Internet Commentator

The cost of corruption

I was prompted by a post of Cian's to consider the question of who, precisely, pays the cost of corruption. Cian sets out what I'd say is a fairly widely held view:

When the developers got their hands on West Dublin up went the endless acres of houses, nominal services were put into the areas. Small central villages were supposed to support huge numbers of people. The developers cared not one wit, nor the councillors who operated so cosily with them.

Now, this might feel intuitively right: The inner circle of favoured developers undoubtedly benefitted. While the people who now live in these areas undoubtedly have gripes about the place. But are these directly linked? I'd say that the closer you examine this, the intuitive link evaporates.

Firstly, consider that the estates in question consist of private, not public housing. To get to a "harm" or "cost" imposed on the residents of such housing, who, after all, have voluntarily chosen to rent or buy there, it will be necessary to make a case for a market failure. Let's say that everyone who lives there would like, say, a playground and a local pub within walking distance but for whatever reason the market fails to provide them. Now, I'm generally skeptical of market failure arguments and think that there are often much better explanations for phenomena lazily labelled as market failures but for the purposes of argument let's go with this particular flow. The problem is that it is hard to see how this problem is connected to corruption per se.

Let's imagine two estates. One by a corrupt developer - Kickback Close and one by a developer who played by the rules - Honest Alley. Now, if we are going to claim that buyers or renters have no way of signalling their willingness to pay a premium for additional services, playgrounds and the like, there is no particular reason for the developers of Honest Alley to offer anything to residents over and above that offered by the developers of Kickback Close. One might excoriate the council for failing to insist that corrupt developers include such amenities but the fact is that they have also failed to insist that incorrupt developers include such amenities. The corruption such as it existed, related mainly to the rezoning of certain tracts of lands at the expense of others and not to insufficient regulation of the quality of resultant estates (Note also that this not about corrupt allocation of public contracts whether for housing or infrastructure).

Then if the "cost" borne by residents of such areas may be attributable (assuming the market failure argument to be correct*) to insufficient oversight by planning officials, rather than corruption per se, who does bear the cost of corruption, or why is it wrong? Well, people primarily affected by a corrupt system are not the end-punters who generally get what they paid for - a house they liked at the time in an area they wanted to live in at the time - but rather the adjoining landowners and competing developers who played by the rules and didn't bribe politicians or planning officials. Secondly, the cost of corruption is borne by the overall economy - it is a deadweight cost and there is a well established (inverse) correlation between corruption and economic activity.

Why does this matter? After all, if corruption is wrong, do we really need to determine why it's wrong to counter it. I'd say, yes, particularly if you are concerned about possible remedies for the wrongs you attribute to corruption or seek to prevent them from occuring in the future.

* The alternative explanation is that there is no market failure, that each developer knows too well that the punter, however much he might gripe about their absence now, or however much he might gratefully accept them for free, doesn't actually prize such additional amenities sufficiently to pay a premium he would quite happily discharge for, say, a Plasma screen TV.

Referee deferred red

There doesn't seem to be nearly enough fuss about Graham Poll's blunder towards the end of the Croatia-Australia game last night. Josip Simunic was (correctly) shown a second yellow card but (incorrectly) allowed to remain on the pitch. It took a further offence after the final whistle for the English referee to brandish Simunic's third yellow card and finally show him the red. It was the most glaring of a series of errors and fussy decisions. The second yellow (and red this time) awarded Brett Emerton for a deliberate handball minutes after his first yellow seemed to owe more to a hamfisted attempt to even things up immediately after Simic's dismissal than a considered application of the rules. FIFA have apparently acknowledged that had Australia been knocked out, they would have grounds to request a replay. Yet it's arguably the case that Poll's handling of Simunic invalidates the entire match. If Australia would have had grounds for appeal, surely so do Croatia even if this particular incident appeared to favour them. After all the issue is whether the match was correctly refereed - and it apparently wasn't - not that the referee favoured one side over the other.

Bespoke broadcasting

Came across (over at the Bodytonic Music forum) this rather interesting site: Pandora. Type in an artist or song and it will generate a personal radio broadcast of similar tunes. This is based on the Musical Genome Project - which seeks to classify and catalogue various musical attributes. On a quick scan it seems to work reasonably well. It hasn't heard of Franck Roger (one of the artists I'm really into at the moment), but it has heard of contemporary Australian funk outfit, The Bamboos. Typing in "Bugz in the Attic" yielded Alice Russell (both of which are in my sidebar links). "4hero" unearthed the string-laden Over & Over by Moloko.

