The Mel Blount Rule

When you change the rules, you change the game.

During the 1970s, the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise was the greatest, most dominant team in professional football. The Steelers from that era festoon the NFL Hall of Fame like old hippies at a Grateful Dead concert -- Terry Bradshaw, Mean Joe Greene, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Ham, Jack Lambert -- all of them legends, and not just in their own time, but even still.

One of these players, and arguably the most dominant at his position, was Mel Blount, the most feared cornerback of all time. A tall, powerful man with excellent speed and amazing strength, he spent his career terrorizing the hapless wide receivers who dared to step into his part of the field. Anyone fielding a pass near Blount knew he was in for some serious pain. Blount was so dominant that he inspired a change in the rules of football. The NFL has always favored the passing game because of television ratings; the general public would rather watch a passing game than a running attack ("three yards and a cloud of dust" -- borrrinnngg!). Also, the NFL likes parity, and hates it when one team dominates for too long. It's bad for business, or so they believe.

As a result, the NFL handed down a rule change designed to blunt Blount. Henceforth, it would no longer be legal to jam a receiver further downfield than five yards from the line of scrimmage -- to be caught doing so would earn a pass-interference penalty. It was a simple rule change in a game with literally thousands of rules. How much difference would changing one little teeny tiny itty bitty rule make?

As things turned out, a world of difference. Before the rule change, running backs were every bit as important to an offense as quarterbacks. Backs like Jim Brown, Larry Czonka, O. J. Simpson, and Franco Harris had contributed as much or more to their teams' successes as their quarterbacks. (Quick: who played quarterback for Cleveland when Jim Brown was there?) But once this new rule was decreed, it opened up unforeseen opportunities in the passing game; thus, the running game was devalued while the quarterback and receivers appreciated in value. Having a quarterback who could throw well was no longer a mere option, but a necessity -- as was having receivers who could consistently get open. It also changed the type of players needed for the offensive line, whose primary job now became defending the quarterback rather than run-blocking. Most profoundly of all, the new rule favored coaches who knew how to win games through the air. Many coaches (including some of the greats, such as Tom Landry and Chuck Noll) could not adjust to the new rules, while a new school of coaches (Don Coryell, Bill Walsh) adapted and prospered.

All of that, brought about by one little, teeny, tiny, itty, bitty rule change. So it bears repeating: when you change the rules, you change the game.

Economics is also a game of rules. Here's one: in the United States, since Day One, it had always been understood that:

• If someone makes good economic decisions, he prospers.
• If someone makes bad economic decisions, he suffers.

It used to be that if a bank made bad loans, or a company made a product nobody wanted to buy, or an investor sunk his money into a losing enterprise, or a home buyer borrowed more than he could repay, such folks lost money and risked bankruptcy. If they did go bankrupt, their assets were seized by the sheriff and handed over to their creditors to salvage or sell off what they could.

In recent months, this rule has been changed. With the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailouts, the AIG bailout, the Wall Street bailouts, the bank bailouts, the proposed auto bailouts, and now the proposed home mortgage bailout, it is obvious that there are new rules in place:

• If someone makes bad economic decisions, he prospers -- that is, he goes to Congress with a tin cup, on bended knee, and goes home with a few billion dollars in his pocket.
  
• If someone makes good economic decisions, he suffers -- that is, he is forced to subsidize prodigal businessmen and imprudent mortgage defaulters.
  

This is a sea change, a transfiguration. It's a new game now. How different will the new game be? Who knows? But let's consider the possibilities anyway, starting with a look at what it was that we lost along with the old rules. Adam Smith, the philosophical father of capitalism, argued that the free market was the best way to organize man's economic activities in order to curb his selfish instincts -- to harness them, in fact, for the common good. Here, from The Wealth of Nations, is probably Smith's most famous passage:

Smith: "Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."

In short: he who would help himself must help others. This is the Golden Rule made economic flesh.

But such a rule cannot exist in a vacuum. Smith took for granted that he lived in a society where Christian ethics meant something, and where the institutions of private property and the rule of law had existed for hundreds of years. In other words, in 18th century British society, there were criminal options (such as stealing) that were denied to Smith's fellow Brits, and political options (such as seizure without due process) that were denied to Crown and Parliament. Capitalism requires a vast infrastructure of laws, customs, mores, and circumstance in order to perform its magic.

And Smith adds, with some disdain:

Smith: "Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens."

