Bow Before Me

The date was July 14, 2005. I posted a blog entry on my now-defunct, “Talking Hawks” site, a fan site for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. I was saying goodbye to the team, the league and the sport, a decision borne of pure rage from the signing of the new collective bargaining agreement and the implementation of the shoot-out to break ties.

The CBA instituted a salary cap tied to team revenues, a provision that, I warned, would bring the league to an end within 20 years. One of the ways this would begin to manifest itself, I foretold, was that the lowering of player salaries would mean teams in Europe would now be able to bid competitively for top-name talent:

“First, the salary cap. As if putting a limit on a player’s earnings wasn’t bad enough, the players have foolishly agreed to tie their collective earnings to the owners’ revenue. This will cause a never-ending downward spiral, causing player salaries be cut in half by the start of next season, and making it more lucrative for top-name talent to play in Europe. Permanently. The NHL has just guaranteed itself the position of no-longer-the-premier-hockey-league in the world.”

Almost three years ago to the day.

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This morning, Russian team Avangard Omsk issued a press release. TSN, the premiere sports TV/web site in Canada, reported it as follows:

It appears Jaromir Jagr’s days in the National Hockey League are over.

The Russian hockey team Avangard Omsk announced it has signed the former New York Rangers star and Jagr’s agent, Pat Brisson, confirmed the move Friday afternoon.

“Jaromir signed a letter of intent with the Avangard Omsk Hockey team of the Russian CHL on or about 3am EST this morning. I won’t comment on the terms of the agreement at this time.It was a very difficult but personal decision to make in light of the many NHL teams interested in his services. He is grateful to the NHL and especially the Rangers in recent years.”

Local and international media are reporting that Jagr will be paid $35 million for two years. There is also reportedly an option for a third season.

For those of you who don’t know, Jaromir Jagr is arguably one of the top five NHL players in the post-expansion era. He is 36 years old, has 18 years in the league, amassing 646 goals and 1599 points. Last year he had 25 goals and 71 points as a member of the New York Rangers, proving he is still in his prime.

I am going to gloat, and I am going to gloat loudly! These idiots were wrong, they have taken the lid off of Pandora’s box, and the only thing that can save the league from complete collapse is rescinding the salary cap provision.

What will happen next? Simple. Avangard Omsk will see ticket sales skyrocket to levels never seen before in the Russian league. They will win the league championship. Other teams will need to become more competitive, and will (if they are not already doing so) start going after other NHL talent. More buyers going after scarce resources will drive up prices, and with salaries necessarily limited for NHL teams, before long there will be no way for them to compete against the big-dollar offers coming in from Europe.

Talent in the NHL will get diluted, games will become less entertaining, fans will lose interest, and ticket revenue will decline. That means lower revenues for owners, resulting in a decrease in salary cap levels, further limiting teams’ abilities to bargain for top-name talent competitively. Decreasing salary cap levels also means lower player salaries, meaning European teams can procure top-name talent even cheaper. That means more bidders chasing the scarce resources, driving up prices (salaries), and the cycle continues.

Or should I say, the downward spiral.

I want Gary Bettman, Bob Goodenow, that cocky arrogant jerk-stain Bill Daly, and EVERY NHL player who voted in favor of that collective bargaining agreement to bow before me, kiss my ring, and beg forgiveness.

And if they want my assistance in reviving the league once it’s gone completely in the crapper, I will be happy to help. All I will ask in return is a modest consulting fee (think the big-B, boys — BUH-illion) and ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I can only hope somebody comes to their senses and fixes this situation before we get to that point.

One For The Good Guys

We are headed, once again, for our dose of presidential election abuse: six months under the barrage of my-party-can-beat-up-your-party media hysterics, assisted by frothy-mouthed reporters screaming “Fire!” in crowded election booths, culminating in an election that is decided by voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. It’s faint wonder why voter turnout regularly registers below 40% of registered voters.

Look at that sentence again. Voter turnout for the most important election in the country only manages to coax 40% of the people who have already gone through the trouble of registering out of the house to cast a ballot. What’s to blame? A quick glance at the red and blue state-by-state map on every channel every minute of election day will tell you: the Electoral College.

As you would expect, states where there are lots of brain power in the workplace tend to vote Democrat. States with lots of laborers, farmers, and religious zealots tend to vote Republican. The way this shakes out in the final analysis is that each party winds up with about 225 electoral college votes no matter whether they nominate Jesus or Voldemort. That leaves three or four “Swing states” that could go either way on election day, and these states’ electoral college votes determine the outcome of the election. It’s winner-take-all, state by state, and because of this votes in most states don’t mean a thing.

