Final Thoughts on the 2011 Major League Baseball Season

Allow me by first saying that I wholeheartedly hate the St. Louis Cardinals. As an Astros fan, I'm already been conditioned to can't stand them. The Cardinals have ruined, in a way, four seasons for me (2001, 2004, 2006, and 2011)  However, they have some of the best fans in Major League Baseball and for what it's worth, St. Louis is the quintessential baseball town. But it still doesn't change the hatred I have for the team. Nonetheless, before I hate any team and before I love any team, I am a baseball fan first.

Which is why the 2011 World Series is one of the best World Series ever played, the second best World Series played since 1991 (the only World Series better since then is the 2001 World Series, even though the 2002 Series had its moments). I'm guessing every 10 years or so we are in for a treat. Aside from the Cardinals blowing out the Rangers in Game 3 and an anti-climatic Game 6 where the Rangers could not solve Chris Carpenter in anyway, shape, or form, the remaining five games, including the breathtaking classic slugfest of Game 6, was intense and exciting.

And this World Series is exactly what baseball needed.

This is the highest rated World Series not to include the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees since 2002 when the San Francisco Giants lost to the then-Anaheim Angels. It served as the culmination of one of the greatest postseasons in recent memory, as 38 out of 41 possible games were played. The World Series featured two teams -- a Rangers team that was widely seen as one of the most complete teams in all of the Major Leagues and a Cardinals team that had Lady Luck on their side from the conclusion of the regular season to the final fly-out of the World Series. What a story Cardinals fans will be able to tell for generations and this eclipses their improbable championship runs of 1964 and 2006, which I'll write about in a separate post.

I can't stress how badly baseball needed this World Series. The World Series was increasingly becoming an afterthought, especially with the absence of the pop culture phenoms Yankees and Red Sox. This World Series should serve as a reminder as to why baseball, despite the long season and the slow pace of the games, is, was, and always will be the true heart and soul of American sports, no matter how many football fans try to dispute this fact. It's the only game where you'll never be able to rattle off how many hits Sid Bream had in his career, but you'll always remember the slow runner for beating out Barry Bonds throw at Fulton County Stadium with the late, great Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray screaming "Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!". It's the only game that you'll never remember how many teams Aaron Boone played for but you'll always remember that moonshot to left against the Boston Red Sox in 2003. The Shot Heard Around The World in 1951. Bill Mazeroski in 1960. Bob Gibson sinking a dynasty in 1964. "We'll see you tomorrow night," says Jack Buck after Kirby Puckett's game winning shot in 1991. The Stolen Base that ended the Yankees season in 2004. And now, one pitcher, one arm, and an 11th World Series title to the one of the most storied franchises in the senior circuit in 2011.

With the 2011 World Series, baseball has showed that it can be in the national conscience without it's two most popular franchises being involved in the final stage. It took timely hitting and breathtaking pitching performances. It took home runs that set the pace. It took too many men being left on base. It took promising seasons ending in heart break. It took one team that was apparently anointed as the chosen team by the baseball gods. It took the Boston Red Sox beating themselves out of a postseason berth. It took Delmon Young bashing the Yankees out of the playoffs. It took Chris Carpenter matching wits and pitches with Roy Halladay. It took a baseball renaissance in Milwaukee. It took the venerable Rangers bullpen against the comeback kids from Tampa Bay and the darlings of a depressed city and state in the Detroit Tigers. It took the Cardinals surviving from being a strike away from oblivion not once, but twice. There were so many great stories about this postseason that led to an amazing World Series that it could not be covered all in this post.


I hate the fact that the Cardinals won, but I guess in a way its poetic justice. Here's a team that was left for dead at the beginning of September and they kept playing. They kept showing up everyday and competing. And from there things seemed to go into their favor, just as they did when they stormed up on the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964 and fended off the Houston Astros in 2006. The Cardinals crashed the party when the Phillies finished off the Braves in the last week of the season. Ironically, they would then rid the Phillies in the Division Series. In the NLCS, they kept the Brewers from doing what they did better than any other team in the National League -- winning at home. And finally, in the World Series, the Cardinals were simply clutch when faced with being one strike away from their season ending.

