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The Buckeye Game
(A Work in Progress)
Copyright 2006 Frederick Lembeck
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Buckeye Game is a financial/political game for secondary school students.
It's designed to motivate the players to study harder and pay more attention to their schoolwork, in order to improve
the quality of the graduates the school turns out. If the standardized test scores go up, the game is judged as having gotten
results.
Buckeyegaming organizes the school's student body into a miniature economy which the players themselves control and regulate,
then turns them loose to make money in their own economy. At graduation, each player's bank balance is turned into real money,
the gift of the state to each new graduate upon completion of his education.
No one loses. Everyone wins, but some win more than others.
NOTE WELL:
There are four different versions of the Buckeye Game: the Capitalist Version, the Marxist Version, the Laissez-faire
Version and the Deist Version.
These four compete to see which does the best job of raising the standardized test scores.
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE BUCKEYE GAME
A Game to Raise Students' Standardized Test Scores
(TIP: Copy and Paste this into your preferred word processing program, then set the line spacing for double. It'll be easier
to read.)
CONTENTS
PART I - THE BUCKEYE GAME
1 - Overview
2 - Alternative Buckeye Games
3 - The Marxist Buckeye Game
4 - The Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game
5 - The Deist Buckeye Game
PART II - THE CAPITALIST BUCKEYE GAME
6 - The Object of the Game
7 - Politics & Strategy
8 - Introduction to the Departments
PART III -- THE DEPARTMENTS
9 - The Post Office
10 - The Bank
11 - Kitchens A & B
12 - Stores A & B
13 - Housekeeping A, B & C
14 - Print Shops A & B
15 - The College of Tutors
16 - The Library
17 - The Stock Exchange
18 - Entrepreneurs
19 - The Secretariat
20 - The Board of Directors
21 - The Court
22 - The Tax Office
23 - The Unemployment Pool
24 - The Band, Chorus & School Teams
PART IV -- THE RULES
25 - Salaries, Salary Changes & Bonuses
26 - Hiring, Quitting, Rehiring, Firing
27 - Promotion, Retention, Demotion, Lay-Off
28 - Pensions & The Productivity Index
PART I - THE BUCKEYE GAME
Chapter 1 - Overview
The Buckeye Game is a financial/political game for students, and any number can play. It's designed to motivate the players
to study harder and pay more attention to their school work, in order to improve the quality of the graduates the school turns
out.
If the standardized test scores go up, the game is judged as having gotten results.
The game organizes a student body into a toy economy which the students themselves control and regulate. The intended
playing field is a large public secondary school but the game can be adapted to fit any school situation anywhere, just so
there are enough kids to create a miniature economy.
Studying is part of game strategy: the better a player's grades are, the better he'll do in the game, the higher a position
he'll hold, the more money he'll make, the more political power he'll have and the more he personally will be able to shape
policy in the school economy the way he wants it, rather than have to settle for the way someone more politically adept wants
it.
The game begins in September when school opens and is played out over the course of the school year until the following
summer, when vacation begins. If a large enough number of students stay on for summer school, then the game goes on perpetually.
Players drop in and out of the game as they please, participating whenever they don't have classes, or not participating
if they'd rather use their free time for studying or other activities.
The individual player's position in the game, that is, in the school economy, begins when he enrolls at the school and
ends when he graduates. Throughout the time between his position advances according to how good a player he is.
On Graduation Day, the seniors' Bank balances turn into real money, the gift of the state to each new graduate upon completion
of his education.
No one loses. Everyone wins. But some win more than others.
Chapter 2 - Alternative Buckeye Games
The Buckeye Game described in this book is a democratic capitalist Buckeye Game, built around democratic capitalist values
and incentives. But there can be other kinds of Buckeye Games besides the democratic capitalist kind. Specifically:
1] The Marxist Buckeye Game,
2] The Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game, and
3] The Deist Buckeye Game.
Our discussion of alternate Buckeye Games begins with the Marxist and Laissez-Faire Games, after which we conclude with
a Deist Buckeye Game in which the Divinity is seen as a participant in the game, and then see which version does the best
job of raising the standardized test scores.
(Many modern democracies call for separation of church and state. Nonetheless our discussion includes a Deist Buckeye
Game for the sake of its potential in private schools.)
The ultimate test of each of these alternate Buckeye Games will be it's ability to produce better standardized test scores
than the democratic capitalist version of the game. If it does, it will be judged the best.
Chapter 3 - The Marxist Buckeye Game
The first thing we notice about a Marxist Buckeye game is that it has no Entrepreneurs, no Stock Exchange, no dividends
and no profit. Nor does it have an Unemployment Pool. It runs totally counter to the spirit of a centrally planned economy
to have people sitting around unemployed and idle, therefore the Unemployed work. If they can find the jobs they want in
the Departments they want, so much the better, but if not, they work anyway at assigned jobs.
This means there's no Income Tax, since there are no longer any Unemployed to support. The only remaining drains on the
Treasury are trivial, and easily accommodated by the wholesale revenues that the Stores and Kitchens pay into the Treasury
for their merchandise and foodstuffs.
Therefore it would seem at first glance that the Marxist Buckeye Game is already an improved version since the players
are allowed to keep all their earnings and don't have to surrender any to the Tax Office.
But it goes deeper than that. With the Marxist Buckeye Game the question isn't taxes or the Unemployed, but rather the
much larger question of the Graduation Day payoff. In all the other versions of the Buckeye Game the players' Bank balances
get turned into real dollars at graduation. But can we do this in a Marxist Buckeye game? The Graduation Day payoff is a
materialist incentive and materialist incentives run counter to the idea of Marxism. In a Marxist Buckeye game the players
are supposed to be motivated by love of their fellow players and their school community, and a desire to serve the common
good for the sake of the well-being of all. If the idea of motivating people with money is un-Marxist, then we must ask,
should a Marxist Buckeye game include a Graduation Day payoff?
If it doesn't, then there's no longer any motive for saving. Why save? There's nothing to be gained from it. You're
not going to take it with you. The only logical move is to spend every penny until you've bought every item of interest in
the Stores. This is the same situation observed in the mature Marxist economies of the former Eastern Bloc, where the stores
were quickly cleaned out of everything desirable that was available for mere money. In the Eastern Bloc too there was no
point in saving. There was nothing to save for. You didn't have to worry about providing for your future because the state
was going to provide for you.
But motivation was poor. Would it be poor in a Marxist Buckeye Game?
Motivation aside, the Marxist Buckeye Game is splendidly non-competitive. People who hate competition will find it very
much to their liking. But will it motivate the players to study harder in order to improve the quality of the graduates the
school turns out?
The real question as always is: how good a job does the game do of raising the standardized test scores? That, in every
version of the Buckeye Game, is the measure of it.
Chapter 4 - The Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game
Just as we can create a Marxist Buckeye Game, likewise we can create a Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game. Here the philosophy
is that there are no longer are there any restraints on economic freedom, not even for the sake of the common good. Talented
kids are now free to go all out and become tycoons if they can. They're allowed to form monopolies, cartels, vertical and
horizontal trusts or anything else. Likewise, the Departments which formerly served as marketplace buffers for the school
economy are now no longer sacred. If Departments can't compete, they fold, leaving everything in the hands of Entrepreneurs.
Now that monopolies and oligopolies become possible, exploitation and victimization become possible too, but will that
motivate the players to study harder and thereby improve the quality of the graduates the school turns out?
Let's look at the idea of a Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game. The first question that arises is whether we're going to provide
for the Unemployed or not. If we're going to be true to the spirit of the game we have to let the players themselves decide,
therefore in the Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game it's the Board of Directors which decides if the Unemployed will be paid Unemployment
Compensation in the following contract period or not. If they decide against the Unemployed then there's that much less drain
on the Treasury and therefore that much less Income Tax, but of course some of the Unemployed might literally go hungry.
Will that, in turn, motivate the players to study harder, or will it diminish motivation?
What about the power of the Board? In the Democratic Capitalist Buckeye Game the power is in the hands of the Board,
who are supposed to work together for the good of the entire school. Should it be the same in a Laissez-Faire Buckeye Game?
Laissez-faire means "leave alone," the exact opposite of forcing people to work together. The spirit of Laissez-faire
would put the power in the hands of the individual Directors, and deliver them from the need to worry about political horse-trading.
What, in turn, would that do for motivation and the quality of the graduates the school turns out?
Imagine the Board no longer decides things like postage stamp prices, interest rates, etc. Suppose now it's the Postmaster-General
alone who decides changes in postage stamp prices? And not just stamp prices. Suppose he wants to start stuffing everybody's
mailbox with junk mail because he has discovered this will increase the Post Office's dividend. Can he?
Likewise all the other Departments. In the Laissez-Faire game should the individual Directors decide instead of the Board?
And as always, would this improve the quality of the graduates the school turns out, as measured by the test scores?
Chapter 5 - The Deist Buckeye Game
Believers says the recognition of the reality of God is the profoundest realization in life. If, as we said in the Preface,
part of the idea of the game is to teach kids about real life, then many would say this must include teaching them to recognize
the reality of the Almighty, and to make this recognition the core of their personal reality.
In many countries this kind of Deist Buckeye Game collides with the Constitutional separation of church and state, therefore
the Deist Buckeye Game is for private schools only.
In the Deist Buckeye Game, God participates as the player's partner. Events are seen as messages from Him, not mere random
happenings as in the other Buckeye games. In the Deist Buckeye Game, God is constantly sending the player messages. Events
are the language He speaks in, not human words, and the player is taught to recognize events as Divine statements throughout
his life, and be constantly mindful of what God appears to be trying to say.
Likewise the Graduation Day payoff: in the other Buckeye games that had a payoff it was a gift of the state. Now it's
a gift of God, stewardship over money which is seen as belonging not to them but to the Owner of the world. Like the earth
and the rest of its contents, the money too belongs to the Almighty, Who gives stewardship over it to whomever can be relied
on to serve His purpose. Will this perspective improve test scores?
