Summer Food Bid Rigging

Table of Contents Introduction Ethics Accountability Prevention Historical context References Introduction In bid rigging, companies collude in an auction in order to rig the results of an expected outcome in a certain bid. In the summer food bid rigging case, the Justice department charged several food vendors for colluding to bid rig supplies of worth US $ 210 Million; these were contracts to supply food for the city schools. The vendors had artificially inflated the prices by around ten percent; this was about US $ 21 million.Advertising We will write a custom case study sample on Summer Food Bid Rigging specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More While a total of thirteen vendors had been charged, six agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with the investigators; the vendors had actually agreed to submit some falsified statements. This was done with the purpose of stifling the competition that would otherwise be staged by a fair biddin g (Slade, 1987). The prosecution said that this bidding would deny the procurement of a better deal with a fair price. The rationale of the behaviour of bid rigging is that as oligopolistic group profit, maximization is of key importance. As a result of this, in order to get an incentive, they collude together to increase the profit margin (Stigler, 1964). Ethics In the public sector, the question of ethics is a core value in administration. Ethics places both a moral and legal duty to the public administrators to carryout their functions with due diligence. Ethics requires that accountability and transparency be upheld every time the public administrators are on duty. It forms a basis upon which the public can scrutinize the actions committed by the administrators. Ethical issues normally address the province of public administrators as public servants. It provides a benchmark upon which the actions of public administrators are supposed to work. The focal point of ethics in public administration normally lies upon the rationale and models that an administration may use in making decisions (Hausman Ruud, 1987). Public administrators normally make their decisions in accordance with a process that has four distinct levels (Cooper, 1990). The levels normally come out differently in decision making as they are influenced by different views. The Expressive Level where the decision maker responds to a certain situation with unreflective expressions of emotions that neither needs a reply nor attempt to be persuasive. The Level of Moral Rules: the responsive in this level are based upon the morals that we have acquired from morals that we have obtained through interaction from our social life and family.Advertising Looking for case study on public administration? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The Level of Ethical Analysis: this depends on certain level of ethical benchmark that exists which should be used whe n making a decision (Hendricks Porter, 1989). This forms more or less of the code of action that is to be taken by the decision makers. The benchmark against bid rigging is the antitrust law which express forbids this. The post ethical level is the fourth level; this level involves questions that are surrounding the rationale for certain human actions. This level also includes philosophical examination of the importance and relevance of ethical standards to an individual. Accountability The public officers were supposed to be accountable to the public. This is because as public administrators they are public servants (Comanor Schankerman, 1976). The morality that stems from ethics also demands that the public service should be transparent for the best interest of the public (Douglas Michael, 1990). It is the duty of officers to make sure that the awarding of the contract goes to the lowest valued bidder but with the highest quality. Prevention Prevention of bid rigging can be don e through prequalifying the suppliers who wish to bid in the supply of the commodity. The state agency should first gather all the necessary information from the bidding companies (Porter Zona, 1993). This information shall be comprised of information such as the previous biddings by the same suppliers for similar supplies (Milgrom Weber, 1982). This shall make it possible for the government agencies to detect any irregularity and whether there exists any rigging in the bidding. The information that is relevant in this case shall include: The identities of the executive officers and the firms the work in. Declaration statement of whether any of the executive officers is affiliated or associated with other officers from other bidders in any other manner other that of business purposes. A cursory description of the firm’s assets and their capability to deliver A brief history of the bidder’s prior bidding and capability to deliver. Historical context All unfair trade practises and those trade practises that have been forbidden by the anti-trust laws were committed in this case (Loftus, 2010). These practises include price fixing, bid rigging among others; it should be noted that bid rigging activity has been there since time immemorial. There is the highway construction bid rigging concerned bidding on the construction tender. The case was later on decided and the constructor was acquitted. The acquittal does not mean that the bid rig was fair. References Comanor, W.S. Schankerman, M. (1976). â€Å"Identical Bids and Cartel Behaviour.