What a story.

What a World Series.

What a postseason.

What a game baseball is.

More On Occupy Wall Street

If anybody has ever been in sales, then you'll know who Grant Cardone is because either somebody reference his training or forced you to watch it. In the car business, I was only referenced to it. His high-energy, positive motivational work has made him pretty much the prominent speaker for the sales profession, and his entrepreneurial work has been covered by the mass media. In fact, he has his own show, Turnaround King, on National Geographic.

If you're looking for a post for me bashing his contributions for the Church of Scientology, you won't find it in this post. Scientology is a joke and not really worth my time shitting on.

What this post is about, however, is his comments made on a Phoenix television station that he uploaded on this account on YouTube describing the Occupy Wall Street movement as a distraction. Many people continue to dismiss that Occupy Wall Street is nothing more than a movement of lazy, anti-capitalist Americans that want a handout. He also noted that he has never seen anything that looks like the mighty 1% of Americans oppressing the other 99%.

Hmm...

Before I get into that, allow me to digress for a moment.  The "American Dream" has been always romanced into a quasi-rags-to-riches story, as hard work, persistence, and dedication will pay off into comfortable living. That's a reasonable statement, and why not? People, such as Grant Cardone can tell that story. It's his story of making his wealth from dirt by taking a sales job and his reinforcement of the entrepreneurial spirit is what sold him so many damn books in the first place. It's a good story.

Same thing can be said about the late Steve Jobs -- his love of technology, his demand for perfection, and his savvy marketing skills brought him great wealth and reverence as the greatest technology executive ever. He too has a rags-to-riches story, from founding Apple in his parents garage to taking Apple to vanguard status in computing and telecommunications.

However, let's not confine ourselves to idealism. You can give your effort to anything and then still come out with nothing. That happens. Especially in sales. There are more people who don't experience what they deem to be success than those that would consider themselves successful and the unsuccessful/successful discrepancy is massive. Capitalism is a crapshoot, but I didn't tell you that.

I recognize that capitalism is a crapshoot. I've been in sales. I'm still in sales, by way of transitioning into the insurance industry. However, I'm also attempting to get a degree in business so I can head to the energy sector. I'm just like a good chunk of the people down in Wall Street -- broke, balancing school and work, and hoping for a payoff with my degree. I also realize that I have a real chance to fall flat on my face, and there is also a chance that if I do fall on my face, it can be as much my fault as it isn't my fault.

I wrote before that there are winners and losers in capitalism. Someone argued with me that this was a result of a mathematical outcome. I'm inclined to agree with him; its just the result of that said mathematical outcome is what brought thousands of people to Wall Street and as such, it moves past being just a mathematical outcome.

I also came up with the concept of "corporate arielism". Some of you would consider it a far fetched idea -- that corporations and the extremely wealthy want the other 99% or so to accept the fact that they have the income, they run the show, and they're in the driver's seat.
 
What I mean by the driver's seat is that they have the financial means necessary to solve many issues that the vast amount of Americans can't. Those issues can be anything; the financial means could be exercised in anyway -- whether its just throwing money at liabilities, throwing money in to invest, or throwing money to lobby politicians.

What I mean by how they run the show is that for better or for worse, they get called on to spur the economy. That's either through increased consumption, increased investment, or paying more in taxes. The monetarists and the Keynesians and the well off and the dirt poor turn to the 1% for all three reasons (give or take what category you fall into, you either are calling on all three, two of, or one of those things listed above). It's the Gospel of Wealth versus Social Darwinism.

What I mean by having the income is self explanatory. Then again, it is not self explanatory. There's a wide range of topics from commerce to capital gains. I don't count on your attention span to be that wide. It's not me being unable to make a point here; its me basically saying that they have an ability to generate income through the means that they have that most people don't have.

