Mao Nods Approvingly At Media's Economic Comprehension

Amen.

This is the problem with a 24 sports network, you end up with former athletes with “degrees” from high quality universities talking about things they have no idea about. So the average joe sees two guys that look relatively smart and think “gee, they must be right”. Take a look at the “sports reporters” next time they get on some kind of economic topic and watch the Socialist Utopia flow out of their mouths.

there’s a reason for the proliferation of blogs, not only for sports, but for politics and news as well… it’s the incompetence of the legacy media. Which these guys demonstrate perfectly. They can’t even be bothered to get the facts correct, and everything they spin is based on the misunderstandings which that failure generates. And you know what? It’s guys with that level of critical thinking who determine who the “champion” is in college football. That’s just hideous when you think about it.

On a daily basis, the writers PLUS the commenters here provide more accurate information, deeper insight, and all far better written than any newspaper in the state, and they base their business model on the fact that we’ll keep buying those anyway?

oh, and Saunders – he thinks Texas is the bully who’s stealing the lunch money – hey, don’t look too close John, they may end up being the ones who drink your milkshake…

It isn’t just basic economic comprehension they lack. What part of “we were bolting to the PAC-Ten, but Beebe came to Texas with this small 5 plan to sweeten the pot” do these morons not get? It is all about the news cycle for those idiots. And gangstas, apparently. Whatever, the real end is the Longhorn Network. We get that and they can keep their spare millions. What’s that, A&M? There’s no Aggie Network in the works? There’s always public access.

Definition: i•ro•ny

Watching representatives of the largest sports media conglomerate in the world lament the unequal distribution of weath.

Actually I think it demonstrates that they paid attention in class.

Mack Brown wants your sandwich

Hoo boy. I like Gilmore, but they should have had the assistants do a little more research.

They both sport South American commie dictator mustaches.
Who do they think they are fooling?

“Is the new BIG 12 a good situation for the smaller schools?”
or
“Is the Bourgeoisie 12 a good situation for the smaller lackeys?”

Hear, Hear!

-but wait … uh oh:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/internet-kill-switch-proposed-for-us-339303838.htm

Three things:

1) Trips, where can I find that T-shirt? I’m buying 5 and I’m going to burn them in protest!
(Seriously, though, where can I get that T-shirt?)
2) “A human can’t pass up a free check for no work on principle.” Signed, Clipper Cooper.
3) Outstanding work, Scip. This is why I had no problem with OU hitching it’s little wagon to UT. Everyone makes more money that way.

Seeing former professional athletes and commentators from ESPN bitching about unequal revenue distribution is about as hypocritical as it gets.

Yes Desmond, remind me again the last time you signed a contract and said “you know what, why don’t you give some of my money to the backup long snapper, he provides as much value to the team as I do”.

The only way that could have been more ironic is if they had Albert Hainsworth sit in on the conversation.

The city of Houston has no zoning. If I live in a nice house there and I’m thinking about buying the old lot next door to have room for my new Sunsetter awning and upside down tomato garden, maybe I’ll pay $100K for it. If I find out Zoltar’s Palm Reading and Apple Wine Emporium is about to move into the place, well now I’m willing to pay $200K for that house, knowing that my own house won’t be worth a bottle of Wild Irish Rose if those gypsies move in next door.

Think of it as economic spite.

Journalists are professionals?

Nero:

By remaining in the Big 12 we are enhancing ESPN’s value. If 16 team super conferences with their own cable networks are raking in tons of cash what do you think happens to ESPN’s programing. Without the Big 12 ESPN’s future is 3 channels filled with poker tournaments, soccer, and the NHL.

If they think we’re gansta now wait until our network and others can directly compete with the world wide leader.

Roach:

Exactly. The networks are protecting the investments they have already made by making one (the Big 12-2 contract) that on its face is severely overvalued. That contract is 20% value, 80% covering their asses.

Brings to mind another Mencken quote: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste and intelligence of the American people.”

Who’s acting rationally, the little 5 for bending over when they knew the only other option they had was a non-bcs conference or ESPN commentators criticizing Texas for being gangsta when in fact the business model of their employer would be directly challenged if Texas had started the avalanche of conference realignment?

At least the little five know the source of their revenue.

Saunders is Canadian (read: socialist).

I hate that conference revenue distribution is being portrayed as a zero-sum game.

Good stuff here, Scip.

Scipio your point number 5 is right on. If you need any confirmation of the economic stupidity of journalism majors all you have to do is look at enrollment in J-schools versus the job market:

From the Web site:College Media Matters:

“Interim Dean of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism about the shrinking industry and current j-state (via Washington Post): "Everyone is looking at it in horror. It’s just a drumbeat, isn’t it? It’s frightening. Yet our applications here at Merrill are up. Students want to come to journalism."
—
The School of Journalism & Mass Comm. at Colorado University also reports "an odd enrollment trend," according to The Daily Camera (via Romenesko): "The number of students applying for the school is climbing. Even more mystifying is the solid increase in the number of applicants who want to be ‘news-editorial’ majors, a degree track that has traditionally groomed graduates for newspaper jobs."
—
The Daily Pennsylvanian reports: "Unlike in the rest of the world, journalism is thriving at Penn." The Annenberg School will soon potentially add a journalism minor to its famously non-journalistic slate of programs after a campus survey revealed ample student interest. As the director of the university’s Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing told the DP: "‘There is a hunger for journalism. I’m already meeting with people in the class of 2013′ interested in journalism."

