This book discusses what part bureaucracy plays in the grand economic scheme of things. Why does an advanced country like the UK have meagre growth rates despite its educated population? The content is not an economics manual. We are flush with likes. One or two of them may even hit the nail on the head and be almost right. This book is about how bureaucracy, as practised by bureaucrats aka Digital Icebergs in the book, is harnessing the capabilities of Information Technology (IT) to smother the real benefits of IT. Of course, these benefits are driven by the ever-increasing capabilities and affordability of the microchip and digital storage. The chip's part in providing information through the ages is first discussed in more than one form. Chips from stone tablets are the first focus. Then parchment and paper as a medium to present information. Yes, bureaucracy has a long history. It's not new in its good or bad form. There is further focus on how growth in the Information Age in which we live is dampened and hindered using the IT capabilities that should be firing it up to the level of double digits rather than one or two percentage points. There is discussion as to why the master musicians and writers a few centuries ago seem to have been more productive than today's masters. Why, with the added functions IT brings to us, are the elites of our age no more, some might argue less, productive than the greats who practised long ago. Long ago, when only primitive scribing tools were the norm? Is this progress?This book is a readable discussion for anyone seeking a better understanding of our lifestyle and how it is or isn't changing. It asks; why we are missing some of the benefits of the technology that we have evolved? Examples of bureaucracy or as the book calls it, Obstructive Bureaucracy abound. The book describes how chips portrayed information in stone, was then presented on parchment and paper. Now information is presented everywhere through digital channels. It is these channels, whether for commercial or personal usage that are being subjected to bureaucracy. The purpose of such hindrance is to slow down progress by consuming productive time. Bureaucracy has been with humankind since time began. With the advent of IT and the Information Age, it is flourishing like never before. IT is enabling this! We seem to have another example in our history where technology with so much potential for the good is being used to affect for what is increasingly the bad. This is worrying?The book is written in 2 parts: Part 1: Obstructive Bureaucracy - the chip and Digital Icebergs challenge. Part 2: The Chipping-Away - solutions to Obstructive Bureaucracy. This part concluded with some possible ways that we can constrain and defeat bureaucracy. The answers are by no means complete. The solution is wide-ranging and complex. But unless we start to address the problem, our lifestyles will be further overrun by the dreaded bureaucracy which IT is increasingly 'supporting'. The reader will often find light-hearted comments and figures in each chapter. These are meant to make the tone less-arid and enable the reader to enjoy a dry technical subject. The subject is never overly-technical. It is hoped that someone in government (wherever) picks up, or downloads a copy of this book and says; this makes sense, and we must do something to combat what this book is warning us about before it's too late. As a result of this book, there is a chance that someone sets up a committee to report in a decade. Report through a document that is hard to read and written in language that even the authors don't understand. Such is bureaucratic obstruction. Enjoy the book and join the crusade.