In short, the top 1% represent the "winners" in the economic game of capitalism. That's where Grant Cardone is. Good for him. Makes for a hell of a story to tell. However, his story won't get repeated 310 million times over.

I will have to dispute his notion that government has never fixed an economy. The United States government has fixed an economy before. It's called entering into World War II.

I will dispute his assertion that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a distraction; it's a necessary movement to address the issue that is going to dominate this century -- the income disparity with a corollary addressing financial greed and the corporate state. That's the gripes. In their eyes, its financial greed that wrecked the market place, the corporate state that allowed for it, and now greater income disparity as a result of it. They're pretty much right -- a free market will never truly behave itself, no matter how many times libertarians and conservatives will argue otherwise; Washington will hear big business loudest; and the income disparity, no matter how much people will argue that it is just a mathematical outcome as a result of capitalism, will continue at an increasingly unsustainable pace.

However, its not a political movement. It's a movement to bring awareness and to push for action, for there are those that work hard and still struggle. For there are those that seek to better themselves with education and degrees that are supposed to provide for a better pay day and a better life and still struggle. For there are those that can't afford to take care of themselves or see what issues with their health they may have. For there are those that can't find full time work, not because they don't want to, but because they can't. For there are those that are upset that as they struggle to make ends meet in the wake of the financial system's collapse, those in the driver seats of the financial sector have never been held accountable for the damage done -- in their eyes an injustice.

There are others, like Grant Cardone -- mainly conservative pundits and bloggers who believe in the "American Dream" of work hard brings rewards -- that only want to open their mouths to discredit the whole movement. However, what these pundits and bloggers fail to realize, that every tried and true system has an end game to it. Yet, the end game doesn't have to be doom and gloom, if we just use our heads.

The Confederate Flag

Proposed license plate (Houston Chronicle/Texas Department of Transportation). FAIR USE: I am only using this image for educational purposes only as it has to do with the subject of this post.

I'm writing this in response to a story that I saw posted on the Houston Chronicle's website about local political critics ramping up their campaign against the proposed allowance of a Confederate insignia to be on Texas license plates, which will be voted on by the Texas Department of Transportation next month. The proposal is sponsored by Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson on behalf of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The group plans on using the proceeds from custom license plate purchases to mark Confederate graves and build monuments for Confederate heroes. In turn, they will share the proceeds with the Texas General Land Office.

I went to school with a guy that had a girlfriend who bought him a Texas Confederate belt. The belt did not really offend me because he was not really a racist (even though he tried to act like one) and he did it out of Southern pride and not out of white racial supremacy. Or so I think. I haven't spoke to him in years so I could never really quiz him on his intentions. To tell you the truth, I really could care less. When it comes to racial issues I see it like this -- you're entitled to your opinion, however, if you have an issue with the color of my skin do not allow it to get to a point where you're interfering with my right to my own life. That's when we have problems.

It is indeed understandable as to why the Confederate flag offends the majority of Americans and not just black Americans. The Confederacy's Constitution guaranteed slavery and Southern politicians justified it by invoking a twisted interpretation of the Biblical story of Ham in the Bible. There are indeed those that use the Confederate flag to not only show off their Southern pride, but also as a racial intimidation tactic in support of white supremacy. Yet, at the same time, even the Confederate flag has increasingly began to take an avant-garde meaning to it -- as just a mere display of Southern pride and heritage. It is the avant-garde meaning that the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Land Commissioner Patterson are sticking to in their campaign for the insignia.

It goes back to freedom of speech. You're guaranteed the freedom of speech so as long as you are not putting others lives in danger. If the TxDOT allowed for the Confederate flag to be put on license plates, it would not interfere with others quality of life, however it might affect those that choose to have the Confederate flag on the license plate because they're going to stick out and the judgment calls will roll in. However, the formation and the existence of Confederacy was one of the many markers that was a part of the unfortunate first three centuries of American society, where there was widespread, legalized disenfranchisement based on the color of one's skin. But the Confederate flag manifested itself from being a flag of a nation that institutionalized racism to being a flag of a distinct part of the country with its own culture and distinctive heritage. Now, how much you are willing to accept the latter is up to each and every one of you, but personally I have accepted the "heritage not hate" aspect of the Confederate flag.

