Among NY Baseball Writers Mets Beat Yankees in Subway Series

      Most of the pundits seem to think the Mets are going to be good and the Yanks aren't going to be so good. What else is new? The Yanks have always been the boys of October, the Atlanta Braves were for many years the boys of the regular season-as they'd always have dominant regular seasons followed by postseason flops-and the Mets, well there the boys of March.

     They often win the March subway series as the pundits are always saying this is going to be the year they become 'Amazin' again and this is the year the Yanks are going to fall back to earth. It never happens but the next year the pundits tell us the same thing. I was watching some great moments from Mike Francesa's archives where he ripped apart the Jets and the Mets at various times. but something he always criticized the Jets before they got rid of Idzik was that the Jets are pleased to easily-they have one win and they high five or even one good play in a loss and they celebrate.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rAu4TtTmM

    I think that pretty well sums up Mets Nation as well. They are pleased with so little. Everybody acts like the Yanks have fallen off the face of the earth because they had 2 straight years out of the playoffs even though they at least had winning records both years-85-77 in 2013 and 84-78 last year. True this is a major comedown from where they were for years going right through 2012. The last 2 years they've been outscored even with winning records while scoring under 700 runs both times. These are the bombers and they're called that for a reason-they're supposed to hit lots of homers and score lots of runs.

     Still it's fascinating to me that while everyone talks about a team that won 85 and 84 games the last 2 years as if they're losers, they make the Mets sound like the sky's the limit-and yet they have not had as many as 84 wins since 2008 when they blew their second big lead late in the season to miss the playoffs.

     Now we hear that you shouldn't bet on the Yanks but with the Mets 'You gotta believe'
 
     http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/harper-tanaka-arm-issues-yankees-hard-article-1.2174613

     http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/harper-david-cone-pitch-amazin-year-mets-article-1.2173305

     This is why you don't gotta believe the Mets-it takes too little for them to be impressed. I know this year the knock is the Yanks are going to have a hard time being healthy and I agree that's a concern. However, looking at this in the long view-as a Yankee fan who's watched NY sports for 28 years I feel like I've seen this movie before. It's the same as the Jets in football-people like to believe in the lovable losers and take potshots at the great team that really wins. This is not the first year the Mets have won the subway series in March for the soul of baseball writers. It never ends with them winning the subway series in October.

    And, baseball writers are the lowest form of life anyway.

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/04/bill-madden-shows-everything-thats.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

   

    

Marvin Miller and Capitalists vs. Socialists in Baseball

     There is some irony there. After all, he was the great union leader for baseball players that ended the Reserve Clause and got them free agency and a slew of other rights and benefits. Yet he didn't believe he was a socialist-and I can see he's right. Asked if he would call himself a socialist he said:

    "I would not. Industry does many things the government won’t and shouldn't."

    http://fortune.com/2012/11/27/lion-of-american-labor-a-final-conversation-with-marvin-miller/

    Many great union leaders historically considered themselves socialists-though I don't think there is any inherent reason why you would have to be a socialist to be a union leader. In truth a union only exists in a capitalist setting-history shows that socialists governments don't tolerate the existence of an independent union.

    When reading Miller it's clear that he really was always much more consistently pro-capitalist than the owners he fought against-and achieved those victories over. We can argue about Marxism and the idea of 'surplus value' but what I find interesting as a sports fan is that it's in pro sports that we see the clearest evocation of labor strife-of a battle between capital and labor; ie, the owners and the players.

   Yet, the consistently capitalist position is clearly for the unionists like Miller. In sport after sport, the owners consistently prefer a quasi socialist system. The biggest socialist around was always Bud Selig. He wanted the 'big market teams' to finance the 'small market teans'-and it's just a big unimportant coincidink that he was also the owner of an alleged small market team-the Milwaukee Brewers-as he was demanding revenue sharing and a luxury tax. Meanwhile after the deal for more revenue sharing in 2002 the Brewers halved their payroll in the next 3 years while averaging 64 wins and 98 losses per year.

   The model for MLB no doubt is the salary cap NFL which has lots of 'competitive balance' though you can argue that MLB is more 'competitvely balanced' than football.

    http://espn.go.com/blog/jayson-stark/post/_/id/1075/think-nfl-has-greater-parity-than-mlb-well-think-again

    In any case, I think the whole idea of competitive balance is problematic. No one who talks about it ever makes any effort to define it in any way approaching rigorously. Selig had said that the goal was a league where every team's fans can believe they have a shot at winning it all every year. Such a vision is just absurd. How can it ever really be the case that all 32 teams could have a realistic chance of winning the WS every year? I argue that it's impossible but that if it were possible it would be totally unpleasant for fans. Who would want a situation where their team would win roughly once every 32 years? Even as a vision this is flawed.

