"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."


Sunday, November 21, 2010

A Lease, Nothing More

So that the victors of election night do not commit the folly of misinterpreting their election to be something much more than it really is, it is best to keep in mind that an election is a lease, not a mortgage.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Performance vs. Value

Following either the '02 or '03 MLB season there was a significant debate over whether Alex Rodriguez, then of the Texas Rangers, was the appropriate choice for MVP. His (steroid-inflated) statistics were astounding: forty to fifty home runs, well over one-hundred RBIs, and a healthy .300+ batting average. Offensively he was without a doubt the American League's most proficient player and a Gold Glove shortstop to boot.

These august numbers were nevertheless insufficient to elevate the Texas Rangers out of the AL West cellar in any season of A-Rod's tenure there. Those opposed to designating Rodriguez as AL MVP simply pointed to the name of the award – Most Valuable Player – and argued that the Rangers could have finished in last place with or without his massive production. A value-based award by its very name ought to go to a player whose team succeeded and could not have done so without that player's contributions. Not to a player whose production was rendered superfluous by his team's failure in the standings.

If I remember correctly, A-Rod's gaudy statistics won the day and he was honored at least once in Texas with the MVP award.

The impending announcement of the 2010 Cy Young winner has introduced a very similar argument. C.C. Sabathia of the New York Yankees won the most games in the American League this past season but was surpassed in every other major statistical category by Felix Hernandez, whose win total was held at thirteen by an historically porous offense that failed to score more than one run in over ten of his starts.

There are those who, as before, make a value-based argument. Sabathia won the most games for a team that made it all the way to the ALCS, this contention goes, and therefore his performance was much more meaningful and valuable to his team than Felix's performance. As opposed to winning more games in the pressure of a pennant race, Felix was simply pitching out the schedule for the second-worst team in baseball.

The rebuttal to this, which I subscribe to, is that the award at issue is not "Most Valuable Pitcher," it is the Cy Young award for the best pitcher in the American League. The honor is entirely performance-based and Felix out-performed Sabathia in every category except wins, the statistic most out of a starting pitcher's direct control. Sabathia did not win more games because he out-pitched Felix, he won more games because the offensive support he received was exponentially better. To designate C.C. Sabathia as the AL's Cy Young would be to give the award not to the player who pitched the best but to the player who pitched for the team with the best offense.

The best pitcher in the American League was Felix Hernandez.

Felix Hernandez is the American League Cy Young.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Regulation's Additional Cost

Undoubtedly it is the case, yet scarcely remarked upon -- except by Adam Smith-- that the more plentiful state regulations are -- and the more invasive they are -- the more incentive there exists for affected parties to find any and all means available to shirk the burdens of those sanctions.

Herein is an additional cost upon the public. Not only are its resources being directly taxed by the arm of the state and its extended reach, but its actual treasury is being drained by the additional costs of enforcing taxation (direct or indirect) that the affected citizenry has increased interest to avoid.

The rule of thumb is simple: the more burdensome a cost-by-regulation is the more those touched by it will try to avoid it and the more the state will then have to expend enforcing it.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

The Modern Obelisk

In ancient times the monuments rulers constructed to mark their authority, legacy, and (ultimately) their vanity were actual monuments, notable in some combination for their size, architectural ingenuity, and ornate design. Think of Djedefre's pyramid, Trajan's column, Justinian's Hagia Sophia.

The commensurate constructions of today's rulers are not of such tangible stone, though every bit as large and lasting. The modern obelisks are massive social programs that are just as overwhelming, just as burdensome to the populace upon whose backs they are constructed, and just as permanent. Think in this turn of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and now Barack Obama's health-care "reform."

The only real difference between the ancient and modern is that the latter is still taxing the resources of the public--and will be for quite sometime.