After Dayton’s Became Marshall Fields

Marshall Fields.

Brand names. Remember those green shopping bags from Marshall Fields? After all the leveraged buyouts. Minnesota got those green shopping bags, after the merger and acquisition. Even though Dayton’s had acquired Marshall Fields. All those mergers and acquisitions in the age of divorce. In the New Millennium. When the age was over, the DFL Party had been infiltrated by the rich. It has been 24 years years since the Democrat-Farmer-Labor candidate won the office of the governor.

Brand names, after the power struggle. In the New Millennium. Spending millions, to change your identity. After leveraged buy-outs. As the young ponder exactly what inheritance would be left. Those Marshall Fields’ shoppers had tried to come to grips with these same kind of change twenty years ago.

Believing that the primary election was a more democratic method of choosing a candidate that the endorsement process, Matt Entenza and former Senator Mark Dayton competed against the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsed candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher, and Dayton appears to have won the primary election. Through July 27, 2010, Dayton had used only $2.76 million of his own money to finance the gubernatorial bid, where candidate Matt Entenza had spent $5 million of family personal spending that allegedly had come from his wife’s career at United Health. Together the three DFL candidates have spent more than $9 million to win position on the November ballot.

Through most of last night with the votes counted in metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul counties, DFL-endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher held a “strong” lead over “enigmatic department store heir” Mark Dayton, according to the Star Tribune description. Even though Dayton’s Department Store no longer exists. Dayton’s margin of victory reportedly grew early this morning when his totals from northern areas of the state helped overtake hers. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Dayton led Kelliher by more than 5,000 votes, though the Minnesota House Speaker had not yet conceded.

The great divide. In the New Millennium. Male versus female. Old versus young. Rich versus the rest. The ethics of it all. After the sexual revolution. All of the issues of gay marriage, abortion, medical marijuana. For now, the unity rally has been postponed.

Millions for your campaign, and then the millions from your tax base, without limits. Without controls. As the federal government had quit regulating the corporations funding the system. Those grass root movement, with the heirs of the pot smoking generation. When grass root movements seemed forever dead. When the system, the manufacturing part, had seemed to move to China. And all that was left of the Machine was the budget deficits.

The superficial, all of the superficial, with their superficial bleeding. And then having to live in such a superficial world, with the bleeding. No wonder a candidate suffered depression.

The great divide. The great divide. Yale University. The goalie on Yale’s varsity hockey team. Was he a fraternity brother there at the time of George W. Bush when he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon? Married to the fourth child of John D. Rockefeller the 3rd. It sounded like a story of The Great Gatsby.

Long since divorced from Alida Rockefeller, the sister of Senator Jay Rockefeller. More recently, after six years of the bubbling Bush Administration when a liberal coherent voice was needed in the U S Senate, (when he opposed the War in Iraq) he was named in April 2006 “the blunderer” by Time magazine. At the time he was rated as one of America’s “Five Worst Senators,” Dayton himself gave himself along with the entire Senate an F for progress. Having lost in the 1998 gubernatorial primary, Dayton was elected to the U. S. Senate, after spending nearly $12 million of his own money in 2000 to win this job. In that 2000 campaign, he stated in financing future campaigns, he would not “do the same.” Retiring from the Senate, he had cited his dislike of fundraising for political campaigns. Not unlike shoppers trying to come to grips with the change twenty years before, Dayton elected to retire rather than adapt to the change of the modern political world of change, in the always need for money.

Described this morning by Rachel Stassen-Berger, as an enigmatic department store heir, with a spotlight on his people skills, in current times of budget deficits which left an acrimony between Republicans and Democrats like that seen between Palestinians and Israelis. Not that Republican candidate Tom Emmer is any better. He seems worse.

The DFL Party had been infiltrated by the rich. With the ultimate Republican principle of spending your own money, when you could not or would not attempt to raise campaign funding from others. Was that the ultimate arrogance of it all?

Dayton had been a one-time legislative assistant to U S Senator Walter Mondale. Former Vice-President Walter Mondale was campaigning this week for DFL-endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher who had played by the rules. Did the one-timeformer State Attorney General have a similar experience in his life in 1962?

