Reviving the Monroe Doctrine

On December 2, 1823, the fledgling United States scored its first significant victory in foreign affairs. As the Republic approaches the 185th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, its provisions are as important to national security now as they were in the early days of the nation's history.

 

In his 7th State of the Union Address, President James Monroe articulated that European powers were no longer to colonize or interfere with the affairs of the newly independent states of the Americas. The United States would not interfere with existing colonies or their dependencies in the Western Hemisphere. However, any attempt by a European nation to oppress or control any nation in the western hemisphere would be seen as an act of aggression and the United States would intervene (1). The Roosevelt Corollary of 1902 asserted American right to intervene in Latin America if a particular nation was internally unstable or mismanaged.

 

Today, as reported on NPR, the Russian and Venezuelan Navies will stage joint exercises. The same report also mentioned that Russia is keen on re-establishing ties with its Soviet-era, remote satellite state, Cuba. The United States has the most sophisticated and powerful navy in the world, and a military challenge from Russia and Venezuela is unlikely and foolhardy. However, Russian diplomatic overtures are taking place during the American inerregnum, and the incoming Obama administration will have to play some catch-up. Current State Department priorities seem to be Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and North Korea. Genocides in Congo and in Darfur have received ever shorter shrift. Latin American leaders and citizens still have reason to view the United States critically as emphasis shifts ever further from the geographic locus of the Americas. It is a shame, for Latin America holds several keys to continued American prosperity.

 

Policy towards Latin America has been abjectly benighted, and Latin resentment of the US will continue if little changes. Cooperation with Latin America is vital in areas of immigration, trade, drug, and energy policies:

 

Could the level of Mexican, Salvadori, Nicaraguan, and Guatemalan illegal immigration be reduced with smarter trade policy? Plausibly, yes. Free trade, in the short term, causes employment displacement, yet over time, the labor market ought to return to equilibrium. NAFTA is unpalatable because the tax concessions and loopholes granted to American firms have prolonged the labor market distortions both at home and across the Rio Grande. Latin nations must devote more resources to education and infrastructure, but it is not in America's interests to export an economic policy which has the unintended consequence of straining the public purse. Whatever immigrants the US absorbs will mean a new generation of voters in a generation, and future American presidents cannot afford to become part of a political culture aloof, disinterested, or even hostile to the home countries of their constituents' parents. 

 

Crime and the drug trade pose significant social obstacles to growth in Bolivia, Columbia, and Mexico. Despite the successes of Plan Columbia, the ultimate answer lies in curbing demand for the commodity. Stiffer penalties for powder cocaine offences - a smaller plank in the Obama platform - in the United States would be a start. At minimum, it would signal to Latin American countries that the violence engendered by rival drug gangs would decrease if demand would drop. Moreover, a Turkish approach would prove a good solution where pharmaceutical firms would buy the commodity. The benefits here would be manifold. International prices for anaesthetics and pain medicine would drop and hence be more available in places where it is still too expensive. Second, there would be no social or economic cost which eradication programs cause. Third, resources already allocated could go to protecting farmers from thugs and rebels, and such a program would win a lot of hearts and minds. 

 

Regarding energy, newly found petroleum reserves by PetroBras, the national oil concern in Brazil, could ease American reliance on foreign fuel. Moreover, when the current farm bill expires, domestically produced ethanol might die with it. Importing ethanol from Brazil was and will be economically prudent. Furthermore, the United States and Brazil have mutually aligned interests in environmental preservation. Brazilians have seen the benefit of eco-tourism, and Americans are keen on green. Calling more cooperation with a macroeconomically stable, large, emerging economy a good thing is a truism. It makes sense to pay attention to the most stable, most pro-American emerging market nation.

 

Though Latin American nations feel rightly neglected to an extent, the United States still provides military assistance, humanitarian aid in crisis, and donates billions to the IMF and the World Bank which fund projects in the developing world. However, continuing to ignore Latin America, especially as its people view democratic institutions and ideals ever more favorably, would be a grave error at this juncture. Eliminating trade barriers and engaging the governments of Castro and Chavez area a start. The last test of the Monroe Doctrine came during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The next one might not end so felicitously.

 

(1) Britannica 269 as reprinted on WikiPedia.

