Jags 31 NE 20

Eli,

I don't know when I flipped past the NE game. I just remember the score was Jags big, NE little. "That's too bad," I thought,  "Maybe because the defensive coach with the beard is gone," and flipped.

Mabye I'm just bored with football and the way the rules have become so complex. Could be since I've deliberately cut my cable bills by eliminating premium channels including ESPN and NFL channel I'm unable to watch games I want to watch. Since I'm a Bronco fan, I'm bound to have less interest unless the Broncos are on. Maybe the NFL is still caught in delivery mechanisms from the prior century. That is, when I want to watch a TV show, I don't wait for it to be aired, I log on the internet and watch it. The NFL is getting there, but isn't there yet. All of those reasons would reduce my interest in football.

The kneeling has an impact as well.

I get a certain amount of enjoyment from football and am willing to pay a certain price (dollars and time). The NFL has been reducing my enjoyment with the rule complexity and kneeling and increasing the cost by sticking to a traditional distribution method.

I was thinking about this when Serena Williams went through her melt-down at the US Open. Her behavior reduced my enjoyment of the game. I had the exact same reaction when McEnroe, Connors and Nastase had their meltdowns during matches. I simply enjoy the game less and because of that am unwilling to pay the same price, in time and dollars, as previously.

Management and laobr of the NFL and the USTA have made decisions about the product they are asking me to buy and increasingly I'm saying, "no thanks." It has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter, or Trump or MeToo of Sexism or the Patriarchy. I just want to watch football and tennis. If you start throwing extraneous, to me, issues into it, my enjoyment diminishes and I'll pay less.


Bill

Poverty and Politics

Eli,
Thanks for sharing the  The 2017 Distressed Communities  report with me. It's a fascinating report and a touches on a few topics I am particularly interested in.

One of the things that struck me, maybe not what the authors wanted me to focus on, is how prosperous most of the country is. If I listened to the Failing New York Times and other mouthpieces of the Liberal Industrial Establishment I'd come to believe there are only two types of people in the US: the 1% lighting up their cigars with $100 bills and the rest of us living in a neo-Dickensian nightmare. But then there is this, from the report:

 

I recognize 110 million people "at risk" or "distressed" is a lot. 150 million prosperous and comfortable is a country that is sharing the wealth to much greater extent than the Occupy crowd pules about.

It reminded me of this chart I grabbed from AEI. The author admits the middle class is shrinking. Because more of the middle class are moving to the upper classed. Seems to be a similar take by the Distressed Community crowd.

 

I'm also fascinated by the reduced mobility in the US. Famously, in the 1800's, Georgians wanting to escape their creditors would place a sign on their empty house "GTT," Gone to Texas.  We like to think of ourselves as a nation of immigrants. First we immigrated from the old world for a better life here and we move within the US seeking out a better place. That tendency seems to be less these days.

The report states:

Prosperous zip codes may contain 32.5 million more Americans than distressed zip codes, but distressed ones contain three times as many people receiving SNAP and other cash public assistance benefits—14.3 million compared to 4.7 million. With people less likely than ever to move—and with low income people some of the least able to afford the costs and risks of moving—there is a compelling public policy rationale for investing in the economic development of the places where public assistance beneficiaries are concentrated.

I have an unproven thesis that one of the reasons for the reduced mobility is the increased SNAP and public assistance benefits, so cause, not effect. And I wonder why we want to build up dying towns. Why not a GTT voucher?

I subscribe to a newsletter called Granola Shotgun that discusses many housing issues in America. This post in particular was interesting: Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. The author talks about the great migration west but everything has a beginning middle and end, including towns:

But everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. After decades of rapid rural population growth and relative prosperity circumstances conspired to dismantle small family farms. The mechanization of agriculture, the rise of industrial cities, boom and bust economic cycles, and the deployment of young people during the First and Second World Wars all gradually depopulated the countryside. The final nail in the coffin struck when U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz radically altered federal policy in the early 1970s toward heavily subsidize large scale vertically integrated corporate agribusiness. “Get big, or get out.” Commodity crops are now cheaper and more plentiful than ever as a result, but much of what was left of the rural landscape was eviscerated.

