The View from Right Field

Confidence and Predictability. Words You Never Hear in Connection With Donald Trum

I have talked before about the importance of certainty and confidence, in both foreign affairs and the economy.  In an editorial yesterday on the possible upcoming recession (the ‘Trump recession,” the Democrats will call it), The Wall Street Journal said this:

“[W]e never said tariffs would produce immediate recession.  We said they – and the climate of uncertainty they were creating for business – would chill global trade and undermine the surge in capital investment spurred by tax reform and deregulation.  The growth momentum from tax cuts and a strong labor market were able to mask the impact of helter-skelter trade policy for a time.  But that old economic disciplinarian, Adam Smith, sooner or later exacts a price for policy blunders.

@Cubs 2019: Home Runs Are Nice, But They’re Not Enough

I don’t know if they have a statistic for what percentage of a team’s runs are scored on home runs.  If they do, the percentage for baseball as a whole is clearly going up – a lot.  And I would imagine the Cubs are a leader in that percentage.  It’s also pretty clear Joe Maddon is not happy about it.

Mark Gonzalez wrote in Wednesday’s Tribune about Joe Maddon’s thoughts on the way hitting is taught today:

“‘Just to go Twitter and search “hitting guru,”‘ Maddon said. ‘And find out all these different people making money these days. They’re making it too complicated, and it’s really sad.’

Mass Shootings: After We “Do Something,” Let’s Try to Do Something That Actually Works

With two more mass shootings, in El Paso and Dayton, we are told we must “do something.”  Generally, that means gun control, though it now also seems to include “red flag” laws, as well as more spending for mental health and doing something about violent video games. Okay, let’s do it, subject of course to the Constitution.  Not only the Second Amendment, but also the other ones: the First, Fourth, Fifth, etc.

But after we “do something,” let’s also try to do something that works.  Megan McArdle, at The Washington Post, has a couple of ideas on this subject (here and here).  Aggressive stop-and-frisk policing has seemed to reduce murder rates in places like New York City, but many people don’t like what they see as police harassment of minorities.  Also, given the distrust of the police by many people in places like Chicago, you wonder how it would work there.  Plus, these kinds of tactics wouldn’t stop mass shootings, though reducing day-to-day murders might save more lives than reducing mass shootings over a whole year.

Russia and China: Dangers and Opportunities. But Is Anybody Paying Attention?

Protests in Hong Kong have extended into their tenth week, with the airport in Hong Kong being shut down over the weekend.  Meanwhile in Moscow, and elsewhere in Russia, there are growing protests with respect to upcoming local elections and efforts by the Vladimir Putin regime to prevent opposition candidates from running in those elections. 

The protests in Russia have been met by force and large numbers of arrests.  Beijing has yet to intervene in the Hong Kong protests, but one wonders how long that restraint will last.  In both Russia and the People’s Republic of China, government-controlled media have limited dissemination about the protests, but I am sure some information is seeping around and through Putin’s barriers and the Great Fire Wall.

Once Again: Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosures?

Last Monday, U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro (Dem, Tex.) tweeted a list of 44 people in San Antonio, Texas, who contributed the maximum amount to President Trump’s campaign in 2019, with this comment:

“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump – the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc. Their contributions are fueling campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’”

The Solution to Foul Ball Injuries

Protective netting.  One of the big questions in Major League Baseball, other than why aren’t the Cubs doing better with all of the talent they supposedly have, is fan safety and how far to extend protective netting down the foul lines.  It’s such a big deal that the U.S. Senators from Illinois, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, apparently having nothing more important to do with their time, sent a letter last week to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred asking for information about injuries at ball parks.¹

Before the 2018 season, MLB required all parks to extend the protective netting to ends of the dugouts.  With injuries this year, some parks are extending the netting even farther.  The White Sox have extended the netting at Guaranteed Rate Field² all the way to the foul poles.