Everything in the Deist Buckeye Game is geared toward elevating the player to a higher level of spiritual awareness, and
the higher standard of personal conduct that reputedly flows from having such a higher level of spiritual awareness. The
game still teaches the player about real life, but now it's a kind of real life that centers around the reality of God.
Again we judge by results: how good a job does the Deist Buckeye Game do of motivating the players to study harder, in
order to improve the quality of the graduates the school turns out? Will an awareness of God's presence and partnership,
once imbued, result in higher test scores?
PART II - THE CAPITALIST BUCKEYE GAME
Chapter 6 - The Object of the Game
Broadly speaking, the object of The Buckeye Game is to make money.
But the rules of the game are designed so a player can make money by political know-how instead of hard work and thrift,
to give the game some zip.
Within this larger object of making money there are three smaller objects:
1] the object for the players as Individuals;
2] the object for the players as Executives of a department; and,
3] the object for the players as Directors serving on the Board, who are all players who've worked their way up to the
top and who run the game (the school economy) during the contract period they serve on the Board, typically a month or so.
Each of these three smaller objects needs a separate explanation so we'll take them one at a time.
1] The Object For The Players As Individuals
Seen through the eyes of the individual player, the Capitalist Buckeye Game organizes the school economy into nineteen
different Departments:
The Post Office;
The Bank;
Kitchens A & B (competitive);
Stores A & B (competitive);
Housekeeping A, B & C (competitive);
The Stock Exchange;
The College of Tutors;
The Library;
The Secretariat;
The Board of Directors;
The Court (by election);
The Unemployment Pool;
The Tax Office;
Print Shops A & B (competitive);
Plus the bands and school teams, athletic and otherwise.
In addition (and very importantly), student private enterprise is encouraged and entrepreneurs are rewarded potentially
more generously than any other players in the game, both in money and prestige. Student entrepreneurs can set up Enterprises,
issue stock, and sell goods and services in the student marketplace. They're equal in protocol to Directors and wear gold
Badges of Office like Directors.
They can grow rich if they have the brains and guts to make it happen. No doubt some will.
Lastly, and of key importance, each Department and enterprise gets an advertising subsidy equal to its sales volume, to
finance its advertising in whichever of the school media they choose. This subsidy promotes profitable and lively student
media. (See Part III, The Departments.)
This student economy provides many of the services needed to keep the school running, as we will see, and a variety of
other services as well. In exchange for their labor, the students get paid in notes called Buckeyes, the school currency,
which is where the name of The Buckeye Game comes from. Players can either spend their Buckeyes in the school economy, invest
in the Stock Exchange or save in The Bank at interest, their choice.
As mentioned, at graduation each graduate's bank balance is turned into real money. The exact amount this costs the public
treasury is regulated by how large or small the game's salaries, pensions and bonuses are. The total can be set anywhere
from a mere token to thousands per graduate. It will presumably vary from district to district, according to how rich the
district is.
(Does this amount to giving every child an inheritance from the public treasury? Will Buckeyegaming end the injustice
of unendowed children? These are questions which voters will have to judge.)
The object of the game for the player as individual, therefore, is to make money and more importantly, to learn what money
is, how it's made, where it comes from and what can be done with it after it's made, besides just spending it.
Since it's a game, there's no financial privacy. All transactions and holdings are public. Everybody gets to see how
everybody else is doing.
2] The Object For The Players As Executives
For the players as executives of a Department the game has two goals (don't trouble yourself to memorize all these things
now, this is just an overview):
1 - THE FIRST GOAL is to rise to the top of his Department, become its Director, then retire, which entitles him personally
to a Director's Pension, one of the two Grand Prizes of the game;
2 - THE SECOND GOAL is to help his Department win the Productivity Championship, which is awarded once in each contract
period (usually three, four or five weeks) to the Department with the highest gain in its Productivity Index, which then entitles
ALL the Employees in that Department to a Departmental Pension, the other Grand Prize of the game.
All these details will be spelled out later in context. If you try to memorize them now you'll get a headache.
3] The Object For The Players as Directors Serving on The Board
The Directors, during the contract period they serve, all sit on the Board of Directors, which by majority vote runs the
school economy.
Kids who can't find a job in the school economy are assigned to the Unemployment Pool and get paid with the proceeds of
the game's Income Tax. The amount of tax therefore depends on the number of Unemployed. The more Unemployed, the more tax.
The object of the game for the Board of Directors is to reduce the number of Unemployed in order to reduce the tax.
They do this by expanding production, either in the Departments under their control or by facilitating the work of Entrepreneurs
(see Chapter 18, Entrepreneurs), in order to provide a job for every player in the Unemployment Pool, thus eliminating the
Income Tax and allowing everyone to keep all their game winnings.
This isn't as easy as it sounds because there's a built-in conflict here: anytime a Department adds an Employee its Productivity
Index drops (assuming production stays constant). When the time comes to make room for the Unemployed, none of the Departments
want them for fear of losing the Productivity Championship and Departmental Pension for that contract period because of the
extra personnel they took on.
At the same time, if the Directors can't find places for the unemployed then everyone is taxed, the Directors themselves
most heavily, since they're the most highly paid.
The solution to this illusory dilemma, as we have said, is to create a fertile field for private enterprise, in order
to facilitate the work of the Entrepreneurs, the wild cards of the game. The creativity and ingenuity with which this is
done is the essence of the Buckeye Game's economics, namely, the ability of succeeding generations of Boards of Directors
to draw up and implement successful long-range plans while the whole school watches and either thrives or suffers with the
results.
Chapter 7 - Politics & Strategy
That's the economics of it. Now the politics. The politics is what gives the Buckeye Game its sizzle.
Politics is built around issues. In the Buckeye Game the issue is promotion. Which player gets promoted? How is it
decided? By 1) grades, 2) seniority, or 3) a combination of both?
Under the game's rules, there are five different Promotion Formulas, all involving varying degrees of grades and/or seniority,
and the decision which of the five will be in effect in the next contract period is made politically, not by ballot but by
intrigue.
The Promotion Formula changes anytime the Board changes the length of the contract period.
The Board can change the length of the contract period by one-week increments to a maximum of six weeks and a minimum
of two weeks.
This is the game's major event.
Specifically:
The length of the contract period is four weeks at the start of play.
Every time the Board lengthens the contract period the students with the A grades abruptly have an easier time getting
promoted, while the students with the average grades find themselves waiting that much longer for their promotions.
Every time the Board shortens the contract period the advantage of high grades diminishes, and seniority becomes that
much more important in determining who gets the promotion, and higher pay and authority.
This divides the student body into interest groups and thus creates politics.
Kids with super grades want the contract period kept long to make their super grades count for as much as possible. Kids
with minimal grades want the contract period kept short to make their seniority count for as much as possible. Kids with
average grades each have a point somewhere in between at which they'd like to see the length stabilized.
A serious change takes place every time the contract period is lengthened or shortened. People suddenly feel the ground
open beneath their feet. Everyone is affected by it and therefore everyone has an opinion on which way the length of the
contract period ought to go.
The question (Board of Directors aside) is: How is the matter REALLY decided?
By political strategy (intrigue), planned and implemented by student political parties.
The rules of promotion intentionally make it possible for the kids to rig the composition of the Board of Directors by
intrigue. (To be explained momentarily.) This invites student political parties to form, each seeking to load the Board with
a solid majority of students of its own persuasion concerning what the length of the contract period ought to be.
The scholars form a six-week party, which is forever trying to hold the length of the contract period in the 5-6 week
range. The unscholarly form a two-week party which is forever trying to hold the length of the contract period in the 2-3
week range. The students in between form three-week, four-week and five-week parties, each seeking to hold the contract period
at the length most favorable to its constituents.
To prevent a political stranglehold, the game also includes a maneuver called a Miracle. This occurs any time a coalition
of players succeeds in holding the length of the contract period at either two or six weeks for two contract periods in a
row. The Miracle then resets the game at the opposite extreme for the following contract period. Like ju-jitsu, it uses
the opposition's own strength against them.
Anytime the scholars manage to stretch the contract period out to a full six weeks, the two-week party & their allies
can switch strategies and ju-jitsu the scholars, using their resources not to shorten the contract period but merely to keep
it at six weeks for a second contract period in a row, knowing this will cause a Miracle and reset the game at two weeks,
including all the favorable (to the two-week party) changes in the Promotion Formula.
Conversely, if the length of the contract period is held at two weeks for two contract periods in a row, regardless of
who's responsible for it, this too causes a Miracle, and the length of the contract period then jumps to six weeks in the
following contract period, favorable to the scholars.
The way to load the Board of Directors is the silver holdout. This is a student who's ranked #1 in his Department for
promotion's sake but who, for political reasons, has declined to accept the Director's job in his Department and chosen to
stay at silver salary level instead. There are personal as well as political reasons why a player might want to stay at silver
instead of being promoted to gold (Director). All Directors are automatically retired after one contract period, for example,
to insure a steady turnover at the top, a built-in feature of the game. Accepting a promotion to Director therefore means
being retired back out into the job market after a single contract period, and having to start all over again in another Department
at green, the lowest salary level, or languish in the Unemployment Pool with no hope of bonus, pension or promotion. For
a laid-back, unambitious student who isn't trying to become the richest kid in his class, but merely trying to find a secure
and comfortable place to settle in, there's a great deal that can be said for the idea of rising only to silver and no further.
It's an enviable place where the workload is light and the pay and prestige high.
Politically, however, a silver holdout can change his mind and become Director of his Department anytime he pleases, assuming
there are no other silver holdouts ahead of him in rank. Thus, it becomes possible to stack the deck, so to speak, to arrange
to load the Board of Directors in advance with a solid majority of players of a given political point-of-view, just by having
them wait it out at silver in their respective Departments then all go for Director at once.
