, 6x. In third year, at supply limit: materials and labor.
1
1
3
Chapter on Six Companies work in construction in pacific islands, and civilian workers role in battle of wake island. Kaiser role there was supplying cement in bulk carriers instead of bags, for efficiency, assuming the risk. Now into liberty ships story
1
3
Summer of 1941: 4000 workers in Richmond yards. After Pearl Harbor, by end of 1942: 80,000. 20x.
WW2 manufacturing tech was highly scalable with relatively low-skill/low-training labor. Kinda like driving Uber today I guess.
1
2
Show replies