On a personal note, I'm not bothered by the Confederate flag. I've seen it flown, I've seen it on window decals, I've seen it on bumper stickers, I've seen it on online profiles -- you get the point. There's no point in oppressing or trying to cover up history, no matter how unpleasant. If you wish to fly the Confederate flag or display it in the name of heritage, fine. If you do so out of racist means, that's fine too, so as long as you do not interfere with my life and my right to live.

The Ron Paul Plan

I spent three days trying to write this, because I kept getting interrupted.

Ron Paul released his plan to "Restore America" which includes cutting $1 trillion in federal government spending during his Paul's first year in office (2013) and is schedule to deliver a balanced budget in 2015. Before I get into that, I want to start with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Paul's strict-interpretation view of the United States Constitution is in the vein of Jefferson, who believed in lassiez-faire economics, a limited central government, state rights, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Like Paul, Jefferson believed that it was the duty of government to ensure the protection of individual liberty -- at least for Paul, augmenting the Bill of Rights with the basic belief that government should just stay out of private lives. This is a generalization, but in fairness it does capture the major premise of Paul's political beliefs in comparison to Jefferson's philosophy on what's proper American democracy.

The unique feature about the American Constitution is how ambiguous it was when it was composed and ratified as to how it should be interpreted, not withstanding the Federalist Papers, whom scholars and jurists use as the source of intent with the Constitution -- something that James Madison, one of the authors, didn't intend. Jefferson, along with primary Constitution author Madison, disliked the idea of a strong national government because, although not explicitly stated, would go against the whole point of fighting for and winning independence from Britain. Their rival, Federalist Party leader Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury in the United States, pushed for a more "loose" interpretation of the Constitution that would provide for a stronger central government, spearheaded by a strong military, the assumption of state debt by the federal government, and a central banking system.

Don't worry: I'm not trying to delve deep into American history so much to the point where you feel like you're sitting in a history class. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because the debate between Jefferson and Hamilton over what's really the proper  of the Constitution is relevant to today because in the wake of exploding federal debt, we're now coming to the point here in the United States where the size of government in proportion to the population is coming in to question. As most of the people that have regularly read my blog know, I've written about this already.

Paul believes that government is too big, that the central bank is the root of all evil, personal responsibility must be promoted, and his budget plan looked to resolve these issues and more. You can view his plan here.

So here's the itemized list, for those that do not want to read:

• The termination of the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Education
• Abolish the Transportation Security Administration
• End corporate subsidies
• Abolish foreign aid
• Ending all foreign wars and entanglements
• Lower the corporate tax rate to 15% and eliminate the death tax
• Repeal of "Obamacare", the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and terminate all "onerous" reforms by Executive Order
• Audit the Federal Reserve and "implement competing currency legislation"
• Cut the Federal workforce by 10%, cut Congressional pay, and take an executive pay cut
• Spending freezes on various departments and agencies including Medicaid, State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Food Stamps, Child Nutrition, the Department of Justice, Agriculture, Transportation, State, Homeland Security, Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Centers of Disease Control (CDC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

So, here's the score card:

• Generally, most people do not really see the point of any of those five agencies existing. However, that largely comes from an ignorance from what functions they serve and why the departments are seen as useless. The Department of Energy is responsible for nuclear waste, and the focus of the department is cleaning up the mess left behind by the Cold War and has never seen any worthwhile investment in the department until the Obama administration. The Department of the Interior manages all lands owned by the federal government which suffers from severe backlog and has a history of corruption -- who the hell will buy these lands in a privatization move is anybody's guess. The Department of Commerce does a lot -- from administering the Census, to promoting economic growth, to monitoring the weather, to establishing industrial and technological standards; I would assume that most of these duties would move to the private sector, which will produce mixed results. The Department of Housing and Urban Development provides a means for the poor to acquire housing even though the real issue with HUD is the quality of housing.
  