   What Selig seems not to understand is the word 'competitive'-he's just focused on the 'balance.' Competition is the drive to be the best, to dominate the competition not achieve parity with it. Everyone hates my Yankees because they wish their team was the Yankees. That should be the goal of a sports team-sustained dominance. I guess Selig would prefer what the Florida Marlins did in 1998 after winning the World Series: they dismantled the entire team and went 54-108 in their defense of the title. I guess that's what any team should do as the goal is not victory but parity and everyone getting their turn to win one.

    I mean in the 1990s it was supposedly a travesty that the Yankees won 3 straight World Series and 4 of 5 but it was also an era of record attendance. Yet we here that if we don't have a situation where each team wins once every 32 years, the fans will stay at home. Meanwhile. the Yankees have always dominated baseball. They did in the Ruth era, the DiMaggio era, in the late 70s, again in the late 90s-and basically were a very dominant team for 20 years running starting in the early 90s-and yet attendance does nothing but rise.

   http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-yankee-dynasty-and-george.html

   When is a sportswriter going to have the guts to tell the truth: it''s all a ruse? The whole thing is nothing to do with competitive balance-which, again, doesn't matter to the fans anyway-but keeping down players' salaries. Full stop.

    I guess I can understand the reluctance-not to say cowardice-on the part of the sports media. After all, if we're to believe Bill Madden, the great baseball union leader Marvin Miller has been held back from being voted into the Hall of Fame because he criticized the witch hunt against steroids. He has been held back for Orwell's ThoughtCrime. To simply disagree with Bud Selig and his small market buddies is enough to get you blacklisted. So while cowardice is cowardice, it is a prudent cowardice.

   http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/04/bill-madden-shows-everything-thats.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

   The more I read and learn about Marvin Miller the more impressed I am. I admire the way he always stuck to his guns and took unpopular stands if that's where the facts took him. On the other hand the more I learn about Bud Selig the less I like him.

   Anyway, that's the funny thing about baseball: as baseball's greatest union leader, Miller was also the most consistent capitalist. It's for this reason that he actually has nicer things to say about George Steinbrenner than most of the other owners-as George was actually much less anti union than most other owners-as he was always willing to open his checkbook.

   Here is an interview with Steinbrenner's son, Hank Steinbrenner on Mike Francesa.

   http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/03/26/hal-steinbrenner-on-wfan-im-a-very-different-man-than-my-father-was/

 
 

   

Bill Madden Shows Everything That's Wrong With Baseball Hall of Fame Voting

     Namely, that sanctimonious phonies like him get to be the only votes-it's Judge, Jury, and Executioner by a bunch of phony, puritanical twits. I've discussed this a number of times lately, and perhaps my language might seem a bit strong, but not if you see how phony this whole process is. Normally, what I object to is how dogmatic he is on the question of steroids. He claims that he would never vote anyone who ever took a single HGH pill-for some reason trying to heal from an injury quickly to help your team is 'cheating' that he thinks is on Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe Jackson's level if not worse. He claims he would never vote for anyone who did steroids-as if he would know.

     The 'proof' of who has done steroids is really quite spotty.I mean Madden, Mike Lupica, and the other steroids scolds knows that Alex Rodriguez did steroids because he failed a test right? Well, actually, of course, he never failed a test. All that we know is that based on a very sleazy investigation by Bud Selig-I'm sure he belongs in the HOF in Madden's skewed moral universe, although he was the baseball commissioner and the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers for 14 years; no doubt, such a quibble doesn't bother a Bill Madden one bit-according to the notes of Anthony Bosch he apparently used them. Talk about no due process. 

      Similarly, Madden knows that Mark McGwire did steroids because that's what Jose Canseco said in his book and in Congressional hearings McGwire took the 5th and looked like he wanted to cry. Ok, well that's proof enough for Madden. We also know some things based on a list of names from a 2003 steroid test that legally we shouldn't know as those were supposed to be anonymous. Both MLB and the player's union dropped the ball here. 

      Madden, however, is certain that no way has he ever voted for anyone that did steroids because-well, I guess he tell by looking at them who did steroids. Or the only thing in Canseco's book he chooses not to believe is that 85% of players at least then did steroids. Madden holds on to the fiction that only a small number of players did it and we know exactly who they were: the only players that did steroids did them either through BALCO, Bosch's Biogenesis company, or was on the list of wrongfully released names from the 20003 tests. Like, Madden just knows that Mike Piazza didn't do steroids and that Pudge Rodriguez didn't do them-even though Canseco claimed PR did. Basically the steroids scolds believe what they want to believe.  And the jokes on us as they're who decides who's in Cooperstown. 

