John Scott Dot Net

Yesterday Auburn fired offensive coordinator Tony Franklin.

A question that nobody’s asking out there is: Was that the best move for the players? Who is more important here, the men Auburn is educating and putting on the field of competition, or the fans and boosters? If Tommy Tuberville, Auburn’s head coach, himself, in coordination with the rest of the offensive coaches, is taking control of the offense, perhaps the move is OK for the players. However, I’ve never seen a team rally after a coach being fired from the program in mid-season. Losing a coordinator is a big transition. Auburn players know this all too well from the last several months.

A coach does not kill morale (unless something awful is going on). What does kill morale: A talented team not having some success on the field. I’m not sure how this move gives Auburn any edge for the rest of the season. Will this cause more success on the field? I guess it remains to be seen. The odds aren’t good.

As an Auburn fan and a family member and friend of many more avid Auburn fans than myself, I can say that the sentiment is positive about Franklin being let go. It was the right long term move. A coach that is performing worse than his predecessor and can’t produce a working offense out of the high quality talent that Auburn possesses deserves to leave.

However, it is my opinion that the timing is all wrong.

There are a few ideas I have in response to the the question: Why now?

Auburn just lost to Vanderbilt. Everyone’s already looking ahead to Georgia and Alabama and they’re worried about more losses. Boosters won’t shut up, especially ones with deep pockets. Fans boo the offense when it walks onto the field. The situation is dire. Tuberville caved. Should he have caved, or was he forced?

This is a bad day for Auburn — a Blue day. It’s not “All Auburn, All Orange” today. It’s “All Auburn, All Blue”. It’s a sad day when winning games is so important that you have to dismantle the coaching staff in mid-season. Firing a coach mid-season should be reserved for ethics problems. But almighty football, things like the ever-elusive SEC championship game, the resurgence of the Crimson Tide, and the embarrassment of the loss to the perennial SEC underdog are more important these days than the values of cohesiveness and loyalty. Let’s face it, it comes down to money. This decision is not about the team. This decision is about future TV rights, national prominence, recruiting (not just football recruiting but student recruiting), it’s about power. It’s my opinion that this week, money, and powerful booster influence usurped team unity. To some, “It’s great to be an Auburn Tiger” — but only if Auburn is winning. Tuberville fired Franklin this week in mid-season because the negativity got too personal. The pressure was too great.

In terms of sentiment toward the team, quite frankly, I think there’s too much negativity. If Auburn wants to have a prayer of winning more games this season, fans need to rally around the Auburn Tigers. To the exerters of influence over Auburn Football, I say “War Eagle” isn’t just about winning, it’s about doing the right thing for the current football team. I just don’t know whether letting a coordinator go in mid-season helped anything. The decision was a response to external pressure. It likely wasn’t a decision based in any meritable value or virtue. How sad.

But now let’s go play the game. The game is what it’s supposed to be all about. Now, for us fans, it’s time to go act like “we believe in Auburn and love it” for the rest of the season.

This is pathetic, but I sure hope it works.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27090290.

Good video about the federal reserve. A must see if you are economically interested. There’s a reason why we have a banking and financial crisis. The government has a huge hand in it. It’s been going on a long, long time. This helps answer questions like “how does this bailout work?”, “How will our presidents and congresspeople pay for their programs and cut taxes at the same time?”, and “Why do I need a “cost of living raise” each year?”.

If Purdue loses by less than a touchdown to Penn State today, you can thank the referees.  After a 3rd down goal-line play that did not result in a touchdown, officials waited until the snap of 4th down to trigger a review.  The 3rd down play was clear and didn’t need review.  The 4th down play that was whistled dead would have resulted in Purdue taking over on downs.  The 2nd 4th down play succeeded in a Penn State touchdown since Penn State got to practice it beforehand.

I have seen virtually no calls get overturned this year.  What’s the real value in “official review”?  I say none.  It screws up as many plays as it fixes.  Especially in this case.  Shame on the refs at the Purdue/Penn State game.

 
I’m officially done with blogging about politics for the year.  I’m tired of it, and I have better things to do with my time like - making money in these times of monetary blackness.

I have made up my mind who to vote for for President of the United States.  I’ll be voting for Bob Barr, the Libertarian. This decision is more on principle than anything. It’s my little tiny voice of dissent for the political process, my weariness of listening to and reading *all* media outlets (including my own blog), and my opposition to what both parties are doing to appeal to the electorate. I’ve said a lot over the last few months about my disapproval of both parties. I have begun studying foreign policy, whom one of my good friends thinks favors Democrats, but I’m skeptical of either mainstream candidate being able to improve our position on the world stage. As economic equilibria shift, so will politics and relations, and we can do no right in these times with the positions we’ve taken as a country over the last 50 years. In my lifetime, no President has been without some egregious blemishes on foreign policy. I cannot see either party taking a stance that is all of a sudden going to be some vast improvement over the next 4 years. 4 years is a blink of an eye. Anyway - don’t get me wrong, I don’t love Bob Barr and how he hammered on moral issues in his Republican days and was a forerunner in the call for Clinton’s impeachment. What I believe in is a smaller government and more freedoms for Americans, and I believe, in various ways, those Freedoms are being taken away by both mainstream parties. Again, my vote for Barr is my tiny voice of dissent.