By the 2012 election, that will be but an unpleasant memory.

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Abolishing the electoral college at a federal level would require a Constitutional Amendment. Very costly, very time-consuming, and fraught with obstacles that would ensure its defeat. But leave it to the lawyers to find a loophole. Every state, according to the Constitution, can decide the way that its electoral college votes are allocated. So if they want to flip a coin on election day, have one of the candidates call ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ and allocate their electoral college votes accordingly, all they need to do is enact a state law stating as such.

Boy, wouldn’t that be the bees knees for the TV news losers, eh? They could sell exclusive TV rights to Rupert Murdoch for enough dough to re-pave every road in Christendom. Anyhow, I digress…

The loophole. A state can pass legislation such that their electoral college votes will be allocated to the winner of the national popular vote. The law would go into effect when states whose accumulated electoral college votes total 270 or more pass similar legislation. When that happens, those states’ pact would erase the effect of the electoral college and ensure that the winner of the national popular vote becomes the next President of the United States.

Pipe dream, right? Wrong. Done deal. It’s called NPV, and it’s going to be the biggest change to the American political landscape since the Constitution itself.

Four states — Hawaii (snore), Maryland (who cares), New Jersey (now you’re talking), and Illinois (ZOINKS!) — have enacted this legislation. As in, passed both houses, Governor has signed it, and it goes into effect when the magic number is reached. That’s 50 electoral college votes between them. But what about the rest of them? Surely this movement can’t be for real.

National Popular Vote legislation has been, or is about to be introduced in every state in the U.S. A dozen states have bills that have passed one or both houses in the state legislature. Many more are in or through committee. This is no small potatoes, people. This is going to change the face of the presidential election forever.

What does this mean? It means that all of a sudden the rancher in rural Montana, the laid-off mill worker in Maine, the oil rig worker in Alaska, the part-time surf instructor in Hawaii, the nurse in Mississippi, the stay-at-home mom in Nebraska, and every other living, breathing American citizen can *actually* influence the outcome of the presidential election. Votes in Ohio and Florida don’t mean any more than votes in North Dakota and Vermont. Subsequently, one of the biggest excuses of non-voters will be swept away. We should see a substantial increase in voter turnout.

Furthermore, you will see a dramatic switch in the way campaigns are run. In one fell swoop, the candidates will have to pay attention to the needs of every American, not just pandering to the loci of special interests in the rust belt and Northern Cuba. Err, Southern Ontario. Umm, I mean Florida.

It also makes it infinitely more difficult to influence the outcome of the election by fraudulent means. With the electoral college system, both the Democrats and Republicans were dispatching their operatives to key districts in select states, trying to make sure that a given group of people got to the polls (or couldn’t get to the polls, depending on which side you’re talking about). When NPV becomes law, that type of manipulation (I call it “treason,” which I think is a more accurate depiction of the truth) will be pointless. It won’t matter if 2000 African-Americans in Miami get stuck outside when the polls close. The possibility that the results will be close enough to have that number affect the outcome is infinitesimally small. Traitors trying to rig the election will have to do so on a national scale, greatly increasing the chances of getting caught, and reducing the likelihood that they will succeed. We should see reports of voter fraud nearly disappear.

In my home state of Illinois, for instance, we have an unusual phenomenon thanks to The Machine introduced by Mayor Daly back in the 60’s. Every county in the state, with about 6 exceptions, votes Republican. One of those 6 exceptions that votes Democrat is Cook County, where The Machine has delivered the goods for nearly a half-century. Because Cook County votes Democrat, the whole state votes Democrat, and the electoral college votes are allocated accordingly. That may change with an Illinois’ native on the ballot, but you see what I mean.

Because of this, and because both sides know that there is no way The Machine can be circumvented, nobody campaigns here. Nobody runs ads here. Nobody pays attention to the state with the third-largest city in the country during a presidential election. Go figure.

That will all be swept away when NPV kicks in. Illinois will change from foregone conclusion to one of the hot spots of political activity overnight. With The Machine taken out of the equation, there are over ten million people in this state that could play a major part in determining the outcome of the election on a national level. We will be the lynchpin in each campaign’s Midwest strategy, and we will see more political activity here than has been seen since WWII.