Does this signal deflation?

Boston City Councilman Chuck Turner was arrested for taking a $1000 bribe. State Senator Dianne Wilkerson is under investigation for corruption as well for having accepted up to $23,000. Allegedly, both politicians accepted payoffs to facilitate liquor licenses. Though race - both politicians are black - will eventually become a factor due to propensities to exploit the obvious, the key issue has to do with the price of graft. So why have politicians staked so much for so little? 

 

In Massachusetts, liquor licenses are both scarce and expensive, and as such pose barriers to entry for aspiring entrepreneurs. Since it is difficult to obtain a license from scratch, transfer of licenses is a more likely avenue to getting one. However, towns have their own zoning limits and liquor quotas. Because of the nature of the product sold, the market is not particularly volatile. Thus, the available number of licenses does not keep up with demand. 

 

At this stage, it is unknown whether Turner and Wilkerson were acting in concert. If the incidents are not part of a conspiracy, then they expose a glaring weakness in state law. Hearing about a political graft scandal will not shock even the least jaded. What is more alarming is how little politicians will sell out for.

 

Investigators have barely begun to discover the extent of the alleged corruption, but what they have revealed to the public ought to provide enough impetus to amend state liquor licensing procedure.

Fundamentally, a quota on licenses for anything is anti-libertarian and anti-market. Compelling state interest ought to exist for government intervention. There are no limits on the number of recreational hunting or fishing licenses, but the state restricts quarry numbers because of ecological concerns such as species population depletion. An age baseline for driver's licenses makes sense because of public safety. However, issuing fewer liquor license accomplishes little except putting an artificial brake on commerce.

 

Not all state liquor laws are incoherent, though. Some do provide a public benefit. According to Massachusetts statute, MGL CH. 138, SEC 15 regarding the number of licenses issued, "No person, firm, corporation, association, or other combinations of persons, directly or indirectly, or through any agent, employee, stockholder, officer or other person or any subsidiary whatsoever, shall be granted a total of more than one package store license in a town, two licenses in a city, or three licenses in the state." Such provisions limit the influence of organized crime and promote competition among the lucky that have licenses. 

 

So, why have politicians have sold out for such piddling amounts of money in such a high stakes, high margin industry? Helping someone procure a license that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars should come with a higher vig. Entrepreneurs aspiring to get a liquor license will have a sense of what the return on investment will be, and the timetable for actualizing the returns. Annual fee schedules in each municipality vary, but even the most expensive are no more than a few thousand dollars a year, so annual fixed costs are low after the initial investment. Getting the inside track on a brand new license should be worth a lot more. If the average cost of a liquor license in the state is a quarter million dollars (the license itself comes with the establishment, real estate, kitchen equipment, etc.), taking .o4% of the market price as commission hardly makes sense. Unless it was an installment in a residual payoff plan meant to keep police and authorities off the scent, taking so little was a bad play. Even if the amount concerned in the Wilkerson probe was for one liquor license, she still took less than 10%. 

 

Since the amounts in question are tiny compared to what was at stake, whatever information surfaces in the near future will shed light on the terms of trade for political favors in this state. Given what is known in the early stages, the bottom has seemingly fallen out of the political black market. That cannot be a good sign for all business, legitimate or not.

Everyone's champion

College football is an economic anomaly. Between hiring staff, providing financial assistance through scholarships or academic grants, and coordinating travel, uniforms, and training, subsidizing it takes up much of athletic departments' budgets. Yet, few schools with football programs profit from having the sport. Under Title IX, the statutory provisions regulating proportional financial outlay for men's and women's collegiate athletic programs, it has no counterpart. Consequently, some schools have cut certain sports to conform with this legislation. The University of Miami cut men's and women's golf as well as swimming and diving to accommodate its football program, typically one of the best in the country. Why do colleges, many of them state institutions, fund football when the costs of operation of and of participation in higher education increase every year at a rate much higher than headline inflation?

Many parts of the country regard its status as religious, as iconic. Student pride and campus morale are often cited as reasons why universities have continued their football programs. Such justifications seem to stretch the logical link between the presence of a football team and raising a school's profile, and only deep cultural entrenchment supports the validity of those claims. Would the benefits of eliminating football or 'privatising' it in state schools result in a better allocation of resources?

