The View from Right Field

The @Cubs Are Taking Away Our Future Memories

I’m away, but I wanted to comment on my Cubs season ticket invoice, which I received yesterday.  It came with a note that we won’t be getting real tickets for the games this year.  Everything will be on our so-called smart phones.

Which is sad.  I have ticket stubs from when I went with my dad to games 60 years ago and ticket stubs from when my then-fiancé, now-wife, and I went to a doubleheader on Billy Williams Day 50 years.  I also have the ticket stubs from the first games my daughter and son went to in the 1980s. 

Break

I'll be gone for a couple of weeks.  I'll be back after Thanksgiving.

Election Results In the Age of Trump

The main thing we can say about the results yesterday is something we could have said before the election: Divisiveness and partisanship will increase next year, and political consultants will get even richer.  Six months from now, everybody will look back on the last two years as the good old days of peace and calm (except political consultants – see the prior sentence).

While neither side in the tweet- and spending-fest that ended on Tuesday focused on it very much, the 115th Congress actually accomplished some important things.  The Democrats didn’t like them, but Congress passed a tax reform bill, finally increased defense spending, and beat back a number of late-term Obama administration regulations via the previously little-used Congressional Review Act.   Not to mention the judges Mitch McConnell got through the Senate.¹

Voting In the Age of Trump

So, what do you do next Tuesday if you’re not a Democrat (and will probably never be as they move more and more to the left) and yet you’re appalled by much of what Donald Trump says and especially how he says it.  Plus, good Republicans, like Paul Ryan, are leaving.  But you still have to vote.

One idea might be to figure out who you want to be happy on Tuesday night.  Or, alternatively, who you don’t want to be happy on Tuesday.  Maybe, in an ultimate case of “the lesser of two evils,” the question is whose victory party would be more obnoxious?  The Democratic celebrations could be pretty bad, and their policy ideas, to the extent they have any other than “Trump’s horrible” and “Medicare for All will be free,” are not where I think the country should go.

@Cubs - The Second Anniversary

It seemed appropriate to "Fly the W" today.

America’s Future Foreign Policy: “The Jungle Grows Back” – Do We Care?

Dr. Robert Kagan has written a fascinating book on the future of American foreign policy: The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World.  His main points are laid out in this excerpt available at Amazon.com:

“The American-led liberal world order was never a natural phenomenon.  The past seven-plus decades of relatively free trade, growing respect for individual rights, and relatively peaceful cooperation among nations – the core elements of the liberal order – have been a great historical aberration. … Our own era has not lacked its horrors …. Yet by historical standards…, it has been a relative paradise. … The great Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union ended peacefully, a historical rarity. … Since the end of the Second World War the world has also enjoyed a period of prosperity unlike any other …. Since 1945, some four billion people around the world have climbed out of poverty. … But all this has been an anomaly in the history of human existence. The liberal world order is fragile and impermanent. Like a garden, it is ever under siege from the natural forces of history, the jungle whose vines and weeds constantly threaten to overwhelm it. …

Unlearning the Lessons of the Financial Crisis – One at a Time

In an interview with FT Weekend,¹ former Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen said that, even though work on the post-financial crisis regulatory framework is yet to be finished, Washington is already moving to ease “burdens” on financial firms.  Among the key concerns for Ms. Yellen is lending to indebted, less-creditworthy corporate borrowers, which she sees as a potential source of systemic risk.

In light of her comments, one wonders what she thinks of an article in The Wall Street Journal last week indicating that Fair Isaac Corp., the company that created the FICO credit rating score, is planning on revising the way the score is calculated.  In addition to measuring how people manage their credit, which is what they do now, Fair Isaac will look at how people manage their cash.  The idea, according to the article, is “to boost the number of approvals for credit cards, personal loans and other debt”.

2016 – And Other Memories of a Cubs Fan

With the 2018 World Series upon us, it is time, for Cubs fans, to look back two years.  For Cubs fans, 2016 was the year.  Cubs fans had waited 108 years for a World Series championship.¹  Then, after one of the most gut-wrenching Game 7s in history, which the Cubs finally won, 8 to 7, in ten innings, our wait was over.²  So, the question is, with 2016 fixed in our memory, what about our other memories, from years before 2016 – and after.

I am asking because I was recently going through some old tee shirts, and I came across a few that brought back memories.  There was a “Boys of Zimmer” shirt from 1989 and another from the NLDS against the Braves in 1998.  There was even a shirt specifically for the September 1-4 series against the Cardinals in 2003.

Jamal Khashoggi: What’s Worse? Foreign Policy Edition.

What’s worse (it’s easy until you think about it):

(i)  Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, has been living in self-imposed exile for the last year, while writing articles critical of the Saudi government for, among others, The Washington Post.   On October 2, he enters the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and is killed at some point thereafter, while in the embassy, by people connected with the Saudi government.

