Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, December 2, 2024
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37 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Will the last honest politician in the Philippines please turn out the lights. From Bloomberg–
They could slow reforms? The Filipino people have been waiting for reforms since the Marcos days. At least. 50 years of waiting…..
–
Unforgiven
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/janey-godley-forgave-everyone-had-153041908.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB2oi-uSBL-ayn78shPlqfAGRUmo9c2U6_A-5EoqqPow7-KfrcLBMgMicuy1eQ4Bn7md9MTaSV-UHq5r0WrjYTjLk0q9WYKv4msZQ2EKh_GvmDl-IlkfYvWj3jDFGDClUN1Gc4gIvLZYrINRMKbg8LLShcp0eXdSfbfoFmDckenz
Not by a country (?!?) mile.
https://x.com/feebee_69/status/1862810254494372072
Any idea how long Joe Burrow’s contract has yet to run, and whether he can go free agent or request to be traded? The Bengals just aren’t working out for him. he’s in a worse position than Marino and Elway were, carrying the whole team on their own.
Come, how often does your team score 38 effing points against a pretty good defense, and you lose the game?
@Kathy:
Burrow’s $275M contract runs through 2029. At the time he signed the extension, it made him the highest-paid player in the league. No one is going to trade for him unless the Bengals continue to pay a good chunk of his salary. (See Russell Wilson, earning $39M this year to play for the Steelers, all but $1.2M of that paid by the Broncos and counting against the Bronco’s salary cap.)
@Michael Cain:
Too bad.
The Steelers really scored a huge bargain. I wonder what he’ll ask for next season…
@Kathy: @Michael Cain: Does anybody see how ludicrous it is to be paying sports stars tens of millions in wages while saying that the nation can’t afford to pay fast food workers, retail workers, farm hands, and the like a living wage?
@Kathy:
Well, if anyone signs him, they’ll have to pay the full salary. The Broncos are off that particular hook next year.
Well, Pete Hesgeth just keeps looking better and better.
TL;DR: “forced out of two leadership roles at veteran-focused non-profits amid allegations of financial mismanagement, drunkenness and sexist behavior.”
We’re living in Bizarro World.
@just nutha:
Of course it is ludicrous. But millions of people don’t pay to root for farm workers, etc.
If the public would stop watching sports stars on TV and stop buying the products advertised during these events (beer and penis props) the owners of the sports teams would not have the money to pay these athletes.
@just nutha:
Don’t you know that advocating for fair wages and a rational distribution of wealth and resources is SOCIALIASM!1!!!
@Mister Bluster:
Precisely. But we–and other countries as well–worship athletes.
Trump has appointed a Florida sheriff, Chad Chronister, to head the DEA.
The MAGAs hate him because he apparently supports DEI and LGBTQ and arrests Christian pastors.
@just nutha:
Imagine how much they would be paid if the owners weren’t openly colluding to suppress wages through the salary cap!
Professional football brings in an obscene amount of money each year. No one is less deserving of that obscene amount of money than the owners.
@CSK:..worship athletes.
Here is the focus of my most recent athlete worship.
Watch as she jumps into my heart!
She’s from the UK. Thank you John SF.
@just nutha:
While I generally agree with you, no one is paying $250-500 for a couple of hours of watching a fast food worker or check out staffer work.
@just nutha:
While I generally agree with you, no one is paying $250-500 for a couple of hours of watching a fast food worker or check out staffer work.
@CSK:
How’d he slip through?
@just nutha:
@Gustopher:
The issue, as I see it, is not so much that pro athletes are overpaid, but that service and other workers are woefully underpaid.
As to owners, what I can’t stand is that cities go into debt in order to get local taxpayers to cover the costs of new stadiums and tax breaks, to keep or to lure a pro team. Not to mention they also shoulder the costs of building or upgrading urban infrastructure to support the new stadiums.
It’s totally backward. team owners should pay for their shiny new buildings themselves, and then should cover part of the costs for new or upgraded infrastructure their new sports arenas need.
Biden displays AIDS Memorial Quilt at White House to observe World AIDS Day (AP)
3 Americans detained in China are released in prisoner swap and are back in U.S. (NBC News)
Biden is still presidenting quite well. Hoping he issues an executive order canceling most outstanding student debt.
@Kathy: Yes, I know that. I’m not opposed to the socialism, I object to the kleptocrats it attracts. Now that capitalist democracies attract kleptocrats, too, there’s no virtue in endorsing capitalism.
And if the US is the hallmark, democracy isn’t the least worse of the systems, either. It’s only equally bad. At best.
@CSK: @CSK: This, among other things, is why the nation deserves Trump. We’ve lost track of what’s valuable and important in our search for ever more elaborate circuses to numb our senses to how self-centered and vacuous we are.
@Gustopher: Exactly! Confiscatory taxation, now!