Another plus point is that tracks are considered individually on their own merits so there's a good chance of unearthing a track you'll like by an artist you wouldn't have considered. With a total of 20,000 artists and 400,000 songs, it probably has limited applicability for the trainspotter type or those looking for the very latest (pre-)releases (i.e. yours truly on both accounts). But for someone who isn't as obsessive and nerdish or who doesn't know an awful lot about the music that's out there except for a few tunes they know and like, it could be a godsend in discovering new music.

Names parlour game

I notice over at Agoraphilia that one Aaron Schwarz wants to change his name and is offering a $25,000 prize to whoever submits the best one. You can submit up to 20. The first names which occur to me are punning names I've kept in reserve but haven't quite had the opportunity to dust off and use, until now. So I thought that, seeing as the previous parlour games posts proved reasonably amusing, it offered the chance to generate some sort of rudimentary content for this starving weblog.

First ones I have are: Major Delaise (might be useful if he takes up a job with AA roadwatch) and Bill Abelhours (I'm thinking an office manager modelling himself on Blake). Feel free to offer your own suggestions (punning or otherwise) whether or not you enter the competition.

Brazil, take note

This is how you deal with Balkan battlers. Argentina's thrilling performance in demolishing Serbia & Montenegro 6-0 with a display of incisive, irresistible football, cohesive teamwork and individual brilliance surely makes them firm favourites for the trophy. What a contrast with the unexciting and unconvincing win over Croatia by a rather complacent Brazil. It will be very hard for many teams to live with this Argentine team, should they maintain this form. It is hard to see how Adriano, Ronaldo, Cafu and the rest, even with Kaka and Ronaldinho, can match the likes of Riquelme, Cambiasso, Mascherano, Messi and Tevez.

First round, impressions

The first round of this year's World cup tournament offers a little snapshot of the quality and form of competing teams. With the caveat that it's merely a single game for each team and form can go up as well as down, I have had occasion to modify my impression of some teams and confirm that of others. I can't say that I'm unduly surprised by the lacklustre performances of Brazil and France.

Brazil are one of the best teams in the world and have the most attractive footballing philosophy - watching centreback Lucio in the Croat penalty box the other night it occurred to me than their formation is not so much 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 as 0-0-10! But, such a team has high standards to live up to and I think that there are more than a few players in the first team who don't merit inclusion on current form. Ronaldo and Adriano were very poor against Croatia. Their attacking fullbacks, Cafu and Roberto Carlos are the wrong side of 30 and will surely take longer to return to their nominal positions in defence these days. Brazil offered Croatia plenty of chances and had they possessed a striker with a keener eye for goal they could quite easily have beaten Brazil. Brazil will concede goals to better teams. Unless the Brazil second team (yet to beat the first team in training) can offer more capable strikers than the pairing who faced Croatia - and Robinho hasn't exactly lived up to his billing - Brazil will have to rely more on Ronaldinho and Kaka to fulfil the latter half of their traditional promise - score one against us and we'll run up field and score two.

As for France, they were poor last time, returning home early from Japan/South Korea without scoring a goal, and look similarly uninspired this time around. They are in a relatively easy group and should be capable of beating South Korea and Togo, and yet theirs is an ageing team with a number of players who seem incapable of reproducing their club form for their country. Perhaps that is Domenech's fault, his bizarre Sven-like squad selection - choosing erratic Barthez over Coupet and alienating the latter, leaving European champion Giuly to go on a futile penguin hunt down under - hardly inspires confidence in his tactical nous.

Both England and Portugal were unimpressive in struggling to 1-0 wins over inferior opposition. I have considerably more confidence in "Big Phil" Scolari than I have in Sven "Boring" Eriksson so I'll reserve judgement on Portuguese prospects. England, on the other hand, are sure to qualify for the next round and will probably get through against the Group A runners up (possibly Ecuador?) but will surely be sent packing in the quarter finals by the Group C runners up, whoever that turns out to be.

The United States also proved disappointing against the Czech republic. Their team topped their group in qualifying, seeing off their rival Mexico and had a great run last time around, but were lifeless against the Czechs. They're not the worst side in the competition by any stretch but how they are ranked fifth in the world by FIFA is beyond me. It is perhaps a function of the generally inferior quality of the CONCACAF teams against whom they most frequently play. Nonetheless they have probably gone backwards since the last World cup. In the intervening period they have stuck with the same coach whose experience and record is limited to North American football. Their squad is mostly composed of home-based players with a few scattered among Dutch, German, and the English second tier. The only players they have in an elite league are Bocanegra and O'Brien from Fulham and Reyna from Man city. I'm sure this is likely to enrage American soccer enthusiasts who always over hype their country's prospects but, though I'm quite prepared to be fair to the US and welcomed their run at the last world cup, at the moment they just aren't good enough.

