Effor.com

I was going to title this “Fantasy Football 101″ but I think that really needs to be a discussion of basics, like “know your scoring system” and “never draft a kicker before the last round”.  I cover that here.

This post is about how to draft for value.  How to get the most bang for your buck.  How to win your league.

This started when I read some comments at one of my favorite fantasy football sites, KFFL.com, where readers were responding to their “Combination Top-100 PPR Rankings“.  Here’s what I said there:

I’m amazed at how many people posting comments don’t “get it”. These are RANKINGS, not draft positions.

For example, look at Witten, RANKED 19th overall, but with an ADP of 42.  Absolutely no one (I hope) would take Witten with the 19th overall pick, because there are others (RB’s and WR’s) you need to get that early.  But if you got him with the last pick in the 3rd round (36th overall) you’d have gotten GREAT value!

I look at it this way – take the ADP number and subtract the rank number. The bigger the difference, the better the value.  And the more likely you are to win your league.

Look at Turner – ranked 18, but going at an average draft position of 3.  I’ll be happy to let him go that early in the first round!  I’ll win my league by taking someone like Fitzgerald or Jackson at number 5 or 6, then getting a better ranked RB (like Gore or Portis) in round 2.

It’s all about the value that player gives you at a particular point in the draft.  I really like Reggie Bush in PPR, and if I can snag him in the 4rd round (his ADP is currently 44), I’ll be ecstatic!  Number 14 value with pick 44?  I’ll take that all day long.

You can read about an actual draft system called “Value Based Drafting” at many other sites, including Footballguys.com who also have an excellent fantasy football magazine you can download – for free.  Get the full 21.4 MB PDF of the magazine here.  (Click on the other link to download portions of it.)

I see people posting comments on sites all the time that say things like “Even in PPR, I don’t see AP going past #3. Let alone the 7th RB off the board. care to splain?” (This one is from the same article I referenced above on KFFL.com that motivated me to write this post.)

The person who wrote the post “Mike”, is one of the people I was writing about.  He doesn’t “get it.”  Adrian Peterson is a great running back, and he is going to be one of the top 3 picks in basically every draft this year.  Last year “All Day” led the NFL with 1757 rushing yards on 364 attempts. He also caught 21 passes for another 125 yards.  He scored 10 touchdowns.  And he finished 9th among running backs in PPR leagues!

Here is a list of running backs who scored more points in PPR leagues last year than Peterson.  In order they are: Williams, Forte, Turner, Jones-Drew, (Thomas) Jones, Tomlinson, Slaton, and Westbrook.

Back to “Mike’s” comment.  You are correct in that AP won’t go past #3.  But I wouldn’t take him with one of the first 3 picks.  There’s simply no value there.  Want to see who I’d draft with one of the first 3 picks?  Look at my personal PPR rankings.

Rankings are simply someone’s personal projection of who will finish the season with more fantasy points than the next player ranked.  I currently have Peterson ranked 6th among RB’s.   Last year was a great year for Peterson by any standard – do you think he’ll do even better this year?   He could finish as the #1 RB as far as I know – but I don’t think he will.

So I’ll let someone else take him in the top 3.  If I have one of the first 3 picks, I’ll take MJD, SJax, Forte, or Chris Johnson in a PPR league.

I don’t remember where I read this, but someone earlier this year wrote something like “Even if you absolutely, positively, 100% KNEW that DeAngelo Williams was going to be the #1 point producer in Fantasy last year, you’d have been STUPID to take him with a top 10 pick.”   Why?  Because you could have gotten him with a pick between 45 and 55 (he went at 50 in my league last year) and used that first round pick on ANOTHER top point producer – like Tomlinson, MJD, or Westbrook.

If you would have had Williams and MJD on your fantasy team last year, you would have had to REALLY screw up the rest of your draft to not be one of the best teams in your league.  You win when you take into account value at the time of your pick.  Getting first round value in round 3 or 4 is what wins championships.  Getting 5th round value in round 7 or 8 is what wins championships.

