June 1, 2012 · 7:08 AM

A sign the apocalypse is almost upon us.

UCLA finds itself obligated to issue a statement defending itself against the argument that athletic scholarships should be means tested.

We’re losing our collective minds, people.

30 Comments

Filed under General Idiocy

30 responses to “A sign the apocalypse is almost upon us.”

  1. Nate
    June 1, 2012 at 8:04 AM

    I guess wealth is the only form of discrimination that is still socially acceptable.

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    • The other other Doug
      June 1, 2012 at 8:42 AM

      +1

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    • gastr1
      June 1, 2012 at 9:18 AM

      Could have just as easily been the work of a bunch of anti-government crackpots kvetching about wasteful spending.

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      • James Stephenson
        June 1, 2012 at 9:45 AM

        But it isn’t and wasn’t, read the Yahoo article and comments omg. He’s part of the 1% and I can promise you that is not the wasteful spending peeps.

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      • Cosmic Dawg
        June 1, 2012 at 12:03 PM

        Gastr1, you can throw me in with all those “crackpots” who think our government is an abomination of waste and corruption. Sadly, the unintended consequences of this nanny state are hurting the poor and middle class the most. Obama, McCain, Chambliss, Isakson, Pelosi, Bush, Harry Reid, etc – finding “common ground” (insert sound of me gagging on a lie here) by all voting for the bailouts was all the convincing I needed to see where the loyalties in D.C. lie for both parties.

        If we really gave a damn about the poor, we’d kvetch a heckuva lot more about our government flushing *trilliions* of dollars that could be put to truly productive use in the private sector (jobs, charities, whatever) down the drain. If we really gave a damn about the poor, we’d return to the free markets and civil liberties that were *solely* responsible for lifting the dirt farmers of the world up from the swamps of several millennia of subsistence poverty and pestilence in the first place.

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        • gastr1
          June 1, 2012 at 3:33 PM

          Thanks for the admission and providing Exhibit A as supporting documentation, Cosmic. Fine work.

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          • Cosmic Dawg
            June 1, 2012 at 10:15 PM

            Sadly, snarky comments will not make your argument for you. While the left and neo-cons both have their issues, the left stands alone in its belief that simply being liberal *automatically* gives you the intellectual high ground. But your political peers reassuring you that you’re part of the smart crowd doesn’t make it so.
            If you’ve got some evidence to refute anything I’ve written, I’ll be happy to take an objective look at it.

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            • gastr1
              June 1, 2012 at 11:02 PM

              This is clearly not the forum, but I’ll state this: You lost me with the first contention about the auto bailouts. If you think bailing out the auto industry was bad on any level you clearly have your head up your keister: there may have been a lot of things that Obama has done poorly, but saving and rejuvenating the auto industry saved a hell of a lot of jobs in this country that Mitt Romney’s approach would have let be in Japan or Korea right now, and now the auto industry is doing just fine, thank you.

              As for deficits, this country has run a federal deficit basically since 1776. There is not an administration in the 20th century, and now 21st, that has not sought some level of federal investment to stimulate demand in a recession. You keep taxes low to ensure adequate supply, but when investment by the private sector slows to a crawl, you stimulate with deficit spending. It’s doctrinaire economics, for chrissakes.

              I’d love to take on the rest, but I’d have to write a book that no one wants to read and I don’t want to write. Let’s agree to disagree on it. Peace, brother. 🙂

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              • Cosmic Dawg
                June 3, 2012 at 1:57 PM