I remain undecided on the Senate vote (Chambliss vs. Martin). For many reasons that I won’t get into, I’m dissatisfied with Saxby Chambliss, but for many reasons I won’t go into, I’m also not a big fan of Martin. In a nutshell, Martin is too much a party-line and rhetorically speaking Democrat and Chambliss is a good ‘ol boy big-government Republican, both having positions I disagree with.

The last issue I want to address is my position on the economic bailout/rescue/assistance/what have you / bill that just passed the Senate last night.

I will open the discussion by saying that the Senate put tons of pork and unrelated garbage into the bill. It’s that nasty, grisly, political sausage that should never be made out of something as important and cut and dried as the economic situation we find ourselves in. I agreed with the House voting the bill down, but unfortunately, it has given the Senate enough time to throw together an abominable amount of crap to bundle in with some daunting and arguable rescue tactics.

One of my absolute favorite talk show hosts, Herman Cain, royally ticked me off last night.  He basically called the opposition to the bailout bill “uneducated”.  I’ll concede there are those people out there who oppose a government bailout because they think Uncle Sam is coming to the rescue of the “Fat Cats” and don’t understand the economic impact to “main street”. But there are also those, like me, who understand the impact, and believe that the market should be allowed to clear on its own. I think Herman is dead wrong.  We don’t have to bail out companies on Wall Street in order to get the credit market going again.  We have the Fed.  The Fed can create dollars.  We have the Treasury.  The Treasury can issue bonds and give liquidity to companies. Herman admits that the treasury can issue bonds to the tune of $350 billion today that could begin to alleviate the crisis without legislation. The bill’s main feature requiring approval is that it allows debt to be converted to company equity. I personally don’t feel that the government should have an ownership stake in private corporations. I disagree with it entirely, and I won’t support it. The socialist or fascist implications of the government owning part or all of a private business is scary, and it’s the wrong direction for the freedom of our economy.

If these companies are allowed to fail as a consequence of taking on too much risk, the end result will simply be the eventual acquisition or transferral of those assets to stronger hands who bear less risk in their portfolios.  For the economy to get better, we must allow assets to change hands, for corrupt and mismanaged corporations to fail, and for financial strength to be restored. Propping up overly leveraged companies, in my opinion, perpetuates weakness in banks. If Main Street takes a short term hit, so be it.

What’s more, why should we trust the government to provide a solution?. The government created a great part of the problem in the first place. Congress allowed (and in some states even required) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue to take on bad loans.  Sure, wall street took mortgage debt and made derivative investments out of them, and that made it worse, but the government created the environment in which this could happen. The government also created part of the problem through the federal reserve who, during times of economic strength, left interest rates low, creating bubbles in the housing and equities markets, rather than prudently controlling economic growth. I laugh at those who call Alan Greenspan a “Laissez-Faire” Fed chief. His direct intervention caused bubbles in the economy and an weaker dollar than we should have tolerated. Housing prices have a long way to fall because they rose too fast. While irrational exuberance was happening, Wall Street and K Street) could do no wrong. Democrats got housing for poorer lower middle class constituents who couldn’t and shouldn’t have been able to afford it. Their positions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got them re-elected. Republicans’ rich buddies were getting rich on Wall Street. Investors made a lot of money. Those factors helped get Republicans re-elected. Everyone was happy. In other words, political greed caused the issue as much as economic greed caused it on Wall Street. Why should “we the people” allow this crazy, complex, and in many ways incorrect “gravy train” to keep on riding?

There is oversight in the new bailout bill, but that’s the only essential component, in my opinion. The oversight needs to be specifically targeted to be sure Wall Street can’t create as many derivatives. We need to render financial institutions unable to back a severely leveraged balanced sheet with risky financial instruments. Let’s keep the problem from occurring again, but let’s not keep these crooks that foolishly wrecked their companies’ balance sheets from going out of business. Let’s not give the government the option to own part of these unstable companies by being able to convert debt to equity. The government already has enough control of financial markets through monetary policy. The buck should stop right there.

Contrary to Herman Cain’s opinion, my arguments against the bailout are legitimate.  They aren’t some cockeyed claim that we’re “bailing out rich people with taxpayer money”. That’s not the point. The point is - increasing government control over financial markets is wrong. Control and oversight/enforcement are different things.

Until ‘09 - John Scott - out (on the politics and economics topics).

Some last minute food for thought:

1) Glenn Beck letter from the future

2) Interesting CATO Institute research