Union member Michael Lefkowitz of St. Louis Park was quoted today as believing Dayton, “stands for the little guy.” Maybe Michael believed the lead in the Star Tribune, or just all of the commercials. The lead of the story was “Kelliher’s DFL endorsement was no match for Dayton’s experience and name recognition.” With more than 600,000 votes cast, Dayton had won by little more than 5,000 votes,

After the mergers and acquisitions in the age of divorce. City versus rural, north versus south, the State of the Union in these once United States. In the New Millennium. The unity rally scheduled for 11 am was, for the time being, postponed.

POST SCRIPT: In following any talk of future ballparks in Minnesota, with the inauguration of the new governor, where new stadiums seem to take shape with a gestation period of a new born, it is worth noting the son of Gwendolen May Brandt and Bruce Bliss Dayton was related to Andy MacPhail, in a step relationships. The governor’s mother (who did pass away in November 2002) had married Leland MacPhail, the former president of the American League and the father of Any MacPhail? So Mr. Dayton was somewhat acquainted with the ins and outs of stadium talk. And as a sidelight, the philanthropy of Bruce Dayton is a profound story of philanthropy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/arts/artsspecial/19DAYTON.html?scp=1&sq=bruce+dayton%2C&st=nyt

Blog Networking in Real-time

Obama Interview with Matt Lauer

Comedian Jon Stewart lampooned on Tuesday night President Barack Obama interview with Matt Lauer, in which Obama said he was talking to experts to find out “whose ass to kick” for the the Gulf Coast oil disaster. President Barack Obama did back Bud Selig on not overturning Jim Joyce’s blown call, but said on the issue of expanded instant replay: “I think that baseball is going to have to take a look at what football and basketball have already decided, which is replay may, in some cases, be appropriate,”

Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times wrote on June 7th that British Petroleum “and its folks were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama’s 2007-08 campaign.”

Andrew Malcolm wrote:“In case you were tempted to buy the faux Washington outrage at BP and its gulf oil spill in recent days, here’s a story that reveals a little-known corporate political connection and the quiet way the inner political circles intersect, protect and care for one another in the nation’s capital. And Chicago.”

“Follow these standard Washington links if you can: Shortly after Obama’s happy inaugural, eyebrows rose slightly upon word that, as a House member, Rahm Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and husband, Stanley Greenberg,” whose consulting firm “was a prime architect of BP’s recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan ‘Beyond Petroleum.’”

Stanley Greenberg’s consulting firm is closely tied to GCS — whose name is based upon the last initials of Stanley Greenberg, Clinton advisor James Carville, and John Kerry’s 2004 campaign manager, Bob Shrum — a sister Democratic outfit which “according to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”

“Now, we learn the details of a connection of Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer,” Andrew Malcolm wrote, “…. you’ll never guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord.

“For an ordinary American, that (five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment) would likely raise some obvious tax liability questions. But like Emanuel, the guy overseeing the Internal Revenue Service now is another Obama insider, Tim Geithner, who had his own outstanding tax problems but skated through confirmation anyway by the Democratic-controlled Congress.”

“Remember this was all before the letters BP stood for Huge Mess. Even before the Obama administration gave BP a safety award,”Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times wrote. While comedian Jon Stewart Stewart lampooned on Tuesday night President Barack Obama interview with Matt Lauer, in which Obama said he was talking to experts to find out “whose ass to kick” for the the Gulf Coast oil disaster, and he did back Bud Selig on not overturning Jim Joyce’s blown call.

Another Reason for Making Whoopi

Those love nests called home.

The Minnesota Vikings expected a state so deeply in debt to finance their stadium. When decade after decade one owner replaced the other, reaping unbelievable return on their investment. In baseball, the franchise was owned by people who have lived here since 1961. In the case of the NFL, that no longer was true. Now our NFL franchise owner was from out east. A real estate tycoon. And his lease was up after 2011. But he was not making threats. About the Minnesota part of his franchise name.

Professional sports franchises. Their lobbyists had become the media that covered them, because the networks sold commercial time. Because consumers bought their products. But the athletes, whether locally grown or not, will pay taxes on the income. And people will travel here to see them play. That is the argument, without discussion of a user tax.

But with tax payers money, we are learning that the Minnesota franchises can play the same game with the redistribution of the wealth as in other localities. Where even the Saint Paul Saints wanted me to build them a stadium. A franchise that was making more profits in the 1990s than the big league club across the river.

