Why the NFL isn't fully competitive

Forget about the steroids, the egos, the attitudes and the salaries. The NFL suffers the same fundamental break that many industries do: the competitive structure is improperly organized. The NFL is essentially a monopsony. A monopsony occurs when you have a large variety of sellers, but only one buyer, meaning that the buyer controls the market price and subsequently has all of the transactional power. There are other professional football leagues, but nobody grows up wanting to play in the UFL or Arena Football; they are backups when your name doesn't get called in the NFL draft. The NFL is essentially a "buying group" or a cartel when dealing with other leagues, but intra-league competition results in an inefficient allocation of players. More specifically, poor management on the part of a handful of franchises can result in a highly uncompetitive season.

Take my beloved Denver Broncos for example. They are currently sitting on three high-calibre quarterbacks and may acquire another on in the draft. All three have started NFL games, have recorded wins and bring distinct skill-sets to the game, and with handful of teams scrambling to elect play-callers who can make an impact, the Broncos are hoarding talent. Where it gets sticky is that after another season or two on the bench, those quarterbacks' careers are likely over, particularly Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow, who haven't had enough experience to develop any real pedigree. Both are primed for Matt Leinart-level failure simply because they will be expected to play like 4-year quarterbacks when they are 26, regardless of the fact that they've they've barely registered a year in the NFL as starters. Assuming the Broncos pick a franchise quarterback soon, they will likely retain at least one of the others as a backup. Unfortunately, few teams will jump at the opportunity to hire a former prospect who never got much field time; the Broncos are effectively devaluing potentially great players with their current strategy. It's not as if these QBs are along for the ride behind a legend who is leading the Broncos to championships; Denver went 4-12 last season, finishing second last in the league. (They went on to replace their head coach with the former head coach from Carolina Panthers, the only team to perform worse than the Denver Broncos last season, but I'll deal with that in another post.)

The structural break in the industry occurs from the shift from a monopsony to a competitive structure, whereby players may be in demand, but are inefficiently allocated once inside the organization. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about this. One strategy could involve limits imposed on the size of the depth chart, allowing for a more liquid free-agent market (perhaps even with a free-agent training/workout zone like the draft combine) but this would heavily alter the strategy of the game. For now we must accept that not all NFL players are going to get their fair shot. Remember, for every Matt Leinart, there's a Kurt Warner who is never quite the man the coach wants taking the snaps, but who steps it up nonetheless and wriggles his way into the hearts and minds of fans everywhere. In fact, its these types of underdog stories that keep sports fantasy alive.

From a practical perspective, this is a golden argument for why professional players should have to legitimately earn their degrees from College. When your average career only lasts 3 years, you need something to fall back on, and with so many players quitting school early to join the draft, and many of the rest getting a free pass through their undergraduate programs, many pros just aren't prepared for life beyond the gridiron.

Meanest April Fool's Prank in a while

Normally I don't have to deal with April Fool's pranks - but my prof decided to have us on... here's the e-mail that I woke up to at 9 this morning.

"After carefully revising all projects, I have concluded that there is no single paper with the proper econometrics. If you want a passing grade on this project, each of you individually must use your data and complete the extra assignment I have just posted in Blackboard under the Project folder. The assignment's due date is next Sunday at noon. Jordi."

Took me a few minutes to figure it out, but I had a hunch it wasn't completely legit. I wasn't entirely surprised to find that the new "assignment" linked me following site.

Thanks Professor Mondria... what a way to start the day...

Something that will make everyone else angry

This is one of those posts that is purely centered around me. I want to vent about the nuisance of people around me, specifically regarding the Japanese earthquake and the subsequent relief efforts. (If you want to skip the vent and go straight to the logic, jump to paragraph 4).

I am well aware of the colossal damage that was done, and agree that nobody will ever truly grasp the scope of the destruction. Furthermore, the nuclear reactor problem at the Fukushima Daiichi plant seems like it may persist for some time. I am saddened by the loss of life and the hardships that many Japanese are being forced to endure.