 

The structural shortcomings of college football economics further exacerbate atavistic clinging to the status quo in all aspects of the sport, particularly in determining a national champion in formerly Division I-A, now known as the Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The Bowl system itself is an anachronism. When rail travel was the norm, teams that could not play each other because of transportation logistics met during the winter holiday break for one last hurrah. 

 

Presently, technology makes getting across the country fairly cheap, and schools from different geographic regions routinely meet during the regular season. Hence, the old bowl system, which has grown to a level where roughly half of the teams in FBS compete in a postseason game, rewards mediocrity rather than pair two regional superpowers that could not face each other due to academic and technological constraints. When bowls were few, schools and fans could take pride, but few savvy fans and students will boast about participating in the Outback Bowl or any other game with a corporate title sponsor. However, bowl games are the fruit of a high priced gambit: sponsors pay money into a school general fund for getting to a bowl.

 

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), a cartel of the heads of the major football conferences and Notre Dame, have co-opted the system further where teams that play in the BCS receive the largest payouts, national television exposure, and establish football supremacy. The BCS was touted as the solution to the arcane method of selecting a national champion through media and coaches' polls. Since its inception in 1998, the BCS has been fraught with controversy over which teams qualify. The BCS also failed to produce a consensus champion in 2003. One of the advantages of the BCS was to eliminate a split title, yet no consensus champion emerged that year. Arguably, since the BCS limits eligible teams to the power conferences and Notre Dame, no true consensus national champion emerges. The BCS only determines the winner of its series which might not necessarily represent national consensus. The computer formula will take input data from national polls and mathematical rating systems, but it has an inherent bias towards the conferences which stand to benefit most. If a school from a lesser conference went undefeated, scheduled perennial powers for its non-conference schedule and took them down in the process, it might not factor into the national championship equation. 

 

The lack of a college football playoff in former Division I-A and the proliferation of the bowl system diminishes the product that is supposed to instill pride in the student body and attract national and international attention. The following is a suggestion to the NCAA over how to solve the playoff problem and simultaneously restore the game to schools rather than to render that unto a money machine:

1. No preseason polls. First poll will come out after every team has played four games. Preseason rankings are subjective conjecture at best. The absence of a preseason poll will not impact how teams play or prepare. If anything, the first few weeks of the season are a good time for teams to prove themselves and vie for coveted spots.
2. In the first year of the system, any conference with 10 or more teams will be split into an Upper and Lower Brackets rather than on geographic lines. The five or six best will occupy the Upper Bracket. To be considered title eligible, each UB team has to play all the other UB teams. To complete a seven game conference schedule, each UB team will play two or three of the Lower Bracket opponents. This part of the schedule will be determined by athletic directors. After the end of Year One, the UB will relegate 2 teams. The LB will promote 2 teams. This will eliminate the need for a conference title game. Though a lesser team upsetting a favorite makes for good drama, it makes consensus - the much sought after purpose - impossible under the present system. Since there will be fewer regular season games, bracket games will have the same import as division games in professional football.
3. Given the prospect of relegation, a team which would like to compete for the national championship will have to schedule worthy non-conference opponents. If Oklahoma had an off year in the Big 12, non-conference games against SEC, Big 10, and ACC powers might salvage a season when its in-conference schedule is soft. The current system disproportionately favors teams lucky enough to avoid the toughest competition in its own conference. Wisconsin once skated through the Big 10 without having to play Michigan or Ohio State. Albeit rare, such phenomena would not occur with the bracket format.
4. No Cupcake Rule - Scheduling lesser competition for glorified scrimmages encourages bad sportsmanship and needlessly pads the statistics. Glorified scrimmages help no one. Scheduling Florida or Nebraska might look nice on a small school resume. It might get a recruit. However, no student, fan or alumnus can be proud of a 73-0 pasting. Any school scheduling an FCS opponent ought not to be considered for a national title.
5. Maintain a computer formula, but eliminate the incentive to run up the score. Including margin of victory in the ranking formula also encourages bad sportsmanship. Margin of victory is borderline irrelevant in the NFL, a league with much more parity amongst its clubs than even the top 32 college teams. Tie breakers will come down to bracket record, overall conference record, and head to head record. In a five or six team bracket, it is unlikely that three team will have the same conference record if they would share more common opponents than they do now. Moreover, multiple loss teams seldom merit national championship consideration.
6. An eight team playoff at the end of the season will determine a national champion. Seven of the marquee bowl venues will host the playoffs. The title game can rotate among the oldest established bowls, but few would quibble if the Rose Bowl hosted the last college game of the year. Moreover, a playoff system would not fragment the season between two academic terms. If the first weekend in December were to be the last in the regular season, then two weeks of playoff games following final examinations would make sense. The national championship could take place New Year's Day. Eight teams suffice for logistical purposes, and regression analysis using the BCS formula will show huge drops between the rating of the eighth and ninth teams each year. Also, elimination games produce great drama; the NCAA basketball tournaments provide good evidence of that.