      This post by Madden here shows the key elements of false sanctimony I'm talking about. In it he argues that 2 men: George Steinbrenner and Marvin Miller don't belong in the Hall. Ok, everyone is entitled to their opinion and there will always be differences. What gets me going are the reasons he decides they don't belong in the Hall. 

     He thinks the great union leader for baseball players, Marvin Miller doesn't belong there because he criticized the players for accepting steroid testing. So Miller who accomplished so much and who would have made sure the names on the 2003 tests didn't get out-assuming he allowed it at all-doesn't belong there because of a difference of opinion. He doesn't get into the Hall because you disagree with the opinion. I mean McCarthyism was all about guilt of association but this is just absurd. It's guilt by association with the wrong opinion. 

     If I criticize drug testing in the workplace does this mean I'm a heroin addict? Yet this is more or less Madden's reasoning here-he believes this is the reasoning of the other voters as well. 

     "So decreed the 16-member Expansion Era Veterans Committee, who in voting Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa and Bobby Cox into the game’s pantheon, failed to give Miller, the first executive director of the Players’ Association who transformed the game by winning free agency and salary arbitration rights for the players through hard-nosed collective bargaining, more than half the number of votes he would’ve needed to achieve election."

    "The same went for Steinbrenner, who restored the Yankee brand in the 1970s and later showed his fellow owners the way to increase the value of their franchises ten-fold and more through his record local television deals."

    "You want to know why Miller, who missed by only one vote in the last Expansion Era election three years ago, didn't come close this time? You probably need to look no further than his repeated statements prior to his death in November 2012, decrying the players union’s agreeing to drug testing."

    "Almost to a man, the Hall of Fame players have condemned the alleged steroids cheats — Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens et al, who have obliterated their records or passed many of them on the all-time lists — and Miller’s adamant stance against taking measures to clean up the game has diminished him despite all his accomplishments on their behalf."

    "And lest anyone believes this is still an owners’ conspiracy to keep Miller out of the Hall of Fame, again, there were only four owner/executives on the 16-man committee. The rest were either senior baseball writers, historians or former managers. It was not much different from the first Veterans Committee ballot Miller appeared on in 2001, which then was comprised of all the living Hall of Famers, most of them former players who were Miller’s constituents, and he fell short by more than 10% of the necessary 75%."

      http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/madden-steroids-stance-miller-hall-article-1.1542660

      Here Madden goes again making false inferences. Just because there were 'only four' executives on the 16 man committee-actually that's still 25 percent which seems pretty significant to me-does that proves there is no anti-labor bias? Please, beyond the significant 25 percent that were actually owners, most writers like Madden are absolutely clueless about respect for labor rights. I mean, how much could a Bill Madden actually care if he assumes that Miller has a flawed character just for questioning steroid testing without any ground rules or due process? Madden and Lupica can throw as many spitballs at A-Rod as they like, the reality is that that arbitration panel he faced was a joke-the arbitrator had to find him guilty-or he'd be forced to step down as had happened to the previous arbitrator back in 2010 after that one had failed to find a player guilty of what Bud Selig said they were guilty of. 

    As for Steinbrenner, I find his inclusion here with Miller as another that doesn't belong in the Hall-Madden thinks he may not because he was suspended twice from the game-ironic. I've written in the past that as a Yankee fan, our Yankees may well have been helped by both Steinbrenner's suspensions

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-yankee-dynasty-and-george.html

    but what's interesting, is that Miller actually had some rather nice things to say about George in his major book on his own life and times leading the MLB union. He preferred working with The Boss to most other owners. 

   http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Different-Ball-Game-Revolution/dp/1566635993/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428263211&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=marvin+milller

    See pgs 379-385. 

     He suggests that George was railroaded in 1990 not because Fay Vincent or the other owners cared that he had gone on a campaign to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield but because George was the one owner his other owners feared more than most as he was the one who really got the ball rolling with spending money freely on free agency back in the 70s. Miller, suggests that George was actually too trusting of his other owners and never suspected that-despite unfortunately going along with his fellow owners on collusion in the late 80s not seeing that this was actually aimed at the Yankees first and foremost-they feared him as the owner that could destroy their Socialist Paradise a salary cap, revenue sharing, and luxury taxes. 

   There is no bigger joke than the idea that revenue sharing is for competitive balance by the way. If you look at what allegedly small market teams like Selig's Brewers did after receiving more revenue sharing is that they actually contracted payroll spending markedly. 

   While Selig and his fellow owners finally accepted after 1995 that they'd never get their precious salary cap-as Miller's successor, Donald Fehr, was not as toothless as the NFL player's union-luxury taxes and revenue sharing are basically the same thing going through the back door. 

    That the teams receiving these goodies from the wealthier teams don't spend this on payroll shows that this is not about 'competitive balance' and never was. It's about capping out players' salaries. How does that help fans of small market teams for their teams to get this windfall if it isn't used to improve the team?

