We simply cannot responsibly gauge the pace of the recovery. Nor is it even clear whether we are better off with a fast recovery or a slow one. A fast recovery could create an acute risk of dangerously high inflation. A slow recovery could greatly increase the size of the federal deficit, threatening all sorts of economic and political harms, with eventual unacceptable inflation only one of them. I am particularly concerned with the danger of social and political turmoil if high unemployment and related economic pathologies persist. We are now in the third year of a depression. The economic crisis continues to occupy center stage despite all the other news assailing us.Am glad that the prolific Posner is returning to blog at the Atlantic. Boy is he a one-man-writing-machine! BTW, I wonder if his economics colleagues at Chicago have resumed talking with him :) In case you are wondering what I am talking about, here is the New Yorker piece.
Showing posts with label university of chicago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label university of chicago. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Quote of the day: Richard Posner on the state of the economy
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Amateurism in college football? HA!
The co-chairs of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics want us to believe that college football is amateur sport. To which I say: HA!
In their op-ed in the LA Times, Chancellor William E. Kirwan of the University of Maryland system, and President R. Gerald Turner of Southern Methodist University, write: This week also marks the start of a new era in college football, one in which fantasy leagues run by commercial entities exploit college players as their virtual game pieces. These online fantasy leagues, which use the real names and statistics of collegiate athletes, raise a crucial question for higher education leaders: Is it amateurism in college sports that has become a fantasy?
In case they did not know, amateurism became a fantasy a long, long time ago. Remember Robert Maynard Hutchins as the University of Chicago president? Here is a reminder: "In 1935, senior Jay Berwanger was awarded the first Heisman Trophy (which is proudly displayed today in the Ratner Athletic Center on campus). Just four years later, however, Hutchins abolished the football team, citing the need for Chicago to focus on academics rather than athletics." To paraphrase Don McLean, that was the day that universities recognized that amateurism in college football was long dead.
The cynic in me thinks that Kirwan and Turner, and the NCAA, are merely upset that others are making money from college football--perhaps they think that only universities can make money from it. HA!
In their op-ed in the LA Times, Chancellor William E. Kirwan of the University of Maryland system, and President R. Gerald Turner of Southern Methodist University, write: This week also marks the start of a new era in college football, one in which fantasy leagues run by commercial entities exploit college players as their virtual game pieces. These online fantasy leagues, which use the real names and statistics of collegiate athletes, raise a crucial question for higher education leaders: Is it amateurism in college sports that has become a fantasy?
In case they did not know, amateurism became a fantasy a long, long time ago. Remember Robert Maynard Hutchins as the University of Chicago president? Here is a reminder: "In 1935, senior Jay Berwanger was awarded the first Heisman Trophy (which is proudly displayed today in the Ratner Athletic Center on campus). Just four years later, however, Hutchins abolished the football team, citing the need for Chicago to focus on academics rather than athletics." To paraphrase Don McLean, that was the day that universities recognized that amateurism in college football was long dead.
The cynic in me thinks that Kirwan and Turner, and the NCAA, are merely upset that others are making money from college football--perhaps they think that only universities can make money from it. HA!
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