A manager got fired, the Royals are anti-vaxxer kings, the Home Run Derby is shaping up, Jon Heyman and Ozzie Guillen throw down, and I have deep thoughts while sitting next to a pool
TEN Royals decided that their 5G was good enough not to get vaxxed. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. But at the end of the day they're bringing up the rear in their division so they just get a long weekend before the all star game. I don't think they could have planned it better.
With the Royals, the whole criticism of “they’re not doing everything they can to help the team win” is kind of irrelevant. Even Merrifeld said he’d consider getting vaxxed if/when the team trades him to a contender, which is just….wow.
Wow! Thanks! I live in the KC Metro area and I fell in love with baseball and the Royals in 2014, but this really has me "rethinking fandom." (yes, I've read the book!) They can't say they want to help the team if they're not helping the team.
I'm over this team. The Royals always have this deal with the fans, which is, hey, we don't have money, so we are going to put together a "good people" team. Part of being a fan is knowing how incredibly unlikely it is that a group they develop will be good enough to win. Like they did in 2014-2015. But the rest of the time, it's "good guys," an unexpected prospect, a lucky free agent and a whole lot of hope. But the deal is they have to be "good guys." People everyone roots for because they "try hard and do it right."
This team is now exposed as selfish. We already know they are losers. I'm not watching a bunch of selfish losers. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Isn't it nice that France always marks your birthday with a big military parade? I wonder why that is?
The actual Mets downplayed the trip to ATL. They just called it another series in a long season, and talked more about how the goal isn't winning now, it's winning in October. Good for them that they keep level heads and all. I expect that from this team. But the fans can be quite happy nonetheless that the Mets took two of three from ATL, added a game to the lead, and basically looked like contenders.
Meanwhile in Yankeeland, Luis Severino left early with shoulder soreness. The Yankees apparently have enough rotational depth to manage without him, but it would still be a bummer if Severino, just getting back to his old pre-TJ self, got hurt.
Thought of the day: I have been trying to get a sense of why inflation is so out of control, and nothing I have read really explains it. As best as I can tell, it's because...the economy is too good? I can't make sense of it. And I keep wondering: surely if we are paying more, somewhere out there someone else is making lots of money, right? Because I sort of feel like inflation would not be so bad if the profits someone else is making became our salaries. But since I don't understand any of this, who knows? Any insights would be welcome.
Emperor’s New Groove convinced Disney to give Steve Jobs a zillion dollars so they could buy the Pixar team. So it has that going for it.
I’m annoyed at myself for forgetting that the NYM ATL games was an afternoon getaway game. On the other hand I missed the only non competitive one of the three.
Don’t overthink inflation. Demand is outstripping supply. Delayed demand from pandemic modified behavior of both business and individual spending multiplied by trillions in new government spending and QE from the Fed. Supply constrained by multiple factors most notably for gas prices the war in Ukraine. Causes are simple; cures are complex.
We will not brook criticism of my favorite Disney film in this house. Fortunately for you, you are not actually in my house.
So in theory, inflation should sort itself out eventually when supply meets demand?
But we don't get our gas from Russia! We are more or less self sufficient, right? Surely the price of oil and gas should be based on the actual supply in the US.
My wife and I love it and have shown it to friends, who also love it. In fact, till today I didn't encounter anyone who doesn't like it. Obviously, YMMV, but I can watch it over and over. It's such comfort food for me that I watched it on Jan. 6 once it was all over but the existential dread.
I think either it's funny to you or not, and since the style of humor is old school cartoony, I suspect you would have not liked it in 2000, either. I don't know how you didn't find it funny, but the number of times I have watched comedies and never laughed is substantial, so I get it. (Also, I am in the bag for Patrick Warburton, which is not very common.)
Yeah, I saw it when it first came out. My brother took me to see it. I knew nothing about Pee-wee Herman before that. It seemed to invite a following and we saw it over and over, inviting friends who hadn’t seen it. Then it became a family thing with entertaining the kids—so it’s comfort food. I also love “Lilo and Stitch.”
We import petroleum from OPEC nations. OPEC demand skyrocketed when Europe had to replace what it bought from Russia. And of course oil isn’t the only thing driving inflation.
Yes, left alone inflation is its own cure. But it hurts a lot in the meantime. Which is why, all else being equal, governments and central banks try to tamp it down. Wild swings are bad for nearly everyone - except maybe Joey Gallo.
It would hurt less if people had more savings. But that would require both paying people more and shifting from a culture that says spend what you have to one that says save what you have. In other words, less of a consumer culture. And our economy is dependent on that, so we are damned either way.
Which is sort of why I would rather have inflation that recession. No job at all and no money at all seems a lot worse than having a good job but not having a good enough salary.