(ii)  Between October 2015 and December 2015, five employees of Causeway Bay Books, a bookseller in Hong Kong, disappear.  At least two of them disappear while in the People’s Republic of China, one while he is in Thailand, and another in Hong Kong itself.  All five are later confirmed to be in the PRC in connection with an alleged investigation of an old traffic incident involving one of them.  Causeway Bay Books sold political books, banned in China, that were critical of the Chinese government.

State Solvency: Worst to First Just Takes 500 Miles and a U-Haul Trailer

The Mercatus Institute at George Mason University has once again ranked all 50 states according to their financial condition.  The most recent ratings were based on 2016 reports and considered:

• Cash solvency. Does a state have enough cash on hand to cover its short-term bills?
• Budget solvency. Can a state cover its fiscal year spending with revenues, or does it have a budget short-fall?
• Long-run solvency. Can a state meet its long-term spending commitments? Will there be enough money to cushion it from economic shocks or other long-term fiscal risks?
• Service-level solvency. How large a percentage of personal income are taxes, revenue, and spending? How much “fiscal slack” does a state have to increase spending if citizens demand more services?
• Trust fund solvency. How much debt does a state have? How large are its unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities?

Brett Kavanaugh: Thoughts on a Story That May Never End

While Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed as a justice on the Supreme Court, one assumes the controversy over his nomination will go on for a long time (forever-?), so it is probably not too late for me to make a few comments.

First, there is the question of whether we must automatically “Believe Women,” as a full-page ad said in The Wall Street Journal (and probably lots of other papers).¹  With respect to this question, Megan McArdle’s column in The Washington Post on Susan Collins’s vote on now-Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation, talked about some things I hadn’t thought of before:

“Women know, in a visceral way that men never can, what it is like to live your life in consciousness of a single, inescapable fact: that virtually every man you meet is capable of physically overpowering you and taking what you won’t give them freely. We also know that if some man attacks us, it is likely to be in a private place, with no witnesses, and that the physical evidence will often be little different from the aftermath of consensual sex.

If You Wonder Why Football Is So Dangerous, Look at Jim Taylor’s Obituary

Unlike baseball, I have not written much about football.  I was, however, a football fan a long time ago,¹ which is why I noticed an obituary in Sunday’s newspaper for Jim Taylor, a Hall of Fame fullback, who played for the Green Bay Packers in the late 1950s and 1960s (Chicago Bears fans may boo now).

There were a couple of interesting things in the obituary, especially comparing pro football today with pro football back then.  First, Jim Taylor died at 83.  How many football players today, who play ten years in the NFL, like he did, are going to live to 83?

Larry Summers Drives from Chicago to Oregon and Discovers a Strange New Country: America

Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University (and currently a professor there), as well as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and director of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in Tuesday’s Washington Post¹ about a trip he took to a place he had apparently never been before: America.  Instead of flying over the people he helped govern in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, Dr. Summers and his wife took a two-week road trip from Chicago to Portland, Oregon.  And he found a country, and people, who were different from the economic models he helped write or from what he saw “looking down from a plane”.

Here are some excerpts from his column, with my comments in italics:

“Again and again, we encountered signs warning us to check our gas because it would be 50 miles to the next station.  [And you could get to that station about as fast as you could drive across Manhattan in rush hour.]  I’m sure there were moments when we were 250 miles from any place where I could have purchased an iPhone charger.  Often there was no cellphone service to be had, either.”  [Oh my gosh, not able to buy an iPhone charger – or get cellphone reception.  Civilization is at end.]

2019 Cubs: It Could Be That “Salary Hikes Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine”

Theo Epstein has talked about the current Cubs team as having a window of opportunity to make postseasons and win World Series through 2021, probably because Kris Bryant is a free agent in 2022 and the Cubs have team options on Anthony Rizzo through 2021.

But it’s not just KB and Tony, it’s just about the whole team.  There are four more players going free agent in 2022: Javier Baez, Kyle Schwarber, Addison Russell, and Mike Montgomery.  Throw in Kyle Hendricks being a free agent in 2021, and Willson Contreras, Carl Edwards, Jr., Albert Almora, Jr., in 2023, and you have a team with a real “use by” date.

The Confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh Brings Long-Awaited Balance to the Supreme Court – Between Yale and Harvard

With the Senate’s confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh yesterday, the goal of balance on the U. S. Supreme Court has finally been achieved.  With Justice Kavanaugh on the bench, we now have four justices who graduated from Yale Law School (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Brett Kavanaugh) compared to the four who graduated from Harvard Law School (Stephen Breyer, John Roberts, Elena Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch).¹ 

Harvard may try to claim it still has the edge because, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School, she started at Harvard before transferring to Columbia. 