Yes, there will be injuries.  Yes, there will be unexpected surprises like Williams last year.  But by getting value with every pick in every round, you set yourself up to have a great year.

gk

Share on Facebook

Ok, here goes….  I’ve done this in the past for myself, but I’m going to put my player rankings out there for everyone.  Hopefully the other people in my league:

• Won’t read this
• Will think I’m spoofing them with the list
• Will think my rankings are whack and ignore them

I’ll post updated rankings which take into account things like injuries and team promotions/demotions until the season starts.  Check the Fantasy Category here to see any newer fantasy stories.  I won’t be updating this particular page – that way everyone can look back and say “what a stupid asshole – why did he EVER think that Player A should be ranked higher than Player B?  He’s an idiot!”

Remember, these are MY rankings, based on various projections of player performance, the PPR scoring system in the league I play in, and – in a few cases – my gut feeling about a player.

In other words, if the draft in my league were held today, this is the order in which I would rank players. If you don’t play in a PPR (Point Per Reception) league, this ranking is worse than worthless to you – it’s way off base and it’ll screw up your team big time.  But if you’re in a standard scoring PPR league, where each reception by a running back, wide receiver, or tight end counts as a point, regardless if they gain any yardage – you should pay attention to this.

For more on my take on Fantasy Football, check out my Fantasy Page.

Scoring system is 1 point per 10 yards rushing/receiving, 1 point per 20 yards passing, 6 points per rushing/receiving TD, 4 points per passing TD, and -1 point for a lost fumble or interception.

Top 20 Running Backs:

Top 20 Wide Receivers:

Top 20 Quarterbacks:

I haven’t gotten to the Tight End and Defenses yet. I’ll try to hit them next week.

gk

Share on Facebook

I’ll have a lot more to say about fantasy football over the next few weeks, but I thought this was hilarious.  I was reading an “expert” draft on KFFL.com and ran across this nugget while reading about why someone drafted Marian Barber with the 6th pick of the 2nd round.

Others Considered: I definitely considered Brian Westbrook, but then realized I’m not a moron.

I haven’t done my rankings for the year yet, and the 18th pick overall might be a decent spot to take Westbrook (if you can get him there) but I thought the reasoning was priceless….

gk

Share on Facebook

I was reading through The Daily Capitalist blog tonight, and I read a post entitled “The Chinese Aren’t As Dumb As the Fed Thought” that reminded me of a news blurb I saw today.  It seems that there was much less interest in today’s Treasury auction of 5 year notes than was expected.

According to MarketWatch, The Treasury Department sold $34 billion in five-year notes to yield 1.849%, higher than traders had expected before the results were announced.

Bidders offered $2.02 for every dollar sold, compared to an average of $2.17 at the last four auctions.

Indirect bidders, a closely watched metric because it includes buying by foreign central banks, bought 30% of the monthly auction, the lowest since December.

I could have sworn that I saw that they were auctioning off $40 billion today, but I must have been wrong because I can’t find it anywhere.  The Treasury press release dated March 19th also says $34 billion.

Anyway, it appears that there’s just not as much interest in loaning the US money as there was a few months ago.  This can be taken in one of two ways:

1. The economy is recovering and people think they’ll get better returns in the stock market.
2. The US dollar is toast and everyone knows it, so fewer people want to invest in US government debt.

I don’t think #1 is the reason.  #2 is much more likely because the Federal Reserve is now directly printing money (buying treasuries with funny money) and what’s the use of buying US debt if it’s soon going to be worth less?  Or worthless?

As I’ve mentioned before, the Chinese aren’t stupid (that’s what The Daily Capitalist post above reminded me of) and they appear to be loaning us less money as well.

Speaking of The Daily Capitalist, the post I linked to above makes some good points regarding the Chinese hinting at a new reserve currency:

I see this as a crack in the dyke so to speak. When a power like China says these things, it’s serious. Things aren’t going to change overnight because of the complications of international trade and the role of currencies. But I see a trend. Last week’s announcement by the Treasury and the Fed that they were going to print a trillion dollars helped the discussion along. The whole world knows that eventually we’ll see inflation and the further devaluation of the dollar.

The consequences to us as a result of being replaced as the world’s reserve currency will be a further depreciated dollar. It will also make our taxes go up to pay the increased interest costs on our national debt as the Treasury finds it needs to make the rates on Treasuries more attractive to foreign investors.

What could replace the dollar? The Chinese and others suggest the IMF issue bonds backed by a basket of currencies—special drawing rights (SDRs). This would in essence, try to replace the dollar as a reserve currency and sort of create a supranational central bank. This is the worst thing that could happen to us. We’d have a group of Keynesian econometricians who are worse than our Keynesian econometricians controlling the world’s currencies and international trade. Trust me when I say we would get the short end of that stick.