The one argument against incorporating a playoff system is ironically an economic one. Demand for football is high, so why kill the cash cow? Decreasing the total number of games played would be economically unwise because demand is high and relatively inelastic. Therefore, limiting the total number of games played by each school reduces the value of future television contracts. However, demand and clamor for a playoff system to determine a champion are high as well. When observers and coaches find that the current system distorts competition, then change is appropriate.

Since the pressing need is to find consensus, perhaps protecting vested economic interests ought to matter less. College football does provide tangible and intangible benefits for even loss making teams. A model which would compel incumbent powerhouses to behave more competitively is in every one's interest. Though first person participation and the number of televised games would decrease at first, consistently good match ups each week would drive up the value of each game, and hence the price. If revenue for a good albeit flawed product is high, would revenue for an improved version though sold in slightly less quantity be higher? In principle, the answer is yes. Until one can prove that the status quo would continue to generate more interest, higher returns, and protect the integrity of the game, then the NCAA, the networks, and the schools themselves must review all possible ways of abandoning an anodyne, inefficient approach to determining a winner.

Stack and tilt economics

The great new fad in teaching the golf swing has been the method known as Stack and Tilt. The basic premise of this technique focuses on two positions: the back swing and the finish. Simply, from address, reverse pivot to reverse-C. For some players, it has worked well, for others, it has knelled the end of their careers. Stack and Tilt can work for some golfers, and many have made millions on Tour by following its principles. Adherents of more traditional instruction have been skeptical of this as an alternative and equal approach to teaching the golf swing. Stack and Tilt emphasizes a reverse pivot where the weight does not shift to the right side during the back swing; many regard as a flaw in an efficient swing. How, the question goes, can a flaw suddenly become a fundamental?

 

Economic policy over the past ten years has followed a similar trajectory except for the fact that economic purists were seemingly ignored while fiscal and monetary levers were manipulated in ways which only delayed the inevitable, current mess. If the undergraduate economics professors of the Fed board of governors knew that their students would one day make such policy decisions, they would have certainly flunked their charges on the spot. One can blame group-think or a culture of endemic callowness within the administration where clash was almost impermissible, where no one rocked the apple cart, but the central bank is independent and in position to stand up to claptrap. Granted, no economist wanted the blood of a potentially lost decade as the one Japan experienced after the collapse of its equity bubble, and panic moves never end well. However, embracing ideas such as soaring deficits, tax cuts, and prolonged periods of cheap credit while ignoring the inevitable consequences of excess was dumb and passive.

 

Fiscal and monetary policy have been both grossly irresponsible. During the first term of the Bush presidency, the executive and legislature inherited a budget surplus which ought to have been used to pay down the monetized national debt. Instead, public money was squandered on many ill-fated, ill-conceived initiatives ranging from missile defense to faith-based initiatives. Moreover, the legislature, with a majority united to the executive. approved tax cuts during a period of unprecedentedly prolonged economic growth. Foolish, arrogant and short sighted, the quick sop to a country still not quite convinced the right man was in the Oval Office was a cynical ploy to get the public on board with the new president. However, without a way of replenishing the public purse, the country was unable to gird itself for the shit storm caused by both endogenous and exogenous forces during the next eight years. Monetarily, the recent record of the central bank is not so glowing either. Lauded as a genius, encircled by a seeming personality cult, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan could do no wrong, but he has since admitted he was wrong in many respects from bailing out LTMC to keeping interest rates artificially low. Years of unnecessarily low interest rates facilitated rolling asset price bubbles as the monetary lever was used to keep the wheels greased and delay a reckoning. Little of this seemed prudent at the time, for it all seems reckless now, as the state had guaranteed against any moral hazard.