Indeed, it becomes possible to arrange for successive waves of such majorities, and this is the heart of Buckeye Game
political strategy and intrigue.
The scholars, being brighter, are the first to get organized. Before anyone realizes what's happened the contract period
is already stretched out to five weeks, with six weeks threatened at any moment.
If the average students don't organize an opposition, the scholars can bounce the contract period back and forth endlessly
between five and six weeks, leaving promotion all-but-impossible for average students while the scholars whiz up the ranks
and collect Director's Pensions right and left.
Fortunately, what the less-scholarly students lack in grades and foresight they more than make up for in numbers. Eventually
they get themselves together. They either pull off a Miracle or slowly roll the contract period back to a more tolerable
(for them) length, four weeks, three weeks, etc.
But once the length of the contract period gets too short, a new coalition begins to build in favor of lengthening it
again. The four-week party begins to side with the scholars instead of the two-week party. The political equilibrium is
never permanent and nothing is certain except a new Board of Directors in each new contract period.
Politically then, the game is an eternal tug-of-war, an endless struggle to change the Promotion Formula and change it
back again.
Chapter 8 - Introduction to the Departments
Nineteen official Departments form the foundation of the school economy. Each offers the youngsters a chance at a practice
career while they're still in high school. For a student with a brain and good study habits, it may be possible to get through
two, three, or even four full careers (and collect that many Director's Pensions simultaneously) during his high school years,
but even a slow student has a reasonable chance of reaching Director and winning a Director's Pension at least once before
graduation, if only by joining a small Department and waiting it out until he's piled up enough seniority to clobber all competitors.
If the game becomes highly political, with so many silver holdouts that blue holdouts begin appearing, then non-political
students begin speeding up to Director that much faster.
The choice of careers is a wide one, but a student who's dissatisfied even with a choice of nineteen is free to become
an Entrepreneur if he likes, start his own enterprise and sell his stock on the Stock Exchange for whatever his classmates
will pay. If he can pay a good dividend he can sell his shares for a bundle, and all the while he and his employees are subsidized
by an Entrepreneurial Subsidy. He can even get his capital gains deducted from his taxable income, and his capital expenditure
deducted directly from his tax bill. In the real-world capitalist economies nobody gets a package this sweet, but in the
Buckeye Game the kids get every possible break.
But the Entrepreneurs aren't part of the power structure of the game. They can create employment opportunities and help
reduce the tax load, but by and large the Entrepreneurs are in it for the money, not the political power. The political power
is in the hands of the Directors, who each have one vote on the Board of Directors.
The Board, through its power to change the length of the contract period, decides changes in the Promotion Formula, as
we have seen, but it also decides many other changes in the game as well, including changes which directly affect the size
of the dividends each of the stock-issuing Departments is paying to its shareholders.
The essence of an individual Director's political power is his ability to trade his Board vote on any given item in exchange
for other Directors' votes on items dear to him personally, or to his political party, or to any Department he owns shares
of and wants to collect fatter dividends on.
The Post Office, one of the simplest Departments, provides a clear illustration of this.
Students like to write notes to each other. The Buckeye Game harnesses this energy constructively by giving the students
a Post Office to deliver the notes, and turn them into a medium for practicing written communications skills. Post Office
employees sell stamps, make rounds, collect mail and deliver it to faculty, Departments and student post office boxes.
Profits from postage stamp sales are deposited into the Post Office's Dividend Account at the Bank, then distributed as
dividends to Post Office shareholders once each contract period. But Postage Stamp prices are decided by the Board of Directors,
not the Post Office.
The Post Office's Director, the Postmaster-General, will likely have accumulated a fair-sized block of Post Office shares
during his time at the Post Office. (His Departmental stock option alone practically guarantees it.) It's therefore predictable
that during his time on the Board of Directors he will take a keen interest in any vote on the price of postage stamps, because
the amount of his personal dividend check will depend directly on this.
If stamp prices are low, he will want the Board to raise them, to maximize the dividend. If stamp prices have already
been raised so high that demand for postal service is beginning to shrink he may want to lower them. If he thinks stamp prices
are already at their optimum he'll want the prices to stay where they are. Whatever the actual situation, the Postmaster-General's
leverage over the other Directors in getting them to vote the way he wants on postage stamp prices is his ability to vote
the way they want on items of importance to them.
Likewise the Bank and its Director, the Bank President. The Bank takes in deposits then lends them out again to borrowers,
usually Entrepreneurs looking for capital or speculators who want to buy stock during a bear market, but also students wanting
to finance a major purchase at one of the Stores.
Interest from the loans goes into the Bank's Dividend Fund and, as with the Post Office's Dividend Fund, gets paid out
to shareholders once each contract period. Interest rates, however, are decided by the Board of Directors, not the Bank.
If demand for loans is low, the President of the Bank will want interest rates to come down, to encourage people to borrow
money. If demand for loans is so high that the Bank is in danger of running out of deposits to lend out, the President will
want interest rates to go up, not only to milk the borrowers for as much as he can get, but also to encourage more savings
deposits, so the Bank will have more funds available for lending. In either case he must persuade a majority of the other
Directors to vote the way he wants on changes in interest rates, and he does this by trading off his ability to vote for or
against the items they want.
So it is with all the Directors. Each of them has a personal or political interest somewhere in the school economy, and
he advances that interest by political horse trading.
To take a more complex example: Kitchens A & B compete with each other for the school lunch trade and one of the principal
instruments in this competition is retail pricing, in which the Grand Chefs of the Kitchens try to undercut each other without
cutting prices so low their dividend is squeezed. Since the Kitchens have to compete with each other, retail prices in each
Kitchen are left for the Grand Chef to decide, but wholesale prices, the prices the Kitchens must pay into the Treasury for
their raw materials, are decided by the Board of Directors.
Thus the Board can lower the Income Tax by raising wholesale prices instead of expanding production. The Unemployed still
get paid their Unemployment Compensation only now at the expense of stockholders in the two Kitchens rather than the student
body in general. (This is the price the Kitchen stockholders must pay for serious political ineptitude on the part of the
Grand Chefs.) The Grand Chefs can strike back by raising retail prices for the entire student body's lunches, but if one of
them doesn't raise retail prices then he will undercut the competition and begin drawing clientele at the expense of the other
Kitchen. In any case, who wants to see retail prices creeping up?
As it is with the Kitchens, so it is with Stores A & B, which sell real-world merchandise for Buckeyes. The General
Managers set the retail prices for their respective Stores, but the Board sets the wholesale prices the Stores pay into the
Treasury for their merchandise. This gives the Board yet another chance to lighten the tax load at the expense of a select
group of shareholders, if the General Managers of the Stores are too inept, politically, to prevent it.
The Directors of the three Housekeeping Departments don't have to worry about wholesale prices since their Departments
are selling services, not products, but if any of them can figure a way to get a majority of the Directors on his side he
can get his Department the contract for handling any of the corridors or public rooms (auditorium, gym, etc.) without having
to submit the lowest bid, a very profitable maneuver for any Housekeeping Director who can line up the votes. The Governor
of the Stock Exchange, in turn, may want Brokerage commissions raised, to increase revenue per sale, or lowered, to encourage
greater sales volume, but either way he will need a majority of the Board to do it. He certainly will want the Capital Gains
tax decreased and the Capital Loss deduction increased, regardless of what may be happening with the size of the Brokerage
commissions, but in this too he will need a majority of the Board. Like all the rest of the Directors he has his one vote
to trade off as adroitly as he can.
The Tax Office, the College of Tutors and the Library are non-stock-issuing Departments. They render vital services but
they make no profits, therefore they have nothing to distribute as dividends. Their Directors do sit on the Board, however,
and get one vote each, just like any other Director.
So we see that the Board does technically run the school economy, but in actual practice the Board is seldom of one mind.
It's actually sixteen different students (not all nineteen departments are represented on the Board) with sixteen different
agendas. If they can co-operate and are ingenious then they can both fulfill their agendas and cut the tax burden. But if
they can't co-operate, or worse yet, if there's strife or vindictiveness, then it could be a catastrophe for everyone in the
school. Not only might taxes rise, but wholesale prices as well, leading inevitably to upward pressure on retail prices.
Strife on the Board is the worst thing that can happen to the school economy. To prevent it there is the strongest political
instrument in the Buckeye Game: the power of the Chairman to decide the agenda of the Board of Directors. The Chairman alone
decides what is or isn't brought up for discussion and what is or isn't brought up for a vote. If, for example, a majority
of the Directors wants to lengthen the contract period and he doesn't, he can stymie the whole bunch of them just by not entering
the item on the agenda. Likewise a proposed change in stamp prices, interest rates, wholesale prices, Brokerage commissions,
a Department's salaries (political mayhem!), a proposed firing of an upper-level employee in a Department, or any of the other
items the Board has the power to decide.
If the game is being played graciously the Chairman functions as a diplomat. He tries his best to see to it that every
Director's needs are accommodated, and if he ever does step on anyone's toes it's only because it's for the unmistakable good
of the school economy. But, of course, in this game as in any other there's no guarantee the game will be played graciously.
The Chairman may be ruthlessly political, the kind who'll stop at nothing to shorten or lengthen the contract period during
his one opportunity to change this all-important item. If he's a member of a political party this becomes all the more likely.
But whatever happens, students can at least take comfort from the knowledge that the entire power structure changes in
each new contract period, a new Board with new faces and new opinions. If they can't figure out a way to reduce the Income
Tax today, then at least there's hope for tomorrow.
PART III - THE DEPARTMENTS
Chapter 9 - The Post Office
Personnel:
Postmaster-General (gold)
Postmaster (silver)
Inspector (blue)
Postman (red)
Sorter (green)
Services:
Every student has a box at the Post Office and mailboxes are conveniently located throughout the school. Post Office
employees sell stamps, make rounds, collect mail, cancel it and deliver it to student boxes, Departments, the school office,
Entrepreneurs and faculty. The Print Shops sell personalized and Departmental stationery.
