Comments on: Recent Reading http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6966.html Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago boys including those pictured above. Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:17:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: david foster http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6966.html/comment-page-1#comment-303698 david foster Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:08:44 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6966#comment-303698 DFM...fairly short book, actually, about 180 pages. DFM…fairly short book, actually, about 180 pages.

]]> By: Dan from Madison http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6966.html/comment-page-1#comment-303686 Dan from Madison Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:09:48 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6966#comment-303686 "I use the phrase “Russian Tractor Factory” to imply that we need to control everything from inception to final output but I don’t know if I am properly conveying the topic." I think you may be overestimating the amount of history the average person has in their background. David Foster - looks like an interesting book, I think I will pick it up. Good review. But these books take so long for me to read at times, so damned sad usually. But then again I have read "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum, "The Gulag Archipelago" and "The Black Book of Communism" so it is all downhill from there. “I use the phrase “Russian Tractor Factory” to imply that we need to control everything from inception to final output but I don’t know if I am properly conveying the topic.”

I think you may be overestimating the amount of history the average person has in their background.

David Foster – looks like an interesting book, I think I will pick it up. Good review. But these books take so long for me to read at times, so damned sad usually. But then again I have read “Gulag” by Anne Applebaum, “The Gulag Archipelago” and “The Black Book of Communism” so it is all downhill from there.

]]> By: Carl from Chicago http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6966.html/comment-page-1#comment-303553 Carl from Chicago Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:44:38 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6966#comment-303553 This does sound like a very interesting book. I read a lot about central planning but never heard the term "planning is accounting". They had major problems with determining the value of output that wasn't measured in tons or bushels - for example complex parts that were turned into different types of subsequent machinery. By the end you'd have complete vertical integration so that you could meet objectives - everything from raw materials to production to hospitals and housing. With my staff sometimes I use the phrase "Russian Tractor Factory" to imply that we need to control everything from inception to final output but I don't know if I am properly conveying the topic. Good thing for the author that he stayed in Germany and emigrated to the West - Stalin pretty much shot all the prisoners that were repatriated with their "foreign" ideas. This does sound like a very interesting book. I read a lot about central planning but never heard the term “planning is accounting”. They had major problems with determining the value of output that wasn’t measured in tons or bushels – for example complex parts that were turned into different types of subsequent machinery. By the end you’d have complete vertical integration so that you could meet objectives – everything from raw materials to production to hospitals and housing. With my staff sometimes I use the phrase “Russian Tractor Factory” to imply that we need to control everything from inception to final output but I don’t know if I am properly conveying the topic.

Good thing for the author that he stayed in Germany and emigrated to the West – Stalin pretty much shot all the prisoners that were repatriated with their “foreign” ideas.

]]>