This rule has already been under attack for quite some time. We had already created whole classes of "beggars" (by Smith's standard) for years that have been receiving federal subsidies in the form of government-provided welfare checks, food stamps, and housing subsidies at the low end -- and, at the high end, government workers, government contractors and corporate lobbyists. And it isn't "benevolence," exactly, that is doled out, but rather money that was taken forcibly from taxpayers and distributed by government brokers.

But until recently, it had always been more or less understood that any "benevolence" would be bestowed on the poor and disadvantaged. However, now we are being ordered to subsidize failed business enterprises as well -- most of whose CEOs are not in the soup line.

There are so many things wrong here, but let's focus on the most basic injustice: when AIG was making money, did they ever offer to share their profits with the taxpayers? No; but now that they have lost billions, the taxpayers are being conscripted to share their losses. Once you open the door to that sort of thing... Well, sorry, the door has already been opened. Let's try again: once this approach to doing business becomes institutionalized, then we have said fare-thee-well to capitalism, and we may as well re-write Smith's phrase to describe our new paradigm:

Revised version: "Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have whatever I choose, and only as much as I choose, to give you, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that the taxpayers are forced to surrender to us the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the patronage or even the benevolence of customers that we expect our businesses to profit, but from our ability to go over everyone's heads to the government and beg money, to our advantage, at the expense of the taxpayers. We address ourselves not to the public at large, who would surely scoff and sneer, but to the politicians -- and not towards their humanity for crying out loud, as they may not possess any of it, but to their self-love and greed for power, and never talk to them of right and wrong but only of their own political advantage."

And lest we forget the last part:

Revised version: "Nobody but a sucker chooses to depend chiefly upon serving honorably and with due diligence a customer's needs or desires."

As rule changes go, this particular one happens to be far more fundamental to the game of economics even than the Mel Blount Rule was to football. It's certainly a game-changer. In fact, the game has changed so much that you will no longer need to wonder, when ten different economists are trotted out to articulate ten different opinions, which one happens to be right. Now you will know none of them are right. They were all trained in economics as it used to be, the old game, according to the old rules. Those rules are dead. Nobody knows how things will work, or if they'll work, from here on out. Nobody's forecasts are worth a dime. Nobody's advice is worth soliciting. New rules, new game.

One thing hasn't changed, though, and that is human nature. Everyone will still try to look out for his own material well-being. We just don't know what form that will take. In 13th-century Mongolia, it meant killing your rivals and stealing their property and their wives and daughters. In the Soviet Union, it meant sucking up to Stalin. In Adam Smith's 19th-century England, it meant baking bread, cutting meat, or brewing beer for your customers. Let's hope --- indeed, let's pray that whatever form it takes will be a civilized one that will not cause too much misery.

Mel Blount, by the way, learned to play well even under the Mel Blount Rule, as he was a smart and experienced player with all the physical tools he needed to adapt. In time, we may learn to play our new game well enough to get by. At least, such will be my prayer.

Gyrations, anyone?

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Has it finally sunk in at the White House that the plummeting stock market has simply been responding to BO's rhetoric? Or his policies? Or both? The Dow has dropped two thousand points since his inauguration, and maybe, just maybe, it was something the big guy might have said. Hmmm?

Well, if words can break the market, maybe they can fix it as well. You know all that doom and gloom stuff BO has been talking? Well, never mind. Today, BO says to forget all that. Follow the link, read, relax, and enjoy. Have a drink. Heck, might as well polish off the whole fifth, if you can still afford one.

The president predicted that Americans' consumer confidence would improve as they see the stimulus bill "taking root."

Taking root? Well, money is like kudzu, you know. It grows on trees. At least when you're harvesting other people's money.

What you're now seeing is ... profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it," the president said on a day that trading continued to hover under 7,000.

Long-term? Like, after more investors have been coaxed back into the market by all the higher taxes and class warfare rhetoric? And deficits that are zooming past the moons of Jupiter? Yeah, well, while you're holding your breath waiting for that to happen, I have other ideas. I'm going to take all my money out of the market and invest in a new invention I call the portfoldingchair -- part portfolio, part folding chair. It's not very comfortable in the long position, but you should watch it collapse.

Businesses are starting to see opportunities for investment and potential hiring," he said. "We are going to start creating jobs again.

Wow, that's good news, at least for India and China.

Asked about the troubles of the stock market, seeming to reflect investor insecurity about the Obama administration's economic plans, the president said he was "absolutely confident that they will work, and I'm absolutely confident that credit's going to be flowing again, that businesses are going to start seeing opportunities for investment, they're going to start hiring again. People are going to be put back to work."