The price of oil is also only a piece of the price of gas. The US oil industry shut down a lot of refining capacity permanently during the pandemic and those aren't the kinds of things you can just spin up to meet demand.
The US was a *net* exporter through 2021, which means that the amount of oil we exported, less the amount we imported was a positive number.
But oil is complex. The oil we drill in Texas (WTI) is different than Brent oil is different from OPEC oil, and each have different properties.
Refineries are set up to handle certain types of oil, and switching over to a new input isn't super easy. Which means that an increase in WTI won't do a whole ton for refineries set up to handle Brent oil. They still have to buy that oil from abroad, no matter how much Texas delivers.
That's also why export controls aren't an easy solution either, and could even make price problems worse.
Another issue with refineries is that so many of them shut down when demand collapsed in 2020 and weren't maintained, which has made starting them back up on a spectrum from difficult to impossible, which has sliced into US refinery capacity. Add to that that it's very expensive to build new refineries, and we're dealing with some issues here. Brent hit $99 yesterday, but if capacity hits a ceiling, the crude price won't be what's driving the gasoline price increases.
The bottom line, of course, is that we need to wean ourselves as a species from oil for myriad of reasons. But maybe that the commodity our species relies on to literally stay alive should not be traded this way in the first place. Though if it weren't something people make money from, would all the problems in the industry be even worse?
Not so much the "we need to wean ourselves off of oil," because long-term, that's true, but the idea that such a valuable commodity shouldn't be traded.
It just feels sort of...I don't know...lazy?
Like? "Wow, that's a complex, interconnected system that you say is causing us problems today. The underlying cause must be corporate greed and Wall Street excesses, just as it always is! That's the only reason for something to not be as simple as buying something from a store."
But that's not it. Or, if it is, I don't see it. What I see is a system that, ultimately, is more efficient and more resilient than one that's wholly dependent on a single source, and thus, has a single point of failure.
I also see one that weakens the regional power of oil producers, which, in a small way, makes things more equitable for non-oil-producing nations.
I don't know, It's very possible that I'm missing something, but that really rubbed me the wrong way
I have become a socialist and idealist enough that I have come to dislike the idea of any necessity of life - energy, housing, water, food - being something we get rich from. I get that this doesn't mean things can be simple with any of these. But I think it's a basic human right to have food, shelter, and the means for staying alive in general. And that such things should be outside capitalism.
Though obviously, at some level what I am saying is that everything should be outside capitalism, I don't really know if socialism would really work, but capitalism as practiced now is a disaster. We need something better.
"I also see one that weakens the regional power of oil producers, which, in a small way, makes things more equitable for non-oil-producing nations."
I think this line of thinking would apply if the oil producers were state owned enterprises (which I know some are) - but if at the end of the day it's Chevron or BP doing the drilling, it doesn't matter where the oil is located because it's being extracted at the direction and in service of the imperial core.
This whole thing is why 99%+ of gas price discussion annoys me.
It's not simple! It's got so many moving parts around the world that can affect supply/demand, and so many things that arent necessarily captured in the common understanding of "oil prices" and how the system works, and speaking intelligently means you need to pay attention to both the industry's worldwide happenings, as well as the political situation in 3+ different regions, plus what's going on that might affect demand (which is basically everything).
And then at the end of it, you're talking to someone who fills up their car twice a week, and is mad that the president turned the big "Gas Price" dial to the right. (assuming, of course, that they don't like the current president).
Now multiply that by a zillion others goods and services beyond petroleum and I’m right there with you. Simple answers pointing to evil doers in business and / or government strike me as lazy at best.
Partly it's price gouging, when 3 companies own 90% of any market they love the fact they can crank prices up, give the executive more money, and blame inflation as an external factor. Partly supply chain disruptions as the modern economy doesn't have any storage anymore, they count on things arriving within hours of when they are used to assemble something in a factory or sold directly to customers. Partly demand is high for a lot of complicated things that are generally shipped from overseas, such as cars (and car manufacturers have put the limited number of chips they can get into the most expensive luxury cars to get more bang for their buck). Partly with food especially the invasion of Ukraine and Russia setting grain fields on fire to deliberated starve poorer countries who depend on those exports; food always rolls uphill to wealthy nations so they don't starve, but it does get more expensive.
My parents are old, they remember when inflation was much higher and they stayed in the house they bought when I was young instead of buying a bigger house as their family grew because interest rates on mortgages were jumping up past 10% at the time. Just most of us don't have a good sense for how it was 40 years ago so this seems even worse because we have no basis for comparison.
You and my wife agree. Most economists don't, but I am increasingly convinced that even if you are a left-leaning economist, the very fact that you are an economist who supports capitalism has compromised you to some degree. I need see what socialist economists are saying, aside from "capitalism sucks." (Note: yes, it does.)