Why would the number of j-school majors increase when actual paying journalism jobs is decreasing?

“the number of students majoring in journalism exploded by as much as 50 percent because many students who could not get into the programs of their choice, such as business, opted to study journalism,”

Well, this does seem like a good way to ensure that yesterday’s analysis becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gilmore and Howard thank God for alternate degree programs at Michigan and Stanford.

… except that Gilmore is agreeing with you at 0:42 and again at 1:32.

If you take a step back and look at it from one level of analysis above what you’re at right now, you’ll realize they are acting within a hypercapitalist system and are just supplying the watered-down services that are demanded.

1) Trips, where can I find that T-shirt? I’m buying 5 and I’m going to burn them in protest!
(Seriously, though, where can I get that T-shirt?)

Seriously, Trips, I haven’t wanted to own a t-shirt that bad since I bought one off the back of this chick at a strip club.

http://www.thoseshirts.com/anticheshirts.html

Shocking.

Traditional media considers morons like Paul Krugman to be beacons of economic insight.

Levander

Do you mean former ENRON adviser Paul Krugman?

Traditional media considers morons like Paul Krugman to be beacons of economic insight.

Kudlow and Cramer still have jobs. No one knows why.

Lots of us know why.

My niece is entering college in the fall with the hopes of becoming a print journalist. Kids… She’s a great student, very smart, yet she won’t listen to reason.

Tell me again why UT is the ‘Bad Guy’ in this entire scenario again? Because there’s a whoooole lot of douchebaggery out there with which we are not involved.

Yes, again again.

I want to hear it from a doctor or a farmer actually, Ripley.

Spider,

Agree on Cramer, not so much on Kudlow. The answer to both, however is entertainment.

Have it on very good former ABC sports employee authority that Saunders loves getting hammered so much he once fell down stairs at a bar and broke his leg because he was so bombed.

 Years ago, a post like this was once deleted from hornfans, since their liability was a huge issue, despite every legal precedent being against it. It felt good to write it now, however.

Maybe Joe Barton will apologize.

My self-esteem just hit a new low.

i am so tired of ESPN i could vomit

This may have nothing to do with football, but if you’re gonna set up camp outside the women’s restroom in a bar looking for dates, go for the ones that come out wiping their mouths. They’re either bulemic or drunk, but either way, that’s the poon you want.

So if A&M and OU take it, then UT pretty much has to as well, right?

I guess those 5 schools aren’t so proud that they’d be offended if we told them to keep their gift to us?

Whichever way happens you can bet there will be negative spin. Either we are bullies stealing weaklings lunch money or we are so arrogant and flush with cash that we have millions to spare to help save the poor masses. I’ll take the angle with us getting the cash.

“My niece is entering college in the fall with the hopes of becoming a print journalist.”

My GUESS is that a degree from Mizzou’s J-school still catches the eye of prospective employers.

Nero, holy chit that’s funny.

Thinking it is moronic to think a Nobel Prize winner is often insightful is moronic in itself.

Hey, #1. This in not a news show. It is ESPN meat puppets talking off the top of their heads spouting any sentiments they think will fly with their audience.

#2. If it were a news show, it would still be meat puppets spouting lightweight sentiments off the top of their heads.

#3. Now you know why I get my sports news from Barking Carnival.

I wasn’t aware of Krugman’s role as an advisor for Enron – that strikes me as ironic.

What I do know about him is that he’s slavishly devoted to the validity of Keynesian principles and theory despite mounting evidence from real-world train wrecks like Greece, Spain and the like that such a model is not sustainable. As recently as last Friday, he’s writing pieces in the NYT that continue to advocate for even more deficit spending.

I for one am greatly concerned about US debt levels that approach / exceed 90 percent of domestic GDP. But hey, I’m just some dumb ass from Texas who posts comments on a sports blog, so obviously my opinion isn’t worth much. I suppose holding a Nobel Prize still translates to unassailable credibility in the minds of some.

It must be nice to live in the world of the ivory tower that provides the luxury of never having to be accountable to establishing – and living by – an actual budget.

The fact that the word “Collegiality” was used pretty much says it all IMO.

I wasn’t aware of Krugman’s role as an advisor for Enron

Neither is anyone else. Krugman attended a four-day meeting in Houston, then walked out early, saying the economists were being used as “fig leafs.” Enron docked his pay and said “thank you very much.”

I guess that means he’s responsible for what happened next, despite warning against it.

Or something.

You can’t blame Krugman for not signing on to voodoo economics, considering its continual failure right here in Murka. If you think John Maynard Keynes crashed the economies of Spain and Greece, you’re getting your financial analysis from Barking Carnival.