At the start of play stamps cost twenty-five cents (1/4 buckeye) but the Board of Directors can raise or lower the price
of stamps by five-cent (1/20 buckeye) increments at the rate of one five-cent increment per contract period.
The Post Office is a stock-issuing Department, one of eleven in the school. (The other ten are the Bank, Kitchens A &
B, Stores A & B, Print Shops A & B and Housekeeping A, B & C.) The Board can directly affect the size of the Post
Office dividend by raising or lowering the price of stamps, but if they raise it too high they'll discourage students from
using the Post Office and oblige the successive Postmasters-General to shrink the Post Office personnel chart to stay competitive
for the Productivity Championship, which in turn increases unemployment and taxes. Players may just decide it's easier to
hand deliver everything. In that case, the Post Office will shrink in size, and maybe eventually cease to exist altogether.
On the other hand if they lower stamp prices too low, the Post Office dividend will shrink, which in turn will cause the value
of Post Office shares to shrink, which in turn will again make the Post Office a less desirable Department to work in, only
this time for a different reason, which in turn will oblige the Board to raise the Post Office's salaries to keep people wanting
to work there. This requires lowering some other Department's salaries correspondingly (See Part IV, The Rules), which inevitably
causes much fur to fly. All of which must be reconciled with the Board's ultimate objective: to keep the school economy running
as smoothly and harmoniously as possible, with as little unemployment as possible.
At the start of play all Post Office shares are divided equally among the Post Office employees. Thereafter they can
be bought and sold freely on the Stock Exchange to any player, whether he works for the Post Office or not.
Every share is represented by its own certificate, which changes hands every time the share is sold. The share has a
serial number and any change of ownership is carefully recorded in the Post Office's master file, which details the complete
ownership and price history of every share by serial number. The same data is also recorded at the Stock Exchange in a second
master file.
Once in every contract period, whenever the Postmaster-General decrees, the Post Office pays its dividend on the previous
contract period's profits. The net amount of buckeyes taken in is divided by the number of shares outstanding and the result
is the dividend. During the appointed time period all the shareholders come to the Post Office, present their certificates
for inspection and verification, and get paid their dividend. If the Bank handles checks, the Postmaster-General may choose
to pay the dividend by check.
Bonuses:
Stock option and franking privileges.
Productivity Index:
Sales volume divided by the number of Post Office employees.
Chapter 10 - The Bank
Personnel:
President (gold)
Vice-President (silver)
Examiner (blue)
Head Teller (red)
Teller (green)
Services:
At the start of play the Bank offers only savings accounts but in times of high Unemployment the Board of Directors can
ask the President of the Bank to start offering checking accounts and credit cards as well, to create more work for the student
labor force.
Besides offering student accounts, the Bank has Departmental payroll and dividend accounts. But the Bank doesn't dispense
the money into the school economy, it merely administers it. The Secretariat dispenses the money. More on this in Chapter
19, The Secretariat.
The Bank takes in savings deposits and then lends them out again at interest to anyone who wants to borrow money. Interest
from loans goes into the Bank's own dividend account and gets paid out once each contract period as dividends to players who
own Bank stock, but the Bank doesn't have to worry about paying out savings interest, the Secretariat does that. Profits
from the loans are pure gravy for Bank stockholders.
Interest rates are set by the Board. At the start of play savings interest is 5% and loan interest is 6% but the Board
can raise or lower them side-by-side in one-percent increments at the rate of one-percent per contract period. There are
various reasons why the Board might want to raise or lower interest rates. Raising them would encourage saving at the expense
of consumption and probably lower the dividends of the Stores and the Kitchens. Lowering them would do the exact opposite,
push money out of the Bank and into the school economy, but of course, this would reduce the amount of money the Bank has
available for lending, and therefore probably reduce the Bank's dividend. Whether the Board should raise or lower interest
rates depends on what's actually happening in the school economy. If interest rates are too high the Bank would tend to fill
with money but no one will borrow. Worse yet, the Stock Market might drift down as savings accounts become more profitable
than dividends. Also, sales volume would decline everywhere. The Stores would tend to do less business as players save more
and more, so the Stores' dividends would tend to fall, and possibly the Kitchens' dividends as well. Not to mention the Entrepreneurs.
So we already see a solid coalition of interests favoring low interest rates.
Countering this, however, is the abstruse-but-important fact that savings interest, dispensed every week by the Secretariat,
enters the system as new money added to the game. A wise Chairman will realize that the more money that gets dispensed into
the game, the more there'll be for everybody. But this can only go so far before the zeal for saving starts to hurt the school
economy by diverting too much of the cash into the Bank and out of circulation. (Advertising revenues, discussed in detail
in the next chapter, also enter the school economy as new money added to the game, but they're always limited to a Department
or enterprise's sales volume. If saving goes up and sales volume goes down, then advertising revenues also will go down,
which may result in less new money dispensed into the game than if savings interest was lower. It can be very complicated
figuring out which is best. The youngsters will get a definite feel for the problems the adults face trying to run the national
economy.
So the political pressure on interest rates is solid and ever-present in both directions, creating a more-or-less permanent
skirmish line on this issue any time the question of interest rates is brought before the Board. It remains for the Chairman
to rise above the squabbling and use his power over the Board's agenda to try to change the interest rates in whatever direction
he thinks will best serve the needs of the school economy.
Loans are issued on whatever terms the President of the Bank decides. There is no collateral but if a student doesn't
repay his loan the Bank can take the matter to the Court and ask for an Attachment. Both sides plead their case and if the
Court sides with the Bank it can attach up to 50% of the player's income until the loan is repaid. If the Court sides with
the player, however, for whatever reason, the loan must then be repaid from the Bank's Dividend Account and the dividend per
share is reduced accordingly. Or the Court may order the loan repaid partly by Attachment and partly by the Bank's Dividend
Fund but in every case the savers' deposits must be protected.
If the Bank lends out too much money and doesn't have enough left to meet the demand for cash the Secretariat advances
the Bank an interest-free loan to keep it from failing, but the loan must be repaid as soon as possible, and to insure the
Bank's fullest cooperation in this the Bank is forbidden to pay dividends until the Secretariat is repaid. The cash in the
Bank's Dividend Account continues to earn interest, however, even when the dividend is frozen.
Interest is reckoned by the year and paid by the week. The contract period is not used here in order to avoid windfall
profits and losses every time the contract period is lengthened or shortened. At the beginning of each week the Bank tells
the Secretariat how many buckeyes worth of savings deposits it had on its books as of the end of the previous week and the
Secretariat sends along the savings interest, to be posted to all the savers' accounts. Weekly compounding, in other words.
At the beginning of each contract period, the Bank publicly posts everyone's account balance as of the end of the previous
contract period. This is so everyone can see how everyone else is doing. It's a game, remember, and there's no financial
privacy. (The Stock Exchange does the same thing once each contract period, posting everyone's portfolio, again for the same
reason, so everyone can see how everyone else is doing.)
Bonus:
Stock option.
Productivity Index:
Number of transactions (deposits, withdrawals, checks cleared, etc.) per contract period divided by the number of employees.
Chapter 11 - Kitchens A & B
Personnel:
Grand Chef (gold)
Master Chef (silver)
Chef (blue)
Waiter/Waitress (red)
Dishwasher (green)
Services:
The Kitchens require the assumption that the kids are mature and responsible enough to be entrusted with hot stoves, hot
skillets, etc. If the adults in any given district feel their own kids aren't, then this chapter is doesn't apply.
The names A and B aren't real names, they're only letter designations to explain the game. In real life Kitchens A &
B do business under trade names, chosen by the Grand Chef and changeable by any subsequent Grand Chef, either a name which
conjures an attractive image in the mind of the prospective customer, or one that's actually descriptive of that particular
Kitchen or its specialties.
Since the school probably has only one cafeteria A & B share the same facilities but they are otherwise entirely separate.
Students do everything in the Kitchens, including cooking, cleaning and planning menus (subject to the advise and consent
of the school dietician). In times of high Unemployment the Board can request them to provide waiter/waitress service.
The Grand Chef of each Kitchen makes the final decision concerning menus and retail prices, seeking to undercut the competition
on price while maximizing the dividend on his Kitchen's stock. Retail price changes are always made for the following contract
period but need not be incremental in the Kitchens: the Grand Chefs can set them wherever they please. This amounts to a
many-sided guessing game and a Grand Chef can win in one part of the menu and lose in another. If the game is being played
by wise players the prices are likely to stabilize somewhere, a kind of armistice between competitors, and the competition
shift to the quality of the taste and service.
Wholesale prices are the prices the Kitchens must pay the Treasury for their unprocessed foodstuffs and other raw materials.
At the start of play faculty sets the wholesale prices. Thereafter the Board of Directors, by majority vote, can raise or
lower the wholesale price of any item by five percent, limited, as always, to one change per contract period.
Wholesale revenues from both the Kitchens and the Stores, which we'll get into in the next chapter, all go into the Treasury,
which pays the Unemployment Compensation. The primary source of revenue for the Treasury is the school Income Tax, as we
discussed in Chapter 2, but note that the Board can relieve upward pressure on the Income Tax by raising wholesale prices
instead, as we mentioned in the last chapter. This would inevitably lead to higher retail prices and possibly a corresponding
decline in consumption, making sales sluggish and causing the Bank to start filling with money as consumption falls off.
This would tend to dispense more new money into the game in the form of savings interest and therefore increase the size of
the overall pie, but it would do so at the expense of economic vitality. How high can wholesale prices be raised before they
cut into the vitality of the school economy? That's the point at which the Board should seek to stabilize them, the better
to rid the school economy of the universally unwelcome Income Tax.