  The Department of Education is a different story because throughout the existence of the Department, its Constitutionality has been debated, with opponents citing the Tenth Amendment and the lack of the mention of education in the Constitution with proponents citing the Commerce Clause. A significant function of the Department of Education is providing collegiate student aid. Other than that, a lot of the functions of the Department of Education are largely symbolic. The only way that the Department of Education would work is if the American educational system would be nationalized to provide for a uniform, mandatory educational system across the States. In other words, the first four would be better served overhauled more so than absent; as for the Department of Education, it either has to go the way of the chopping block like Paul desires or actually become a full blown regulatory body.
• The Transportation Security Administration's failure is in personnel and in training. Some people only consider the TSA to create only a false sense of security, considering the massive undercover failure in 2006 and the harassment controversy of 2010. However, the creation of the TSA was wholly reactionary and it has been cultivated with inefficiencies since its genesis. However, I think an airline security system has a place -- just not the TSA.
• The ending of corporate subsidies and the rollback of the corporate income tax go hand in hand. However, Paul's plan did not make any specific mention of the closing of corporate tax loopholes, which allows most corporations to avoid paying the 30+% corporate income tax. Paul's website noted that the latter should spur domestic American investment by allowing companies to repatriate capital without facing taxation. This is assuming that these corporations find it more lucrative to invest domestically than to put their foot in the door of globalization. Companies use taxation as an excuse, which is fair, but companies are going to go where labor is cheapest and they can make the biggest return on their investment (i.e., Asia).
• Paul aims to get out of the foreign aid and foreign war business, returning the United States to a non-interventionist foreign policy. There's an upside and there's a downside to that -- the upside that it saves money. The downside is that rooted in whether you not you believe in the "Gospel of Wealth That Can Cover My Ass".
• The federal workforce and the political pay cut: it's nice, but it's political grandstanding.
• "ObamaCare's" failure is not doing anything to address exploding health care costs. In cutting Medicaid and Medicare funding, Paul isn't either. In fact, it's putting too much of a gamble into the private sector, which will be overran by additional health care costs, causing the cost of acquiring health care services to skyrocket as insurance companies try to maintain their profits.
• The Dodd-Frank Act was called a disaster by Paul in a recent debate that levied a cost of $1 trillion on Americans. I don't think that much, but the Durbin Amendment is a screw job and it's why I have to pay $60 a year to use my debit card with Bank of America. I don't think the financial markets should go unregulated, but even I think most of the Dodd-Frank act is rooted in garbage.
• The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 does two things: forces companies to use proper accounting purposes while at the same time costing companies a whole hell of a lot of money to be compliant. While some people blame the Sarbanes-Oxley act for a drop in IPOs (Initial Public Offering, or when a company goes offers stock to investors; with a Wall Street editorial recording a low figure for 2008), it dropped below 100 in 2001 (before it was passed), averaged over 200 IPOs a year from 2003-2007, dropped back down to 32 in 2008, increasing to 63 in 2009, and 157 in 2010. However, American firms would be better served if the they were forced to comply with IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards).
• Most of the spending freezes are made with the intent of passing more responsibility to the states and the free market. I hope Paul realizes that the added responsibility to the states would be passed on to the constituencies by way of more taxes. It's inevitable if the States have a desire to remain solvent for that I can assure you that austerity measures really won't fly here in the United States. Not to mention, the free market can't be the solution to everything. 
• He wants to bring back the gold standard. Only issue is that there's more currency than could be supported by gold.

In short, Paul's plan is a wishlist that's partially unrealistic. Any executive order he enforces will come back to bite him as an abuse of power and a violation of his libertarian stance. Most of these dissolution of the departments and federal spending cuts would result in chaos that most consumers and states would not be ready to incur, since most of the resulting burden would be passed on to them. However, I give him credit: at least he came up with a more coherent plan than laughable draconian shit fest of Paul Ryan's budget.