It was not just the big leaguers. It was now what was going on in the amateur draft. Jeff Samardzija got $10 million when he was drafted in 2006 by the Chicago Cubs, which was paid for by the fans. Who? A “former Notre Dame wide receiver” who is now 25-years-old. You really did not give young men of college age this kind of money until they proved themselves in a profession, like baseball. Or except in baseball? At this point in his life, Jeff Samardzija is 91 victories behind where Bert Blyleven was at the age of 25. But in the Scot Boras age, the public perception is played on by spin doctors, where the value of the player is tied to how much he is paid.

When you did not have to pay for your own stadiums, you could afford to shell out bonuses to an elite. Even the unproven. Paid for by teams in the league, not so unlike government money which built the 19 other stadiums since Camden Yards opened. In he new system of Bud Selig baseball, your mistakes overcompensating could be overlooked. A lot like the mistakes of Carlos Zambrano with his $91.5 million over 5 years. Or Alfonso Soriano and the team investment of $136 million, over 8 years. Or Kosuke Fukudome making $12 million per year. Didn’t we just leave that hellhole of a ballpark? Fukudome. Hey! A new stadium will last longer than these .258 hitters like Fukudome, whose name your mother wanted the eldest child’s mouth washed out with soap, if she ever came over. So the expenditure were worth it? For 30 year leases?

These had become public policy issues. And now there was the stadium issue with the Minnesota Vikings.

Another bride
Another groom
Another sunny
Honeymoon;
Another season,
Another reason
For makin’ whoopee.

A quiet service,
A lot of rice,
The groom is nervous
He answers twice.
It’s really killing
That he’s so willing
To make whoopee.

Picture a little lovenest
Down where the roses cling
Picture that same sweet lovenest
Think what a year can bring.

He’s washing dishes
And baby clothes
He’s so ambitious
He even sews;
But don’t forget, boys
That’s what you get, boys
For makin’ whoopee. -by Gus Kahn

Another Minsky Moment

According to Elizabeth Moyer in Forbes in November 2008, fighting the financial crisis has put the U.S. on the hook for some $5 trillion, one report says. According to a report by the inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, government’s maximum exposure to financial institutions since 2007 could total nearly $24 trillion. The watchdog overseeing the federal government financial bailout, Neil Barofsky, examined the 50 programs set up by the Federal Reserve as well as by the Bush and Obama administrations, and sent his report to Congress. Barofsky was to give testimony today to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

By the end of October 2008, more than half of the U.S. banks were pretend banks. A failure by the government to support the U.S. financial system could lead to “a depression,” Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat told reporters in September 2008. “To do nothing is to risk the kind of economic downturn this country hasn’t seen in 60 years.” Now, we were all going to have pretend dollars in those pretend banks. Like Citibank and all the other that needed rescue.

Those pretend banks? Providing a broad glimpse at how TARP recipients used federal capital, the report shows 43% of the banks used the money to meet capital or reserve requirements set by regulators. “Absent an infusion of capital [the bank] was unable to continue to meet the needs of its retail and commercial customer base,” one institution wrote.

What was the scale of the problem?

World GDP $47 trillion

World stock valuation $121 trillion

Bond market $85 trillion

Credit derivatives $473 trillion

Bloomberg had reported the total bailout and loan guarantees, the stimulus, totaled $9.7 trillion. As a result of big banks in too many businesses, this republic is threatened. This was not just a sub-prime crisis when people cannot buy homes and cars from a banking system. And the rest of us cannot sell. Where half of the banks are on the brink.

In a world with street smarts, you learned eventually that the “gang” problem had come to a neighborhood near you. Now you learned that the
same thing happened in the world of pretend banks.

With the system of government, why did we let financial institutions concoct a fix to the problem that in their greed they created? It was a worldwide bailout which would take 30 years or more to resolve and end up costing more than $350 trillion in the credit derivatives written, from what I had read.

No one would escape the world of “pretend” banks, where 43% of the banks used the money to meet capital or reserve requirements because there was no money there.

This was the latest version of gang warfare afflicting modern society.

What did you want to own in all of this? China’s reaction to this question, with currency, would determine the next chapter of American history.

Visual Web Search

A Nation’s Capital

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Markets.

Deflation overseas continued to be in the news. The news from the UK was that in the 4th quarter of 2008, the economy had contracted 1.6%. Office for National Statistics yesterday announced that GDP in the UK fell 1.9% in the 1st quarter when compared with the prior quarter. This was the largest decline since the 3rd quarter of 1979. MarketWatch reported that year-on-year, GDP was down 4.1%, much larger than the 2% decline seen in the fourth quarter.

