(Un)Reasonable Profits Board

Perhaps I am too conservative fiscally. Perhaps I am just too conservative. But, since this is my blog, I get to speak my piece.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced into the House of Representatives HR 3784, the Gas Price Spike Act of 2012. Lest he not be the only one associated with this lovely piece of legislation, he has been joined by his co-sponsors John Conyers (D-MI), Bob Filner (D-CA), Marcia Fudge (D-OH), James Langevin (D-OH), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

I need to be fair to these representatives. Let's look at where their districts are.

• Kucinich (West Cleveland and near western suburbs)
• Conyers (downriver suburbs of Detroit)
• Filner (far southern California on the borders of Mexico and Arizona)
• Fudge (Cleveland and its near eastern suburbs)
• Langevin (most of Rhode Island except for Providence)
• Woolsey (area north of Oakland and most of Sonoma county)

These are pretty liberal areas, so these representatives may be doing a good job of serving their constituencies. But, that is the extent of the faint praise they will get from me.

Here is a summary of the way the bill would work if it were to become law. 

• The President would appoint a 3-member Reasonable Profits Board (RPB), not subject to Congressional approval.
• The RPB would determine what constitutes reasonable profits for the sale of crude oil, natural gas, or other taxable product (fuel which is the product of natural gas or crude oil). 
• To the extent that profits on said sale exceed the reasonable amount by less than 2%, an excise tax of 50% on such unreasonable amount would be imposed.
• To the extent that profits on said sale exceed the reasonable amount by 2%-5%, an excise tax on such unreasonable amount of 75% would be imposed. 
• To the extent that profits on said sale exceed the reasonable amount by at least 5%, an excise tax on such unreasonable amount of 100% would be imposed.
• These excise taxes would allow for tax credits for fuel-efficient vehicles and to allow grants for mass transit.

Let's see. We have an anti-trust act which prohibits monopolies and price-fixing. It has been used when appropriate. Oil company profit margins are less than they were (in total) 30 years ago. I thought we lived in a free enterprise type society.

What comes next? Do we get a similar tax on pharmaceuticals? The companies that make them are generally judged to be pretty evil. How about cosmetic companies? They have high profit margins. 

In my opinion, this is a bad idea with a very slippery slope to go with it. 

Thankfully, this one won't pass, but I still felt the need to write about it.

Statistics Inflation

I read a headline this morning: "Rondo triple-double leads Celtics past Heat." Rajon Rondo had a nice game. He had 11 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists. You know what I say? Big deal!

Look back to the 1961-62 NBA season. I realize that was a long time ago, and that the game has changed significantly. Here were Oscar Robertson's key statistics for the season: he averaged 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 11.4 assists per game for the entire season. With those averages right now, he would be leading the league in scoring (Kevin Durant leads at 29.1 per game), fifth in rebounding (Kevin Love leads at 15.5), and second in assists (Rondo leads with 12.3).

But, we have become so enamored with statistics that don't really matter that all of these cute little thresholds have been devised. Triple double! When the Big O averaged a triple double, the term hadn't been invented. Because of that, players didn't strive for ten of each, they just played to win.

Who leads the NBA in free throw percentage in home games played on Tuesdays against teams from the Western Conference? Thankfully, I have no idea, but I'm sure that some bored person could find the answer, and if he or she did, then some player would use that come contract negotiation time.

Everyone is enamored with these statistics. And, it's the thresholds that get all the publicity. Here's a really good example that I got from the book, Scorecaster. No player in recorded major league baseball history entering his last at bat of the season with a .299 batting average has ever drawn a walk. The number of players who have finished a season with 30 home runs exceeds the number who have finished with 29 by a statistically significant margin. Likewise, the number who have finished with between 100 and 105 RBIs exceeds the number who have finished with between 95 and 99 by a significant margin.

And, while I haven't seen it in that book anywhere, I would bet you that not too many NBA players finish a game with Triple 9s (points, rebounds, and assists), or even with double digits in two of those categories and nine in the third. Have you ever seen a player in a tight game take a really stupid shot to try to score their 50th point when a pass to a wide-open teammate for a layup was the right play? I have. Have you seen an NFL coach keep his star QB in the game to throw a few more passes in a blowout so that he can get to 400 yards passing? I have. And, in that circumstance, I've even seen the star QB get injured and miss a game or two with that injury, all in search of a useless holy grail. 385 yard passing games are not a great negotiation tool come contract time, but 400 yard games are.

Players should be measured by what they do for their team, not what they do for themselves. But, a great defensive small forward doesn't put fans in the seats. A 30 point per game scorer does.

I just hope that someday when future sports historians are writing down the greats of the games that they remember the players who made their teams winners not the players who made their contracts bigger.

Don't They Teach Grammar in School in the 21st Century

Look up the word 'myself' in a dictionary. I looked it up online. I learned that this word is used both as a reflexive pronoun or in place of 'me' for intensity.

Hmm.

Nowhere does it say that using the word myself for no reason other than to attempt to sound smart and to really sound stupid is appropriate. Are you confused? Read on.

I've received many e-mails that end with this sentence: If you have any questions, call myself. Why oh why ... doesn't call me do the trick. Blondie even did a song about it in the late 70s or early 80s. You remember:

Color me your color baby, color me your car. Color me your color darling, I know who you are. Come up off your color chart, I know where you're coming from. Call me on the line. Call me call me any time. Call me, oh my love. When you're ready we can share the wine, call me.

It doesn't say call myself.

While I'm at it, it's time to dump on the talking heads on the over-the-air and cable networks. They love to invent words. They love to make verbs out of nouns and then turn around and make nouns out of the verbs that they made out of nouns.

Example: Radical has become a noun (some might argue, but a person who displays radical tendencies is often referred to as a radical). Now, radicalize has become a verb. Come on people, radicalize is not a word. And, to make it worse, the act of radicalizing someone has become radicalization.

This is as bad as the duo credited to none other than Al Gore in the venerable Oxford English Dictionary. He is credited with having coined the verb (ouch, it's not a verb, it never was a verb, and it never should be a verb, but the OED says it's a verb) 'incentivize', and it's even uglier cousin, the non-noun, 'incentivization'. What's the matter, is motivate no longer a legitimate word? Is providing an incentive to cumbersome?

And, then there is one of my other favorites -- the use of impact as a verb. Look up the etymology. Impact comes from the same root as incite. It implies a physical collision whereas affect (effect is a noun) does not imply a physical collision.

There are many more of these horrendous uses of words that I could come up with, but that's enough for today's rant.

You think I'm too stuffy here, comment. You think I'm wrong, comment. It's my blog and my turn to rant, and if you don't believe it, You Don't Know John.