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Showing posts from September, 2018

500-year-view and a never ending battle

The names have changed, but over the last 500 years there has been a constant political battle.   It has taken many forms, often depending on the wealth and resources of the country. It is a simply battle, those with power/wealth against the people who work for those people. In today’s CNN/Fox News style, the miserable and the outrageous get all the attention. Things that are good are dismissed because they are not good enough. Things that are bad are made to be the end of the world. We expect change quickly, but what if a culture takes several generations just to ingrain basic change. Look at the big picture and you will see a very constant and very slow increase in the quality of life for almost all people, across the world. The workers have constantly pushed for changes and (over time) gained much. 500 years ago slavery and indentured servitude very commonplace. There were no laws protecting workers, children, civil rights, or the environment. Extreme poverty has decreased

NFL Salary Cap

Here is a useless post that I felt like sharing...The NFL has a salary cap that each team can spend in a given year.  Some teams spend every cent, while others have extra space to sign future players or just save money. According to spotrac.com, the Browns and the Colts have over $50million in un-used cap space for this year. With so much room, they are missing on a unique opportunity to retain players in the long-team (and not hurt their cap flexability).  Basically, instead of signing a player for $40million over 4 years, at $10million/year (random example), they could sign the same player, but pay him all of his money this year. For the rest of his contract (after year 1), his cap hit would be almost nothing, opening up more space to sign other quality players. Of course, there is some financial risk, but very little risk on the field. Having un-used cap space is just inefficient.

Judges are people

I am listening to Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh speaking before Congress as he is vetted for a position on the US Supreme Court. Like previous nominees, he just said "My personal belief will not impact my decisions".  This very concept does not make any sense. If you're personal believes don't impact anything, than why are you more qualified than anyone else. If all judges say that, why do they differ on their actual judgements. It is a complete cop-out to say that personal opinions are not relevant when they are clearly extremely important.