We on this site all know that meteorology is a noble career. But beyond that, they really get things right more and more now. I will never forget how on Friday morning before Hurricane Sandy, the prediction was for a direct hit on NYC on Monday afternoon. That sort of prediction would have been impossible not long ago. Oh that our other experts could be as good.
Capitalism has "evil" aspects, just like every system.
America is in fact a mixed economy -- free market capitalism paired with socialism. We have a social safety net and market regulations. We have a central bank that controls liquidity.
Yeah, should have said mostly price gouging since that's what I listed first. Probably depends a lot on the particular thing, too - gas prices? Gougeville USA.
I think your characterization of price gouging is more in line with price optimization. Just because a business resets prices doesn't mean they are deliberately trying to exploit vulnerabilities of consumers.
Aside from basic necessities, commerce is driven largely by human desire. That's why marketing is so important and prevalent. People can choose to not buy something if they dont need it.
Speaking of that supply chain. I am pretty friendly with the employees I deal with at my local Target. They tell me to order a TV or basically anything online and then bring it to the store to return it. I am told not only will I get a refund, but I’d be told to keep the TV as well. They apparently are at the max capacity for inventory locally and they don’t have the ability to send it back to the warehouse due to trucking issues. Now, I won’t be doing that because now that I’m aware of what they are doing I’d consider it ‘stealing’, but I’m sure there will be a ton of it going on once word spreads.
I remember those days, too. Though a big difference is that back then, interest rates on savings were as high as inflation. My mom socking away our Social Security benefits for "orphans" - my dad died when I was three and my brother was an infant - and putting it into accounts with 15% return paid for college. That isn't going to happen again.
But yeah. And then the media says stuff like "worst inflation since Reagan" without explaining the difference between then and now. (And hey, it was worse under Saint Ronnie, but he never gets criticized for that while Biden is getting all the blame. Either blame both, or better blame neither since at the end of the day the president can't really do much in our current laissez faire system.)
Our macro responses - what the Fed does with interest rates - is all about deciding what banks’ profit margins are on loans. People who work for a living will always be measurement metrics in whether those interest rates are too much or too little. But, we as a country appear to have no appetite (through ignorance or insecure comfort) with voting in ways that could create a tax system that rewards and gives financial security to people who work.
Yep. I have a minimal retirement account from my early 80s stint teaching at the University of Florida. I chose an ultra-conservative fixed interest fund that was paying c. 4% pa, at that time a rather paltry rate, as mortgages were over 20%. However, it's still getting 4%, and the miracle of compound interest has been doing its thing for 40 years. Periodically they call to remind me that I'm going to have to start taking money from it, but stop when I tell them that this is the last account I'll dip into, due to the interest rate.
I'm not an economist, but while price gouging contributes to inflation, it also can cause demand destruction. It can force consumers to adjust their spending and hurt demand.
Sucking up excess liquidity through price increases is only a short term strategy. It's not a sustainable business strategy.
Further, the assumption that inflation is primarily price gouging requires one to believe that after 4 decades of inflation hovering very closely around 2%, corporations suddenly decided to massively alter their mechanisms for pricing decisions. Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.
Had the Mets lost the series, they would have downplayed it and said the sky isn't falling. So they at least had the good sense not to be hypocrites about it and claim winning the series was overly meaningful.
But you're right, form a fan perspective it was encouraging to see after watching Atlanta slowly eating down the Mets once large lead. Even if it doesn't really mean much, it was good for our morale.
With the new 1st and 2nd seed bye, the "only care about winning in October" line rings a bit hollow. With the coin toss playoff games are, being able to skip a 3 game series (Central probably has the 3rd seed on lock) on top of the additional rest for the old Mets should be a pretty big incentive to win that division. Of course we're still not past the ASB, but if they dont realize it already, winning that division is a bigger deal in 2022.
I wasn't saying winning the division doesn't mean much. I was saying winning the series 2 games to 1 instead of losing it 2 games to 1 doesn't isn't all that telling about who will win the division.
Assuming your team has a 50% chance of winning that first round series, I'd say that means having to play it reduces your chance of winning the World Series by 50% compared to being a division winner with a bye.
Assuming the Brewers win the Central, then those teams would be fighting for the 4th seed onwards as the 3rd seed (and no playoff bye) goes to the division winner with the worst record, who I think is a lock to be from the NL Central.
The MLB season is a marathon. Players are accutely aware of that. A three-game series is a small sampling of play and liable to large fluctuations in performances and outcomes.
But like you wrote, momentum is important to player morale. Stopping a tough divisional opponent's positive momentum builds confidence.
