It’s a ‘Backyard Engineering’ term, or principle I guess you’d say. It applies to many areas of human endeavor.
A good example is a fence post you want to get out of the ground; you grab the post and push it as far as you can in one direction, then yank it back as fast and hard in the opposite direction. You are loosening the grounds grip on it with every back and forth.
Or, take a wooden crate, drop it on one corner. The fasteners that hold all the pieces together will stretch in that direction. Turn the crate around, drop it on the opposite corner, they will stretch even farther. Keep this up and without a hammer or crowbar or any tool at all, you can ‘Rack’ something apart with your bare hands; crates, furniture, doors, sheds, barns, houses, boats, ships, airplanes, buildings or people.
Get anything moving in one direction, then slam it into another direction, keep repeating this process, and eventually it will come apart.
Today, Nov. 18th, 2013, the Health Care Insurance industry is being ‘Racked’ one way then the other.
I don’t know if this is by design or from incompetence.
I do know that it will come apart if this keeps up.
There are people who think they are clever enough to rebuild something they didn’t make in the first place.
I don’t know about that.
I do know that it takes skill, training and experience to build anything of value, and that any fool will do to take it apart.