Yes, media, Ron Paul is relevant

Official United States Congressional Photo of Ron Paul (2007)

"We furnish the Presidential race." - Somebody in some media organization that decided that the most compelling presidential race will be the one that is the most salacious.

Maybe there is a point to Ron Paul being somewhat ignored by the mainstream media -- he currently does not lead in any of the major polls for Republican candidates and there's only moderate awareness of him compared to Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry. However, the truth is that the mainstream media shoves Romney, Cain, and Perry down our throats, along with Michelle Bachmann and Chris Christie, despite the fact that Bachmann is not even a relevant candidate and Christie has no intentions in running. Aside from the fact that Paul is the most prominent American libertarian since Barry Goldwater, Paul has very little the media would want to salivate over: he doesn't utter comments in stupidity (Perry), has no controversy surrounding his religion (Romney), and he does not have a catchy tax plan (Cain).

I have to applaud Ron Paul despite the fact that I disagree vehemently with his economic views. He doesn't live for the political sideshow, his views have been largely consistent, and for the most part he practices what he preaches. He never maxes out his Congressional office budget and he has not enrolled in any Congressional pension plan. There's nothing really controversial about him (okay, there was the newsletter issue that he actually handled pretty damn well in my book). Not even his comments about the United States involvement in the Middle East. He doesn't even live for the soundbite. He doesn't have any political feuds. At least Andrew Napolitano gives him face time.

Paul doesn't get any attention in any of the presidential debates, which is something I really don't get. Rick Santorum is a pop conservative, Bachmann uses too much hyperbole, Perry aims for shock value, Jon Huntsman is a narcissist, Gary Johnson is way out in left field, and Romney is actually a moderate who is trying way too hard to appeal to conservatives. Paul offers solutions and political beliefs that can be subject to debate on an intellectual level, which is something that cannot be said about the rest of the Republican candidates (all right, I'll give Romney some credit). As a corollary to that, Paul professes far superior knowledge of the issues and offers said solutions that are far more coherent. Whether or not media outlets such as Fox, CNN, or even Bloomberg are intimidated by Paul or just trying to milk Romney versus ______ so much is up to all of you to decide, though I'll personally vote for the latter.

Overall, besides the media's infatuation with Romney versus ________, the media's real issue with Ron Paul is that he's not really a pop candidate -- as in, a candidate that the media can easily make a generalization about. He's not a party personality or a personality of a movement. Or, in other words, he's Ron Paul, a libertarian, instead of Ron Paul, the GOP superstar or Ron Paul, the darling of the Tea Party. He is truly his own man and his own candidate and he refrains from political grandstanding and pandering so that he can score constituency points through the media. That's what his followers adore about him. Consequently, that's why the media seems bored with him.

Notwithstanding, there's no guarantee that if Paul got even more media exposure that he would be a candidate that would be setting the world on fire. Considering that he is the most coherent Republican presidential candidate, he probably would set the world on fire, at least for the GOP. However, it is clear that if Ron Paul's candidacy is not successful, then it will be largely the fault of the mainstream media, who the American public will turn to be educated about the candidates, that consistently push him to being the candidate for libertarian political underground. When considering that, it is a damn shame that the media is doing a disservice to the American public with the debates: the debates should be more about a forum to get to know where all the candidates stand and not a political grandstanding and pandering showcase.

Yet, while most of the country remains ignorant to Ron Paul, he still continues to raise money at an aggressive pace with a series of successful Internet-based money bombs and donation drives. Paul still has a populist appeal that could resonate with more and more voters as the primary season begins to heat up at the beginning of the 2012 calendar year. Make no mistake about it: despite the fact that he is not a media darling, he is still a relevant candidate. It's my hope, personally in at least for the sake of healthy, sensible American political discourse, that Paul does not remain lost in the shadows of political mainstream media engineering.