 

Echoing the timbre of the last days of Rome, John McCain's assertion about the fundamental soundness of the economy showed that we had bought the bullshit, and the people selling it were the very ones that had the professional, philosophical obligation to remain above the fray. Here are a few examples of when someone ought to have thought of drawing the brakes:

• In winter 2000, it was common knowledge that recession was imminent. Rather than brace for recession, Greenspan opted for a soft landing. In hindsight, when much of the lost wealth was in paper assets due to rampant equity speculation, the segment of the population hardest hit would have been the wealthy. Not a chance of a correction taking place with Republican dominance of executive and legislature.
• In winter 2001, when the fallout of the dot-com era exposed malfeasance from faulty business models to disingenuous analytics to plain, old book-cooking (Tyco, Enron, WorldCom), the hastilycobbled Sarbanes-Oxley Act did little to give regulators the resources and scope to deal with crises in the future. "Self-regulation," came the cry. Good job.

Now, when policy decisions have affected not just the leisure or investor classes, but people whose meager net worth is tied solely to the value of their home and the amount of debt they have against the property value, no one is quite sure which is an advantageous step. Concomitantly, high stock market volatility, huge drops in global commodity demand, unfathomable levels of foreign and sovereign debt for the developed world are all symptoms of the collapse in credit markets. Moreover, a coordinated bailout of American investment and retail banks simultaneously doubled the national debt ceiling. The last decade has created a culture within the financial services industry that it is their birthright to have high yield on anything they touch. How is any of this fundamentally sound?

At the most basic level, economics is a science of allocating limited resources. As a science, it cannot predict the future, but as a study of statics, it can indeed illuminate causal, logical relationships. More philosophically, economic analysis can provide clarity, both logos and ethos, a cool breath of reason to policy debate when hot rhetoric and emotional appeal sometimes make for a muddle in determining the best course of action. Like medical doctors take the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, economists must implicitly not buy into the bullshit. Why else would central bank autonomy be regarded as generally good? 

 

To restore the confidence in economics, capitalism, and the institutions acting as their instruments, a return to status quo ante would be a rash error, but some old style remedies are certainly in order:

1. Offer higher deposit rates - Current interbank rates are higher than ever even as risk premium for safe investments. What better way to access a lending capital pool then by paying out more than a paltry 2%? If banks offered short term CDs one percent below interbank lending rates, many depositors would queue up in no time.
2. Scrap the Paulson plan - No Fed Policing. Plain and simple. An expanded Fed cannot act as uber-enforcer of the rules. It contravenes its original mandate which it has seemingly failed to fulfill as of late. A bureaucratic expansion would do no one any good.
3. Reconcile the tax base - Short term increases? Distinctly possible, but economic crisis exposes structural defects as well as cyclical. While existing efforts untangle the fiasco at hand, the incoming administration must come up with an alternative to income tax.
4. Leverage ratios for investment banks - Light touch regulation such as this may seem like a capital control, but when pension fund portfolios are exposed to highly leveraged firms Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the onus of default adversely selects the wrong shareholder. Also, why should Goldman Sachs enjoy a 2000:1 leverage to asset ratio? No one ought to be able to borrow 2000 times above his worth.
5. Proportionate funding of existing regulatory agencies - Given the scale by which the federal government has expanded the last eight years, it would be interesting to see the percent change in annual budgets across the myriad agencies. The SEC, FTC, CFTC and DOJ Antitrust division probably did not receive much largess. Adequate funding would allow these regulatory agencies to do their job in real time, learn how to treat complex derivatives, and not be forced to act ad hoc during a crisis. The regulatory and legal framework does a lot to reduce the risk of default. It is a quasi-gold standard, and the country cannot afford to see it diminished.
6. Tight money - To keep foreign investors keen during retrenchment as well as to combat inflationary pressure, Treasury will buy back its securities. The Fed will raise interest rates. Consequently, the higher yield on our bonds is more attractive. It will have to be, if politicians balk at enacting the change which got them elected this year, though such structural change will be quite painful.