There then was a downgrade from Standard & Poor’s Corporation in the UK ratings outlook. Yet today MarketWatch is reporting that the dollar fell to the lowest level versus the Euro since December on Friday, as traders looked for alternatives to the U.S. dollar. It additionally was stated that fears about the global economy were abating. Whose analysis was that?

At the same time, the central bank of Japan upwardly had revised its economic view for the first time since July 2006, leaving the key interest rate unchanged at 0.1% and expanding the range of eligible collateral to ensure financial market stability.

Who trusted the Bank of Japan, based on their reported of real estate valuations in their portfolio over the last 10 to 15 years of their own crisis?

With worry that the debt level in the UK may result in its credit rating being cut, there was new concern about the massive U.S. deficit, with the falling US dollar notching fresh multi-month lows against the Euro, pound, and yen.

The battle was waging between forces of deflation in many countries on the continent overseas, with government in the United States and the United Kingdon promoting hyper-inflation. This was the same battle reflected in LIBOR rates on October 1, 2008.

No ratings agency has issued any new comments on the credit rating of the U.S.

How to protect capital in times of crisis? Is there a real alternative to the dollar?

The Euro reached a high against the dollar at $1.4008, its highest level since Jan. 2, 2009.

The pound recovered from the turbulence it suffered in the wake of the S&P announcement Thursday and set a new high for 2009 at $1.5937. Why?

Pension funds, insurers, and institutional investors, are pouring back currency flow into Great Britain, supporting the British pound and exchange traded fund (ETF). According to Boston-based State Street Global Markets LLC, in the 60 days to May 13, the money flows were 99% higher than any comparable period since 1997.
The depressed pound is actually a way to play distressed assets with potential for the upside, says Joe Weisenthal. The pound gathered strength today after the Bank of England voted to hold the key interest rate at a record low of 0.5%, says RTT News.

Register of Deeds

<span"It's always been there, but like any fad, it takes awhile to catch on," she said. "In the last three months, I have gotten more phone calls from parents. Great parents from wonderful communities. This crosses all borders. I think parents are just freaked out." This was some expert talking. Apparently she spoke to parents about it in her school district. About sexting.

<span"It's always been there?” The New World Order. Oh those “Once upon a time” stories. Back in the 1990s. Those kids had grown up.

<spanThe 1990s. It was about 10,000 points of light. Those 10,000 points of light. Now with cell phones and genitalia.

<spanAs their parents have fumbled and stumbled along with them, the new young generation has grown up. This was the New World Order. Those 10,000 points of light in cell phones. With cameras. Who were the supplies of phones for these 13 year-old?

<spanAbout that sexting. State legislatures were getting into the act. In the New World Order, these state legislatures stayed in sessions too long composing new laws in a world that they themselves don’t understand. In a misguided attempt at protecting the public health, unable or unwilling to address the fiscal matters of budgets, they were trying to establish laws about sexting. Soon everyone would be a registered sex offender, for acts committed at the age of 14.

<spanIf you had not heard, sexting is the art of sending graphic images and videos text. Yeah, it was an art form. During the days still of the declared War on Terror, when you were not looking, a New World Order had cropped up.

<spanThis state had entered a new era for registered sex offenders. And these sex offenders. were our kids. The registers would be filled with young kids. It was a new generation that did not trade baseball cards. Like sexting, without the bubblegum. There had to be a song in all of this. This public register of sex offenders was growing too big. It was politicians fumbling and stumbling, generally coming to grips with fear, trying to balance an office for the public register of deeds, without surveys and Platt maps, and without a Torrens system of registration of title to land.

<spanUnder the current law in Vermont, teens who text message explicit photos could be prosecuted as sex offenders. So the Vermont legislature currently had a proposed bill which would make sexting legal in Vermont for 18-years old and younger. It was a bit of a reversal of the logic used regarding the requirements for drinking. But composing new laws? This state had entered a new era for registered sex offenders. And these were our kids.

<spanAll this while take your daughter-to-work day quietly bit the dust. Out of some new fear? It used to be in April. I think the nation was afraid what would happen with sexting. It used to be legislatures passed some kind of budgets, before going home for the year. Legislation and legislators never quite worked the way it all was intended. In the Too Big To Fail era.

<spanFather-daughter dance, mother- son breakfast, had been replaced by cell phones. For safety. For peace of mind.