What about gold? It worked pretty well for the last 6,000 years of human history. It is valued by everyone, it is seen as a monetary metal, it would create a stable medium of exchange, there is plenty to go around, and it takes away the power of the central banks to inflate. I believe, as do most free market economists, that it would serve us well. We’ve heard all the arguments against it and have some pretty good answers. This is not the time for me to expound on gold; I will do that at another time.

Another government engaged in the “quantitative easing” strategy is Britain.  Quantitative easing is the euphemism Keynesian economists like to use instead of “cranking up the printing presses” or “printing money” or “making funny money” or “lets send the whole country to hell in a hand basket – fast!”  I guess they think people won’t understand what they really mean, so they can get away with it.

According to MarketWatch, the British had a failed auction today.  A failed auction is where there aren’t enough buyers for the amount of debt you’re selling.  In the British case, they were trying to borrow a measly 1.75 billion pounds (about $2.6 billion) and they only received 1.63 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) of bids.

The failure significantly limits the scope for further stimulus borrowing, said Nick Stamenkovic, an economist at RIA Capital in Edinburgh. “It’s a warning shot about the fiscal position … It would suggest that the government’s scope for further fiscal easing is extremely limited,” Stamenkovic said. (Fiscal easing is just Stamenkovic’s euphemism for printing money out of thin air and expecting it to actually be worth something.)

Printing money comes eventually dooms every government that’s ever tried it.  History is full of examples like Rome, France, Germany, Argentina, and Zimbabwe.  I wish it were not that way, but we seem to be racing towards that same end as fast as possible.

But a review of expansive monetary practices and the effect on the governments who tried it will have to wait for a later date.  I also need to write about how the Keynesian policies have never worked (that I’ve found), and about how the debt of 1929 compares to day – and the results of a debt bubble.  And about 5000 other things….

gk

Share on Facebook

It’s easy to find dumb articles on the economy these days, but this one by Robert H. Frank in the NY Times is quite possibly the dumbest collection of nonsense that I’ve read in quite some time.

Mr. Frank is an economist at Cornell – evidently Cornell has loose requirements on who can claim that title – and he has his facts wrong.

For example, Mr. Frank states:  In 1929, President Herbert Hoover thought that the best response to a collapsing economy was to balance the federal budget. With incomes and tax receipts falling sharply, that meant cutting federal spending. But as almost all economists now recognize, President Hoover was profoundly mistaken.

Everyone has heard some variation of that basic statement over the years. The problem is that it’s simply not true.  That’s a polite way of saying that Mr. Frank is lying.

Hoover did not cut federal spending – Hoover increased federal spending.  Here is a chart of federal spending from 1928 -1940.   (Source data is the GPO here – link opens Excel spreadsheet.)

As anyone can plainly see, federal spending actually increased every single year from 1929 through 1932 – the four years of the Hoover presidency.  Yet Mr. Frank states that Hoover cut spending. The fact is that federal spending increased from $2.9 billion in 1928 (the year before Hoover took office) to $4.6 billion in 1932.

That’s a 63% increase in federal spending in just 4 years!  How can Mr. Frank be that ignorant of history and still write authoritatively about economic history?

And this data also lets a little air out of the myth that FDR’s spending brought us out of the depression.  It’s true that FDR increased spending, but when you actually look at the numbers, he increased spending in his first term from $4.6 billion in 1932 to $8.2 billion in 1936 – a 76% increase.  That’s not dramatically larger than Hoover’s 63% increase.  And during his next 4 years, FDR increased spending from $8.2 billion in 1936 to $9.4 billion in 1940 – a meager 15% increase in 4 years.

I have no doubt that “almost all” Keynesian economists will continue to propagate the lies about the Great Depression, Hoover, and FDR, but you and I know that they’re lying.

With that common fallacy exposed, we now turn back to Mr. Frank.

Mr. Frank states When a downturn throws people out of work, they spend less, causing still others to be thrown out of work, and so on, in a downward spiral. Failure to use short-run deficits to stimulate spending amplifies that spiral, causing further declines in tax receipts and even bigger deficits. That this path makes no sense is a settled issue.