Spidey,

Haven’t you heard the expression, “Any stick will do to beat a dog”? Works for Krugman.

The core of Keynesian economics had been gutted by 1938. Its enduring appeal rests only on its empowerment of central governments and statist politicians. JMK crashed nothing, but politicos drawing on his politico-empowering ideas are in the process of crashing numerous countries.

Re: Krugman and Enron – I said wasn’t aware of his role or the details, which is why I didn’t take a gratuitous shot at him. Nor did I make any claim about "voodoo" economics (your characterization) being preferable or superior to any particular model.

More to the point, I did call Krugman out for his continued pleas for more deficit spending by debt-ridden governments (including our own) that have no business in spending more money that they already don’t have.

There’s no doubt that he holds a Keynes-inspired economic worldview, which is the basis for my reference. Whether Krugman’s preferred economic theory is pure Keynes or something else is not really the issue. The point I’m making is that Krugman is demonstrably incapable of seeing that unfettered borrowing to finance deficit spending is the fundamental cause meltdown of several Western economies, and his advocacy of even more borrow & spend here in the US is pure foolishness.

The fact that traditional media continues to hold him up as an incontrovertible expert on economic issues is substantiation (in my view) of Scipio’s point about their incapacity for critical thought and analysis. It’s a hell of a lot easier to parrot someone else’s thoughts.

Maybe as a child Scipio was molested by a Catholic Journalist?

Levander and Spider: The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto often refers to Paul Krugman as “former Enron advisor Paul Krugman.”

Make of that what you will.

Its funny…comparing the US economy to to that of Greece and Spain while laughing at the stupidity of Saunders and co. for comparing Big 10 and SEC revenue sharing to the Big 12 unequal revenue distribution! Cognitive dissonance…its not just for Aggies!

“Cognitive dissonance…its not just for Aggies!”

Indeed. The introductory sentence of this post couldn’t be more appropriate.

“It’s jealousy, deceitfulness, vindictiveness… it’s ALL of that. But I’m gonna keep on Rock’n and Roll’n!”

Journalism majors have a great future. Traditional print media does not. There will always be demand for writers, public relations, etc.

And, while we all debate which majors are the best – business versus communications versus liberal arts, about half of all Mao’s Chinese disciples are Science, Math & Engineering majors in college (compared to about 10% in the States).

Shit. Listening to college graduates talk economics is disheartening.

Neither Keynesian nor Supply-side economics are right. All models are wrong. Some models are useful. Keynesian works at least some of the time. Like November 2008, when the entire world sh*t their pants and only the promise of big time deficit spending made people calm down. I have not yet seen an instance where supply-side economics actually works (in terms of real wealth accumulation), but I am sure it exists in theory.

History tells us Carter was a lot better manager than Reagan, he was just a sh*tty leader. Hell, I had a 70 year old Republican attorney tell me the government never ran better than when Carter was President. He just completely waffled in a situation that had earlier been completely f-ed up by Eisenhower (Iran). Since the average ’merican can only remeber one thing, though, suply-side (I will bring you cheap gas) is incredibly intuitively appealing.

ColoradoAg said:

“Saunders is Canadian (read: socialist).”

A flamingly ignorant post about economics in a thread criticizing the economic ignorance of others…

You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.

Eskimo -
 
Implicit in you remark is the notion that journalism majors can write. Most can’t. Or that most can think. Most can’t. And no one in China today with any measure of success is one of Mao’s disciples.

Scip -

I understand your vitriol towards the media, but as ESPN demonstrates, the Business majors and jocks are the ones in charge. The journalism majors are the dorks housed in the gym.

Mao appreciates that shout-out on a football board in order to further confound and divide the fools of capitalism. That joy is short-lived as he sheds a single tear at the last remnants of his People’s Republic of China, when his legacy regime crumbles at the mercy of Google porn.

Eskimo -
 
ESPN is a media enterprise. Journalists are in charge, irrespective of who they make their public face.

I’ve spent a lot of time in TV stations and media corporate offices, and I can’t recall journalism ever being discussed in any context other than legal liability.

As for ESPN, the journalists are half the public face and jocks the other. Golic and Greenberg. But you won’t find any running the shows or The Show. If they do have a connection to a j-school, they are as removed from that experience as Dodds from being a track coach. It’s what they did, not what they do.

Saunders has the unique talent of being infuriating in the moment and utterly forgettable five minutes later. It’s why he’s lasted so long.

First the Longhorn Conference did not tell the media what exactly what the deal was, so they have to go on what they heard. The conference should have had a press conf. and told them exactly what was in the deal, who got what, when and where. If you want good press you have to be the one who gives it othewise it goes on hearsay. BTW there is no new contract for the Longhorn Conference yet, it is just a guess at what they might get, that and $10.00 will buy you coffee at Starbucks.

Scipio,
My existence as a highly paid, ethical, extremely smart, and downright handsome sports blogger disproves your theory.

sizzlechest is a pretty easy target though.