Monday, June 29, 2009

Men Are Like...

For all those men who say, Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free. Here's an update for you: Nowadays, 80% of women are against marriage, WHY? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage.

Men are like....
Men are like Laxatives. They irritate the crap out of you.
Men are like. Bananas. The older they get, the less firm they are.
Men are like Weather. Nothing can be done to change them.
Men are like Blenders. You need One, but you're not quite sure why.
Men are like Commercials. You can't believe a word they say.
Men are like .. Government Bonds ..... They take soooooooo long to mature.
Men are like .. Mascara . They usually run at the first sign of emotion.
Men are like Lava Lamps. Fun to look at, but not very bright.
Men are like Parking Spots. All the good ones are taken, the rest are handicapped.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Should the government tax college sports

Posted by:
Economist.com NEW YORK
Categories:
Sports and games
UNIVERSITY sports are a big business in America. The NCAA men's basketball tournament added $143m in revenue for athletic departments, and football typically brings in even more. It is one of the more curious aspects of American universities that many run successful sports franchises in addition to providing education.


The government has taken notice. As it scours the economy for new sources of revenue, the CBO is
exploring options to tax university sports franchises. University activities tend to be tax-free, yet college sports provide a non-trivial amount of revenue. The report offers three ways to tax sports: limiting deductions on charitable contributions to athletic programmes, limiting the use of tax-exempt bonds, and limiting the exemption from income taxation for these activities.

The first idea has some merit. Donors to college athletic programmes get priority to purchase season tickets. Bigger or frequent contributions entitle donors to better tickets. Many fans bcome donors for this reason alone, so the donation is effectively part of the purchase price. But because it counts as a charitable contribution it is also 80% tax exempt. The demand for tickets for die-hard fans is probably fairly inelastic, so this may be good source of tax revenue.

The other two options are more problematic. First, Jonathan and Peter Orszag (the latter now a former director of the CBO and now head of the OMB) with Bob Litan found
most athletic programmes lose money for the university. But according to the CBO report, 101 out of 164 Division I teams turn a profit. Still, the profits average just $1.6m per school—not a huge source of revenue. Teams with successful basketball and football teams tend to do better, but athletic success can be unpredictable year to year. The CBO report also cautions that having some university activities non-tax-exempt may just incentivise accounting practices to circumvent the new tax treatment.

Further, we’ve
written before that these franchises can have positive externalities for the university. Winning a championship increases interest in a university which can bring in donors and applicants. It can act as an advertisement for the university, improving academics. With lower endowments and less financial support from state governments, universities need all the help they can get these days.

Thanks, Atlanta

Hooray for the Falcons in sending Michael Vick on his merry way. Athletes at every level have to be accountable for their actions. With the gift of talent comes reponsibility - too many athletes take their talent for granted or worse, take full credit for it.

Monday, June 15, 2009

The F-word and other crap

Corporate America has been shaken recently by lawsuits and criminal charges of fraud by Enron, Martha Stewart, AIG and the whole subprime loan scam. Huge companies who lied to stockholders, the SEC and the government. They all took stockholders’ money and then violated their trust by mishandling it for the profit of top officers. Good old common greed at work at its best. But isn’t that what’s becoming of America? It’s all about the money.

For instance, the movie classic Gone With The Wind almost didn’t make it to theaters because of the last line spoken by Rhett Butler. In answer to Scarlet’s question, “What will I do?” Rhett’s answer of, “ Frankly, My Dear, I don’t give a damn” almost got it axed by the movie censors. How far have we come from that? How much garbage has our kids and their kids heard and seen since Gone With the Wind? But garbage sells.
The F-word is everywhere. Some folks cannot utter a complete sentence without it containing the F-word. Sex, violence, filthy language, bombards each of us daily. In entertainment, in advertising, in schools, in sports and on the street, the degradation of morality and goodness is commonplace.
Child sexual molestation and child pornography are killing children physically and psychologically. Parents are robbing their own kids’ of their childhood by dragging them at age five or younger to soccer and baseball fields or gymnastics and ballet. And in most cases the children observe their parents exhibit the worse in sportsmanship. The best uniforms, equipment, and trophies for everyone by age five feeds parents’ egos at the expense of damaging tender youth and innocence.

The government is no better. A president having sex with a young page and then lying about it stays in office. A Congress that begins each session with prayer while the Supreme Court is working furiously to band God from everything. The Ten Commandments treated with less respect than the Communist Manifesto. A virus that kills people by the thousands spread by the practice of homosexuality while such a lifestyle is being celebrated in television shows, movies, on the streets and even in Congress, state legislatures, and federal courts.

The very institutions that are supposed to uphold and protect the integrity and dignity of our society are waging vicious attacks on the moral fiber of this country. John F. Kennedy’s famous statement, “Don’t ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” has been perverted into the direct opposite philosophy. We are teaching Americans that it is just and right to take from those who work for it and give it to those who refuse to work.

Unreal?

Hey, Gang. Just another day in unreal (fantacy) land. $2 million+ coaches at educational institutions? Medical school professors at about $90,000. The emphasis is quite clear. It's more important to display the athletic skills of nonstudent-athletes than to train people to save lives.

I love Saturday's in the fall as much as anyone. If I do not personnaly attend a game, then I am glued to the TV for the day like all good, red-blooded Southerners. But with an eye for the hypocracy of it all.