It sounds good, but his statement that this is “a settled issue” is false.  It’s false because of his implicit premise that government deficit spending creates productive employment.  I have no doubt that government spending can employ otherwise idle people, but this is not a net gain for the economy.  The government simply transfers wealth from one segment of society to another – it doesn’t create wealth.  Mr. Frank’s major flaw is in his unstated assumption that the government can allocate resources better than individuals.

Take the current auto bailout as an example.  What would have happened if the government didn’t bail out GM?  GM would have declared bankruptcy.  People who had invested in GM stocks and bonds would be SOL – and that’s the way it should be.  When you invest your money, you (whether you realize it or not) are incorporating risk in choosing where to invest.  You may choose to invest in something risky like a dot com or alternative energy start-up, because you balance the risk of them going bankrupt against the possibility of huge returns.

It’s your money – invest it however you want.  But don’t bitch and moan and beg for a bailout when the money you invested disappears because the company goes broke and leaves you with a sock puppet.

In the case of a GM bankruptcy, valuable assets such as factories and parts would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  Assets with no value are wiped out and those who invested in them would lose money.  Some would be unable to survive and would themselves go broke.

In other words, the “bad” (non-profitable) assets of GM would disappear.  But the “good” (profitable) assets would be sold to private investors (or companies) who would put them to productive use.  Good companies survive and thrive off of the mistakes of their competitors.  Just imagine how many productive  jobs Honda, Toyota, or Nissan could provide using GM facilities and patents.

Mr. Frank also shows his ignorance when he states Once the downturn ends, there should be no need to incur additional debt. Indeed, there are many ways to pay down debt without requiring painful sacrifices. A $2 tax on each gallon of gasoline, for example, would generate more than $100 billion in additional revenue a year.

Politicians and economists have been saying that they’ll balance the budget and start paying down the debt for as long as I can remember – and I’m 47.  It has not happened in my lifetime.  Not once.

The last time the US reduced the national debt was 1957.  (Source is the US Treasury.) When do you suggest we start making payments on the principal Mr. Frank?

And a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline would be an additional $283 billion in taxes at the current rate of consumption of 141.9 billion gallons per year. (Source is US Energy Information Administration.)

Mr. Frank also says It’s also useful to put the nation’s debt burden into perspective. Over the last eight years, Bush administration deficits raised the national debt by almost $5 trillion. Given the current crisis, it’s easy to imagine a similar increase during the next four years. At recent interest rates, servicing $10 trillion of extra debt costs about $400 billion annually — a big amount, to be sure, but less than 3 percent of the economy’s full-employment output. We’ll still be the richest country on the planet even after paying all that interest.

Bullshit.  That’s like saying you got the highest score of those who failed.  I’m not a fan of Bush – since I consider Bush the worst President in my lifetime, that’s the understatement of the year – so I don’t like it when Obama imitates Bush.  Liberal or Conservative – big government is big government.

The 3% figure Mr. Frank gives is technically accurate – when you take the $400 billion figure he uses – but why does he use that number?  The bottom line is the one that matters.

The national debt is currently over $11 trillion (source US Treasury).  The US GDP for 2008 was $14.2 trillion (source BEA).

Our current national debt is 77% of GDP.  If Obama adds $5 trillion more in the next 4 years (as seems likely) our debt will be over 100% of GDP.  And if Mr. Frank thinks that’s sustainable, I’ve got some great beach-front property to sell him.

I could go on and on about the errors in Mr. Frank’s article – such as his mistaken assumptions about the wealthy – but you can read it yourself.  I’m amazed that the NY Times editors allowed an article this full of errors to be published.

gk

Share on Facebook

Just wanted to put this on here because it looks interesting.  I have not read this yet, but I intend to because it presents a different view of the New Deal than what we’ve all been taught. It’s available on sale at Buy.com, so there’s no excuse to put it off.

FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression

“Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring the American economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929–33. Truth to tell-as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt-the New Deal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added to unemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costly government. Powell’s analysis is thoroughly documented, relying on an impressive variety of popular and academic literature both contemporary and historical.”
-Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution

gk

Share on Facebook

It’s hard to believe that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben “Helicopter” Bernanke is actually as dumb as his statements make him sound.  In his testimony to the Senate today, he said that if the government purchases common shares in banks, that it “may or may not” have an impact on shareholders.

Has he never heard of supply and demand?  Whenever the supply of something is increased, each individual part of the “something” is worth less.  This holds true for everything from apples to zebras – and I’ve never seen an exception to that rule.  But Ben doesn’t seem to understand that simple concept.