Now with the moral sentiment out of the way, why do we keep having fundraisers? Why do we continue to donate? And who are we donating to? I have only seen one group that transparently operates its finances - all of the funds that you donate will be used for aid, the Ogawa family will match donations up to a total of $1 000 000 dollars and will cover all transaction and operational fees with a supplemental donation. How many organizations can claim the same? Yes, this is an appeal for charity reform and financial transparency. I also have to ask why so few of us will chip in for local issues, but the moment something happens halfway around the world we need to throw money at it? Because it is a fad, it makes us feel good to be involved in a topical issue. Never mind the blistering 10.2% poverty rate among working-aged adults in Canada in 2008. How about the 23.1% of Canadians who were obese back in 2004 with another 36% overweight. With the litany of health problems that these bring on, Canada's health care systems will soon be overflowing with patients costing healthy individuals a fortune so they can jam another big-mac down their gullet. Why bother focussing on any of our issues? Here's a thought, maybe we're helping elsewhere because of a sense of inevitability associated with our own problems?

So far it all seems like a baseless conservative-style gripe, but here's where I turn this all on its head. Japan has been caught in one of the most detrimental economic slumps the world has seen (Argentina is the only nation I can think of with a more prolonged and devastating cycle-stagnation). Back in the early 2000s the world referred to the 90s as Japan's "lost decade"(it's a wiki page but I vetted the sources), where near-zero nominal interest rates and easily obtainable credit created a domestic finance bubble that essentially halted economic expansion in Japan. (It's worth noting that almost all nations maintain some level of economic growth and in terms of world rankings, it is relative growth - i.e. compared to the growth of others - that counts. For a nation to basically stop growing is a huge deal, especially when you consider that Japan was the world's economic darling back in the 80s.) Since the 2000s... not much has changed. No major capital inflow to prop up the economy, no major domestic development, nothing to help dig them out of this hole.

Along comes an earthquake, a subsequent tsunami and then a major reactor breakdown. Many lives are lost, buildings are destroyed, lives are ruined. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel; the world loves Japan. They contribute so much to the world that nobody wants to risk Japan suffering - hence why Japan has maintained one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in world history; other nations keep saying "they're good for it." Outsiders know that Japan will be rebuilt and want in on the way up. A massive inflow of capital will allow Japan to build their infrastructure bigger, stronger and infinitely more resistant, which will result in more employment for the Japanese and more demand for local resources. The more developed infrastructure will make Japan more competitive and allow it to grow and develop, solving 20 years of economic "stagflation." It's just like a forrest fire - much of the forrest is scarred, but the cleanse allows new, better, more resilient life forms to take hold - in fact, some seeds are only released in the extreme heat of a fire. All of this is to say that the net effect of the tsunami is going to be extremely positive for the nation. By no means do I wish to trivialize the lives lost, but people die no matter; Japan's population has an opportunity to grow their standard of living and thrive because of the disaster. These benefits don't even begin to consider the impact on increased production of building supplies, increased activity in construction and contracting firms worldwide, as everyone clamors to help the wounded nation.

When I see on the cover of my student newspaper that one of the colleges' student council has pledged the surplus from their budget (a potentially undemocratic move - I'm still trying to re-find the link that demonstrates how student unions are completely undemocratic by nature, will link it when I find it) to the Japanese relief effort, and has challenged other colleges to do the same, I ask why? Couldn't those dollars be put to more practical use? Will a few thousand dollars actually be the difference? Or are they likely to be eaten by administrative costs? When the Japanese people are going to receive a glut of support from their own government, what impact are we having? Their country is going to be better-off in the long run, massive amounts of money have already been channeled their way, our thoughts and prayers are with them... Let's see if we can't solve some problems at home as well.

Side note: anyone hear about that BP oil spill lately? Seriously, for how large the magnitude of the disaster was proclaimed to be, you'd think that the media and environmental activists would still be trying to milk it.

Next up: the ignorance behind the veil of ignorance: why Rawls is a nutball.

The Green party's got it all wrong

So an old math teacher/swim coach of mine posted this on facebook. On the surface it may seem reasonable and even Canadian at heart, giving every party a fair and subsidized opportunity to present themselves. Unfortunately, this is actually quite counter to the democratic notions that our beautiful nation is founded on.