Migration from farms to cities decimated the rural life and migration from cities to suburbs decimated some cities:

As downtowns all across the country began to fail in the mid twentieth century newly built suburbs were thriving. Society decided it was easier to create new places than fix what was wrong with the old ones. A whole host of federal legislation such as the National Housing Act of 1934, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, and the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 provided the government subsidies and legal mechanisms that promoted suburban development. And for the last several decades these places have been the economic, cultural, and political center of American life. It’s the only landscape many people have ever known.

Granola followed up with this post  The Sacred Cul-de-Sac: Lakewood, which is well worth 5 minutes of your time.

One of the themes Granola focuses on is the impact government policies have. Many policies, restrictive zoning for instance, or many of the wetlands regulations, benefit the well-off by making it more expensive to build housing. San Francisco is one of Granola's favorite subjects with regard to zoning regulations. And it seems to contradict his "Beginning, Middle, End" thesis which seems more deterministic.

I saw another chart in the Distressed report that caught my eye:

 I have a couple of converging theories on calories and weight gain in the US.  I maintain the market system has been incredibly successful in lowering the price of a calorie. The US food industry has also been particularly good at creating yummy calories at a very low price point. 240 calories for a Payday candy bar, 240 for 1.75 ounce bag of Doritos Nacho Cheese chips and 150 from a can of Pepsi gets me to 30% of my RDA. But it's not just calories, its bad calories, chock full of carbs/sugar, which I think keeps you hungry and results in greater diabetes. So we have low price per calorie, or low price per gram of carbs, which results in poor health outcomes. [One of the many issues I had with the assumptions on Obamacare was assuming poor health outcomes were a function of poorly delivered health care. Maybe our health outcomes has more to do with our lifestyle choices including fast cars, guns and carbs.] Why the distribution shown in the Distressed report slopes the way it slopes I'll leave to someone else.

Bill

Poverty and Politics Are An Unpredictable Mix

Bill,


A DC think tank recently published an interesting report titled The 2017 Distressed Communities Index. With a lot of fancy animated maps and graphs ( which you know I like), the report documents the demography of poverty across the United States, documenting the difference between rich and poor in terms of location, education, employment and various other indicators of economic success or failure. Among the chief take home points is the observation that prosperity is widely distributed but poverty is not, with a disproportionate concentration of distressed communities found in the South and Southwest. Furthermore, distressed  cities notwithstanding (we're talking about you Cleveland), there is high correlation between population density and prosperity; the more people in a given place, the better off they seem to be.


I'm way not smart enough to figure out what these data might mean in terms of potential solutions,  either from the top down or bottom up, for the 17% of Americans who live in distressed communities, As a political junkie, I find the data fascinating in terms of the weak correlation between the economic status of these areas and how they vote. Here is deeply prosperous and deeply blue Virginia (distress rate 17%) side by side with deeply distressed and deeply red West Virginia (distressed rate 34%). Poor New Mexico (29%) votes blue, while more prosperous Texas (22%) remains deeply red. These data, it seems it me, say something powerful about the limitations of an economic message as a tool to attract voters. The Republicans, it seems, have already absorbed that lesson


Eli   

The Man In The Arena

Bill

"As a boy, my family legacy, as fascinating as it was to me, often felt like an imposition, I knew from a very early age that I was destined for Annapolis and a career in the Navy. In reaction, I often rebelled in small and petty ways to what I perceived as an encroachment on my free will.

I concede that I remember with affection the unruly passions of youth, and how they governed my immature sense of honor and self-respect. As I grew older, and the challenges to my self-respect grew more varied and serious, I was surprised to discover that while my sense of honor had matured, its defense mattered even more to me than it did when it was such a vulnerable thing that any empty challenge threatened it."

"Like most people, when I reflect on the adventures and joys of youth, I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. But though the happy pursuits of the young prove ephemeral, something better can endure, and endure until our last moment of life. And that is the honor we earn and the love we give when we work and sacrifice with others for a cause greater than our self-interest. For me that cause has long been our country. I am a lucky, lucky man to have found it, and am forever grateful to those who showed me the way. What they gave me was much more valuable and lasting than the tribute I once paid to vanity.

I am the son and grandson of admirals, My grandfather was an aviator; my father a submariner. They were my first heroes, and their respect for me has been one of the most lasting ambitions of my life. They gave their lives to their country, and taught me lessons about honor, courage, duty, perseverance and leadership that I didn't fully grasp until later in life, but remembered when I needed them most. I have been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. But I am their son, and they showed me how to love my country, and that has made all the difference for me, my friends, all the difference in the world.''