Unfortunately, it's not BO's confidence that needs to be bolstered at the moment. He seems to have plenty of it. I'm more worried about the investors, who right now are more interested in sheltering what money they have left. BO, it would appear, needs to learn that when the President of the United States talks like a dorm-room Bolshevik, some people actually listen to him and take him at his word.

Obama said he wasn't focused on "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing."

Gyrations? Sorry, no.

Here's what a gyration looks like:

This, on the other hand, is what we call a trend...












Any questions?

The Difference?

So what's the difference, he asked, between a liberal and a conservative?

To judge by Obama's appointees, a liberal is someone who thinks taxes ought to be high, but doesn't think he should have to pay them.

A conservative, on the other hand, thinks taxes ought to be low, but that he should have to pay them regardless.

Glad we cleared that up.

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Wretchard does a much better job of explaining a few of the insights, or notions, I have been gathering for years, and adds a few more of his own. By all means, read what he has to say. It won't cheer you up.

The following comments represent my own thoughts, though, not his -- and though there is much overlap, like most modern political commentators, his perspective (at least in his writing) is secular. Here at Reformed Trombonist, all commentary is seasoned with the Reformed perspective.

1. The economy is a complex system, which we understand only in very small part; mostly, we just have collections of theories (or notions).

2. Every change in the legal framework of the economy, even the slightest, has implications its framers do not understand. They're hard to understand even in hindsight, let alone in foresight.

3. This ignorance opens economics up to ideological interpretation, which leads to politically-motivated decision-making, leaving the mechanism quite vulnerable.

4. Effective economic decision-making, defined as decision-making helpful to economic growth, consists largely of being afraid, very afraid, to tamper with the machinery; and, when forced to make changes, to make them in a manner which is reverent and respectful towards the good that exists, and suspicious of unsubstantiated promises -- not "Change that we can believe in," but, rather, change that is necessary and as reliable as we can make it. Save your faith for your Lord, and do not spend it on the imaginary wisdom of man. ("In God we trust; all others, bring cash.")

5. Effective political decision-making, defined as decision-making helpful to the decision-maker's political career, consists of convincing enough voters that you are on their side, which often diverges from effective economic decision-making.

Politicians have their own set of incentives, and they are not necessarily the same as the country's. (France and Norway may have suffered under the Nazis, but how much did Petain and Quisling suffer? Until after the war, that is.) When thinking of politicians, don't think of them as the brains of society. Just because a tick is attached to your scalp doesn't make him your brain. Politicians are at least as ignorant as the rest of us about how the economy works; they only know what they think is good for them. After doing his part to wreck the economy, when all is said and done, Sen. Dodd has a million-dollar country house in Ireland waiting for him when he retires to reflect on his years of public service. (Nice, huh?) We may struggle in the years ahead largely because of decision-making that took place at his level, but don't worry about him. He'll be fine.

This is the framework of our current ailments. Back to my dead horse: how is any of this not essentially a problem of morality? Somewhere along the line, we as a society lost the ability to inculcate a sense of honor and decency in our politicians to balance out their own human impulses toward self-aggrandization, allowing them to think only of getting re-elected. We lost the ability to instill a sense of shame about being greedy to those on Wall Street who thought only of inflating their portfolios, and consequences be damned. And even many homebuyers are at fault too, for chasing single-mindedly after their own McMansions and dismissing any nagging doubts that might have tugged them back toward financial prudence. A democratic republic such as ours cannot survive if too many of its citizens and decision-makers do not behave responsibly. This caveat has always been with us even from the outset -- "A Republic," proclaimed Ben Franklin, "if you can keep it."

These are the fruits of a deep spiritual problem. What can the media talking-heads possibly say that would convince decision-makers to regard the welfare of others more highly than their own? What economic theory can possibly provide, with any authority, a reason to put other people's interests ahead of one's own? If even one in ten Congressmen or financiers had seen this coming and made good moral decisions, would all this have happened?

We are paying a terrible price for the failure of the Church to teach good theology. It's been a long time coming, and now it's here. Congratulations, power-mongering liberals. Congratulations, greedy financiers. Congratulations, irresponsible borrowers. The system is broken. Good luck and Godspeed to all of us in our attempts to fix it or find something better. We'll need it.