1)As far as I'm concerned, this is a misnomer: the real issue is government support of parties (which greatly helps to keep the Green party relevant). If you can't convince your members to support you, then why should you receive money from everyone in the country? This subsidized democracy gives parties, who haven't earned the right to be competitive, the opportunity to become a political wedge. Since no major party is targeted uniquely at the poor, there should be sufficient supporters to step up and fund their respective parties, particularly if individual donation caps and total spending caps are put in place.

2)I'd like to start by saying that I'm not against ad reform, but I have yet to hear a reasonable, viable proposal. From where I'm sitting, getting rid of paid political advertising will have little to no benefit(at least as proposed here). Similar results can be achieved by implementing rules such as forcing all campaign ads to not mention other parties. More importantly, most (if not all) of the nations mentioned allow "policy ads," which can be designed to perform almost identically to an attack ad, sometimes even more successfully. Furthermore. this also doesn't consider the validity of the arguments presented in such ads - a statement of fact that reveals flaws in an opponent's campaign is extremely important, both in bringing the issue to the public's attention and in helping parties identify platform problems. It seems more that ads aimed at defamation are the real issue.

3) As far as motive goes, this is just an uncompetitive Green party griping about their lack of fiscal backing.

4) It seems to me that what the Green party is proposing is actually thoroughly UNDEMOCRATIC - an equal distribution of airtime ignores party membership and support, treating parties as equals when they most certainly are not. Think of it this way - do we have an equal number of house seats for New Brunswick MPs and Ontario MPs? No, we distribute them according to a weighting of the population. What makes political parties special? The purchase of airtime is both the most socially optimal and market efficient option available. Think about it like this: donations are a proxy for member support of a party, the party then selects the airtime and messages to best represent themselves given their budget. If you want more members and donations, stop looking for handouts and hit the ground grass-roots style. Earn your right to be competitive!

A quasi-educated proof for the existence of emergent properties

Emergent Beauty

So last year I was introduced to the concept of emergent properties, which claims that, based on complex reactions that occur when various factors co-exist and interact within a system. Simply put, you have a bunch of different things, and when you put them all together, something unanticipated 'emerges,' i.e. the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

There's all sorts of examples out there, some require greater scientific belief and devotion than others, so its nice when you can find an instance that doesn't step on all the traditional religious and philosophic toes. (Granted, there will be objections to this theory, but it is based more on every-day observances than on science, making it at worst a matter of perspective.

So, I am asserting that physical attractiveness is an emergent property. For the sake of keeping this brief, I will restrict my proposition to human beings.

As proof that aesthetic appeal is emergent, I offer the observation that, individual, no part of the human body is attractive. (Before you freak out and start spamming me with messages about how "my (name of body part) is fantastic thank you very much", listen to my explanation.) The individual factors are almost infinitely divisible (you can keep looking at smaller and smaller parts - provided you have the technology to see something even smaller, at infinitum) and at close up perspectives everything seems to look weird. At the levels of pores in the skin, veins in the eyes, etc... the human body is interesting... but attractive? I don't buy it. Imagine the most perfect pair of legs... zoom in on the knee joint, or the ankle and then tell me it is actually attractive. (I believe that even fetishists would agree that when the hormones aren't pumping, the human body looks weird.) At the level of component parts, no body is attractive.

Thus, if all components are not attractive, the whole of the body should not be attractive... and yet, often (if not always) it is. That means the the whole (body) is greater than the sum of its parts (all the weird little components). And yet, somehow, when we have the context of the whole body (the 'interaction' between the parts), physical beauty magically appears.

My theory is that, despite the nasty little components, when we see the big picture, we recognize the beauty. I think there's a life lesson in there, and it swings both ways. (Get your minds out of the gutter!) First off, despite all the problems in society, when we imagine the world as a whole, it is actually quite beautiful... (ok so it is more like a really, really, really fat person with full-body acne, greying hair, a receding hairline, bad table manners, gas and B.O. ... but I'm sure someone could fall for it... or maybe that's just the hopeless romantic in me... rofl) From the other perspective, no matter how wonderful we are led to believe the world is, there are always problems that need to be addressed.