The Kitchens are a fertile field for private enterprise and the game encourages this. If some enterprising youngster
comes up with a dynamite recipe for blueberry muffins and wants to open a breakfast shop, or a group of Entrepreneurs decides
that what School really needs is a World-Class hamburger, they're free to compete with the established Kitchens and pay the
same wholesale prices for flour, eggs, ground beef, etc.
The Kitchens, like any other Department or enterprise, can advertise for free any or all of the school newspapers or magazines.
The Secretariat covers the cost of the advertising, not the Department or enterprise itself, but only up to the amount of
the Department's or enterprise's sales volume in the previous contract period. Advertising is subsidized this way because
the school economy needs ads to communicate economic information. It also promotes and subsidizes lively school media.
The payment for advertising goes directly from the Secretariat to the newspaper or magazine involved and enters the game
as new money, the same as stock options or savings interest.
Bonus:
Stock option:
Productivity Index:
Sales volume divided by the number of employees.
Chapter 12 - Stores A & B
Personnel:
General Manager (gold)
Manager (silver)
Buyer (blue)
Salesperson (red)
Stockperson (green)
Services:
The Stores are the entry point of real-world merchandise and raw materials into the game. Accordingly, they have buyers
and stockpersons to attend to this.
The Stores compete with each other the same way the Kitchens compete with each other: they both have access to the same
list of merchandise at the same wholesale prices, but from then on it's pure competition. The General Manager decides what
merchandise his store will order, in what quantity and what the retail price will be, always for the following contract period,
after he retires. As in the Kitchens, retail price changes need not be incremental, the General Managers can set them wherever
they please. The struggle, as always, is to maximize the dividend, but whether this is best accomplished by raising retail
prices or lowering them is never clear. It's always a guessing game. Then too, the Stores can compete on quality of service
as well as retail price. When the Stores get this sophisticated the danger arises of a tacit agreement to keep retail prices
satisfyingly high, to keep the dividends of both Stores satisfyingly plump.
The remedy for this kind of price-fixing is Entrepreneurial competition. If the Stores ever do form a cartel, then Entrepreneurs
can organize a discount house, and should be encouraged to do so.
The Stores serve another important function in the school economy by providing Entrepreneurs with the raw materials to
operate their enterprises. Dressmakers order fabric and thread, bicycle repairers order bicycle parts, etc. In addition,
the Stores stock the soaps and cleaning equipment that the Housekeeping Departments need for their housekeeping, and the paper
and ink the Print Shops need for their printing.Outside suppliers are paid by the adult world in dollars, not by students
in buckeyes. The wholesale cost to the Stores in buckeyes is decided by the Board, not the outside supplier, and buckeye
proceeds go into the Treasury to pay the Unemployed. The outside supplier is totally irrelevant to the students playing the
game: he's something the adult world deals with, not them.
Like all other Departments and enterprises, the Stores can advertise for free in any or all of the school media, but only
up to an amount equal to their previous contract period's sales volume.
Bonuses:
Stock option plus 25% discount on all merchandise.
Productivity Index:
Sales volume divided by the number of employees.
Chapter 13 - Housekeeping A, B & C
Personnel:
Director (gold)
Marketing Manager (silver)
Sales Representative (blue)
Senior Housekeeper (red)à
Housekeeper (green)
Services:
Housekeeping A, B & C compete with each other in providing the school's janitorial services. They differ from all
the other Departments in that they each have a sales staff to maintain liaison with all the homerooms. Each homeroom is required
to contract for its own custodial service with its choice of the three housekeeping Departments. The students in the homeroom
split the cost evenly. They're free to shop around and work out any kind of deal they like. If the homeroom, by and large,
doesn't care about surgical cleanliness and wants to save money, they can specifically contract for the minimum the faculty
will tolerate. Or they can offer to pay extra to any Housekeeping Department that will deliver superior work, if that's what
they want.
The stairways, corridors and special rooms like the gym, auditorium, etc., are the responsibility of the Board of Directors
which, through its Secretariat, contracts out each of them to one or another of the Housekeeping Departments by sealed bid
every contract period. If the lowest bidder doesn't do an adequate job the Board, by majority vote, can accept the next highest
bid next time.
The Housekeeping Departments, like the Stores and the Kitchens, are open to Entrepreneurial competition. If the cost
of housekeeping turns out to have a way of rising endlessly a cartel should be suspected, and enterprising players should
be encouraged to open their own Housekeeping enterprises and compete with the established Housekeeping Departments.
Like the Stores and the Kitchens, Housekeeping A, B & C do business under whatever trade name the Director chooses.
Bonus:
Stock option.
Productivity Index:
Sales volume divided by the number of employees.
Chapter 14 - Print Shops A & B
Personnel:
Director of Printing (gold)
Deputy Director of Printing (silver)
Master Printer (blue)
Printer (red)
Apprentice (green)
Services:
The Print Shops issue stock and compete with one another mainly to print the school's magazines and newspapers, but also
to produce all the various forms and paperwork required to play the Buckeye Game. This consists largely of checks, deposit
slips, stationery and tax forms, but it also includes a large number of smaller items as well. Print Shop profits go to Print
Shop Dividend Funds, and get paid out to Print Shop shareholders.
When Entrepreneurs want to publish a magazine or newspaper, they have the Print Shops bid competitively for the job of
printing it. These Entrepreneurial magazines and newspapers sell advertising to the game's Departments and Enterprises.
When the day comes that Entrepreneurs open an ad agency, the game will have reached a new level of sophistication.
Bonus:
Stock option.
Productivity Index:
Sales volume divided by the number of Print Shop employees.
Chapter 15 - The College of Tutors
Personnel:
President (gold) (salary plus Sabbatical)
Dean (silver) (salary plus Sabbatical)
Senior Tutor (blue) (salary plus Sabbatical)
Tutor (red) (salary plus Sabbatical)
----------------------------------
Freelance Tutor (green) (salary only)
Services:
Any student who feels he needs a tutor can apply for one at the College of Tutors. Tutoring service is free for the student,
and the Tutor's salary is new money dispensed into the game by the Secretariat.
Any student making an A in a course qualifies as, and can register as, a Freelance Tutor for that course. Students qualified
in five or more courses can join the College at the rank of Tutor (red) and are thereafter entitled to one contract period
of Sabbatical leave for every two spent tutoring. During Sabbatical tutors receive full pay and the Departmental Pension,
if the College wins it, but their time is entirely their own and they have no obligations to the College.
Tutors can't take Sabbatical if they're in the middle of tutoring a fellow student whose need for tutoring extends beyond
the contract period. For this reason Tutors can accumulate Sabbatical and use it in whatever way they can fit it into their
tutorial schedules, including taking it all at one time.
The regular Promotion Formula doesn’t apply at the College. Instead, each tutor's academic average, for promotion's
sake, is considered to be the average of all the students he tutored, in the courses he tutored them in, during the previous
grading period. This makes it possible for unusually effective tutors to rise very quickly after joining the College.
Retired Presidents of the College automatically reenter at Tutor (red) if they choose to rejoin the College.
Bonus:
Sabbatical. This is a particularly lucrative bonus because it allows students to pursue two careers at once.
Productivity Index:
Average grade of all tutees in the previous grading period, in the courses they were tutored in, irrespective of the number
of Tutors in the College. This figure is constant throughout the following grading period no matter how many contract periods
the grading period is divided into. If the College has a spectacular improvement from one grading period to the next it's
conceivable it could sweep the Productivity Championship in every contract period of the following grading period, which would
be a brilliant coup.
Chapter 16 - The Library
Personnel:
Director (gold)
Deputy Director (silver)
Librarian (blue)
Assistant Librarian (red)
Clerk (green)
Services:
The Library staff tends the school Library.
The Library has the same bonus as the College of Tutors, one contract period of paid Sabbatical for every two spent on
the job. Anyone can apply to join the Library, however. No A grades are required, and new hiring comes from the hiring list,
like any other Department.
Bonus:
Sabbatical.
Productivity Index:
Number of items checked out divided by number of Library employees. (Items checked out by Library employees don't count
in the Library's Productivity Index.)
Chapter 17 - The Stock Exchange
Personnel:
Governor (gold)
Lt. Governor (silver)
Specialist (blue)
Senior Broker (red)
Broker (green)
Services:
The Stock Exchange is actually a silent auction. Shares for sale are posted publicly at the Exchange on bidding sheets
every Monday. Anyone who wants to bid has his Broker enter his name and bid price on the sheet. Anyone who wants to top
that bid has his Broker enter a better bid on the bidding sheet. At the end of five days the highest bidder gets the share.
At the start of play there's a 10% tax on capital gains and a 90% deduction on capital loss, but the Board, by majority
vote, can raise or lower either of them in 5% increments, independently of one another. They're separate items. The Governor
of the Exchange always wants less capital gains tax and more capital loss deduction. The President of the Bank always wants
the exact opposite.
Every autumn there's a bull market as incoming freshman rush to join the game. Every spring there's a bear market as
graduating seniors liquidate their shares. Farseeing investors can profit handsomely from this. Only Exchange members can
post bidding sheets or enter bids. To buy or sell shares, therefore, a student must have a Broker, and he is free to choose
any member of the Exchange he pleases, or divide his business among several Brokers. The Brokers get paid a commission on
every share sold, paid by the seller and split between the Brokers. If buyer and seller have the same Broker, he gets both
ends of the commission. At the start of play the commission rate is three percent of the purchase price but the Board of
Directors can raise or lower it in one percent increments, one incremental change per contract period.
If a shareowner has a minimum price that he's willing to accept for his share he can post it at the Exchange and enter
his own bid on it at the minimum price. If no one tops his bid after five days the share is his again. Since there was no
transfer, there is no commission.
Once each contract period, whenever the Governor decides, all the members of the Exchange post all their clients' portfolios
for public inspection, the same way the Bank posts everyone's checking and/or savings balances.
Besides its other services to investors, the Stock Exchange maintains and posts the dividend and price histories for each
stock.