† Bell Journal of Economics 7: 281-286.Advertising We will write a custom case study sample on Summer Food Bid Rigging specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Cooper, T. L. (1990). The responsible administrator: An approach to ethics for the administrative role, Third edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers. Douglas, B. Michael, D. (1990) â₠¬Å"Multimarket Contact and Collusive Behaviour.† RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 1-26. Hausman, J. A, Ruud, P. A. (1987) â€Å"Specifying and Testing Econometric Models for Rank-Ordered Data.† Journal of Econometrics 34: 83-104. Hendricks, K Porter, H. (1989). â€Å"Collusion in Auctions.† Annales d’Economie et de Statistique 15/16 217-230. Loftus T (2010). Unresolved Legal Issues Remain In Bid-Rigging Case. Web. Milgrom, P. R Weber, R. J, (1982). â€Å"A Theory of Auctions and Competitive bidding.† Econometrical, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pp: 1089-1122. Porter, R. H Zona, J D, (1993). â€Å"Detection of Bid Rigging in Procurement Auctions.† Journal of Political Economy, University Of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3) pages 518-538.Advertising Looking for case study on public administration? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Slade, M. E., (1987). â€Å"Interfirm Rivalry In A Repeated Game: An Empirical Test Of Tacit Collusion.† Journal Of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell vol 35(4) pgs 499-516. Stigler, G.J. (1964). A theory of oligopoly. The Journal of Political Economy, 72, 44– 61. This case study on Summer Food Bid Rigging was written and submitted by user Abby V. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Logophile Definition, Etymology, and Use

Logophile Definition, Etymology, and Use A logophile is a lover of words. Also called a  word lover or philologos.  A related term is logomaniac, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person who is obsessively interested in words. EtymologyFrom the Greek, word love Examples and Observations I am a lifelong logophile if not an out-and-out verbivore. I have a good ear and a good memory for words, its just a kind of tic or trick, the way some lucky people can play a song by ear after hearing it once or count cards at blackjack or spot four-leaf clovers. Unusual and specialized words tend to lodge in my mind, where they hang around, often for years, until I need them. American English has an astonishingly rich vocabulary and we typically use so little of it; I think thats a shame, or maybe it would be better to say I think of it as an invitation.I write with two dictionaries right at my elbow . . .. I look forward to visiting my dictionaries anew every time I sit down to write. The same goes for when Im reading and I come across an unknown word: Quaternions? Yahoo! I get to go to the dictionary!I know thats probably kind of freakish. I guess I am counting on the readership of freaks.(Michael Chabon, Questions for Michael Chabon. The New York Times, Feb. 8, 2007)I am a medic al logophile, and in using words, I will often go to the Greek or Latin roots; doing so helps me use words more precisely.(Robert B. Taylor, Medical Writing: A Guide for Clinicians, Educators, and Researchers, 2nd ed. Springer, 2011) Vocabulary Building[The] suspicion of new words, a distaste of verbal novelty, is acquired in school from dreary English teachers still in thrall to Hemingwayesque simplicities. You know their chief cliche from your own school days: always use the simple word, class! Never seek out a synonym or exotic foreign term. Thank goodness I had a father who taught the very opposite: always discover the rarest yet still correct word. By doing that, a young student accomplishes two things. You expand your vocabulary and you flummox ordained pedagogical authority, namely the dull teacher.(  Bill Casselman,  Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A Word Lovers Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems. Adams Media, 2010)The Sweetest-Sounding Words in English (1950)While most of the words that [columnist Frank] Colby discusses are suggested by his readers, Colby turned the tables in 1942 by asking them: What are the most euphonious English words? The top ten by popular vote: mother, m emory, Cellophane, bellboy, melancholy, belladonna, flamingo, wilderness, tambourine, lavender. Last week Logophile Colby reported the results of a new readers poll. Mother had slipped a bit, but was still listed among the top ten. There were eight new favorites. The 1950 hit parade: melody, lullaby, mimosa, memory, mellow, mother, moonbeam, murmuring, beautiful, lanolin.(The Press: Mimosa, Moonbeams Memory. Time magazine, Jan. 30, 1950) Creating KingdomsA love of words comes from the work of playing around with language. We learn words by hearing them, rolling them around on our tongues and in our minds like a small child does as she learns language. A person who loves language plays with ithears words and links them with other sounds, other meanings, and other words. The patterns and sounds of language are fascinating to the lover of words. From these connections, many poets find poems. Poetry comes as Harry Behn writes (1968) from falling in love with language. Rebecca Kai Dotlich says in A Kingdom of Words, that a word may seem to be just a word, but a poet can create a kingdom around it.(Barbara Chatton, Using Poetry Across the Curriculum: Learning to Love Language. Greenwood, 2010) Also Known As: word lover, philologos