Us and Them

"Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside..." -- Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

The belief in a transcendent moral code seems to be instinctive. Even those whose belief systems cannot accommodate a God in Heaven, or any sort of non-material reality at all, behave as if there exists a moral vision which commands our respect and should command our obedience. For example, there were three books published recently by individuals who can best be described as evangelical atheists -- Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation; Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion; and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Far from presenting an amoral vision, moral indignation practically drips from the pages -- in Hitchen's case, it spouts like a Old Faithful. Leave it to Dawkins, though, to suggest that Christianity is a form of child abuse, and that children should be taken from parents who try to force it on them. These atheists present a moral vision, all right, just not a very coherent one. As Doug Wilson explains here to Hitchens (much as a janitor explains clean floors to a mop), such inflamed moral umbrage does not follow from the thin broth of a materialist philosophy. To hold any legitimate sway over us, morality must somehow be greater than we are -- and exactly how, within the cramped closet that comprises the entirety of the materialist cosmos, can that possibly be? Materialism reduces morality to a mere conceit, which exists only in our minds -- much like Superman and Mother Goose. To throw their moral darts at Christianity, atheists are forced either to borrow from the spiritualist worldview the idea that morality exists on a higher plane than mankind, or else confess (if only to themselves) that they are merely expressing their own mundane preferences and irritations which carry no moral weight at all, and dressing them up as a moral vision only to impress the rubes.

Which brings us to politics, which is simply philosophy plus force. Imposing a moral vision on the citizenry is not an ancillary exertion of government, nor a regrettable sidebar, but rather its defining role. It can be a benighted moral vision -- the human sacrifices of the Mayans, for example, or the extermination camps of the Nazis and Cambodian Communists. It can be something from our not-too-distant past, such as in Colonial days when people who missed too much church were pilloried. Or it could be our present situation, as daily and hourly we are instructed how to think and feel on a large range of issues by the "smiley face" of liberal fascism, and confronted with its ever-growing laundry list of politically-correct attitudes. Politics is never a struggle between a moral vision on one side vs. a morally neutral vision on the other; it is always a struggle between competing moral visions. This is by necessity: government derives its authority from the notion that it serves a higher purpose. Any time "the good" appears in an argument, it becomes a moral argument. The law, therefore, is always an imposition of someone's morality; someone's moral code will win out, and the only question is, whose? That may sound odd to someone who has been trained to believe that only religious folks want to impose their morality on everyone. But what is the liberal welfare state, if not an imposition of morality on taxpayers who might otherwise feel disinclined to pay its considerable, whopping bill? Paying taxes is not optional; you can only refuse to pay but for so long, until at last someone from the government settles the issue by pulling a gun. Liberals always demand that Christians not impose their morality on others, but we should be clear about the nature of their objection: it's not the imposition of morality per se that enrages liberals; it's the Christianity. Liberalism, too, is a jealous god.

Socialism is the moral ideal and political goal of liberalism. To grasp its underlying philosophy and moral vision, read John Rawls, the patron saint of modern American liberalism. Nobody does a better job of explaining it. Socialism reflects the materialist's notion that all injustices are economic, and its charter is, through economic redistribution, to right all the wrongs created by accident of birth or circumstance. It may be a deeply flawed moral vision (and I think it is), but it is a moral vision nonetheless, and as such can only be beaten by an opposing moral vision. Socialism's pretensions of economic effectiveness have been debunked many times, by far better writers than yours truly. But, so far, no one has been able to propose an alternative moral vision which can unite socialism's disgruntled but disunited critics. Capitalism, the best economic alternative, offers no compelling moral vision -- and so, even though it may continue to win the arguments, on its own it is still doomed to lose the elections. It is hard to sell the quest for economic efficiency as a higher truth. In the struggle against liberalism, socialism, communism, and all such philosophies which exalt man and shake their fists at God, free market economic principles must always be cast in a supporting role, and the star of the show must always be the big fellow to whom we refer when we say,

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

So remember this the next time a secular conservative, or a libertarian economist, or a Republican plutocrat expresses impatience with Christian conservatives. They are embarrassed by their Christian fellow travelers; they believe the Religious Right should come out of suspended animation once every two years to vote Republican, write big checks for the GOP coffers, and then be good enough shut up and go back to sleep until the next election. They all think that the struggle against liberalism and socialism can be won with their economic theories, their Laffer curves, open trade, tax incentives, and Fox Business News. They're wrong. A moral vision such as liberalism which flatters mankind with delusions of his own fairness and wisdom must be met head on with the moral reality that mankind has no intrinsic goodness other than what God in his mercy imparts, according to His own perfect, transcendent will.