This nadir in economic history will end, though probably not soon. There are three asset price bubbles from which Western and developed economies not quite recovered. Economists and policy makers should stop reinventing the wheel and simply stick to true fundamentals. Then, everyone can benefit, for the culture of double dealing and lack of accountability ought to be coming to an end. Ditch the Stack and Tilt, and then things can get to the right side.

World tour at last

American PGA Tour superstars Camilo Villegas and Anthony Kim decided to join the European Tour officially. For elite players such as the aforementioned, the four Major championships as well as the three World Golf Championships - soon to be four with the impending addition of the HSBC Champions - count as events played on both the US and European PGA Tours. This means that to maintain, assuming neither wins but earns enough to keep status status on both tours, each would have to find eight more events in America and at least four more in Europe to continue playing both Tour. Given the scale of prize money offered, the US and European PGA Tours are the richest in the world, and hence attract the best talent. The Race to Dubai, the European Tour counterpart to the FedEx Cup, provided impetus for Kim, Villegas, and possibly Phil Mickelson to split time on both Tours. This poses a problem for the US PGA Tour as two, maybe three, of its biggest non-Tiger draws broaden their horizons, but the best playing all over the world is truly good for the game.

 

Globalizing an ostensibly leisure class pastime could not have come at a more opportune time. Despite downturns in the global economy, incomes around the world are still growing. Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, and even Russian golfers are playing in sanctioned Tour events. Granted the talent level of some is not as high as that of players from countries with longer traditions of instruction and growth of the game, continued increases in wealth in emerging market nations will naturally spread the growth of golf. Global saturation of the game is ultimately attainable. As such, the pool of possible sponsors grows, and everyone will benefit from more market opportunities.

 

Though Greg Norman envisioned formal establishment of a global tour, Tiger Woods became the standard and the icon of the modern, globe trotting touring professional, a role anyone would relish if given the opportunity. Though Norman has 69 international victories and Woods' contemporaries Ernie Els (44) and Vijay Singh (22) also balanced obligations on US, European, South African and Asian Tours, Woods has been the first truly international figure in the game because of his genealogical links to both America and the world. Anthony Kim is similar in that respect. Camilo Villegas attended and completed university in America, but he maintains strong ties and pride in his native heritage. Personified bridging of multiple cultures and ethnicities has given stars of this generation the broad appeal that the previous, mostly foreign born globetrotters did not. Others such as Vardon, Ray, Palmer and Player managed an international schedule, but private jet aviation has raised the profile of the profession even further.

 

Two concerns do emerge. First, how will the US Tour and European Tour business models coexist? Second and more glaringly, why is there a dearth of American players with seemingly few international ties willing to play away from home? 

 

The US PGA Tour receives a tax exemption from the US government because it is a non-profit organization - 501(c)3 status, in the parlance of the Internal Revenue Service. The European Tour runs its events on a for profit basis. One discrepancy between the two models is that European Tour events can pay appearance fees where a player may receive money for teeing it up. Sponsors with deep pockets can lure top players with financial inducements. It is unclear whether attracting players that way has an overall economic benefit of holding the tournament or merely strokes the egos of rich tournament organizers eager for prestige. Such practice might become de rigeur in a more global golf tour, for the Asian, Sunshine, and Australasian PGA Tours as well as the Europeans all follow for profit business models for their tournaments. Tee up money may seem grubby and anathema to the spirit of competition to Americans accustomed to golf tournaments enriching only the contestants and then otherwise raising money for charity. 

 

Perhaps revisiting the American business model is in order if Villegas and Kim, who will join young stars such as Trevor Immelman, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Andres Romero, Brandt Snedeker, Adam Scott, and Aaron Baddeley, will play less in the States. Young and talented, in some cases single, men will take advantage of opportunity to travel, and the US PGA Tour will have to accommodate a partial talent drain. 