<spanIn the Too Big To Fail generation, fumbling and stumbling in Vermont, parent turned legislator, not really knowing what to do. With sexting. State legislatures wanting more control over the world, but not knowing how.

<span"So what are you in for?"

<span"I was found guilty of possessing child porn. I will be registered as a sex offender for life, when I get out. When I get out, I will be 17."

Mark to Market Accounting

Monetary policy. And frozen food.

Each American household seemed to have an ability to freeze time. With cameras and camcorders. And in a sense there has been a loss of spontaneity, a loss of freshness.

Each American household seemed to have an ability to freeze food. There was an affect of frozen food on people.

Freezed time. In a sense freezed time was what newspapers did each day. It was explaining what was in a piece of art.

Banks. In a sense banks helped freeze money and surplus income. Saved surplus, not “invested” in companies. But money set aside without any appreciation that one day a power outage would come. Frozen assets. But food in the freezer goes bad at times of power outages. And maybe too much had been stored there in the first place. Stored out of fear of the day of famine? Stored out of convenience? Stored as a way to manipulate destiny, but with a bit of humility discarded.

Control. Monetary policy. Mine, the government’s, was about control. Human control had replaced natural law with a loss of humility as a result?

This power outage was worldwide. The commercial real estate crisis was here. General Growth Properties, the Chicago-based company, which is owner of regional malls all over the country, amassed $27 billion in debt by buying malls and shopping centers.

I was fearful of the duration of this power outage. And how far reaching. And I was fearful of people without power trying to wrestle with life to resolve their problems.

The news from overseas was that almost all British banks had no liquidity. The people of Latvia, already without power, saw little chance of rescue soon.

The commercial real estate crisis was here which, along with deflation over the next 6 months, will determine the extent of spoilage. Those earnings reports from Citibank, Wells Fargo, this week had been missing a large amount of transparency.

And in China. The head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission issued a statement published on its website Thursday that banks need to guard against making risky loans and instead focus more on sustainable lending practices. Banks must be “on high alert for the accumulation of hidden risks as loans surge,” Liu Mingkang said. According to published reports today, in remarks made at the Boao Forum for Asia, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called for more surveillance of countries that issue major reserve currencies. That would be the United States. This statement comes on the heels of discussion at the G20 meeting of a new world currency. There is growing distrust of America and the politics involved in our currency. Last month in an essay published on the central bank’s web site, the head of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, proposed the creation a new international reserve currency. Seeking to expand currency swap agreements that are seen as a step toward eventually making the yuan more of a global reserve asset, Wen said, “We should give full play to bilateral currency swap agreements and will study expanding currency swaps in scale and to more countries.”

It was monetary policy and the currency reserve that allowed imports from around the world to be sold so cheaply in the United States. And I was fearful of people without power trying to wrestle with life to resolve their problems.

Monetary policy. And frozen food.

Shrinkage

I live in a country that seems indifferent for the most part to the difficulty in different parts of the world. All politics was local. No one wondered what was going on in Mexico or Canada, much less the Baltic nations. One day you wake up to discover that those gangs and drugs in the inner city that you moved to the suburbs to escape…..well that there was no real escape.

By this time next year, the three Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania as well as Russia, Hungary, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Serbia and Georgia, all with negative outlooks, risk being downgraded by Fitch Ratings. “That is a clear signal how we see the direction of creditworthiness in the region,” with their reliance on exports and a consumption-fueled credit boom, Fitch Ratings reported. They seem to be the Moody’s of Europe.

The worldwide credit drought has left Eastern Europe among the most vulnerable in the global economic slump. The worldwide credit drought has left banks with more than $2 trillion in losses and write-downs.
Fitch estimates economic contraction of Latvia’s economy by 12 percent this year, with 10 percent contraction in Estonia and Lithuania.

Edward Parker of Fitch Ratings said: “Real economic activity is still falling quite rapidly. This year will be by far the deepest recession since the early years of transition” to free market economies from Communism in 1989.
With the return to growth in 2010, Fitch is forecasting a 1.4 percent rate of growth which will be “a very weak recovery. It’s not going to feel like much of a recovery,” Parker said. “We’re still going to see rising unemployment, pressure on bank balance sheets and public finances and some political pressures stemming from that.”

Emerging Europe will see its recession deepen before improvement that may lead to credit rating downgrades in about half the countries which will be determined by the ability of countries to keep with the condition imposed by the International Monetary Fund in the way of spending cuts after they have received bailout money. Fitch Ratings is assessing balance of payment trends, the ability of countries to refinance external debt, economic policy responses to the hardships and success in attracting international aid when deciding on rating cuts.