Bonus:
Commissions.
Productivity Index:
Trading volume divided by the number of members of the Exchange. (Shares offered at a minimum price that revert to the
owner for lack of a higher bid don't count in the trading volume. There must be a transfer for it to count as a trade.)
Chapter 18 - Entrepreneurs
Personnel:
Entrepreneur (gold badge/green subsidy)
Employee (silver, blue, red, green badges/green subsidy)
Services:
Retired Directors and other talented students, alone or in partnership, can register at the Secretariat and become Entrepreneurs.
This entitles them and any students they designate as employees to an Entrepreneurial Subsidy, fixed at the average green
salary level for all Departments. This subsidy makes it possible for them to open a business in the school marketplace.
If they need physical space to operate their enterprise they can rent it from the Secretariat by entering the highest bid
for that space on the Secretariat's bidding sheet during the previous contract period.
The registration procedure at the Secretariat requires that shares of stock be created and registered with the Stock Exchange
even if the Entrepreneur(s) have no plan to sell shares in the foreseeable future. Once this is done, the person or persons
who own 51% of the stock are designated Entrepreneurs, given gold badges with that title on them, and allowed to designate
any number of students as Employees, thereby entitling them all to a green level Employee subsidy and whatever color badges
the Entrepreneur tells the Secretariat to issue. Whoever owns 51% of the enterprise is in control. The Secretariat dispenses
or withholds the subsidies according to the instructions of the Entrepreneurs listed on its records as owning 51%. If the
original Entrepreneurs sell the enterprise's stock on the Exchange, or pass it out to Employees as stock options and another
group of students comes to own 51%, then the new group is in control as soon as they present 51% of the shares to the Secretary-General:
from that point on, they wear the gold badges and tell the Secretariat who to pay Employee subsidies to.
The school media are potentially very rewarding, since every Department and enterprise is allowed free advertising up
to the amount of its previous contract period's sales volume. The advertising isn't really free, since the Secretariat picks
up the tab and pays the newspaper or magazine directly; but it might as well be free since, from the Department's or enterprise's
perspective, the cost of advertising never reduces the size of profits or dividends. Entrepreneurs with an editorial bent
can make money starting a magazine or newspaper.
Entrepreneurs are allowed very wide latitude in designating employees as long as the arrangements are sincere and in good
faith. An Entrepreneur could open an art gallery, for example, and sell student art and designate all the artists as employees,
who would then be subsidized to paint pictures, besides whatever income the gallery provided from selling their work. Or
if an Entrepreneur rented the school auditorium part-time and turned it into a movie theater, he could designate the ushers
as employees, who would then be paid to stand around and watch movies in their spare time.
Profits from the enterprise are divided among the employees and stockholders in whatever way the Entrepreneurs decide.
No matter how profitable the enterprise becomes, the green-level subsidies continue in every contract period to the officially
listed Entrepreneurs and any students they designate as Employees. An Entrepreneur starting an enterprise (for example, dressmaking,
bicycle repair) can ask either or both of the Stores to stock whatever raw materials (for example, fabric, bicycle parts)
he/she needs to run the business and sell them for buckeyes. The retail prices, as always, are set by the Managers of the
Stores who, if the Entrepreneur is an employer, will no doubt be as pressured by the Board to keep prices low as by the stockholders
to keep prices high.
Entrepreneurs are the bravest players in the game and as a reward for their bravery they get a special tax deduction called
Capital Expenditure. Any buckeyes an Entrepreneur spends building up his business qualify as Capital Expenditure and are
fully deductible directly from his tax bill, making it possible for him to shelter much and possibly all of his income from
taxes. He can invest his buckeyes building up his inventory, for example, and the whole investment is deductible from his
tax bill even though it reappears in an appreciation of the value of his stock. He can even invest his buckeyes in extending
credit to his clientele, and this too is directly deductible as Capital Expenditure.
An Entrepreneur, in effect, is the only player in the game who can avoid taxes completely and serenely pile up money in
the Bank even if the Board of Directors is running the school economy into the ground.
Bonus:
A chance to graduate from high school rich.
Productivity Index:
None. Entrepreneurs win from the Departmental Pensions all the time because they increase the amount of student spending
money.
Chapter 19 - The Secretariat (Board of Directors)
Personnel:
[The Board]
---------------------
Secretary-General (silver)
Secretary (blue)
Under-Secretary (red)
Attache (green)
Services:
Politically speaking, the Secretariat is the most sought-after Department because of its bonus: universally-applicable
seniority.
The Secretariat is the administrative and secretarial arm of the Board of Directors. Its job is to carry out and coordinate
whatever plans the Board of Directors comes up with, following the personal instructions of the Chairman. It's also the entry
and exit point of money into and out of the school economy, "into" in the form of salaries, pensions, stock options,
advertising costs and savings interest, and "out of" in the form of graduating seniors going out into the real world
equipped with their game winnings turned into real dollars.
The Secretariat has no Director of its own, since it serves the entire Board jointly but the Chairman handles all its
Director's chores, including paying its staff, deciding its next personnel chart, administering its job applications and Departmental
ranking, and deciding how it will handle its assigned tasks during his tenure.
The Secretariat is a busy place. Its public bulletin board is the central information point for the entire school economy.
The most carefully watched item is the minutes of the Board meetings, which the Secretariat records and posts, but the Secretariat
also posts all the personnel charts for all the Departments side-by-side with the previous charts, to provide everyone with
a central location to assess the opportunities coming in the next contract period. When the charts come in the Secretariat
also calculates each Department's next payroll budget according to the size and shape of its new pyramid, and according to
whether the Board has raised or lowered its salaries. When the next contract period begins it will then dispense precisely
that amount of money to the Director each week to pay his staff.
The Secretariat keeps track of the total sales volume of all Departments and enterprises, and pays the costs of their
advertising in the school media, but only up to an amount equal to the total sales volume for the previous contract period,
and no more. The Departments and enterprises design the ads and choose which media. The Secretariat just pays the bills.
The Secretariat also monitors the Productivity Indexes from all the Departments. At the start of the contract period,
when the new Directors submit their Productivity Index figures from the previous contract period, the Secretariat is the first
to know who won the Productivity Championship. After verifying the winning figures, the Secretary-General tells the Chairman,
who announces the Champion to the school. The Secretariat then posts the Departmental Pensions on the pension cards of all
the students in the winning Department. The Secretariat also posts the pensions of retiring Directors. In addition, the
Secretariat administers the Treasury, all wholesale distribution, the Unemployment Pool and Unemployment Compensation, the
bidding sheets for Entrepreneurial spaces (only Secretariat staff may enter the bids), collects the Entrepreneurial rents
and pays out the Entrepreneurial subsidies. The Unemployed register at the Secretariat as soon as they become Unemployed
and collect their Unemployment Compensation every Friday. Entrepreneurs register as soon as they register their stock at
the Exchange and collect their subsidies (and, if applicable, pay their rents) every Friday as well.
The Secretariat also administers the public housekeeping on behalf of the student body, receiving bids on each of the
corridors and public rooms from any of the housekeeping Departments that care to bid on them and awarding the contract to
the lowest bidder. (Except when directed otherwise by a majority vote of the Board.)
Last of all, the Secretariat maintains and posts the Court's docket. It also calculates the Court's Productivity Index
and administers the school-wide elections every contract period to choose the Justices. The Secretariat is the only Department
that students can't rise all the way to the top of, since the top is all Directors of other Departments, but seniority time
at the Secretariat is universally applicable to all other Departments for promotion's sake, making it possible for students
to jump from the Secretariat to senior positions in other Departments even if they have never worked in those Departments
at all. Time spent at the Secretariat is considered time spent in all Departments simultaneously since the Secretariat's
work consists of seeing all the other Departments as an organic whole and trying to figure out what is actually happening
in the school economy.
Bonus:
Universally applicable seniority. Very potent, politically.
Productivity Index:
The change in the number of Unemployed, inversely. (The number of Unemployed must go down for the Secretariat to win
the Productivity Championship.
Chapter 20 - The Board of Directors
Personnel:
The Chairman of the Board (gold)
Director (gold)
--------------------
[The Secretariat]
Services:
Sixteen students sit on the Board of Directors. They are the Postmaster-General, the President of the Bank, the Grand
Chefs of both Kitchens, the Managers of both Stores, the Directors of all three housekeeping Departments, the Directors of
both print shops, the President of the College of Tutors, the Director of the Library, the Governor of the Stock Exchange
and the Director of Revenue and the Chairman of the Board. The Chairman has one vote like any other Director.
Each Director is the absolute monarch of his Department. He spends a long time working his way up, and he gets to enjoy
only one contract period at the top once he gets there, but while he's there, he's the boss. During his tenure the Department
runs according to his management theories and no one else's. He decides how the work will be done, who is responsible for
what and who will report to whom. He decides everything and he is free to experiment in any way he likes, no matter how original.
He also decides whether his Department's personnel roster will grow, shrink or stay the same size and, above all, he decides
policy.
The Director's agenda is a busy one. He starts the contract period by calculating the Productivity Index for the previous
contract period and sending the figures along to the Secretariat. By the time he finishes that, the job applications are
starting to pour in and he must rank them all according to the Promotion Formula in effect at that time in order to fill the
new personnel chart for the next contract period, which he must also decide, whether to shrink the Department, expand it or
leave it alone. If he's the Director of a store or Kitchen then somewhere along the way he must also decide if there are
going to be any changes in his Department's retail prices, as well. Presumably he will want to decide this after the competition
does, which leads to all retail price changes being kept secret until the start of the next contract period if competition
is fierce. And while doing all this he must also find time to keep absolutely accurate records of the ownership of each share
of his Department's stock, if he's the Director of a stock-issuing Department, and calculate and pay the dividend to the ravenous
shareholders.
