Shared Services and Government as a Platform

GovExec has a piece on this subject by an IBM type.

By the nature of our government (weak executive, decentralized, federal system) we're fated to build such systems incrementally and from the ground up.  For example, the National Finance Center in New Orleans is one of the providers of shared services. Back in the day (i.e., 1968 when I joined ASCS) the agency had several ADP (automated data processing, for you whippersnappers) centers. I assume they were initial steps in the process of using computers to support operations.  Over time, ASCS closed some centers and consolidated in New Orleans and Kansas City.  Over the same time, other USDA agencies were going through the same process, leading finally to USDA taking over the NODPC.  So it came to support Federal personnel salaries and benefits for the whole department, and then to provide similar services for other units of the government.

In a way the process reminds me of the way our planetary system evolved, as I understand it, by the gradual accretion of material.

Because this is a slow process I get very envious of Estonia (as I've previously blogged) which apparently was able to do a top-down implementation.  To use another metaphor, it's rather the difference between a city like Rome, with an ancient history, and a city like Reston, planned and implemented from scratch within one man's lifetime.

On Blurring Distinctions: Terrorists and Ethnicity

It seems to me a lot of the discussion following the San Bernadino shootings has talked of Muslim terrorists using the assumption that such terrorists are aliens to the U.S., ignoring the fact that one of the shooters was a native-born American. 

On another subject, I'm struck by the growth of Asian Americans in the U.S.  Back in the day we had Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, and the original Filipino Americans.  Then we added Vietnamese Americans, Indian Americans, Cambodian Americans, Nepalese Americans, Bangladeshi Americans, Pakistani Americans, etc. etc.  Now the great American blending machine is making them all "Asian Americans", whether they like it or not, ignoring not only the differences among the nationalities but also the differences within the nationalities.

Terminology and Discussion

Some years ago the right labeled the estate tax as the "death tax".

In the fight over abortion, the terms are "pro-life" and "pro-choice".

Some years ago the left came up with the term "gun violence" to cover both homicides and suicides. Putting both scenarios (as well I assume as accidental shootings) under one label can work in some discussions, but not all

I'm not sure who came up with "gun control".  According Google ngram it doesn't really come into heavy usage until the 60's, as one might expect (there were 7 assassinations/attempted assassinations of political leaders from 1963-81).

I'd resist it--we don't talk of "automobile control" when discussing the system of registering cars and testing and licensing drivers.  We don't talk of "drone control", when discussing what we're doing about drones.  We don't talk of "drug control".  "Regulation" might be the more neutral term.

Directives and Policing: the Baltimore Case

Peter Moskos does the Cop in the Hood blog (he was po-lice in Baltimore for a few years before becoming a sociologist).  In this post he writes about the "General Orders", the directives applicable to the Baltimore police.  I doubt there are many in the world who share my interest in directives, so I'll excerpt a part of his post, talking about the rules of ethical conduct included in the General Orders, which he checked of when he violated one.

I may have missed a few, but of the first 31 rules of conduct, I checked off all but 12 as violated. And I was a good cop, an honest cop. And yet in less than two years on the job I managed to violate the majority of good conduct rules. My favorite was "Section 7: Members of the department, while riding gratis on any type of public conveyance, are not permitted to be seated while other passengers are standing." This is off duty, mind you. And it doesn't say "give up your seat if the bus is full." Nope. If anybody is standing, you must stand.

 He has complaints similar to those I heard from ASCS employees back in the 60's and 70's: hard to find the relevant material.

Apparently according to the trial of Porter in Baltimore in the Freddie Gray, there was a change to the General Orders on seat belting prisoners issued 3 days before the Gray incident, included in an 80 page attachment to an email (and perhaps the Baltimore police department did not have good email).  You'd think with modern technology there'd be a better way, but no one is interested in directives.
 

Seedtime of the USDA

"Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the nation, has not a department nor a bureau, but a clerkship only, assigned to it in the Government. While it is fortunate that this great interest is so independent in its nature as to not have demanded and extorted more from the Government, I respectfully ask Congress to consider whether something more can not be given voluntarily with general advantage. Annual reports exhibiting the condition of our agriculture, commerce, and manufactures would present a fund of information of great practical value to the country. While I make no suggestion as to details, I venture the opinion that an agricultural and statistical bureau might profitably be organized."

Lincoln's message to Congress, Dec. 1861   from Brad DeLong.

Lincoln also complains about the number of laws Congress has written and their lack of clarity.

Our Growing Economy: GDP Per Capita

Calculated Risk often emphasizes the importance of demographic changes: the decline in participation rate due to the aging of the baby boomers, the decline in immigration.

I thought I'd check the the GDP per capita.  This is what I got through a Google search (the image is a bit scrunched here--google it yourself.




What it seems to say is, after the dip of the Great Recession, we're growing the economy on a per person basis quite steadily.   Because the level of activity of the overall economy varies with the change in population, particularly net immigration, we see more variance in the economy than at the person level.

Of course, this says nothing about the distribution of economic benefits among the population.

Socializing Employees: Then and Now

JSTOR is an online database of scholarly articles.  They now have a daily blog, essentially summarizing an article. 

This post is on the ways in which companies try to socialize employees:

" Littmann writes that many company executives were convinced that foreign-born workers, whose numbers were growing, lacked American thrift, honestly, and industriousness. They responded by introducing measures designed not just to encourage employee loyalty but to transform workers’ values. These “welfare capitalism” measures ranged from toilets and new drinking water wells to profit sharing plans and education programs. By 1926, Littman writes, nearly two thirds of large industrial firms had recreational facilities for employees

That sounds familiar: in the Triple Cities of southern NY we had IBM, which ran the IBM country club and Endicott-Johnson Shoes, the reason for two of the three cities (Endicott and Johnson City) with the En-Joie golf course.  Neither were unionized; EJ had foreign-born employees (East Europeans).

I wonder though, how will a future historian deal with all the benefits which Silicon Valley employees get from their employers.  I assume the benefits also encourage loyalty and discourage unions.  The open space buildings, like Facebook's new headquarters, definitely encourages certain behaviors in their employees, certain transformations of workers' values. 90 years from now will the historian view such designs with some suspicion?

Good Movies: The Spotlight

Just saw Spotlight, an account of the Boston Globe's investigation into pedophile priests and the cover-up. It's very good, so far and as best I can remember, my best movie of 2015. It's the story of getting the story, without being overly maudlin about the subject matter. For anyone who's worked in a bureaucracy, the beginning is a surefire hook (nerves in the office as a new editor arrives), but the movie is always good on the minutiae/

Other good movies which I expect to get Oscar nominations:

• The Martian.  
• Bridge of Spies

Our German Inheritance--Vampires

It seems that the concept of vampires was imported during the American Revolution by Hessian doctors serving with the Brits. They used vampires to explain tuberculosis, specifically the wasting away.  That's from Boston 1775

Racism and Rhetoric

Some ironies:

Some on the left talk of racism in ways which strongly imply whites are bad people. Some on the right talk of a culture of poverty in ways which strongly imply the poor (blacks) are bad people.  Neither focus on class or structural causes.

Some on the left dismiss talk of a "Ferguson effect", denying that verbal attacks on policy might lead to violent attacks. Some on the right dismiss the idea that rhetoric attacking Planned Parenthood might lead to violent attacks.  (To be honest, Peter Moskos at Cop in the Hood) this idea published first.