According to MarketWatch.com, Bernanke spoke in response to questions raised by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who expressed concern about how conversion of government capital infusions into common shares could have a negative impact on existing common shareholders of financial institutions. However, Bernanke argued that once converted, the government common stakes “may or may not” dilute common shareholders depending on expectations of the equity shareholders, Bernanke said.

At least Corker and Grassley are now saying the right things.  Hopefully they’ll keep their recently grown backbones and continue to hold these appointed officials accountable.  They didn’t have the backbone to stand up and say this when Bush was president, and I don’t care if political differences cause them to do the right thing or if they figure it out on their own.  Doing the right thing is what matters in the end.

Bernanke simply can’t be that dumb, but he sure plays the role of a dumbass well.

gk

Share on Facebook

According to the Christian Science Monitor, At least six governors have said they may refuse money. CNN also has some a decent story on it.

“We’re concerned that we’re just going to be doling out million dollar hugs,” says Jon Hanian, Governor Otter’s press secretary. “It really comes down to the proper role of government, and that is a soul-searching question we’re engaged in here in Idaho right now.”

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have joined Otter’s revolt.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has also raised concerns about future state obligations especially for education, welfare, and healthcare spending, which make up the bulk of the $787 billion package.

“Some school systems will see a gusher of money the like of which no one has seen before,” said Governor Daniels at a press conference last week. “When federal funds stop coming, there will not be any way to replace all of that.”

And a bit further down the story says But Jindal, who called the stimulus debate “a great opportunity” to offer conservative-based solutions, countered, “We should be unafraid to stand up on principles and point out alternative solutions.”

This could be the first step in removing federal government interference in what should constitutionally be a state issue.  Just imagine if we could get more states to “stand up on principles” and refuse federal money – and the strings that are always attached to that money.

Mississippi’s Governor Barbour objects to a provision that extends unemployment benefits to people who have turned down full-time employment. Similarly, South Carolina’s Governor Sanford thinks extending unemployment benefits to part-time workers will bankrupt the state’s unemployment trust.

“The only strings attached to this money is if you have a community that for the last 30 years has had persistent poverty rates … then you must direct 10 percent of this money to those communities,” says Rep. Clyburn. “If you don’t want this pot of money because that string is attached, what am I to conclude from that?”

Representative Clyburn – you may safely conclude that they don’t want money with strings attached.  Ideally, they wouldn’t want your money, because they know it’s really their money anyway, but that’s probably too much to hope for at this point.  I’m taking it one step at a time, trying to undo this mess the same way it was created, one step at a time.

The underlying cause for the resistance has to do with state sovereignty, says Byron Schlomach at the conservative Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. Will a short-term federal government intervention weaken states’ rights by making them more financially beholden to Washington?

That’s an issue that is particularly relevant as the revolt is largely coming from states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alaska, whose residents currently receive some of the highest shares of federal subsidies in the country. These states, argues Mr. Schlomach, know the price that comes with federal largess. “We’re giving up our sovereignty and putting the federal government even more in the driver’s seat,” he says.

Highway funding, HUD funding, etc. all come with caveats, and maybe this will be the straw that broke the camels’ back.  I’m not optimistic that this will be the case, but at least it’s cause for hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.

What’s my alternative plan?  Do nothing.  Let the bad companies go broke.  Let the people who bought more house than they could afford go broke.  Let them live with relatives or at a church run charity.

gk

Share on Facebook

Ron Paul knows economics.  He knows how the free market system is supposed to work.  I say “supposed to” because we haven’t had a free market system in the US for almost 100 years.

And yet people say the dumbest things, like “this proves the free market system doesn’t work without regulation” and “we need more regulation of the banks” like they have a clue what they’re talking about.

Yes, this rant has a point.  I’ll get there.

As a country, we have now spent over $3 trillion on bailing out idiots – both individual and corporate – with absolutely nothing to show for it.  Now Obama is saying that any delay in passing his almost $900,000,000,000 bailout plan is “inexcusable and irresponsible“.

Please look at the balloon tags on the right of this web page.  By far the largest (which shows that it’s been used more than any other tag) is “Bush is an idiot”.  I’ve made dozens of posts where I detail why Bush sucked as President.  I wanted to mention that before I get flamed by Obamaniacs saying that I’m a pissed off Republican.

