Books reviews, current events, and other musings

 
Here's how the Republicans are responding to the recent corporate scandals:

The Bush administration said today that it would place as many as 850,000 government jobs nearly half the federal civilian work force up for competition from private contractors in coming years.

Unfortunately, privatization often serves the public poorly and at high cost. For example, an article in the latest Atlantic Monthly comes to the following conclusion (from Plastic):

Private companies that run prisons and treatment centers for juveniles have turned out not to be very good at making money or rehabilitating kids.

The driving force of capitalism - striving for maximum profit, regardless of other consequences - brings about this situation. Here are the ways that businesses can maximize their profit margins:

1. Increasing productivity
2. Charging higher prices
3. Providing fewer goods and services
4. Cutting employee salaries and benefits
5. Fraud

Productivity improvements have a positive societal impact, while all the rest are negatives. Capitalism succeeds when competitive and regulatory forces manage to keep those negative factors in check. For example, the market system does a good job of supplying consumer products, since informed consumers seek out the best quality goods at the best prices. Though, of course, fraud is common and the people who stitch your clothing or pick your vegetables often work for a pittance.

Though government contracts are subject to competitive bidding, in many cases the public doesn't receive a particularly good deal. One prominent example was last year's energy shortfall, in which the energy companies milked billions of dollars from the state of California. Those companies possessed far more business acumen than the government leaders, to the detriment of California residents. I'm much more confident in the ability of the government to run public power than I am in their ability to out-negotiate the energy companies in a deregulated environment.

In addition, Paul Krugman pointed out a significant result of privatization: the political corruption of the civil service (from Talking Point Memo, New York Times registration required):

A few months ago Mr. Rove compared his boss to Andrew Jackson. As some of us noted at the time, one of Jackson's key legacies was the "spoils system," under which federal jobs were reserved for political supporters. The federal civil service, with its careful protection of workers from political pressure, was created specifically to bring the spoils system to an end; but now the administration has found a way around those constraints.
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So am I saying that we are going back to the days of Boss Tweed and Mark Hanna? Gosh, no - those guys were pikers. One-party control of today's government offers opportunities to reward friends and punish enemies that the old machine politicians never dreamed of.

posted by Julian at 11:00

 
I've ordered some new games from FunAgain games, which has an excellent selection of European games. The Seafarers of Catan and The Cities and Knights of Catan are expansions to Settlers of Catan, which I lauded in my last post. Also, a Carcasonne variation called Carcasonne: Hunters and Gatherers just came out; hopefully it will measure up to the original, one of the best games ever. Evo, in which you guide the evolution of a dinosaur species, sounds like a fun diversion.

Some twisted programmers have written polyglots, programs which can be compiled and run in more than one language. For example, one source code file can be treated as C or LISP. The most impressive one supports COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, C, Postscript, sh, and 8086 assembler.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has some fascinating data about current political attitudes; a questionnaire lists the questions and responses in detail. On average, voters perceive the Democrats as better with regard to energy & the environment, health care, prescription drugs, corporate issues, and social security. However, they rate the Republicans higher on taxation, presenting clear ideas, and keeping America strong. The poll sheds light on the factors that contributed to the recent election results (from Talking Point Memo).

Finally, the Washington Post is printing excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book Bush at War. He describes the reaction to September 11 and the formulation of the policy towards Afghanistan and Iraq, from his traditional behind-the-scenes Washington vantage point. The first segment, about Colin Powell's attempts to challenge Cheney and Rumsfeld's hawkish approach towards Iraq, was very interesting.
posted by Julian at 9:30

 
My girlfriend and I have enjoyed our most recent game purchases: Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, and Bohnanza.

A few friends recommended Settlers of Catan, and it lives up to its reputation. Each of the three or four players starts with a couple of settlements on a small hexagonal grid. Each turn, the players receive various resources, based on the location of their settlements and a dice roll. You use your resources to create roads and other settlements, upgrade settlements to cities (to receive double resources), or purchase development cards that provide other benefits. Or, you can trade resources with the other players. The strategy involves deciding where to place your settlements and how to utilize your resources. You need to think in terms of short-term and long-term objectives, since some resources will always be in short supply, and you'll need varying combinations of them during various phases of the game to win. The mixture of strategy and luck, along with the overall game arc, turns Settlers into a relaxing and engaging game.

Puerto Rico is another winner, despite its politically incorrect theme. Each of the 3-5 players starts with a small New World colony, consisting of a single plantation and a little money. The players successively select a role (Settler, Builder, Mayor, Craftsman, Trader, Captain, or Prospector), and everyone carries out the actions corresponding to that role. In Settler and Builder turns the players add plantations or purchase buildings for their colony. In Mayor turns colonists arrive, who are necessary to operate the plantations and buildings. During the Craftsman turn, the occupied plantations and buildings generate goods (corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco, and coffee) which you can sell during a Trader turn or ship to Europe during the Captain turn. You receive victory points for each good that you ship, and the objective is to earn the most victory points. Puerto Rico has a tiny element of luck, and the strategy is subtle, as you decide which role to take and how to enhance your colony and manage your goods. Each time we play the game, we gain new insight into the best tactics to follow. The game flow is surprisingly enjoyable, as you observe each colony grow in a different ways, without a clear picture of who is headed towards victory.

Bohnanza is a decent, and cheap, game, though it's not as compelling as the others. In this card game, each person is a bean farmer, trying to raise the most lucrative bean crop. At any point during the game, you have two or three bean fields, each growing a particular variety of bean. You play bean cards from your hand, in the order they were dealt, into a bean field. You draw other bean cards from a face-down pile; these you can play in your own bean fields or trade with other players. After trading, you must play the remaining cards, along with any that you received, in your bean fields. If the no existing fields grow the same bean variety, you must sell or discard all the beans in a bean field, in order to repopulate the field with the new bean card. For each bean variety, you earn a different number of gold coins depending on the number of beans you sell at once. Bohnanza has a unique flavor, making it an amusing and fast-paced game.
posted by Julian at 11:50 PM