@Sleeping Dog:
Beats me. The MAGA ire against him seems mostly inspired by the fact that his office busted a pastor for violating the Covid lockdown regulations.
@Sleeping Dog: People who can afford entertainment of any sort that costs that much have too much surplus income. Confiscatory taxation, now!
@Mister Bluster:
Heavens, don’t thank me. 🙂
I feel exhausted (and rather envious) just watching that.
Actually, she reminds me a bit of someone I knew 20 or so years ago, only Cara’s thing was martial arts. Also, shorter, and dark hair. But the same joy in athleticism, and obvious sense of sheer fun about it.
@Kathy: Voters overwhelmingly value having a sports team in their city. It’s very, very dumb, but I don’t get worked up about it anymore, because it really is democracy working.
That said, I think we should have guarantees from the owners about the quality of those teams, and claw back funding and subsidies from losing teams. No one wants to fund losers.
Also, I want to see a city council closing a budget gap by kneecapping a star player.
@just nutha: Please forgive me for being glib, but it’s because it’s show bidness man. They get mega-millions for the same reason Taylor Swift or Tom Cruise do.
It seems Californians who moved to Texas for tech jobs, may be heading home.
Austin – the wannabe new Silicon Vally – saw home prices rise by 0.0% YoY.
San Francisco – the lawless dystopian hellhole – saw prices rise by 8%.
Palo Alto – the center of the Valley – had home prices go up by 20.5%
How long does an Austin home stay on the market? 78 days. 19 in San Fran and 11 in Palo Alto.
It appears that expat Californians would rather pay a top state income tax rate of 13%, and home prices between 3 and 7 times as high as Austin, just to GTFO of Texas. That’s how much they must hate heat, humidity, bugs, tech bros and their MAGA prick governor.
I could have told them.
BTW, Los Angeles – reputed to be overrun by homeless drug addicts, and saddled with a dying Hollywood – went up by 4%.
@Gustopher:
Vegas is making no real effort to get the A’s. The betting now is that the stadium will never get built, and I don’t get the sense anyone much cares. But then we have Tournament of Kings. They’re doing their special holiday show, Twas the Knight. And you get to eat roast chicken with your hands. We don’t need no stinkin’ baseball.
@JohnSF:..I feel exhausted (and rather envious) just watching that.
She wears me out too! Some of her stunts appear to defy the laws of physics!
I just discovered her on FB a few weeks ago. I watched for a day or two when it hit me that both her feet had to be off the ground at the same time for the rope to go under her. DOH!
Then I was mesmerized by her moves!
There is a video where she visits the shop in Washington State, USA where the ropes that she sells are made. I have no idea how her enterprise is structured. I just hope that Chump doesn’t put a tariff on her products.
@Michael J Reynolds:
Sounds like Medieval Times in Orlando in the 90s.
It was pretty ok. each guest got served one whole roasted cornish game hen (Do not look it up. What we humans do for food is cruel and disgusting).
Just an aside on the medieval stuff, Masterpiece’s “Wolf Hall” ranks with the best they’ve ever done. Highly recommend it. Rylance’s performance is sublime.
@Michael J Reynolds: People pay money for this? Granted, I went to the Ellensburg HS Madrigal Feast one year, but my stepdaughter was in choir and it was a fund raiser for the high school. What’s the rationale here?
@Kathy: @Michael Cain:
Burrow and Wilson are much different cases. Denver is on the hook for the guarantees in his contract because they released him, and player contracts include standard offset language. That offset is based on the salary paid by his new team. No team, nor Wilson himself, had an incentive to sign a lucrative contract. It does not make sense financially for the team. It also doesn’t make sense for either party wrt team building and cap management. The less you pay Wilson, the better.
From a value perspective, they are also not comparable. Wilson is 36 years old and coming off two awful years, though year with Payton wasn’t as bad as his first year in Denver. He has been very much dependent on his mobility outside the pocket for most of his career.
OTOH, Burrow is 27, just entering his prime. He is primarily a pocket passer, so his game should age well. And from a team/teammate perspective, he is a better leader and locker room presence. Wilson has been actively disliked by many of his teammates, and from what I understand, the Seahawks (and Payton) were tired of his attitude and demands. Burrow is the opposite.
Because he has 10+ years of value as a player, other teams would likely be willing to give up significant compensation to acquire Burrow via trade. But the cap is another issue.
Spotrac has the earliest potential out for the Bengals as after the 2027 season. The dead cap hit would be $15m. But I think they could get away with releasing or trading him before that as long as they designate the transaction as post-June 1.
For example, if they traded him on June 2, 2026, the Bengals would actually save $~6m against the cap that year, and only have to carry about $27m against the 2027 cap.
My God.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-suggests-canada-become-51st-state-after-trudeau-said-tariff-would-kill-economy-sources
Oh, no. Poor Great Cisgender Mars God of Xlon and Phobos will have to make do with only the couple of hundred billions he already has.