Other states that can expect a huge change in the weather: Texas, host to three of the top ten metro regions in the country, will no longer be a waste of time for Democrats; New York and Massachusetts; the collar states around D.C.; and basically any state with a city large enough to fly to non-stop from Dulles will see candidates darkening their doorsteps a lot more frequently.

This is what democracy is supposed to be. One vote equals one vote, all men (and women) are created equal. It’s been a long time coming, and somebody finally figured out how to make it happen. Organizers of the movement are predicting that the threshold will be reached long before the 2012 election, so this is for real, and it’s on the horizon.

You can keep track of the progress of the NPV movement at the link below, and watch as history is made. This will be a victory for the good guys, and hopefully the first of many steps towards elections that can once again be held up to the world as models of fairness and transparency.

 

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Vermin’s Market

Today the U.S. Senate passed, by a remarkable 84 - 12 margin, a “Foreclosure Relief Bill” sure to be enshrined as one of the dumbest pieces of legislation to be passed by this legislative body. They may has well have nicknamed it the “Kick Them While They’re Down Bill”. If signed into law, it will actually worsen the mortgage crisis currently plaguing the nation, and sink the economy deeper into recession.

The primary measure of idiocy contained in this legislation is a provision that gives a $7000 tax credit to anyone purchasing a foreclosed home. If you gave me a year to figure out the absolute worst possible means of government intervention for the mortgage crisis, I could never have come up with something so sinister and downright offensive. This is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of the modern era.

Three principles at work here. First, it will embolden any fence-sitting bottom-feeders eager to try their hand at the late-night-infomercial “Make Millions In Real Estate Buying Foreclosed Properties!” scam, as if there weren’t enough of them already. Second, it will remove any incentive for banks to negotiate settlements with existing homeowners to prevent foreclosure if that homeowner has equity. And finally, it will further depress the already abysmal housing market, erasing any market equity built since the 1970’s.

Create a new tax incentive, and hundreds of thousands of tax scofflaws will find ways to exploit it. In this instance, it will be the fly-by-night slumlord vermin swooping in to grab up foreclosed properties in depressed neighborhoods, only to rent those same properties back to the original owners for rates higher than their mortgage payment was to begin with! A tax incentive of this nature will have hundreds of these ambulance-chasing losers lining up outside the assessor’s office every Monday morning, looking for the latest round of victims whose lives they can ruin. It’s bad enough we have these vermin at all; giving them an additional tax incentive will multiply their numbers exponentially, like giving a pack of rats a bottomless dumpster to eat from.

And with thousands of these new parasites barking at the heels of each default, the banks will be more confident to proceed with foreclosure on any homeowner with equity. Banks will want to make accommodations for homeowners that are upside-down. The bottom-feeders don’t want those properties, they require too much down and the loan makes profitably renting the property unfeasible. Therefore if the bank forecloses it will be years before they can sell the property without losing their shirts. But a homeowner with $100K in equity on what was a $300K home that’s lost $75K of its value, that’s a foreclosure vermin’s dream come true. As it presently stands, with a depressed market and the vermin largely on the sidelines due to tightened credit, the banks have incentive to make arrangements with the current owner that would keep them in the home. But if this bill passes, the bank will know that there will be a hundred buyers ready to snap that property up the minute it becomes available. That means they won’t hesitate to foreclose, and the property owner with $100K in equity will watch that go up in smoke — all because the U.S. Congress decided it wanted to reward the vermin.

Finally, the primary home sale market will switch from the open real estate market to the filing cabinets of the banks and assessors’ offices. Why buy on the open market when you can get a similar home through a foreclosure for the remainder on the loan plus back taxes? Anyone entering the market when fully 25% of the houses in existence are being foreclosed would be foolish to enlist the help of a real estate agent. Wander into your local bank and do some research: it will amount to a half-price sale on most of the neighborhoods everyone wants to buy in, and even better deals on the markets that are less coveted. All of a sudden it’s gone from a buyer’s market to a vermin’s market. Nobody will be able to sell through traditional channels, prices will plummet, thousands more homes will go into foreclosure, and millions more lives will be ruined.

As you see, this legislation is the dumbest idea since the war in Iraq. It will guarantee a more lengthy recession, and depending on the extent to which the employment numbers are affected, I may even go so far as to use the “D-word.” Fortunately the House is drafting more reasonable legislation with this provision removed as well as adding other more consumer-friendly changes, and hopefully that version will emerge victorious from the Joint Committee. We can only hope that somebody with two brain cells to rub together has the sense to see the end result of this bill. But if not, it will be the first time in Bush’s presidency that I will actually be in support of a veto.