@Cubs: a 2018 Retrospective – and a 2019 Perspective

I had written the first draft of this post before Theo Epstein’s press conference yesterday, and I will leave it pretty much intact below the break.  But I need to lead off with the elephant in the room: The question of what is going to happen with Joe Maddon after 2019.  Epstein said that Joe’s the manager next year and nothing has changed.  That’s not true.  In the spring of 2018, Joe had two years left on his contract.  In the spring of next year, Joe will have one year left on his contract.  If Theo thinks that means “Joe’s status remains unchanged,” then either he is not smart enough to be the Cubs’ head baseball guy (which is not true) or he is saying something he knows is not true (for reasons I don’t know).  If Joe Maddon goes into next season without his contract status after 2019 addressed, it will be a huge distraction.  It will affect the team, and it will affect the players.  If the Cubs make the postseason with that constantly in the air, it will be Joe Maddon’s best managing job ever.

Of course, the players will publicly say that Joe’s contract status is not a distraction, but then in 2016, they said they weren’t paying attention to the whole 108-year thing.  They said that over and over again.  And then, when the Cubs won, lots of them talked about how happy they were for the people who had waited 108 years and who had fathers and mothers and grandparents who hadn’t seen it.  In other words, they did know about it, and it was there, on their backs.  It’s the same thing with Joe’s contract status.  I can’t believe Theo doesn’t understand this and that his statement about Joe’s status being unchanged is just some kind of PR gobbledygook.

It does seem, however, that Theo thinks the 2018 Cubs had a “lack of urgency” earlier in the season.  Of course, he wouldn’t be saying that if the Brewers had gone 17-7 in their last 24 games instead of 18-6.  Or if the Cubs had been in the NL East or NL West.  Maybe Theo thinks you have to have to go full-out all the time for six months – plus the playoffs.  New flash: You can’t do that.  It’s nice in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.²  Managing today is less about baseball decisions and more about handling people.  Joe Maddon is one of the best at that.  For the Cubs to lose him – or for his status after 2019 to be left open next year – would be even worse than signing Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood.  Or signing a closer who somehow can’t pitch three days in a row - or something.

Now, here is what I wrote before Theo’s press conference:

Rahm Emanuel on How Cities Can Solve Our Problems. Huh?

In a column on the Brett Kavanaugh nomination last week (as everything was – and still is), Gerald F. Seib talked in The Wall Street Journal about the American people’s declining faith in the Supreme Court.  Of course, this only matches the lack of faith people already have in Congress and the President. 

However, while confidence in national institutions has fallen, Mr. Seib noted a Gallup poll last year that said 70% of Americans have confidence in local government to solve problems.  At this point, Mr. Seib goes a little bit off the tracks – by quoting Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  Obviously, Mr. Seib knows Mayor Emanuel from his time in Washington, and Mr. Seib knows that he is not running for re-election. 

Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosure? – An Update After the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings

Four years ago, I wrote a post asking “Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosure?”  I noted that, while some people want to limit political spending either by limiting how much people can contribute or by limiting how much candidates can spend, the First Amendment (at least as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court) doesn’t allow either of those.  Therefore, as I said back then:

“[T]hey fall back on disclosure of contributions.  If we can’t limit spending, they say, at least we can require contributions and spending to be disclosed.  In the words of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (before he was on the Court), ‘[s]unlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.’”

But, I asked, as I do again in the title of this post: Can Americans be trusted with campaign finance disclosure?  This question recently returned when a federal district court judge threw out a 37-year old Federal Election Commission rule dealing the disclosures that nonprofit advocacy groups have to make with respect to the names of their donors.  Without going into the technical detail of the case,¹ the judge’s ruling increases the number of people whose names have to be disclosed, even though the people aren’t making contributions to candidates, but just to groups that are making independent political expenditures.

Here’s a Deal for Illinois Pols: A Progressive Income Tax in Exchange for Real Pension Reform

Illinois Democrats (or at least many of them) say Illinois needs a progressive income tax.  Illinois Republicans (all three of them) say Illinois needs real pension reform.  Both of these ideas require an amendment to the Illinois Constitution to be approved.  So here is my Monty Hall-“Let’s Make a Deal” suggestion.

Instead of just one constitutional amendment, we pass two.  (The Illinois Supreme Court would never let you bundle the ideas together.)  One of them would permit a progressive income tax.  The other would allow the state legislature to adjust future pension accruals of current state employees.  I am not talking about cutting pension benefits already earned.  I am just suggesting that the legislature should have the right to adjust, i.e., reduce, pension benefits that current state employees earn in the future.  (The current state constitution provides that, once a person is hired, their pension scheme can never be reduced in the future, no matter how far they are from retirement.)

The Policies of Donald Trump and the Trump Administration

A commentary in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal bring up a fascinating point: The difference in ideas and policy between Donald Trump and the Trump administration.  In this case, Ukraine.  While President Trump doesn’t seem to care about Ukraine, and has told aides he doesn’t want to get involved in the question of Russia’s support of Ukrainian rebels occupying part of eastern Ukraine,¹ the Trump administration has actually been very supportive of Ukraine.

According to Judith Miller in the Journal:

“Ukrainians say Mr. Trump’s policies are surprisingly supportive of Kiev and hostile toward Moscow. In some ways they believe Mr. Trump has been much better than his predecessor.