Now strictly speaking, the Director doesn't do any of this. All the Director does is direct. Everyone else does the
actual work. The Director's hands never touch anything except a pen or pencil, and even then it's only to sign his name.
The Director's real work takes place not in his Department but at Board meetings. One of the rewards of finally getting
to the top, remember, is sitting on the all-powerful Board and, for one contract period at least, getting to be one of those
supposedly all-powerful people in charge.
The powers of the Board are many. First and foremost is: 1] the power to change the length of the contract period, with
all the disruption of personal interests which inevitably occur when the Promotion Formula shifts.
After this, the most significant power of the Board is: 2] the power to change salaries, always a major event for the
players in the Departments involved. (See Part IV, The Rules.)
In addition, the Board: 3] changes wholesale prices, item by item, always in three percent increments.
And finally, the Board: 4] decides changes in interest rates, capital gains tax, capital loss deduction, stock commissions
and stamp prices.
All these changes are always made for the following contract period, never the present one. They are always limited to
a specified increment, up or down, and there can never be more than one incremental change voted in per contract period.
Therefore changes in the school economy always come slowly, one small step at a time.
The grandest power, as we have said, belongs to the Chairman, namely, the power to set the Board's agenda, hopefully for
the common good. At the end of the contract period, the highest ranking Director under the current Promotion Formula becomes
the new Chairman and all the others retire and begin collecting their Director's Pensions, the grandest prizes of the game.
Seniority in the competition for Chairman is measured by the number of contract periods the Director spent in his Department,
not the total number spent in the game. The Chairman gets the same salary as the highest-paid Director and begins collecting
his Director's Pension after his term as Chairman.
Bonus:
A Director's Pension, the Grand Prize of the game.
Productivity Index:
None. The Directors win the Departmental Pension if their Departments win. The Chairman wins if the Secretariat wins.
Chapter 21 - The Court
Personnel:
Chief Justice (gold)
Justice (silver)
Services:
Chosen by election, the Court is the Department that gives the Buckeye Game its democratic character. Its purpose is
to protect students from the absolute monarchy of their Director. It's the supreme authority in the Game.
The school is divided into eight election districts. Each district elects its own Justice and the eight Justices plus
the Chief Justice make up the nine-member Court. A Court majority can overrule any operating decision made by any Director
with a simple ruling of Unfair. The Buckeye Game has no Constitution for the Justices to interpret. Instead it relies on
their own gut feeling and innate sense of right and wrong to decide what's fair and unfair.
Any player who thinks a Director has been unfair can take his case before the Court. He does this by telling any Justice,
who then tells the Secretariat to enter the case on the docket.
When the Court meets, both sides plead their case and the Justices decide the matter with a simple majority vote.
The Chief Justice schedules the court sessions as often as is necessary to keep the docket clear. To promote swift justice
the Justices don't get paid on Friday if there's a backlog, but they do get their back pay once the docket is cleared.
There's no fee for bringing a case before the Court.
Besides overruling Directors and reversing firings the Court also decides promotion disputes both in Departmental ranking
and on the school teams, where the salary grade is decided by the coach. If, for example, the coach assigns a player to one
salary grade and the player thinks he's worth another, the Court decides. Finally, the Court decides Attachment cases brought
by creditors.
At the end of the contract period the Justice most eligible for promotion under the current Promotion Formula becomes
the new Chief Justice without having to face reelection, and gets a Director's Pension after his contract period as Chief
Justice. Seniority in the Court is measured by the number of terms (contract periods) a Justice has served, consecutive or
not. The Chief Justice can be reelected to the Court after retirement but his seniority begins again at zero, like any other
retired Director.
Salaries for Justices are fixed at the average silver salary for all Departments. The Chief Justice's salary is the average
gold.
Bonus:
Instant silver salary.
Productivity Index:
The change in the net gain in the value of all Bank deposits and stock holdings in the school economy over the previous
contract period's net gain. (Stock prices measured by the final sale of the contract period.) If the value of all deposits
and stock holdings declines during a contract period the Court's Productivity Index could jump mightily in the following contract
period.
The Court's Productivity Index is calculated by the Secretariat. None of the Justices need bother with it.
Chapter 22 - The Tax Office
Personnel:
Director of Revenue (gold)
Deputy Director of Revenue (silver)
Chief Auditor (blue)
Senior Auditor (red)
Auditor (green)
Services:
The Unemployed get paid their Unemployment Compensation every Friday out of the Treasury, which is maintained by the Secretariat
and funded primarily by the proceeds of the Income Tax. (Also by wholesale revenues from the Stores and Kitchens, and rents
paid by Entrepreneurs.) The Treasury also pays the incidental expenses of the non-profit Departments, stationery, postage,
etc. The Secretariat doesn't pay this. Incidental expenses are not new money entering the game, they're an addition to the
tax burden, and waste costs the players money.
At the start of play the tax rate is 17%. It doesn't stay there long. Every time the Treasury runs out of money the
Income Tax is raised by seven percent in the following contract period. Every time the Treasury doesn't run out of money
for two contract periods in a row the Income Tax is lowered by three percent in the following contract period. In the Buckeye
Game as in real life, taxes are always more easily raised than lowered.
The Secretariat advances the Treasury an interest-free loan to pay the Unemployed any time the Treasury is in deficit
but the loan must be repaid from future taxes or other revenues.
The Income Tax is flat-rate and everyone pays it, including the Unemployed.
Two kinds of deductions are allowed: 1] Capital Expenditure (for Entrepreneurs only, see Chapter 18) which is directly
deductible from the player's tax bill, and 2] Capital Loss on the Stock Exchange, which is deductible from the player's taxable
income. The deduction rate for Capital Loss, like the tax rate for Capital Gain, also is raised and lowered by the Board
in 5% increments, as always, according to the politics of the day.
At the end of each contract period the Secretary-General announces what the tax rate will be for the following contract
period, based on the financial condition of the Treasury. At the start of the following contract period each player files
an Income Tax return with the Tax Office, listing his name, his income and all his sources of income, his deductions and his
tax bill. Along with his tax return he pays his tax.
When the tax is collected the Director of Revenue hands it over to the Secretary-General, who deposits it into the Treasury.
The Tax Office audits student returns. Any unreported income they discover goes into the Tax Office's Penalty Fund, including
ongoing pensions. The Tax Office staff splits the proceeds of the Penalty Fund every contract period as a bonus.
Audit policy is decided by the Director of Revenue but can be overruled by the Court. For example, at the start of play
the Tax Office has no files on the student body and keeps no records. If a Director of Revenue decides to start keeping files,
any student can challenge the policy in Court. Thus it is the Court that decides if the Tax Office can keep ongoing files
on the student body. Likewise, at the start of play any auditor can ask to have a look at the current details of any student's
account records at the Bank or the Stock Exchange, but any President of the Bank or Broker at the Exchange can decide not
to co-operate and the matter again lands in the Court for a final decision about audit policy. (See Chapter 21, The Court.)
Bonus:
Penalty Fund, divided evenly among the Tax Office staff each contract period.
Productivity Index:
Number of audits per contract period divided by the number of Tax Office employees.
Chapter 23 - The Unemployment Pool
Personnel:
Unemployed (green)
Services:
None. The Unemployed register at the Secretariat and collect their Unemployment Compensation every Friday. Unemployment
Compensation is fixed at the average green salary for all Departments and can be drawn indefinitely -- for a player's entire
high school career if he likes. (No student can be compelled to take a job he doesn't want.)
Bonus:
No duties, obligations or responsibilities.
Productivity Index:
None. No chance at the Departmental Pension either.
Chapter 24 - The Band, Chorus & School Teams
Personnel:
Salary levels assigned according to the coach's or faculty sponsor's judgment, based on talent, dedication or both.
Services:
The School bands, chorus and teams have no incremental personnel charts the way the Departments do. The regular rules
of hiring, promotion, etc., don't apply here, although a team's salaries can be changed up or down as part of a salary change
pair (See the next chapter), the same as any other Department. If one of the teams is having a fabulous year, the Board can
express its appreciation by raising its salaries. Successive Boards could, if they pleased, raise that team's salaries to
the point where they were higher than any Department's.
Similarly, any team that shows poorly on the playing field will be an easy target for a salary cut, and probably get very
little sympathy from the Directors or anyone else.
Concerning profit-making activities, the students are free to decide for themselves. The band can give concerts and sell
tickets, etc., and the students can divide the profits as they please, either splitting them among themselves or selling dividend-paying
stock or anything else that strikes them as a good idea and that the principal and faculty can be persuaded to go along with.
Bonuses:
A second salary, not necessarily small, and such profits as can be made from the organization's efforts.
PART IV - THE RULES
Chapter 25 - Salaries, Salary Changes & Bonuses
Salaries are an extremely important part of the Buckeye Game. They do more than provide a player's income, they define
his position in the game. Moreover, the Board of Directors can change any of the Departments' salaries up or down, making
them a hot political item in the game, and a controversial one since the Board is required to reduce one Department's salaries
any time it raises another's. The Board is supposed to use salary changes to attract students to Departments that don't have
enough applicants and discourage them from Departments that have too many applicants, but if the changes get swept up in politics,
there's no telling.
There's no limit to how high or low a given Department's (or school team's) salaries can eventually go but the whole system
must balance, always one department going down any time another is going up.
The salaries come in a simple grid of five levels, green, red, blue, silver and gold, in ascending order. Each Department
has only one player at gold salary level, the Director, but the band, school teams, etc., can theoretically have any number
of players at gold salary level as long as each one is a genuine star making a truly outstanding contribution. Otherwise,
only the captain is at gold, with the co-captains at silver and all others scaled down accordingly.
At the start of play all Departments get paid the same, with red salary equal to 120% of green, blue equal to 130% of
red, silver equal to 140% of blue and gold equal to 150% of silver. Salary changes are always in seven-percent increments,
upward or downward, applying to all the salaries in the Department across the board, and always go into effect in the following
contract period, the same standard pattern as any of the other incremental changes in the Buckeye Game. Likewise there's
always only one salary change allowed per Department per contract period. A given Department's salaries, for example, can
be raised or lowered indefinitely, but never more than one seven-percent change per contract period.