                Gastr1, you’re one of my favorites commenters on my favorite blog, so glad we can keep things peaceful. I do want to respond to what you’ve written, though.
                I was referencing the financial bailouts, but the auto bailouts work just as well. If you want to save and rejuvenate the auto industry, or any industry, then you must to let bad companies fail and let their resources go to wiser, more productive management. When you prop up poorly-run companies like GM, you are saving less a less valuable company at the expense of a more valuable company, in this case, let’s say it’s Ford, who perhaps paid their executives more modestly, built cars more people wanted, were more careful with their pension plans – whatever. It is probably some combination of fifty things.
                Whatever was wrong at GM that was not wrong at Ford needed to get exorcised from the economy – just like New Coke got exorcised from the economy. By saving GM, the Ford stockholders, Ford employees, and the auto consumer will now not get the value of Ford’s more efficient and more valuable service.
                I may be borrowing this analogy from somebody else, but your argument about jobs is what I call the Buggy Manufacturer’s argument. When automobiles came along, couldn’t the manufacturers of horse-drawn buggies have complained about all the jobs that were being lost? Yes, and of course it is sad when somebody loses their job. However, because consumer spending had shifted to cars, we knew that jobs were getting created in an industry where consumers found more value for their money. The car, even at a greater price, gave the consumer more benefit than the buggy. If we use tax dollars to keep jobs around at companies that are poorly managed or make products people don’t want, then we only succeed in: a) taking a *new* job away from one person who needs it so that another person (who has been part of an underperforming operation) may keep his job; b) taxing the citizens to do so, which keeps them from spending their money in other places, which in aggregate costs the employees of those businesses jobs; c) opening the door for favoritism and the corruption I referencedin my first post – in this case, surely you must see that the Democrat base is much appeased by propping up Detroit.
                Part of the problem is that when people keep more of their taxes, they spend the money on a nearly infinite variety of things, so we can’t say “hey, by reducing taxes by .0001%, you saved a person’s job at a yogurt shop in Albany, another person’s job at a tire plant in Erie”, etc. We can’t take a picture for the newspaper of all the anonymous people whose jobs are saved by all the taxes that *weren’t* collected, because they don’t belong to a single special interest industry. But I promise you, their jobs are just as real to them as the guys working in Detroit, and not only that, they’re also more important to the consumer, who, left free to vote with his dollar, has effectively chosen their services over the services of the guy working at GM.
                Well, what about all the jobs at GM that get taken over by Honda or another foreign company? Well, many of those jobs are in the United States, too. But it wouldn’t matter, because *mathematically*, the net benefit to the consumer – and the American consumers in aggregate – to buy foreign-made Hondas that he wants outstrips the net benefit to the economy of propping GM up. That is why protectionism is almost universally deemed bad by economists – tariffs hurt the consumer in greater proportion than they help the industry they are meant to prop up.
                The last argument I would consider is this – is it okay for the government to “save” a job here or there at the expense of another job in a different part of the country, in certain situations? Isn’t it just a wash – a trade of one job for another? Well, there are moral questions of whether or not the government ought to be picking who gets to keep their job and who gets to lose it, and again, we know that these political animals are not really motivated by fairness. But the fact is, the swap of one job for another is not a “wash” – most credible studies, including one conducted by one of Obama’s own economic advisers, Christina Roemer (sp?), have found that when the federal government spends a dollar, the value to the economy is some percentage *less* than when it is spent in the private sector, over a certain threshold. That is, maybe the first 10% or so collected by the government for roads and tanks has a net benefit for the consumer, but as tax rates go up, the benefit becomes much lower – I believe Roemer found it was about 10% – 20% less. So it’s not a wash, we lose (at least, Roemer was probably very generous) 10% of the economic power of every dollar that goes to Washington right now.
                But of course, you should expect that, because who can choose the most efficient use of a dollar in the economy better than you? If the administration can pick what companies ought to succeed or which should fail, why not get them more involved? Why not save bakeries, shoe stores, typewriter repair shops, book stores, etc? Because despite our desire to tinker endlessly with it, we know that free markets are a great mechanism for each one of us to get to “vote” for our priorities, and deep down we know that taking property from our neighbor to put to our own uses, to forward our own agendas, because we arrogantly believe we can spend his money more wisely, charitably, etc than he can – is wrong.

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              • Cosmic Dawg
                June 3, 2012 at 2:12 PM

                Sorry, I also can’t let the deficits part of your comment go.

                Surely, we have to have a sense of proportion when looking at deficits. Have you compared our current levels of deficits to GDP and compared them with past generations? Saying that “we’ve always run deficits” is like saying the guy who bums five bucks from his brother for lunch is in the same boat as the guy making the same income who runs up $50k in credit card debt. Don’t talk to me about World War II, that was a special economic situation where pent-up demand and devastated
                competition made the difference.

                I’m also pretty sure Taft didn’t pursue any stimulus.

                As for “doctrinaire” economics, that doctrine you’re pointing to is getting rapidly discredited among economists, as more move to the Austrian school of thinking. Additionally, that doctrine also requires govts to pay down debt in times of plenty. You’ve suggested every administration spends money to stimulate in recession, can you point to the ones who pay down debt during booms? A doctrine that has failed us in practice can be safely discarded. Luckily, capitalism is hard to slow down, even handicapped with considerable weight and a century of idiot jockeys.

