Here it is New Years Day. The climax of life's great pleasures, the annual football orgie. Wall to wall excess. The last and biggest of 35 bowl games named after everyone but your local chemical cockroach killing company. What was a tight little fraternity of 8 or nine bowls has fallen victim to the philosophy of "everybody" must get a trophy to feel good about themselves, or must get a bowl check and the extra month of practice to feel good about themselves. That's read have something to sell to recruits. These things are now named after everything from potato chips to cars.
Parallel to this is the circus that is Cam Newton and the Ohio State five. Newton's father (a preacher no less) supposedly shopped his son's services around for something like $150,000 to $180,000. Newton was let off the hook because it could not be proven that the player did not know what the father was doing. At Ohio State, Terrel Pryor and four other starters were suspended for selling team memorabilia to outsiders and pocketing the money. Total value of the money changing hands was about $2,000 to $2,500 per player. The suspension was for the first five games NEXT YEAR. Head Coach Jim Tressel said they could only play in the Sugar Bowl if they promised to return next year. What?????
Big time college football has gotten too big for the NCAA rule book. The enforcement division cannot keep up with number of violations if it wants to investigate each incident thoroughly. The only solution is to cut the ticky tack violations out of the rules and just punish "major" misconduct. This is the direction the conference consolidation is taking us.
Eventually, the BCS conferences will leave the NCAA and form their own umbrella organization. The BCS conferences are where the football money is and football money is power. Money means TV, TV means market size. With rare exceptions, the BCS conferences cover the top TV markets in the country. The ones they don't have are covered by mid-major football programs that are gradually migrating to BCS conferences. TCU to the Big East is a logical stretch but it still happened.
The new non NCAA umbrella will pay the players a stipend and that will be no problem given the TV money that flows to the major schools. What Oklahoma and Georgia opened up in 1982 (that right of schools to sign there own TV contracts) is at the core of this. That's where the "BIG Ten" network, the "SEC Network, et al, came from.
Until the conference re-alignment is done, and its isn't yet, we will have the above contradictions in the definition of a "player" in the NCAA. We will still have our post season orgy that climaxes today. But pause for a moment today and reflect on where we have come from. The Four Horsemen, Doc Blanchard, Roger Staubauch are fond memories of the baby boomer's childhoods or before. Things aren't that way any more. Pleased pass the Fiesta Bowl chips and call the shop and see if my bowl game muffler is installed yet. I have seen the enemy and he just converted third and long.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Making Choices - Not Limitless
I like to live vicariously through Tom Silva and Norm Abrams. For those who aren't schooled in Public Broadcasting, they are the principals on "This Old House". The current project gives me pause for reflection.
The "old house" is getting an outside deck on several levels. For safety as well as appearance, the decks have railings surrounding them. The decking material itself is a recycled composite with some plastics in it. The rails and posts are all plastic. In this lies the conundrum.
Plastics are petroleum based. They are used in construction to replace actual wood, which saves our forests, which is an environmental benefit. The plastic material is made of, among other things, petroleum. Petroleum is about 80% imported, some from our least favorite trading partners. Namely Venezuela, several middle east countries, etc. In this particular transaction, we are saving or preserving our forests, greening America, at the expense of running up our trade deficit. One raw resource replaces another. Is this a net benefit.
A trade deficit is paid for by U.S. dollars. Currency is similar to any other product or commodity. If the supply is greater than the demand, the price goes down. If the world economy is flooded with U.S. dollars, the exchange rate goes down. The dollar is worth less in terms of other currencies. Since we have a trade deficit overall and we pay our bills mostly in dollars, the price of the goods we import goes up when the value (exchange rate) of the dollar goes down. Thus, the cost of the plastics that goes in to our wonderful "old house" that entertains me so much, goes up. Meaning the cost of the house renovation goes up. Meaning fewer people can afford to renovate their houses if they use the same product. Meaning we want to return to wood if it is the cheaper material, cutting down the trees we try to save. In order to keep the renovation market vibrant, employing more carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and loggers who cut down trees.
Is it a net benefit to replace the use of one dwindling resource by using another dwindling resource that is imported? Maybe in the short term, but not a long term solution if you consider the overall economy. My parents and Scoutmaster in my childhood and adolescence taught me to leave a campsite better than you left it. That's the admirable goal of most environmentalists. What we face today is a declining economy as long as we continue to rely so heavily on imports for what amounts to a basic necessity of life, spelled P-E-T-R-O-E-U-M.
Nuff said about the obvious.
The "old house" is getting an outside deck on several levels. For safety as well as appearance, the decks have railings surrounding them. The decking material itself is a recycled composite with some plastics in it. The rails and posts are all plastic. In this lies the conundrum.
Plastics are petroleum based. They are used in construction to replace actual wood, which saves our forests, which is an environmental benefit. The plastic material is made of, among other things, petroleum. Petroleum is about 80% imported, some from our least favorite trading partners. Namely Venezuela, several middle east countries, etc. In this particular transaction, we are saving or preserving our forests, greening America, at the expense of running up our trade deficit. One raw resource replaces another. Is this a net benefit.
A trade deficit is paid for by U.S. dollars. Currency is similar to any other product or commodity. If the supply is greater than the demand, the price goes down. If the world economy is flooded with U.S. dollars, the exchange rate goes down. The dollar is worth less in terms of other currencies. Since we have a trade deficit overall and we pay our bills mostly in dollars, the price of the goods we import goes up when the value (exchange rate) of the dollar goes down. Thus, the cost of the plastics that goes in to our wonderful "old house" that entertains me so much, goes up. Meaning the cost of the house renovation goes up. Meaning fewer people can afford to renovate their houses if they use the same product. Meaning we want to return to wood if it is the cheaper material, cutting down the trees we try to save. In order to keep the renovation market vibrant, employing more carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and loggers who cut down trees.
Is it a net benefit to replace the use of one dwindling resource by using another dwindling resource that is imported? Maybe in the short term, but not a long term solution if you consider the overall economy. My parents and Scoutmaster in my childhood and adolescence taught me to leave a campsite better than you left it. That's the admirable goal of most environmentalists. What we face today is a declining economy as long as we continue to rely so heavily on imports for what amounts to a basic necessity of life, spelled P-E-T-R-O-E-U-M.
Nuff said about the obvious.
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