    UPDATE: Now this is more like it

    http://nypost.com/2013/12/09/steinbrenner-along-with-miller-belongs-in-hall/



    

    

The Yankee Dynasty and the George Steinbrenner Paradox

     Many argue that with the retirement of Derek Jeter, the Yankee dynasty is officially over. The dynasty was a truly amazing run that begun in 1993 and arguably was over by 2012, though even the last two years they won 85 and 84 games respectively. What is described as Yankee mediocrity is kind of different than what is considered mediocrity by other clubs like the permanently mediocre NY Mets. 

   "The Mets are seen as up and coming this year and when have they won as many as 84 games? 2008, the year before the last Yankee WS ring. The Mets haven't even had a winning season or even 80 wins during that period. Yet, they are the team on the upswing and the Yanks are the team in the doldrums. In 2008, the Mets blew their second big lead with a few games left to play in as many years. Another big choke."

   http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-age-of-new-york-yankees-medicority.html

   Still, you have to wonder if the Yanks are in danger now of becoming just another baseball team. 

    "An organization at a different sort of crossroads is the New York Yankees. With the retirement of Derek Jeter, the Yankees are finally closing the curtain on the last of the extraordinary group of homegrown players they developed in the 1990s (following Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera). It was this core, more than their obvious payroll advantages, that led to five World Series titles and two decades of contention. They sort of contended the past two seasons, winning 85 and 84 games, but there was a fair bit of luck involved – they were outscored both years."

   "GM Brian Cashman now presides over a $210 million payroll largely taken up with bad contracts, and his ownership seems committed to holding the line on payroll until some of these contracts can be discarded or expire. Heading into the offseason, many observers doubted the Yankees would stick to their guns, but they did, passing on the high-priced players they usually pursue, instead making comparatively lower-risk moves for Andrew Miller, Didi Gregorius and Chase Headley. Besides his budget constraints, Cashman is also being influenced by his own growing analytics department, which is pointing him toward undervalued players like Headley."

     "For Yankees fans under the age of 35 or so, this is new territory. Contending is not out of the question – the American League East is not what it once was – but Cashman shuffling pieces around hoping to win 88 games is not what we have been accustomed to watching. And if ownership remains committed to its payroll limit, next offseason will be more of the same – none of the big contracts expire until after 2016. For now, the Yankees are left hoping for some bounce-back from players like Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia."

     So what comes next? The Yankees’ farm system is improving, no mean feat considering how they never have high picks, and have often lost their first-round picks for signing free agents. Fans waiting for another “Core Five” will be disappointed – that group was a rare occurrence – but getting some lower-salaried production out of their system is what will allow them to go out to the market in a couple of years without breaking the bank. In the meantime, they are asking for time."

     http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-2015-season-preview-in-pursuing-pennants/

     It almost makes me buy into a particular piece of ideology I hear sometimes: The Yankees have lost the will to win. If George were here you'd never see this. 

     See, Steinbrenner, would never have permitted the Yankees to become just another baseball team. Now, the team acts like Nelson Doubleday, owner of the Mets, who cares about nothing but saving money and making a tidy profit. After all, with today's revenue sharing, the incentive to build a winner is actually less-you're guaranteed a certain amount of revenue. The last thing the player's union should allow is revenue sharing of ticket revenue, incidentally. If there much be revenue sharing it should be done with tv revenue-as this has little to do with players' salaries. 

    http://www.hardballtimes.com/predicting-major-league-baseball-salary-growth/

    Of course, all this Steinbrenner nostalgia is more than a little ironic if you remember history-and I actually do even as I'm tempted to feel nostalgia. As a Yankee fan, I always saw George as a pain in the ass. The good thing was that he would spend the money-whatever it took-to build a winner. He seemed to care about the Yankees winning as much as any fan. That's the part that I'm tempted to miss now. 

   Yet, when his son's basically retired him back in 2007, I tended to see this as a good and fine thing. After all, all the money would still be there but there'd be no George firing managers for losing minor league games to the Mets, accusing Lou Pinella of stealing office furniture and putting too much pressure on the players and manager. I for one, am not a big believer that you want to put undue pressure on a team to do well. I would probably agree that some players may need more pressure than others-some may need pressure, while others need to feel little if any-overall it's just absurd to put as much pressure as he did on the team. 

   When his boys finally canned him in 2007 it was after George had threatened that if the Yankees don't win their playoff series-that they ended up losing-then Joe Torre-who'd only won 4 world series, including 3 in a row between 1998 and 2000-and had taken the team to 2 other world series, and many more division titles, would be fired. 