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    • Comin' Down The Track
      June 1, 2012 at 10:05 AM

      Could have also just as easily have been a bunch of alumni who don’t want that no-talent assclown hanging around their athletic department.

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  2. Doug
    June 1, 2012 at 9:28 AM

    As a Twitter bro of mine pointed out this morning, millionaires’ kids get hundreds of scholarships to Ivy League schools every year and nobody says a word. If Diddy were a hedge-fund manager as opposed to a rapper/producer, would we even be having this discussion?

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  3. Durrtydogg
    June 1, 2012 at 9:42 AM

    Of course this is ridiculous. If someone earns a scholarship and does it the correct way, who are we to place judgement on the what type of tax bracket his/her parents are placed in. The only reason this is an issue is because of the way his father flaunts his arrogance. He is a high profile mogul who brags about blowing money at strip clubs and lavish parties. Unfortunately, this rubs many people the wrong way. Sure, those in the 1% over indulge in certain activities and spend their money recklessly but they are not as high profiled as Mr. Combs. That’s the issue. His bragging about blowing 2 million at parties while stiffing people who has worked for him doesn’t leave the kind of track record that people respect. The fact is his son has earned this scholarship and he shouldn’t be held accountable for the disdain people have due to the actions of his father. It’s truly a non story that has the stench of envy and jealousy all over it.

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  4. Cojones
    June 1, 2012 at 9:45 AM

    Even if he paid for the son’s fees and tuition, it wouldn’t “free up” a scholly for another player. You can only recruit so many since it is limited to numbers of athletes permissible on teams, not scholarship money.

    P Diddy could make a lot of friends cheaply (for him) by sponsoring a paid scholarship in other than athletics. If he doesn’t, he still is fine.

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    • Cojones
      June 1, 2012 at 9:47 AM

      As Diddy would say, “Smoke’em if you Got’em”.

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    • James Stephenson
      June 1, 2012 at 9:54 AM

      He does have a scholarship, maybe not to UCLA, but from my understanding he does offer one. This is all about Envy. He has more, it’s not fair, wah wah wah.

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      • Nate
        June 1, 2012 at 11:09 AM

        “He has more, it’s not fair”

        That’s exactly the mindset going on here. Never mind the merits of the person involved. Never mind the circumstances or the details. This person (or his parents) make $X per year, so we have to deny him something he’s earned to make us feel better about ourselves. Or even better, we should take away some of his legally acquired assets so that someone more deserving can have it.

        It’s time this country had an honest discussion about wealth and property rights. Your average millionaire has virtually nothing to do with oppressing anyone of any percentile; 99 or otherwise. Of course, they’re a convenient target because the average Joe doesn’t talk to one on a daily basis.

        Racism is rightly taboo now. Most everyone knows a gay person. Alternative lifestyles are so commonplace as to reject their very label. Millionaires though? I don’t personally know a single one, and most people don’t either. So hell, just lump them in there with the crony faux capitalists on Wall Street and presto! instant target for political demagoguery. Populism at it’s worst. Or best, depending on your particular persuasion.

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        • Scott W.
          June 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM

          Could it be you don’t know a millionaire because they use their money to insulate and isolate themselves? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
          This article blows a non-issue out of proportion just like much news outlets these days. I am for one am tired of hearing what is and is not fair. Life’s rough, get a helmet.

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        • Cosmic Dawg
          June 1, 2012 at 12:07 PM

          Correct, sir. And Prof. Stephenson as well. I swear, this blog will fix college football AND America, too…

          🙂

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  5. Gravidy
    June 1, 2012 at 10:45 AM

    Waaaaaaiiiiiit a minute, Senator. I could be wrong, but it appears you and I agree on a subject related to politics. With respect, sir, I think that is an even bigger sign of the apocalypse. 😉

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  6. AusDawg85
    June 1, 2012 at 11:28 AM

    Would love to see the reaction by the 99% if he were to not accept the scholly, but therefore under NCAA rules be allowed to sell his jersey on eBay, fetching, say $100,000 because of his Diddy (see what I did there?).

    Man o man…how loud would they be howling then?!

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  7. Ericdawg
    June 1, 2012 at 3:03 PM

    I hope those who are complaining about the Diddy case are not the same individuals complaining about Obama and socialism, because their comments sounds like endorsement of socialism rather than true capitalism.

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