Leaving this here for the fans of the best Disney animated film ever (though "Meet the Robinsons" is a closer-than-a-fat-kid's-love-of-cake-vs.-pie 2nd)
Corporate profits are off the chain, so there's that. And they have cover for raising prices because of 'supply chain issues". It's a profits party and we're paying for it.
Remind me to kick you when you’re down sometime. Besides, I’m more worried about the Mets - he LOVES Citi Field. A division where Harper and Soto come to visit 14 times a year sounds just lovely. Sigh.
The Mets, Braves, and Marlins are already well familiar with your Harper/Soto fears. Or even worse, the Mets and Marlins have to face Harper, Soto, and Acuna Jr. a combined 42 times a season. I doubt Alonso strikes similar fear, though he's certainly a good player.
Is that really what people talk about with old friends? I hung out with my college friends a couple weekends ago, and we spent half the time mocking each other and the other half the time farting.
I really don't talk much about it, but I'm not sure why. I was the president of drama club and our chapter of the International Thespian Society. Acted in a lot of plays and did tech work on a bunch too. I wasn't particularly talented in that regard -- my singing voice is decent for choir-type stuff, but not big solos -- but I enjoyed it and most of my high school friends were from that world.
Would love to hear more about it at some point. While I am not a theater nerd, we have a lot of friends who are (including one who has tried for years to make it as a playwright/composer). If nothing else, we need your opinion about Damn Yankees.
Talent aside, if you don't have active community theatre where you live, it's hard to scratch that itch as an adult who isn't trying to do it professionally.
Craig: No need to answer today - since it's your birthday and you're on vacation - but someday I'd love to know: What was your favorite role? And what's a role you'd love to play?
Kenley Jansen being activated was paired with Darren O’Day going on the IL. Not that DOD has been good but I have a soft spot for submarine style going back at least to Quisenberry and Tekulve.
On the other hand, the 18 head-to-head games they played during the season (or whatever it is) should be a much better determinant of which team deserves to make the postseason
Not sure that a fight between Guillen and Heyman would have both of them throwing old guy sloppy punches. Guillen is a former player and i feel like these dudes have a baked in athleticism that never goes away until much later in life. Guillen would mop the floor with Heyman, but the real winner would be Draftkings.
I did not know that. Not that I have been in Five Towns in a long time. (We get all our bagels locally from the places in Kew Gardens Hills or once in a while from Milk and Honey in Manhattan, which is the only kosher bagel place that makes whole wheat bagels my wife likes.)
TEN Royals decided that their 5G was good enough not to get vaxxed. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. But at the end of the day they're bringing up the rear in their division so they just get a long weekend before the all star game. I don't think they could have planned it better.
With the Royals, the whole criticism of “they’re not doing everything they can to help the team win” is kind of irrelevant. Even Merrifeld said he’d consider getting vaxxed if/when the team trades him to a contender, which is just….wow.
Wow, If I were a Royals fan, I'd boo Merrifield every time he ever comes to bat. What an insult!
@SamLub, when did Merrifield say that? Can you provide a link? I'm surprised about Benintendi -- because he's probably going to be dealt.
Enjoy! https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article263446958.html
Wow! Thanks! I live in the KC Metro area and I fell in love with baseball and the Royals in 2014, but this really has me "rethinking fandom." (yes, I've read the book!) They can't say they want to help the team if they're not helping the team.
Hard to judge them like that though when these players seem to have full support of upper management
Yep. And the management —I’m just shaking my head. Misguided. We’ll there’s a whole bunch of other words I’d like to use, but I’m holding back.
man, they've come a long way (down) from that mid '10's powerhouse that they gradually assembled.
Hell yeah, the Bad Boys of Baseball
I'm over this team. The Royals always have this deal with the fans, which is, hey, we don't have money, so we are going to put together a "good people" team. Part of being a fan is knowing how incredibly unlikely it is that a group they develop will be good enough to win. Like they did in 2014-2015. But the rest of the time, it's "good guys," an unexpected prospect, a lucky free agent and a whole lot of hope. But the deal is they have to be "good guys." People everyone roots for because they "try hard and do it right."
This team is now exposed as selfish. We already know they are losers. I'm not watching a bunch of selfish losers. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
If they actually just ran with The Fab 5, I am totally back on board. Let's Go Royals.
It is long my tradition to share this video with my wife on her birthday. I see no reason to spare you, Craig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9h57OIaMFs
Isn't it nice that France always marks your birthday with a big military parade? I wonder why that is?
The actual Mets downplayed the trip to ATL. They just called it another series in a long season, and talked more about how the goal isn't winning now, it's winning in October. Good for them that they keep level heads and all. I expect that from this team. But the fans can be quite happy nonetheless that the Mets took two of three from ATL, added a game to the lead, and basically looked like contenders.
