Pax Hammericana

A Reasonable Proposal for College Sports

A good article from Gene Wojciechowski as ESPN.com that points at the elephant in the room: college sports are basically minor league training for the pros.

"The NBA isn't kidding when it says its league is where Amazing Happens. Amazing because the NBA forces the very best high school players to wait until they're 19 (or one year removed from their high school graduation) before they can declare for the NBA draft.

That's the only reason why Love spent a season at Westwood, Mayo at L.A., Beasley at Manhattan, Rose at Memphis, Gordon at Bloomington. What a deal. The NBA gets a free minor league system, and the college programs rent a star player for nothing more than the price of room, tuition and books."

Sounds a bit like what some other guy said about this issue...Milton something-or-other....

Anyway, Gene's solution is different than what Prof. Friedman's would have been, but very reasonable and actionable nonetheless.

Forward Thinking Plan of the Day

I had heard about this one a while back but had forgotten.  The vote is next week:

Oklahoma County voters will have an opportunity next month to take a step into the future for themselves and for Tinker Air Force Base. On May 13, voters will decide through a bond election whether the county will spend $55 million to buy the former General Motors plant, now vacant, then lease it to Tinker.

Though the Air Force's three Air Logistics Center depots, including Tinker, are expected to see a decline in work by 2020, U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, said buying the GM plant for Tinker makes sense. He said it would help attract work to replace what's projected to be lost.  ...

Proponents of buying the GM plant pitch it as a golden opportunity for Tinker to improve its efficiency by consolidating most operations at the plant, which would mean dozens of base buildings could be demolished because they wouldn't be needed anymore."

That's right: Oklahoma County voters are asked to burden themselves with more debt to have a buddy-buddy deal with the local Air Force Base.  I do not remember a statement from officials as to why the AFB does not simply buy the facility itself.  Based on the expected decline in work, I would have to say that Tinker AFB realizes it doesn't make financial sense for them to purchase the building.  So they convince the county (or the county sees the opportunity) to buy some property, let Tinker have what it wants, and make "profit" off of the rest.  Just a guess.

I also went to the Oklahoma County Commissioners' webpage on the bond issue and found that there is, of course, no cost benefit analysis on what voters would actually stand to gain from this.  But there's a really neat jet graphic!