   Of course, the team did win-the Yanks had a truly astonishing dynasty starting in the early 90s that went on for 20 years. So maybe George did know what he was doing? However, to make this leap forgets what actually happened. When he took over the team in the early 70s, he took this proud franchise that had become 'just another baseball team' after 1964. From then till 1973 when George came in, the team wasn't necessarily awful, but just wasn't that great. All I know, and as a fan all I care about, is that the Yanks became the Yanks again, winning 2 world series, 3 pennants, and 4 division titles between 1976 and 1981. 

   In 1978 they had what was unprecedented-a rally from 14 and 1/2 down to beat out the Red Sox and win a second straight championship-amazingly this in a season that Billy Martin was fired and Bob Lemon came in the middle of the season. That was the Yankees under George Steinbrenner. 

    In the 80s, things fell off. Again-by the standards of most teams the Yanks were far from bad; they won 90 plus games most seasons and contended, but after losing the 1981 WS to the Dodgers, they usually ended up being the bridesmaids rather than the brides. Steinbrenner was always willing to open his checkbook, but often he seemed to spend it in the wrong places. 

    Then true tragedy struck. The team actually had a losing season in 1989 and in 1990, they lost 95 games which were the most the team had lost since 1913. Most Yankee fans were like me-we blamed George. Saturday Night Live did a sketch where Yankee fans watched news reports hoping that he might die in some way. 

    On Seinfeld, George Constanza-another George-launched into a hagangue about how Steinbrenner has 'made our New York Yankees a laughing stock'-and somehow this got him a job with the Yankees. 

    Many felt that Fay Vincent had somehow gone beyond his authority in throwing Steinbrenner from the game for 2 years, but as a Yankee fan, I welcomed the decision-for whatever the reason; I mean who cared?! We had some peace and respite from the meddler. Then came those amazing prospects from the Yankee farm team; for those who make a big deal out of the Yankee financial advantage, remember the foundation of the dynasty was from the farm team while Steinbrenner was out. 

    Then when George came back he was still George, but he seemed somewhat changed. Before he had changed managers more than he changed socks but after he returned he was Captain Hook anymore with managers. True, he did fire Buck Showalter after 1995, which hardly seemed fair with all his success with the team the previous 3 years-though even 3 years was a long time for one manager with Steinbrenner. But somehow Joe Torre lasted 12 years. 

   The truth is, it's obviously preferable to have ownership with the most money it's not by itself any guarantee and we've seen countless flops of teams with money. Money isn''t the only factor-in football, the two richest owners have often been quite ineffective-Jerry Jones and Redskins owner Dan Snyder. 

    Still, I still worry. Does the current Yankee ownership realize-as George did-what it means to own this franchise and that you have extra responsibility in owning it? Let's hope so. 

      P.S, Though I loath his moral posturing on steroids, Bill Madden has a good looking book on Steinbrenner. 

    http://www.amazon.com/Steinbrenner-Last-Baseball-Bill-Madden-ebook/dp/B003GYEH1U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428076389&sr=1-1&keywords=george+steinbrenner

    UPDATE: In reading Madden, what's interesting is that it seems to show that lightning indeed struck twice when looking at Steinbrenner's record. When the Yanks really got good in the 70s, it was mostly during the time that he was preoccupied with an indictment for illegal campaign contributions to Nixon-he also made some to some leading Democrats so he just wanted to feel like he had 'influence.'

    So the Yanks became great both times when he was suspended from the game. So the winning formula seems to be Steinbrenner is a great owner-when he's suspended from the game for a year or two. 

    

   

    

Let's Make a Deal: US and Iran Reach Agreement

      It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This agreement is better than we could have imagined; this is a bad deal that makes lots of US concessions without getting anything in return. 

      No doubt, we're going to be hearing both of these arguments over the next few weeks, months-and years.. Opinions will differ as usual. What's clear is that the GOP isn't going to like the deal and Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu won't-in fact he has already claimd this deal is not 'reality based.'

      http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/04/02/netanyahu-deal-must-significantly-curb-iran-nuke-program

      You can see this deal as a redux of 2002; back then the hawks won and any kind of deal on Iraq short of regime change was ruled out by design. This time, the hawks lost. In early 2003, George W. Bush did what he had wanted to do from the start: attack Iraq. Netanyahu was with Bush then as he is with the GOP hawks in Congress today. So this time we try the road not travelled last time and see how this works out. 

    " Iran and the world powers said here Thursday that they had reached a surprisingly specific and comprehensive general understanding about the next steps in limiting Tehran’s nuclear program, though Western officials said many details needed to be resolved before a final agreement in June."

     "Both Germany’s foreign office and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said that the major parameters of a framework for a final accord had been reached, after eight days of intense debate between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif."

      "There was no mistaking the upbeat mood surrounding the announcement. “We have stopped a cycle that is not in the interest of anybody,” an exuberant Mr. Zarif said at a news conference after the announcement."