Meanwhile in Yankeeland, Luis Severino left early with shoulder soreness. The Yankees apparently have enough rotational depth to manage without him, but it would still be a bummer if Severino, just getting back to his old pre-TJ self, got hurt.
Thought of the day: I have been trying to get a sense of why inflation is so out of control, and nothing I have read really explains it. As best as I can tell, it's because...the economy is too good? I can't make sense of it. And I keep wondering: surely if we are paying more, somewhere out there someone else is making lots of money, right? Because I sort of feel like inflation would not be so bad if the profits someone else is making became our salaries. But since I don't understand any of this, who knows? Any insights would be welcome.
Emperor’s New Groove convinced Disney to give Steve Jobs a zillion dollars so they could buy the Pixar team. So it has that going for it.
I’m annoyed at myself for forgetting that the NYM ATL games was an afternoon getaway game. On the other hand I missed the only non competitive one of the three.
Don’t overthink inflation. Demand is outstripping supply. Delayed demand from pandemic modified behavior of both business and individual spending multiplied by trillions in new government spending and QE from the Fed. Supply constrained by multiple factors most notably for gas prices the war in Ukraine. Causes are simple; cures are complex.
We will not brook criticism of my favorite Disney film in this house. Fortunately for you, you are not actually in my house.
So in theory, inflation should sort itself out eventually when supply meets demand?
But we don't get our gas from Russia! We are more or less self sufficient, right? Surely the price of oil and gas should be based on the actual supply in the US.
My wife and I love it and have shown it to friends, who also love it. In fact, till today I didn't encounter anyone who doesn't like it. Obviously, YMMV, but I can watch it over and over. It's such comfort food for me that I watched it on Jan. 6 once it was all over but the existential dread.
I think either it's funny to you or not, and since the style of humor is old school cartoony, I suspect you would have not liked it in 2000, either. I don't know how you didn't find it funny, but the number of times I have watched comedies and never laughed is substantial, so I get it. (Also, I am in the bag for Patrick Warburton, which is not very common.)
Yeah, I saw it when it first came out. My brother took me to see it. I knew nothing about Pee-wee Herman before that. It seemed to invite a following and we saw it over and over, inviting friends who hadn’t seen it. Then it became a family thing with entertaining the kids—so it’s comfort food. I also love “Lilo and Stitch.”
That's the way I feel about "Pee-wee's Big Adventure."
Pee Wee Herman is a mystery to me. But I can see that his sort of nutsy cuckoo surrealism has its place.
We import petroleum from OPEC nations. OPEC demand skyrocketed when Europe had to replace what it bought from Russia. And of course oil isn’t the only thing driving inflation.
Yes, left alone inflation is its own cure. But it hurts a lot in the meantime. Which is why, all else being equal, governments and central banks try to tamp it down. Wild swings are bad for nearly everyone - except maybe Joey Gallo.
It would hurt less if people had more savings. But that would require both paying people more and shifting from a culture that says spend what you have to one that says save what you have. In other words, less of a consumer culture. And our economy is dependent on that, so we are damned either way.
Well increasing wages itself is inflationary. Lots of moving pieces.
Which is sort of why I would rather have inflation that recession. No job at all and no money at all seems a lot worse than having a good job but not having a good enough salary.
The price of oil is also only a piece of the price of gas. The US oil industry shut down a lot of refining capacity permanently during the pandemic and those aren't the kinds of things you can just spin up to meet demand.
Oil is a commodity traded on a global market.
The US was a *net* exporter through 2021, which means that the amount of oil we exported, less the amount we imported was a positive number.
But oil is complex. The oil we drill in Texas (WTI) is different than Brent oil is different from OPEC oil, and each have different properties.
Refineries are set up to handle certain types of oil, and switching over to a new input isn't super easy. Which means that an increase in WTI won't do a whole ton for refineries set up to handle Brent oil. They still have to buy that oil from abroad, no matter how much Texas delivers.
That's also why export controls aren't an easy solution either, and could even make price problems worse.
Another issue with refineries is that so many of them shut down when demand collapsed in 2020 and weren't maintained, which has made starting them back up on a spectrum from difficult to impossible, which has sliced into US refinery capacity. Add to that that it's very expensive to build new refineries, and we're dealing with some issues here. Brent hit $99 yesterday, but if capacity hits a ceiling, the crude price won't be what's driving the gasoline price increases.
The bottom line, of course, is that we need to wean ourselves as a species from oil for myriad of reasons. But maybe that the commodity our species relies on to literally stay alive should not be traded this way in the first place. Though if it weren't something people make money from, would all the problems in the industry be even worse?
In short, I want my solar panels.
It's a bit frustrating to read that.
Not so much the "we need to wean ourselves off of oil," because long-term, that's true, but the idea that such a valuable commodity shouldn't be traded.