Among the poorest countries in the region with the weakest credits are Moldova at B-, Ukraine at B, and Georgia at B+. These poorest countries are with weaker governmental institutions, more vulnerable to sharp declines in capital inflows. The strongest countries credit-wise in the region are the Slovakia and the Czech Republic at A+, and Poland at A-. Slovakia’s Euro-region membership makes it a “safe harbor.”

Better placed than other East European countries, because of lower deficits, credible exchange rates, and a lack of previous fast credit expansion, both Poland and the Czech Republic are to withstand “global shocks” in the assessment of Fitch Ratings.

Some political pressures stemming from that? In Moldova, the recent scene following a recent parliamentary election was of demonstrators gathering in front of the country’s Parliament, calling for an end to communism, claiming the election result was fraudulent. According to the Prague Post, “The demonstration morphed into a riot when a portion of the crowd dodged police barricades and infiltrated the government complex, ransacking and setting fire to the premises. In what Stela Brailean, 23, called an overblown response, Moldavian communist authorities then reportedly commenced mass arrests, communication blackouts, and various intimidation techniques to repossess their grip on power, drawing the attention of European democracies. ‘The communist party is introducing restrictions, persecuting people, installing a totalitarian regime,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Moldova bureau chief Vasile Botnaru said in a telephone interview from Chisinau. “If it escalates, it’s absolutely a danger for democracy.’”

“The worsening economic situation in the country – the poorest in Europe – has widened the ideological gap between the pro-Western youth in the capital and left-leaning older generations nostalgic for the communist promise of economic security. Another gap, said Alina, exists between the country’s ethnic Romanian majority and Russian minority, a clash further fueled by an ongoing dispute over Moldova’s secessionist Trans-Dniester region, a frozen conflict zone jointly administered by a regional government, Russia and Moldova since a 1992 ceasefire.”

Last Train to Clarksville

When I was in seventh grade, I liked “The Monkees.” It was a television show. Maybe that was why I was drawn to that economist Brian Jones.

As for the economy, “we’ve gotten to a point of the dry heaves. We’ve got nothing left,” said economist Brian Jones.

This was a kind of economic global warming that had gone on. It was a slow process, this economic global warming.

I was gonna start to read more about Iceland. I wonder how it was when economies melted. Iceland was leading the fall.

This ain’t over. The economic turmoil. Until people started to accept that everything was 30% over valued. The values in my neighborhood have barely budged.

Stimulus packages promoted the illusion of old valuations. Stimulus packages were false, and as false as most of the politicians who promoted them. Those home value in my neighborhood had not fallen much and taxes had not dropped.

Radical change. Accepting that we are not worth what we had thought.

When cash became king, where were we gonna put it? Because more than half the banks in the world really are illiquid. Especially the big ones.

And with the new tax policies, would government try to survive by confiscating what wealth was left? Would those home-owner deductions soon go the way of the limitations on deductions for charitable contributions?

Governments, the G20, had a huge fear of deflation. That was what the meeting was about this week. When no one really had a clue how to unite to tackle the matter. With a new international currency? When Germany and France did not want to follow the spending method evangelized by President Obama.

I wonder how it was when economies melted.

Abitrary and Capricious

 

There is nothing like having a front office who tries to get along with the players.  But what does it say about fan relation?  Player salaries are one factor in escalating ticket price. 

 

There is a seriousness associated with sport.  In hockey.  In baseball.  There are a lot of irreverent scribes.  They don’t mix well with the competitor. 

 

With George Sherrill’s signing, a $2.75 million deal for the 2009 season, the Orioles will not have any arbitration hearings this year. 

The Orioles have avoided this situation since winning their case against starter Rodrigo Lopez prior to the 2006 season.  Andy MacPhail joined the Orioles in June 2007.  Andy has a perfect record avoiding arbitration since he joined the Cubs.  Sherrill had asked for $3.4 mllion.  The Orioles offered $2.2 million. The hearing had been scheduled for Feb. 19th.  

 

I am sure all of the agents know of his record.  There was not much competing going on in the off season.  A lot of sports fans have been led to believe that the value of a franchise was based on total payroll and not the standings, and players were to be recruited.    

Those ticket prices in Baltimore would not be frozen for a while.