I’m not.  I’m a pissed off US Citizen who can’t believe that this is the path that people of our country want to go down.  I wonder whatever happened to individual responsibility.  I wonder whatever happened to the free market economy.  I wonder if we can ever eliminate the thousands of areas of government interference in our daily lives.  I wonder if we can ever again have a federal government that governs within the rules set forth in the Constitution – no more, no less.

I wonder all this because I happened upon the text of a speech tonight.  It’s a speech that Ron Paul made on the floor of the US House of Representatives on February 3rd, just 3 short days ago.  None of it is new – Dr. Paul has been talking about it for years – but I think it speaks to the problems we are facing today (Feb 6th, 2009) better than any blatant pandering by Obama or the Republicans.

His speech is available online here, but I’m going to quote it in it’s entirety because it’s part of the public record, and I support what he says 100%.   I fear that it’ll be a cold day in hell before anything Ron Paul proposes is adopted into law, but who knows – maybe one day the people of this country will wake up and demand a real solution – not simply rhectoric and irresponsible spending.

Here’s the speech.  Enjoy!

gk

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul

United States House of Representatives

Statement on Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act February 3, 2009

Madame Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation to restore financial stability to America’s economy by abolishing the Federal Reserve. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy. In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people.

From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial “boom” followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts.

With a stable currency, American exporters will no longer be held hostage to an erratic monetary policy. Stabilizing the currency will also give Americans new incentives to save as they will no longer have to fear inflation eroding their savings. Those members concerned about increasing America’s exports or the low rate of savings should be enthusiastic supporters of this legislation.

Though the Federal Reserve policy harms the average American, it benefits those in a position to take advantage of the cycles in monetary policy. The main beneficiaries are those who receive access to artificially inflated money and/or credit before the inflationary effects of the policy impact the entire economy. Federal Reserve policies also benefit big spending politicians who use the inflated currency created by the Fed to hide the true costs of the welfare-warfare state. It is time for Congress to put the interests of the American people ahead of special interests and their own appetite for big government.

Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy. The United States Constitution grants to Congress the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency. The Constitution does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank. Furthermore, the Constitution certainly does not empower the federal government to erode the American standard of living via an inflationary monetary policy.

In fact, Congress’ constitutional mandate regarding monetary policy should only permit currency backed by stable commodities such as silver and gold to be used as legal tender. Therefore, abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a constitutional system will enable America to return to the type of monetary system envisioned by our nation’s founders: one where the value of money is consistent because it is tied to a commodity such as gold. Such a monetary system is the basis of a true freemarket economy.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand up for working Americans by putting an end to the manipulation of the money supply which erodes Americans’ standard of living, enlarges big government, and enriches well-connected elites, by cosponsoring my legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve.

Share on Facebook

Excellent story in the NY Times about Pat Summitt and the legacy of coaches that she’s leaving in her wake.  You can follow the link to the story and read the whole thing, but here are a few snips:

A better measure of Summitt’s success — in her eyes, anyway — is this: 45 Lady Volunteers, about a third of the players who have passed through her program, have become coaches — from youth leagues to the pros. In her coaching tree, the first ring was formed this season with the arrival of Glory Johnson, whose high school coach was Shelley Sexton-Collier, whose college coach was Summitt.

To play for Summitt is to feel her glare everywhere. She has certain nonnegotiable rules, like requiring her players to sit in the first three rows at class. When they are broken, she has a way of finding out. Even after her players leave, Summitt keeps an eye on them. When Caldwell’s Bruins lost at home to Oregon, 73-56, Summitt called afterward to offer encouragement.

She hears from former players regularly. Some are looking for a box-out drill to use in practice. Others seek career advice or want to know how to motivate an underachieving player. Trish Roberts, who played in the Montreal Olympics alongside Summitt before playing for her at Tennessee, said, “I could pick up the phone and talk to Pat anytime, and she’ll take the time out.”

I hear a lot in this town about UT football, a little less about UT men’s basketball, and even less about UT women’s basketball.  I think that’s backwards.  Knoxville needs to celebrate Pat Summitt far more than they talk about an average football program.  When she eventually retires, UT will go back to having an average Lady Vol’s team, and maybe people will realize what they had.

But that’ll be too late.

gk

Share on Facebook