It just feels sort of...I don't know...lazy?
Like? "Wow, that's a complex, interconnected system that you say is causing us problems today. The underlying cause must be corporate greed and Wall Street excesses, just as it always is! That's the only reason for something to not be as simple as buying something from a store."
But that's not it. Or, if it is, I don't see it. What I see is a system that, ultimately, is more efficient and more resilient than one that's wholly dependent on a single source, and thus, has a single point of failure.
I also see one that weakens the regional power of oil producers, which, in a small way, makes things more equitable for non-oil-producing nations.
I don't know, It's very possible that I'm missing something, but that really rubbed me the wrong way
I have become a socialist and idealist enough that I have come to dislike the idea of any necessity of life - energy, housing, water, food - being something we get rich from. I get that this doesn't mean things can be simple with any of these. But I think it's a basic human right to have food, shelter, and the means for staying alive in general. And that such things should be outside capitalism.
Though obviously, at some level what I am saying is that everything should be outside capitalism, I don't really know if socialism would really work, but capitalism as practiced now is a disaster. We need something better.
"I also see one that weakens the regional power of oil producers, which, in a small way, makes things more equitable for non-oil-producing nations."
I think this line of thinking would apply if the oil producers were state owned enterprises (which I know some are) - but if at the end of the day it's Chevron or BP doing the drilling, it doesn't matter where the oil is located because it's being extracted at the direction and in service of the imperial core.
This whole thing is why 99%+ of gas price discussion annoys me.
It's not simple! It's got so many moving parts around the world that can affect supply/demand, and so many things that arent necessarily captured in the common understanding of "oil prices" and how the system works, and speaking intelligently means you need to pay attention to both the industry's worldwide happenings, as well as the political situation in 3+ different regions, plus what's going on that might affect demand (which is basically everything).
And then at the end of it, you're talking to someone who fills up their car twice a week, and is mad that the president turned the big "Gas Price" dial to the right. (assuming, of course, that they don't like the current president).
Now multiply that by a zillion others goods and services beyond petroleum and I’m right there with you. Simple answers pointing to evil doers in business and / or government strike me as lazy at best.
Partly it's price gouging, when 3 companies own 90% of any market they love the fact they can crank prices up, give the executive more money, and blame inflation as an external factor. Partly supply chain disruptions as the modern economy doesn't have any storage anymore, they count on things arriving within hours of when they are used to assemble something in a factory or sold directly to customers. Partly demand is high for a lot of complicated things that are generally shipped from overseas, such as cars (and car manufacturers have put the limited number of chips they can get into the most expensive luxury cars to get more bang for their buck). Partly with food especially the invasion of Ukraine and Russia setting grain fields on fire to deliberated starve poorer countries who depend on those exports; food always rolls uphill to wealthy nations so they don't starve, but it does get more expensive.
My parents are old, they remember when inflation was much higher and they stayed in the house they bought when I was young instead of buying a bigger house as their family grew because interest rates on mortgages were jumping up past 10% at the time. Just most of us don't have a good sense for how it was 40 years ago so this seems even worse because we have no basis for comparison.
You and my wife agree. Most economists don't, but I am increasingly convinced that even if you are a left-leaning economist, the very fact that you are an economist who supports capitalism has compromised you to some degree. I need see what socialist economists are saying, aside from "capitalism sucks." (Note: yes, it does.)
We on this site all know that meteorology is a noble career. But beyond that, they really get things right more and more now. I will never forget how on Friday morning before Hurricane Sandy, the prediction was for a direct hit on NYC on Monday afternoon. That sort of prediction would have been impossible not long ago. Oh that our other experts could be as good.
Isn't economics a social science? It's a study of an aspect of society and human behavior.
Humans are illogical and irrational and therefore impossible to precisely predict.
Capitalism has "evil" aspects, just like every system.
America is in fact a mixed economy -- free market capitalism paired with socialism. We have a social safety net and market regulations. We have a central bank that controls liquidity.
I'd recommend checking out Marshall Steinbaum as an accessible left economist.
Joe Wiesenthal at Bloomberg is more a journalist than an economist, but he tends to cover his beat with a more left view of things.
Yeah, should have said mostly price gouging since that's what I listed first. Probably depends a lot on the particular thing, too - gas prices? Gougeville USA.
I think your characterization of price gouging is more in line with price optimization. Just because a business resets prices doesn't mean they are deliberately trying to exploit vulnerabilities of consumers.
Aside from basic necessities, commerce is driven largely by human desire. That's why marketing is so important and prevalent. People can choose to not buy something if they dont need it.
I agree. Not that I'm an economist or anything. I think that gouging occurs because they want to see if they can get away with it.