 

Second, American players seem loath to play overseas even with the newly dangling incentive before them. Some will argue that the presence of international players on the US Tour order of merit has crowded out American talent and eroded opportunities for native players. Some American players - Phil Mickelson with Barclays, Brandt Snedeker with Bridgestone - have international endorsement deals which oblige them to play abroad, though some would willingly play overseas out of a desire to travel and a personal sense of adventure. However, the duties of family take precedence, and most wives are not keen on having their husbands travel thirty weeks of the year to earn a living. Having to go internationally will not assuage such concerns. Aside from personal commitments, what is stopping American players from going overseas? American players are talented enough to compete with their international counterparts. Some complain about bad food, bad weather, language barriers, and other provincial grumbling. International players deal with assimilation in America because they know that such a sacrfice is little compared to securing their own and their families' financial future. 

 

Presently, the money on the US Tour blows away the pay scales in Europe, but that may shift because of talent flight and more tournaments following a for-profit financial model. When it happens, US players may be playing catch up and find the rules of tour membership further stacked against them. Such a scenario is probable, though not for some time. It took less than twenty years for the economics of a staid game with narrow appeal to expand to what it is now. Within any artificial system, culture and technology accelerate the rate of change itself and hence the time interval it takes for change to occur. American golfers have two choices: either play better or adapt and take a shot at playing a few real road games.

What else is there today?

"That's the problem with this country. Weather. All. Just hangs on too long."

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying.

 

Had enough? What's one more day of discussion in a campaign cycle that seemingly began at the tail end of the 2006 midterm Congressional elections? One day too many. Today, professional and amateur observers, political junkies, concerned citizens will focus on who carries which state in the sprint to 270 electoral votes. However, a small diversion is necessary to keep things into perspective on why the process has left the public with the choices it has. 

 

Recently, Sundance Channel reran the satirical Tanner '88 series. As the narrative plot of fictional presidential candidate Jack Tanner evolved, it suggested that a purely absurd candidacy, one whose purpose was to make fun of presidential politics, began to seem more legitimate, more earnest than the campaigns of even the candidates who eventually wound up being the last men standing for the Democrats and Republicans.

 

The 2008 campaigns have the tinge of the Tanner mockumentary where the substance feels fictitious though the manner and style of its presentation looks real. Unfortunately, both lack the cinematic fine touch of Robert Altman's genius. Both Obama and McCain campaigns feel simulated, as products of media polish rather than substantive extensions of a coherent platform to address problems. Both men have played their respective parts without either measuring well against the touchstone of authenticity. This concept, abstract as it is, still is a definable commodity. Each line, each sound byte is crafted to be the one that does not lose rather than be the potential game winning shot. Watching the two senators spar is akin to seeing two passive opponents in a game waiting for the official to make the call to decide the outcome. The tactics might be somewhat grubby, but the overall strategies amount to the political equivalent of kissing your sister. They both may want to win, but neither seems to want the ball in crunch time, and that brand of sport - mincing, tactically passive - feels a lot like European soccer. The GWB campaigns attracted so many devotees because he played red-blooded, American hard ball. Though the strategic message was all politics, all the time, Rove, however odious, did want the ball with the game on the line. He merely played dirty aggressive, but he always scored when it counted.

This campaign has not seen the scale of dirty pool the previous two contests have had, and the restraint on both sides is a welcome change to the rancor of 2000 and 2004. However, remove the Obama phenomenon, and this election, though taking place during a period of uncertainty over the future of the collective identity, is astonishingly lackluster. Electoral politics and sports have the same high stakes, and like all games, much of the decisions on how to play stem from how much long the game seems to go. Why should the game be a two year long test match if the consensus among strategists is that the final two weeks are critical to deciding a close contest? The 2008 election will have as much historical significance not only because Obama is the first mainstream candidate of color, but also structurally as campaigns cannot continue to be seemingly interminable.

 

Since America has a result-oriented, sporting culture, public disaffection with the candidates has as much to do with the lack of substance as it does with the liberties the two main contestants have taken with playing a clock-grinding style which is unfriendly to spectators, even to the purists in the lot. If the electoral process measures preferences, all parties cannot take for granted that free speech and the social significance of the contest supersede that which the public wants. Responsive government depends as much on the terms of trade as it does on the currency of the issues.

 

The strain of the late Warren Zevon's savage guitar chords fade out the last few notes of "Lawyers, Guns and Money."