La Bella Pelosi and the Perils of Arithmetic

Maybe all the math majors became conservatives?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced that 500 million Americans are losing their jobs each month.



That's 1.66 jobs lost each month per American. Wow. That's a lot of jobs.

At this rate, unless we rush to pass the Democrats' stimulus package, we will lose six billion jobs this year. Not bad, for a country of only 300 million. At this rate, the entire planet plus the Klingon Empire and half of Vulcan will be unemployed by the end of 2010.

If ex-President Bush had uttered this, of course, op-eds across the planet would be guffawing at his idiocy. But Bush's specialty was his inability to articulate (generally) defensible statements. Congresscritter Pelosi's specialty seems to be her penchant for articulating utterly idiotic concepts with bell-like clarity.

We picked our poison, and it looks more and more like we chose the fast-acting kind.

Stimulus Rex

The word of the day is stimulus. Politicians enjoy talking about stimulating the economy with this or that subsidy or redistribution scheme. It's like listening to Ben Roethlisberger talk about the importance of touchdown passes, or (to head in a less exalted direction,perhaps) a car salesman talk about the importance of buying the $800 undercoating package or the $2000 warranty. Redistributing money is what politicians do. They earn their living by putting their hands in our wallets, grabbing wads of cash, and giving it to someone else -- minus their commission, of course. Wouldn't expect them to steal from us for free, would you?

There's just something about that word -- stimulus. It sounds like the name of the Roman guy who forced the Christians out into the center of the Coliseum with a trident. "They don't seem to want to meet the lions. They need Stimulus!"

And, frankly, that's about what it amounts to in the current mess. The definition of insanity is when you keep doing the same dumb things, expecting different results. If government takes a trillion bucks out of the taxpayers' hands and gives it (minus their commission) to the same people who lost a trillion bucks, what do we expect them to do with the money? Use it smartly? Prudently? All of a sudden? Why start now?

Or -- here's a good one -- politicians giving it back to the taxpayers as a rebate. Can government save someone with blood transfusions (minus their commission) from himself? Why not just reduce taxes? Well, there's no government overhead charge in having people keep their own money. "Here's the IV hose, boys, just stick this end in his neck and the other end in his arm, and don't forget to siphon some of that off for tonight's party, Vlad." (The difference between a vampire and a Congressman is that while one's a fearsome, blood-sucking, undead parasite, the other one turns into a bat.)

I spoke not long ago, before the Obama inauguration, with the proprietor of a florist's shop (getting flowers for my wife, naturally), and she mentioned that it had been a good day for her, sales-wise, but a rough month. Then she brightly announced, "But I think things will improve when Obama takes over!"

Sometimes, I have enough self-discipline to avoid politics when talking with strangers. But this time she brought it up. I responded, "I don't think socialism is the right direction for our country."

It was clear from her facial expression that she didn't think running-dog capitalistic nay-saying was the right direction, either. But I was a paying customer, so instead of reporting me to the PC police, she said cheerfully, "Well, he's going to have some very smart people helping him make those important decisions!"

I hate to kill enthusiasm, but sometimes I feel it's my duty: "So did the Soviet Union. The greatest mathematicians and physicists in the world are Russian. Chess is their national sport. The problem with the Soviet Union wasn't that they didn't have enough smart people."

Her expression went from hopeful to grim. Mission accomplished. It's what I do. My card says, "Database Administrator -- Trombonist -- Professional Killjoy."

It's not the people, it's the system. Socialism rewards failure. Actually, it subsidizes cronies and political allies, and good performance does not need a subsidy.

On the other hand, capitalism rewards success, but, even more importantly, it punishes failure -- which is about the best we can hope for in this sinful, fallen society. In a free-market system, you can't just keep losing billions of dollars, whether on sub-prime loans, or half-baked e-businesses, or tulip farms -- sooner or later, someone stops you from losing even more money (usually your creditors and the sheriff). But as we are sucked more and more into the socialist vortex, what will be rewarded more and more is failure: failure to make solvent loans, failure to invest money wisely, failure to make cars that Americans want to buy. Highly politicized failure. Politicians make economic decisions not for economic but for political reasons. Always. And always for a fee.

It's like P.J. O'Rourke said: "Giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." Whee. If you don't like their driving, stay off the sidewalk.

So here comes that Roman guy with his trident, and you know what it's aimed at. And now you know his name.

Stimulus wrecks.