Speaking of that supply chain. I am pretty friendly with the employees I deal with at my local Target. They tell me to order a TV or basically anything online and then bring it to the store to return it. I am told not only will I get a refund, but I’d be told to keep the TV as well. They apparently are at the max capacity for inventory locally and they don’t have the ability to send it back to the warehouse due to trucking issues. Now, I won’t be doing that because now that I’m aware of what they are doing I’d consider it ‘stealing’, but I’m sure there will be a ton of it going on once word spreads.
I remember those days, too. Though a big difference is that back then, interest rates on savings were as high as inflation. My mom socking away our Social Security benefits for "orphans" - my dad died when I was three and my brother was an infant - and putting it into accounts with 15% return paid for college. That isn't going to happen again.
But yeah. And then the media says stuff like "worst inflation since Reagan" without explaining the difference between then and now. (And hey, it was worse under Saint Ronnie, but he never gets criticized for that while Biden is getting all the blame. Either blame both, or better blame neither since at the end of the day the president can't really do much in our current laissez faire system.)
In a way, this is the banks doing their own price gouging - banging people out for 6-7% for a mortgage, yet paying 1.5% on your savings account.
Our macro responses - what the Fed does with interest rates - is all about deciding what banks’ profit margins are on loans. People who work for a living will always be measurement metrics in whether those interest rates are too much or too little. But, we as a country appear to have no appetite (through ignorance or insecure comfort) with voting in ways that could create a tax system that rewards and gives financial security to people who work.
15% plus a free toaster!
Man, I could use a new toaster.
You used to walk into the bank branch and the toasters, Mr' Coffees and George Forman grills would be stacked up against the wall like at K-Mart.
Yep. I have a minimal retirement account from my early 80s stint teaching at the University of Florida. I chose an ultra-conservative fixed interest fund that was paying c. 4% pa, at that time a rather paltry rate, as mortgages were over 20%. However, it's still getting 4%, and the miracle of compound interest has been doing its thing for 40 years. Periodically they call to remind me that I'm going to have to start taking money from it, but stop when I tell them that this is the last account I'll dip into, due to the interest rate.
I'm not an economist, but while price gouging contributes to inflation, it also can cause demand destruction. It can force consumers to adjust their spending and hurt demand.
Sucking up excess liquidity through price increases is only a short term strategy. It's not a sustainable business strategy.
Further, the assumption that inflation is primarily price gouging requires one to believe that after 4 decades of inflation hovering very closely around 2%, corporations suddenly decided to massively alter their mechanisms for pricing decisions. Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.
Had the Mets lost the series, they would have downplayed it and said the sky isn't falling. So they at least had the good sense not to be hypocrites about it and claim winning the series was overly meaningful.
But you're right, form a fan perspective it was encouraging to see after watching Atlanta slowly eating down the Mets once large lead. Even if it doesn't really mean much, it was good for our morale.
With the new 1st and 2nd seed bye, the "only care about winning in October" line rings a bit hollow. With the coin toss playoff games are, being able to skip a 3 game series (Central probably has the 3rd seed on lock) on top of the additional rest for the old Mets should be a pretty big incentive to win that division. Of course we're still not past the ASB, but if they dont realize it already, winning that division is a bigger deal in 2022.
I wasn't saying winning the division doesn't mean much. I was saying winning the series 2 games to 1 instead of losing it 2 games to 1 doesn't isn't all that telling about who will win the division.
Assuming your team has a 50% chance of winning that first round series, I'd say that means having to play it reduces your chance of winning the World Series by 50% compared to being a division winner with a bye.
The Giants and Phillies are only 1 game behind the Cards for the 3rd playoff spot so nobody has anything locked up there.
Assuming the Brewers win the Central, then those teams would be fighting for the 4th seed onwards as the 3rd seed (and no playoff bye) goes to the division winner with the worst record, who I think is a lock to be from the NL Central.
The MLB season is a marathon. Players are accutely aware of that. A three-game series is a small sampling of play and liable to large fluctuations in performances and outcomes.
But like you wrote, momentum is important to player morale. Stopping a tough divisional opponent's positive momentum builds confidence.
I too will not spare Craig, happy birthday!.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnT5JkGydVY
Leaving this here for the fans of the best Disney animated film ever (though "Meet the Robinsons" is a closer-than-a-fat-kid's-love-of-cake-vs.-pie 2nd)
https://www.vulture.com/article/an-oral-history-of-disney-the-emperors-new-groove.html
Even Eartha Kitt can’t save a movie featuring David Spade
I have this dream of taking "Song of the South" and redoing it.....
https://pureblather.com/2022/02/19/songs-from-the-south/
Corporate profits are off the chain, so there's that. And they have cover for raising prices because of 'supply chain issues". It's a profits party and we're paying for it.
Not that it matters, but Soto homered in both games, too - and drove in 4 of the 5 runs the Nats scored yesterday.