-John McCain-Meridian Mississippi March 31, 2008

As an adult, there was not a man in public life whom I admired more.

Eli

Everything before the word "but" is horse shit.

Eli,

The Washington Post reports on Elizabeth Warren:

The Massachusetts Democrat unveiled a proposal Wednesday aimed at fundamentally recalibrating the mission of the biggest corporations, pushing them away from maximizing immediate returns for shareholders and executives and toward investing in longer-term value and sharing gains with workers.

In an interview with CNBC's John Harwood she states:

“I am a capitalist,” she told Harwood. “I love what markets can do, I love what functioning economies can do. They are what make us rich, they are what create opportunity. But only fair markets, markets with rules.”

There's a line in "Game of Thrones," from Jon Snow:

Sansa Stark: They respect you, they really do, but you have to... Why are you laughing?

Jon Snow: What did father use to say? Everything before the word "but" is horse shit.

Bill

State of CT

Eli,

Can CT go Republican? Until Trump I thought it was a certainty. Not so sure now since we in CT like to sneer at New Yorkers, particularly those from Queens.

In 2009-10 the Dems had a 114-37 advantage in the State House and an 24-12 advantage in the Senate.
By 2017-18 the lead had dropped to 80-71 in the House and tied in the Senate 18-18.
Of course, the entire Congressional delegation is Democratic, which has to be the result of gerrymandering; there couldn't possibly be another explanation.

Malloy is one of the most hated governors in the US, the CT economy seems stuck in neutral, and the pension liability is a killer. [Speaking of that, isn't the first rule of holes, 1) When you are stuck in a hole, stop digging.? So why would the state continue to use pensions? I have a 401K. Why not switch all new workers to 401K's and migrate current workers to 401Ks?] Can all of that overcome our Yankee distaste for the boorishness of Mr. Trump? It would be very interesting to see CT turn Red at the state level, at least in the Governor's office and Senate.

I'm not registered with either party, so I won't be able to join the primary fun. I'm amused by the Dem's choice for Governor: The rich guy who is the descendant of one of the principals of JP Morgan or the guy who's the criminal. Frankly I'm confused who is running on the Republican side. I'm not a fan of business people running for office thinking they are going to apply their magical business skills to government. My impression, working with businessmen for many years, is they are not as smart as they think. And government is much different than business.

Bill

My Primary Ballot

Bill,


The missus and I are headed to the Canadian Rockies for our annual August walk up-and-down the mountain. I'm hoping they let us in without having to apply for refugee status, and that they don't deport us at least until vacation is over. We'll be away during the August primary, and so, faithful voters that we are, have our absentee ballots in hand. Here are this Democrat's choices to meet their
Republican opponents in the general election.


Governor-Ned Lamont. An easy choice. Don't know what I'll do if Joe Ganim gets the nod. I've voted for a lot of Republican governors, but if the choice ends up between a crook and a Trumpist I might have to sit that one out.


Lieutenant Governor-Eva Zimmerman-this choice will have you rolling your eyes I am sure. Her politics are undoubtedly to the left of mine. Like my grandfather, she is a labor organizer, so there is a tug of the heartstrings. She is well spoken and seems reasonably bright. Her opponent, Susan Bysiewicz is a hack in the classic mold. The deal she made with Lamont to withdraw from the governor's race in exchange for his support is classic backroom stuff (and certainly no credit to Lamont).  Besides, how much damage can a lieutenant governor do? I know you'll remind me of that statement if she ever ascends to the top office.


For Congress in the Fighting Fifth-Mary Glassman. Here I get to do what I am well known and justifiably criticized for, which is to take the opposite side of the argument I just made for Eva Zimmerman. Glassman is a run-of-the-mill candidate, with middle-of-the-road (or what passes for middle-of-the-road nowadays) Democratic positions, and seems reasonably capable. Jahana Hayes? Where do I begin? A loudmouthed, deeply stupid candidate who has no idea how governing works and will accomplish nothing except to make the House more polarized. She and those like her represent the Democratic equivalent of the Tea Party wing on the other side, with all its attendant ills. What's worse, a Hayes candidacy will make this race much more competitive against whatever Trump fanatic ends up on the other side.


For Attorney General-William Kim. The son of immigrants. A University of Chicago Law grad. Best equipped to carry on the fight.




 Eli