The Czechs showed their quality with that win, remaining doubts about their prospects relate to a number of the older players, particularly Poborsky who plys his trade in the Czech second tier. The Dutch are unfortunate to be in a difficult group. They will need to get past the Ivory Coast to get out of the group but if they do - and they stave off the inevitable implosion as long as possible - they should easily dispose of England in the quarterfinals. Another team which impressed was Spain with a 4-0 win over Ukraine. Spain are the traditional chokers - always great in qualifiers, poor at the tournament - who knows, maybe "this time it's different".

Argentina and Italy both excelled, contesting hard fought games against impressive African debutants, Ivory Coast and Ghana. Both squads have quality all over the pitch and plenty of strength in depth although Totti's injury is a blow to the latter. It's early days yet but this pair look like they could meet in the final.

Manc Francophiles

Just noticed something. Manchester United have more French internationals than Arsenal. The France world cup squad contains a solitary Gunner - one T. Henry esquire - and two Red devils - Mssrs Saha and Silvestre. Since the departure of Robert Pires, Arsenal's own squad contains three Frenchmen: Flamini, Clichy and Henry, the first two, so far as I can tell, uncapped. United's squad also has three, Saha, Silvestre and Evra all of which are full internationals, even if the latter two have exchanged places in the squad.

Root-less cosmopolitan

Gerry's not excited by the World cup and muses on who to root for seeing as Ireland won't be there. A lot of Irish people have adopted Poland, given the large amount of Poles here, many of whom will obviously be taking an interest in their team's progress. My default and partisan position at the moment is to root for Manchester United players, so I will be following Portugal (Cristiano Ronaldo), Holland (Edwin Van Der Sar at least*), Serbia&Montenegro (Nemanja Vidic), France (Mikael Silvestre, Louis Saha at least**), England (Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand at least***), South Korea (Ji-Sung Park) and of course Argentina (Gabriel Heinze at least****). However, I like to think that I might find myself rooting for the team which plays the most appealing football - much as I did with the Czech Republic in Portugal 2004.

Incidentally, unlike Gerry, I don't consider Brazil a shoo-in for the title. For one, the last time a South American (or any non-European) team won the World Cup in Europe was Brazil in Sweden 1958. More relevantly, and tieing in with the post below, there are quite a few ageing, complacent members of the Brazil first team who justify their place on historical record, rather than current performance.

* - It seems unlikely Ruud Van Nistelrooy will remain much longer a United player.
** - We might yet sign Franck "Scarface" Ribéry.
*** - I'm still hoping Rooney rests his metatarsul at home.
**** - It would be great to see Javier Mascherano line up alongside Juan Roman Riquelmé at Old Trafford next season.

Back to the future

I note that former Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz has promised to reinstate Vicente Del Bosque as manager should his bid to be restored succeed. I'm not sure that the "old gang" are necessarily going to bring back the glory days, but it is surely a step in the right direction - that is: backwards - to recognise that Del Bosque's sacking was the point at which Real Madrid, the football team went off the rails. This seemingly obvious fact has been obfuscated by the fact that Real Madrid the marketing juggernaut has stayed resolutely on the rails. Nonetheless, footballing success is a necessary condition for retaining marketing prominence and it's been three barren years for los galacticos now. Another trophyless season and the "Bernabow" can kiss goodbye to the best part of that marketing revenue which will instead surely head to their deadly rivals from Catalonia.

In sacking Del Bosque, Fiorentina Perez seemed to have convinced himself that the manager, despite winning two league titles and two Champions' league trophies, didn't really do all that much but simply "let the players play". If this was the case,he might as well hire a similarly supine coach but one who was more presentable at press conferences. Enter Carlos Quieroz whose matinee-idol gnashers put Vicente's broken-piano-keys teeth to shame. Del Bosque may have been too modest and understated but Perez was deluded if he thought that a bunch of spoilt egotistical millionaires (albeit considerably less spoilt, egotistical or millionairish than the current bunch) could get it together to play as a team never mind get out of tricky fixtures, and win so many trophies on their own. In fact, the last thing you want any player to think is that he is a fixture in the team and never need justify his inclusion. Perez' policy seemed designed to maintain an entire eleven of complacent perfomers. In that sense it succeeded.