With the sweep, the Nats are now TIED with the A’s for the worst record in MLB. 2019 seems like a lifetime ago.
#FutureYankee Juan Soto
Remind me to kick you when you’re down sometime. Besides, I’m more worried about the Mets - he LOVES Citi Field. A division where Harper and Soto come to visit 14 times a year sounds just lovely. Sigh.
The Mets, Braves, and Marlins are already well familiar with your Harper/Soto fears. Or even worse, the Mets and Marlins have to face Harper, Soto, and Acuna Jr. a combined 42 times a season. I doubt Alonso strikes similar fear, though he's certainly a good player.
Yes, but they are not former homegrown stars returning to wreak havoc on what’s left of the home nine.
Well, the Mets do have to face Wheeler.
Looking for my violin ...
I'll remind you.
Is that really what people talk about with old friends? I hung out with my college friends a couple weekends ago, and we spent half the time mocking each other and the other half the time farting.
Haha the three friends of mine here are women and we were theater nerds. Different kind of deal.
I had the same thought but decided not to comment at the risk of seeming sexist. Thank you for being the first one off the curb, old fella.
How did I not know you were a theater nerd? It does seem like you don't talk much about that now. Lost the musical bug?
I really don't talk much about it, but I'm not sure why. I was the president of drama club and our chapter of the International Thespian Society. Acted in a lot of plays and did tech work on a bunch too. I wasn't particularly talented in that regard -- my singing voice is decent for choir-type stuff, but not big solos -- but I enjoyed it and most of my high school friends were from that world.
Would love to hear more about it at some point. While I am not a theater nerd, we have a lot of friends who are (including one who has tried for years to make it as a playwright/composer). If nothing else, we need your opinion about Damn Yankees.
I want to hear what he thinks of "Take Me Out"!
Talent aside, if you don't have active community theatre where you live, it's hard to scratch that itch as an adult who isn't trying to do it professionally.
Craig: No need to answer today - since it's your birthday and you're on vacation - but someday I'd love to know: What was your favorite role? And what's a role you'd love to play?
Favorite role: Owen Musser from "The Foreigner" or The Narrator from "Into the Woods."
I'd love to play Felix in "The Odd Couple." Not a play high school kids ever do for a lot of reasons but I'd probably have fun with it now.
What does your wife have to say about you hanging out with three female friends from college? (grin)
That describes my weekend with a couple of college buddies two weeks ago. Our wives were there too, but they gave up on us decades ago.
Hopefully your wives’ eyes have rolled back into normal position in the 2 weeks since
It’s CRAIG’S BIRTHDAY y’all be sure to troll him
About the same with me except I'd reverse the percentages for the novelty.
... so I managed to reply to the wrong comment ...
Kenley Jansen being activated was paired with Darren O’Day going on the IL. Not that DOD has been good but I have a soft spot for submarine style going back at least to Quisenberry and Tekulve.
Happy Birthday Craig. Hope it's a great day, and more productive than the Royals' Covid strategy.
From one Bald Guy to another, happy birthday Craig! We're a year apart in age, and I for one welcome my new AARP Overlords this year.
Happy birthday Craig! In the words of Will Smith, its Summertime, time to sit back and unwind. Enjoy old friend - no pun intended ;).
Happy birthday! That just means your therapist and distillery are more organized than any of us are.
The fact that there’s three teams tied for two spots right now only ticks me off even more that game-163s are dead.
On the other hand, the 18 head-to-head games they played during the season (or whatever it is) should be a much better determinant of which team deserves to make the postseason
Happy Birthday Craig!!
I would argue a team in wild card position isn't failing to contend.
Happy Birthday ! Don’t drink too much whiskey and fall in the pool !!
Not sure that a fight between Guillen and Heyman would have both of them throwing old guy sloppy punches. Guillen is a former player and i feel like these dudes have a baked in athleticism that never goes away until much later in life. Guillen would mop the floor with Heyman, but the real winner would be Draftkings.
Heyman is an old pudgy jewish guy from Long Island. If he takes a hit from an athlete, even an old one he's going down hard.
And I say that with all the love a 5-towns bagel baker has to offer.
I did not know that. Not that I have been in Five Towns in a long time. (We get all our bagels locally from the places in Kew Gardens Hills or once in a while from Milk and Honey in Manhattan, which is the only kosher bagel place that makes whole wheat bagels my wife likes.)
It's been 20 years plus since I tossed a bagel into a bin, but I'll bet I could jump right in and fill that oven if given the chance.
I'm stuck with Brueggers here in Albany, which is not terrible, at least they're kettled.
Happy Bastille and Birthday, Craig! Here’s a song to celebrate with.
https://youtu.be/mT1gmKUoqbY