     "Speaking from the White House, President Obama made a strong case for the deal, saying that it “cuts off every pathway” for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and that it establishes the most intrusive inspections system in history. “If Iran cheats,” he said, “the world will know it.”

     http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks.html?_r=0

     Unlike what we did under Bush, this action today isn't unilateral. The GOP isn't happy and no doubt will try to please their good friend Netanyahu by undermining their own country's efforts in Congress. However, who else actually misses the Bush Doctrime-which basically was declaring war at every turn and eascalting every difference into a pretext for more war?

      It's been said that 'war is hell' but that's not what Republicans think. For them war is heavenly, and more war is even more heavenly. Yet, among most Americans, there doesn't seem to be this hunkering for the glory years of the Bush-Cheney wars-which is one reason Jeb Bush's numbers aren't more impressive. If Jeb is going to run on bringing back his big brother's wars, this will only exacerbate the problem that starts with his very name. 

      

Yes, A-Rod is Going Nowhere Anytime Soon: Deal With it

     In Bob McManaman we get the classic carping of the steroid scold. He's right up there with a Mike Lupica or a Bill Madden.

    "He's the dirty little secret Major League Baseball hoped would just go away. But how do you wish away a nightmare when the boogeyman is right under your bed? You don't because you can't."

    "Alex Rodriguez isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Baseball is stuck with him. So are the Yankees. And so are we."

     http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/03/31/mlb-alex-rodriguez-new-york-yankees-commissioner-steroids/70726904/

     Here we go again. Who exactly is this 'we' that feels 'stuck with A-Rod?' It's not me or most other Yankee fans who after watching our team fail to score even 700 runs for two years in a row can use the power anywhere we can get it. McManaman wants us to think that 'we our all stuck with A-Rod' when this is the obsession of only a couple of sanctimonious baseball writers who, alas, get to decide who's in Cooperstown-A-Rod should be a first ballot winner. He won't be, of course, anytime soon-one can only hope that in the future, we have less sanctimonious baseball writers. 

    I mean, how is it that we can all progress to the point where we don't accept the kind of gay bashing of Indiana GOP Governor Mike Pence anymore, but baseball writers never get any less Holier Than Thou? I mean you have phonies like Madden claiming that steroid use is a bigger affront to the game than even the Black Sox. Anyway, McManaman's picture of reality is no more reality based than a Neoclassical economists assumptions for his model. While maybe the economist will claim that it doesn't matter as the model is still of some use, McManaman's view of reality is simply useless. 

    "Ready or not, the aging slugger will officially make his uneasy and controversial return from a 162-game suspension on Monday when the Yankees open the 2015 season against the visiting Blue Jays. All eyes will be on A-Rod and we'd better learn to deal with it."

   "After all, this is going to be harder for baseball fans to stomach than it will be for Rodriguez, who is under contract for three more years and is still owed $61 million by the Yankees."

     "He may be a liar and a cheater and the most reviled athlete in sports, but we're talking about a megalomaniac who, when the spotlight is focused solely on him, can dance in a thunderstorm without getting wet."

     Again, no one is having any trouble 'stomaching' anything, nor is A-Rod reviled by actual fans, who self righteous baseball writers like this have absolutely no contact with. What was A-Rod's great crime where he missed 162 games? He used Human Growth Hormone-which I have no idea why using it is cheating. By the way, the whole process by which he was convicted by MLB is the part I have a hard time 'stomaching.'  A-Rod has never failed a drug test. The arbitrator who found him guilty-without any failed test-kind of had to find Rodriguez guilty-assuming he wanted to keep his job, as the previous arbitrator had found against baseball in a steroid case against a player and was then: removed from his post. If A-Rod's arbitrator would have exonerated him, then the arbitrator would have been relieved of his post and another would have come in to make the right  decision. 

   Earth to Mike Lupica nation: everyone is over throwing stones at A-Rod. The only question that matters is if he can play baseball and his spring has seemed to show that he can. Even Rob Manfred can let it go-but not the Bill Maddens and the McManamans of the world who set themselves up as Baseball's conscience. 

    "Whenever Yankee manager Joe Girardi is questioned about how the media storm constantly hovering over Alex Rodriguez has impacted his spring training—and this being the Yankees, that’s asked fairly often—he leans back and gives what can only be called a knowing smile."

    “I never thought it would be a distraction in the clubhouse,” Girardi said. “What I said is, yeah, we might have to answer a few questions the first few days but that’s going to go away. And it only becomes a story if he’s not productive. And he’s swung the bat pretty well, so I think people just thought that it would be 50 TV trucks there every day. It’s just not the way our world works, something else happens and they go somewhere else.”