Salaries are reckoned and paid by the week, not the contract period, to keep the students from getting a raise or reduction
every time the contract period is shortened or lengthened.
The school bands, chorus and teams can be changed up or down like any other Department but Court salaries, Entrepreneurial
subsidies and Unemployment Compensation are all fixed and can't be included in a pair of salary changes.
Each player gets a Badge of Office the color of his salary grade with his job title written on it. Players wear their
badges when playing the game to identify themselves to other players.
Chapter 26 - Hiring, Quitting, Rehiring, Firing
Before a player can think about promotion he must first get into a Department. He does this by putting his name on that
Department's Hiring List. As soon as it reaches the top, he's the next one hired. If he doesn't join the Department he forfeits
the chance and if he changes his mind later on and decides he wants to join that Department after all, he has to reenter his
name on the list and wait for it to rise to the top all over again. (The wise move, strategically, is to join, if only for
one contract period, in order to acquire a contract period of seniority at green salary level. Once he has even a single
contract period of seniority his status changes: he becomes one of the old hands in the Department rather than an outsider
trying to get in, and can then apply for a job in that Department in any contract period from then on.
Quitting is a simple matter of not applying for the following contract period. If a student runs into trouble with his
schoolwork and needs more time for studying, or if he just feels like dropping out of the game for a while, for whatever reason,
he can join the Unemployment Pool any time he likes. He lives without any chance of pension, bonus or promotion, but he does
have his time free for his studies, and he still has income enough to participate in the school economy.
Rehiring is just applying for a job again in whatever contract period the player decides to re-join the game.
Firing is complicated, deliberately so, to guard against political foul play. The official justification for firing is
unsatisfactory performance on the job. Players on green and red salary levels can be fired by the Director. Players on blue,
silver and (heaven forfend!) gold salary levels can be fired only by a majority vote of the Board of Directors. A player
who is fired is assigned to the Unemployment Pool for the balance of the contract period and loses his seniority credit for
that one contract period but other than that there's no penalty. In real life firing usually means the end of a career path,
but in the Buckeye Game the repentant player can turn over a new leaf and start afresh in the very next contract period.
All firings can be appealed to the Court. If the Court reverses the firing the student is reinstated with full back pay
in addition to any Unemployment Compensation he drew in the meantime, and gets full seniority credit for that contract period.
The Director who fired him has to repay the Treasury out of his own pocket for the amount of Unemployment Compensation the
reinstated student drew. If the Board fired him, the Chairman repays the Treasury out of his own pocket.
Chapter 27 - Promotion, Retention, Demotion, Layoff
The whole process of finding a job in the school economy begins afresh in every contract period. Happily, it's a quick
and easy process for the individual student, but unfortunately there's no guarantee that he'll be promoted or even retained
in grade for the following contract period. For new students entering the school there's even a chance of having to sit out
the contract period in the Unemployment Pool.
The process begins with the Departmental personnel charts. Each Department has such a chart showing all the jobs in the
Department on every salary level. Each Director, during his tenure, gets to add or subtract one job from his Department's
personnel chart, or leave it the way it is, his choice. The change can be on any salary level. The only limitation is that
the chart must always remain pyramidal in shape, that is, there must always be more greens than reds, more reds than blues,
more blues than silvers and always at least two silvers, since there's always only one student at gold salary level, the Director.
The change, if there is one, always goes into effect in the following contract period, after the Director who made the
change retires.
Once the chart is finished the Director can begin accepting job applications from students interested in working in that
Department in the following contract period.
To apply, a student drops off a job application, which is his name, his academic average and his seniority in that Department,
consecutive or non-consecutive, it doesn't matter which.
The Director then ranks all the job applicants according to the Promotion Formula in force at that time, and begins offering
the jobs in the new personnel chart to the applicants according to rank. Once a player accepts a job in a Department he,
in effect, makes a contract with that Department to work there during the following contract period. He can apply for jobs
in many different Departments simultaneously, as many as he has some seniority in, but he can accept only one job offer per
contract period. He can't work two jobs at once (unless he's a librarian or tutor on Sabbatical). Once he makes up his
mind which Department he's going to work in, he goes to all the other Departments he applied to and withdraws his applications.
If a Department doesn't have enough applicants to fill its personnel chart, new people are hired from the hiring list. If
there aren't enough people on the hiring list then the Department is underpaid, and the Director should bring this to the
Board's attention so they can, for the good of the school economy, raise that Department's salaries.
Any player who can't get a job offer from any Department spends the following contract period in the Unemployment Pool.
The process of Departmental ranking decides who is going to be promoted, retained in grade, demoted or laid-off in that
Department in the following contract period. It's the all-important process by which seniority and academic average are figured
together to calculate who outranks whom, and who, therefore, will occupy the available slots on each salary level.
The highest ranked becomes the Director unless he doesn't want the job and would rather be a silver holdout instead, in
which case the next in rank becomes the Director, unless he also declines it, etc. Sooner or later there has to be someone
in line willing to become Director even though it means having to retire at the end of the contract period and leave the Department.
A retired Director loses all his seniority credit in that Department once he starts collecting his pension, and if he
wants to re-enter the Department he just retired from he has to put his name on the hiring list and start all over again from
scratch. His consolation, of course, is that he gets a Director's Pension in every week of his school career from then on.
(See the next chapter, Pensions & the Productivity Index.) If he gets enough of these he can retire from the game completely
and sit in the Unemployment Pool forever, and still live high on the hog and still be able to save money in the Bank (or buy
stock on the Stock Exchange).
Strategically it's probably wisest for the player who gets multiple job offers to choose the Department in which he has
the least seniority to establish himself solidly in as many different Departments simultaneously as he can, to be sure of
always having the luxury of multiple job offers. But, of course, if he's in a hurry for a Director's Pension he may want
to concentrate his effort in just one Department in order to rise to the top as quickly as possible. At retirement, however,
he may find himself landing in the Unemployment Pool for lack of enough rank in any other Department to land a job offer.
It's impossible to know for sure. Each player has to chart his own course however best he can and hope for luck while, in
the meantime, doing everything he can to keep his grades up.
The Promotion Formula for calculating Departmental rank change any time the length of the contract period changes.
The Promotion Formulas are as follows:
When the contract period is 2 weeks, promotion is decided by seniority only. Academic average is irrelevant.
When the contract period is 3 weeks, one contract period of seniority equals 2 points of academic average.
When the contract period is 4 weeks, one contract period of seniority equals one point of academic average.
When the contract period is 5 weeks, one point of academic average equals two contract periods of seniority.
When the contract period is 6 weeks, promotion is decided by academic average only. Seniority is irrelevant.
Remember our hypothetical 90 student with one contract period of seniority? He was up against a rival with an 84 average
and seven contract periods of seniority.
When the contract period is four weeks long, as you can see on the formula chart, six points of academic edge equal six
contract periods of seniority. Our 90 student therefore can claim six contract periods against the 84 student, in addition
to the one contract period he actually has. This gives them both the equivalent of seven contract periods each. A tie, in
other words.
But look what happens when the contract period shrinks down to three weeks. Now two points of academic average equal
only one contract period of seniority. Our 90 player can now claim only three contract periods of seniority because of his
six-point academic edge over the 84 player, thus giving him only four contract periods' worth, total, not nearly enough to
take on the 84 player with seven contract periods' seniority. The 84 player is higher in rank by far.
But what if the length of the contract period stretches out to five weeks? Now the chart says one point of academic average
equals two contract periods of seniority. The 90 student now has twelve + one = thirteen contract periods of seniority and
outranks the 84 student's seven contract periods.
It's a heavy event when the length of the contract period shifts. The whole character of the game changes as the length
of the contract period drifts from one extreme to the other. At two weeks, the shortest possible, grades disappear from the
equation completely and promotion is decided solely by seniority. At six weeks, the longest possible, it's the exact opposite,
seniority becomes completely irrelevant and rank is assigned solely by academic average.
If there is a tie in rank the tied students toss a coin.
At the start of play, in that first contract period before anybody has any seniority, all jobs are passed out by random
drawing but from then on it's according to Departmental rank.
Chapter 28 - Pensions & The Productivity Index
As you may recall, the game has two kinds of pensions, Departmental Pensions and Director's Pensions. A Departmental
Pension is awarded to every employee in a Department that wins the Productivity Championship (that is, has the highest gain
in its Productivity Index) and is equal to five percent of the player's salary during the contract period in which the Productivity
Championship was won. A Director's Pension is awarded to every Director upon retirement and is equal to twenty-five percent
of his salary during the contract period in which he served as Director.
Once a player wins a pension the pension is entered on his Department's pension card at the Secretariat and paid to him
every Friday at salary time for the rest of his high school career regardless of any other sources of income he may develop.
If a student flunks a grade and needs an extra year to finish high school his pensions continue throughout the extra year.
Pensions, like salaries, are reckoned and paid by the week, not by the contract period, for the same reason, to avoid
windfall profits or losses every time the contract period is shortened or lengthened.
The Productivity Index is the amount of work done in a Department during a contract period divided by the number of players
employed in the Department during that contract period. Each kind of Department has its own characteristic measurement unit
for the Productivity Index, based on the kind of work it does. For this reason the Productivity Indexes are never compared
from one Department to another but only within each Department from one contract period to the next. The Productivity Indexes
can be discreetly rigged by slowing down production in one contract period to set up an abnormal statistical increase in the
next and steal the Productivity Championship. It's a legal move any time the current Court allows it and it's one of the
things, when successfully executed, that makes for a particularly memorable and well loved retired Director. At the start
of play there is no Productivity Champion and no Departmental Pension for the first contract period.
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