     "That is exactly what has happened. With only a few days left in spring training, Rodriguez has settled comfortably back onto the Yankees. It would be an overstatement to say that it’s like he never left, but his mere presence is not the lightning rod that it was in the early days of spring. Rodriguez has said all the right things, he has made few, if any, missteps, and he has actually hit well—batting .324 with three home runs as he prepares to be the team’s designated hitter and a backup corner infielder."

   http://www.wsj.com/articles/n-y-yankees-alex-rodriguez-is-a-distraction-no-more-1427762071

    I don't want McManman to have to read this-it'd be too painful:

    "He has always stuck to the “mistakes were made” defense, never quite explaining what mistakes they were, exactly. But that hasn't seemed to bother fans, who have cheered him at every home game, or even the media, which has for the most part stuck to assessing his baseball readiness after the initial days of spring training. Even Rodriguez’s near-daily media scrums have a less confrontational tone than in past years, with the player going to great lengths to be self-effacing, trying to crack jokes—sometimes, even successfully."

     "Even his onetime nemesis, commissioner Rob Manfred, is lauding his performance, as he did while on his spring tour through Florida last week, when he met with Yankee beat writers."

     The fans, aren't having any problems and are actually cheering for him. Even Rob Manfred wishes him well. What exactly is left to see here?

     P.S. Again, as I always say, it's amazing that I'm rotting so hard for Rodriguez to do well this year as I'm the ultimate fan of laundry rather than the player. If you where my team's uniform and help it win, I love you, but if you ever leave-whether or not you have a good reason-you're basically dead to me. It's all about the pinstripes. Yet, while I care most about how the Yankees do this year-expectations are low so at least it won't be so hard to exceed them; providing we have any kind of health in the pitching staff and can find a little depth there we have a shot-I admit, I'd love to see them win with A-Rod contributing significantly to it. 

     I just feel that the way the Lupicas of the world have treated him is beyond unfair-it's down right cruel. It makes me think of little boys who rip the arms off of crabs or something-just for the pure sadism of it. Let's hope this spring is a harbinger of things to come. 

     P.S. When you see paragraphs like this from McManaman what can this be but sadism?

     "Even now, after serving the longest suspension ever for a player caught using performance-enhancing drugs, Rodriguez sounds anything but contrite and humbled by his once-again stained reputation."

     What exactly would please McManaman: blood? He's served 162 games-what more do the steroid scolds need? I mean, this is just classic what Bill James calls the Martha Stewart syndrome: the regulators failed to get the real corrupt actors on Wall Street but they did nail Stewart for something totally trivial. I honestly think that for the steroid scolds-even though HGHt is not a steroid and doesn't even enhance performance just enables you to recover faster from injuries-they find A-Rod more reprehensible than a child molester or rapist or something. I mean they honestly believe he's the worst human being in the world. It's just preposterous they way they evaluate right and wrong. Just no sense of proportion. 

    I imagine that these scolds are just writhing in their own self-righteousness; it must hurt to be this self righteous. I mean, listen to this!

   "Upon issuing a handwritten apology to fans in which he actually apologized only once, Rodriguez shook off his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal as cool as the schoolyard bully who walks out of the principal's office having been given only a warning."

     The only bully around is McManaman and his kindred spirit Lupica. I mean I feel that to have to listen to this is a kind of violation for the rest of us. It's almost as bad as Clinton bashing-not quite on that level but in the ball park.. With Hillary there was this sudden obsession with her emails-What?! Did you say she has a server?! 

     Meanwhile, of course, no one finds it at all notable that Jeb Bush also had a server when he was Governor of Florida. It's the same kind of rationally ignorant reasoning in both cases. Certainly, there are victims but it's us having to listen to them-those with the Derangement Syndrome whether it's Hillary or A-Rod. 

    One tell-tale sign of BDS is that people suffering from it never feel their object of hate is contrite enough, has been humbled enough, is really sorry enough. .This demand for ever more obsequious public apologies is a kind of rabid sadism. So the bully is McManaman and his friends. 

    Ok, I had meant to be finished-which is why I used the P.S., but man this guy is just driving me crazy, he's so absurd.I got to stop-if I have more to say about him, I should at least get another post out of it! 

How Market Monetarist is Ben Bernanke?

      I'm happy to see that the former Fed Chairman has his own blog. If even Bernanke has a blog, how much can others in the 'serious economic profession' continue to look down their noses at blogs? Ironically, even many of the economists that criticize the blog as being a degraded medium of economic debate blog themselves-a la Stephen Williamson.

      In all seriousness, I appreciate Dr. Bernanke's engagement and it only cements his legacy as a pioneer in Fed transparency. Yes, he's no longer at the Fed but he affords us the opportunity to see how thinking and debate in the Fed proceeds. 

     Of course, Sumner right away describes him as a lapsed Market Monetarist. 

     "Ben Bernanke has started a new blog.  That’s obviously good news.  At the same time I can’t help wondering what Bernanke would have blogged about in 2009, had he not been at the Fed.  In posts here and here I discuss a 1999 paper that is highly critical of the BOJ monetary policy, and pretty close to 100% market monetarist in its analysis."

     http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29120#comments

      In Bernanke's second post-which was about the question of secular stagnation-he talks about Lawrence Summers' advocacy for ongoing fiscal investment to combat secular stagnation. 

      "Larry’s proposed solution to this dilemma is to turn to fiscal policy—specifically, to rely on public infrastructure spending to achieve full employment. I agree that increased infrastructure spending would be a good thing in today’s economy. But if we are really in a regime of persistent stagnation, more fiscal spending might not be an entirely satisfactory long-term response either, because the government’s debt is already very large by historical standards and because public investment too will eventually exhibit diminishing returns."

       Does this square with the Sumner Market Monetarist position of monetary offset? Not exactly-though there is enough here for Sumner to claim Bernanke agrees with him. Bernanke seems to be saying something decidedly un-MM in agreeing that we need more fiscal spending now, however, he also questions whether it would be the answer in the long term. However, if interest rates remain low-which is the problem his post addresses-wouldn't that be the ideal time for more government debt with such low interest rates?

      Bernanke certainly doesn't sound MM here:

      "The Fed cannot reduce market (nominal) interest rates below zero, and consequently—assuming it maintains its current 2 percent target for inflation—cannot reduce real interest rates (the market interest rate less inflation) below minus 2 percent. (I’ll ignore here the possibility that monetary tools like quantitative easing or slightly negative official interest rates might allow the Fed to get the real rate a bit below minus 2 percent.) Suppose that, because of secular stagnation, the economy’s equilibrium real interest rate is below minus 2 percent and likely to stay there. Then the Fed alone cannot achieve full employment unless it either (1) raises its inflation target, thereby giving itself room to drive the real interest rate further into negative territory by setting market rates at zero; or (2) accepts the recurrence of financial bubbles as a means of increasing consumer and business spending. It’s in this sense that the three economic goals with which I began—full employment, low inflation, and financial stability—are difficult to achieve simultaneously in an economy afflicted by secular stagnation."

       Interestingly, Bernanke rejects the secular stagnation theory which seems to be accepted widely both among liberals and conservatives-he discusses Summers in his post, but Tyler Cowen is one of the biggest proponents of SS-it's not only Keynesians who claim it, indeed Sumner himself has bought into it. It's nice to see that someone doesn't buy into the pessimism-and who better than a great former Fed Chairman.

      "Does the U.S. economy face secular stagnation? I am skeptical, and the sources of my skepticism go beyond the fact that the U.S. economy looks to be well on the way to full employment today."

      Well, that depends what level you think is FE. One question I wonder if he'll address in future is that as inflation is beneath target wouldn't this mean that there is no reason to tighten money just yet?

      As to the other sources of his skepticism he lists the fact that negative 2 percent interest rates in the long term would surely give us the level of investments for business to get out of SS and he takes issue with Summers' claim that we have never seen FE in the past few decades without a bubble. 

     "Second, I generally agree with the recent critique of secular stagnation by Jim Hamilton, Ethan Harris, Jan Hatzius, and Kenneth West. In particular, they take issue with Larry’s claim that we have never seen full employment during the past several decades without the presence of a financial bubble. They note that the bubble in tech stocks came very late in the boom of the 1990s, and they provide estimates to show that the positive effects of the housing bubble of the 2000’s on consumer demand were largely offset by other special factors, including the negative effects of the sharp increase in world oil prices and the drain on demand created by a trade deficit equal to 6 percent of US output. They argue that recent slow growth is likely due less to secular stagnation than to temporary “headwinds” that are already in the process of dissipating. During my time as Fed chairman I frequently cited the economic headwinds arising from the aftermath of the financial crisis on credit conditions; the slow recovery of housing; and restrictive fiscal policies at both the federal and the state and local levels (for example, see my August and November 2012 speeches."

     I have mixed feelings about this paragraph. I don't know about the idea that a 6 percent trade deficit-or any trade deficit-is a headwind

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/02/are-trade-deficits-good-or-bad-thing.html

     Still I agree with all the headwinds he cited -there is something very MM: he disagrees with Sumner who claims that fiscal austerity has been no problem thanks to QE. Bernanke doesn't seem to agree with anything like full monetary offset or that the austerity didn't hurt thanks to QE. 

    As for secular stagnation-I don't know for sure-but obviously, it'd be nice to have reason to believe it isn't happening. It seems to me that you can explain our problems by looking at the items that Bernanke cites rather than some mystical thing called secular stagnation. It's true enough that Alvin Hansen was quite wrong; logically SS could be wrong again.