View From The Couch - 02/Nov/2015

World Series Game 5

Well, that was tense, and then it all blew out in the top of the 12th. The most contentious thing about this loss is that going into the 9th, the Mets were winning 2-1. Matt Harvey was pitching a gem; Collins had his closer up and suddenly there was this shuffle of whether to pull Harvey or not. Harvey apparently instead on going out in the 9th, walked the first guy and then gave up a double. Collins pulled Harvey only then, but it was too late, that was enough for the Royals to tie the game, thus setting up a duel of bullpens. 3 innings later, the Mets blinked, and by blink we might mean completely shut their eyes because the Royals poured on 5 runs. Davis came in to strike out the side and that was all she wrote for 2015.

Collins is going to get grilled about that 9th inning choice for the rest of his career. Had it been Joe Torre, he would have pulled any one of his starters for Mariano Rivera, so as a Yankees fan, it's a little hard to understand how Collins could even flip one way and let Harvey go back out in the 9th. Even Joe Girardi would have sent out Dellin Betances or Andrew Miller, and before Miller, David Robertson and or Mo. It reminds one of Grady Little sticking with Pedro Martinez a little too long in 2003.

The top of the 12th featured yet another error for Daniel Murphy. Daniel Murphy got didley-squat to hit in the World Series - the Royals pitched around him as if he were peak Barry Bonds so Murphy ended up drawing a bunch of walks. the real shame was how everybody else was very quiet with the bats. When it really got down to it, the Royals really could hit bullpen arms like nobody's business, and there was no stopping these guys.

Still, 30years is a long time between World Series wins for the Royals. That goes equally for the Mets who last won it in 1986.

The GST Scuttlebutt

One shouldn't be surprised that the GST debate is back on the agenda as the Federal Government seeks to raise the GST. The old arguments against putting in the GST in the first place have resurfaced, pointing out how regressive a tax it is, but in many ways the Federal government can't restructure taxation in this country without addressing the GST.

The curious thing about the GST is that in its original guise, it was meant to usher in a reform of taxes back in the late 1990s, but of course nearly two decades later the government finds itself short of cash again, and so we must contemplate the GST once more. You really wonder where all the money got squandered.

The original version of the GST skipped food, health and education. It appears part of this exemption has come back on the table for reconsideration. This gives rise to a four way grid between keeping the GST at 10% or raising to 15%, with or without the exemption of food, Health & Education. One imagines the Libs would like to raise the GST to 15% while keeping the exemption while the ALP would like to keep the GST at 10% even if it meant losing the exemption. Put more bluntly, the rich bastards who send their kids to expensive private schools would much rather have a 15% GST and keep the private school fees off the GST discussion. If you saw them yourself, you'd understand why.

The ALP has far less of a worthy position on it. The last three times there have been discussions on the GST, whether it was Keating's 'Option C' in 1985 or John Hewson's Fightback, or John Howard finally bringing us the GST, it's not really had a economically credible position in opposing it except to say it was regressive and they were against it. When it finally came in, they said they wouldn't repeal it, and such has been the ALP's rather wishy-washy position on it.

Of course, there isn't a good position on it. It's all going to cost the average punter more; that's the point of all this tax review and shoring up government income. Either way it goes, we know the GST price rise is coming and there's probably very little we can do to stop it. The states simply need that money.

Couldn't Stand The Weather

The news today is that this October was the hottest on record in 106years.

"The extreme monthly anomalies were a result of exceptional early-season warmth at the start of the month and persistence of above-average temperatures throughout the month as a whole," the bureau said. 

Compared with the previous warmest October in 1988, last month was 0.7 degrees warmer. 

"Certainly it's an October that was hotter than most Novembers," Karl Braganza, head of climate monitoring at the bureau. The national mean temperature came in at 25.6 degrees.

Make of that what you will.

Sport Nut Weekend - 31/Oct~01/Nov/2015

World Series Game 3

Amazingly, the Mets pulled one out of the hat behind Noah Syndegaard and won a game. That first pitch was quite the message. Up-and-in on Alcides Escobar. 98mph, right in to the back screen.
Just once, David Wright got to be the hero in the World Series. It's a feel good win for the Mets. David Wright's been around long enough that he's staring down at the last third of his career. This is the second time he's made it to the post-season. It's been a long 8years since 2007.

In between, there was the GFC, and Bernie Madoff thing which spectacularly put a whole in the plans and fortunes of the Mets. For a solid few years there, the Mets were in triage, bleeding good players like Jose Reyes. If the GFC had never come along, the Mets probably would have retained Reyes and made a few more post-seasons along the way. Instead they went on a seemingly endless carousel of rebuilding from within and hoping for the best.

If nothing else, David Wright deserved that moment.

Rugby World Cup Final

And so the Wallabies' campaign to lift the big golden jug came to a shuddering halt this morning. The lads played well but kind of got outclassed. I wish I had a better word for it, but that's really it. I'd have given All Blacks by 10 and they beat that margin well and good. For the Wallabies, it's back to the drawing board because they just don't have enough of the right pieces to beat the All Blacks. It's a shame because the better story is always when the Wallabies beat the All Blacks.

Lots of people are looking a tad foolish today having made brave predictions of a Wallaby win. I never bought into that hype, so I get to feel a modicum of smugness for being right, but in most part, the morning would have been much better had they won.

Jarryd Haynes Got Dropped

This is a weird one.
The 49ers essentially worked on turning a league player in to an NFL player and after 6 games, gave up. The Hayne-to-NFL story's not something I've followed closely, but you read the headlines and watch highlight reels. Clearly they put money down and placed bets on the guy. Now they're waiving him to bring up somebody more orthodox. It begs the question why they even tried the Hayne experiment in the first place.

Most times a player gets waived, it's a numbers game. But it wasn't like the 49ers couldn't predict that they might have this kind of situation before they signed him. If they were going to dabble, they probably shouldn't have dabbled in such a way as to lose a potential asset so early. Then again, it might be so glaringly obvious to insiders that he's not going to make it, in which case you can understand they would cut bait early.

World Series Game 4

Ugh. This was a utterly muttly loss for the motley Mets. Steven Matz was pitching well and handed a lead to the bullpen who coughed it up in the 8th. The Royals really are on a roll with their late inning offence, and the mets bullpen really had nothing when it counted. A Daniel Murphy error opened the door for a 3 run inning, but even so the bullpen just looked shaky all along.

The Royals looked good on both sides of the ball. There was a mental lapse by Alex Rios that allowed Wilmer Flores (that name again!) to score on a sac fly, but apart from that they were solid in pitching and defence as well as hitting late in the game. When you consider that Flores run came off a single, a wild pitch a bunt and sac fly, and another run was a flukey solo homer by the rookie Conforto, the Mets looked worse than the 3 runs they cobbled together.

View From The Couch - 30/Oct/2015

The World Series Game 2

For the first time in a decade, I was able to sit down with my father and watch the World Series. The post-season used to be more fun in the late 1990s and the early 2000s when the Yankees were there almost inevitably, and with good teams even if they didn't win. This year's post-season didn't work out well for the Yankees who were one-and-done as they bowed out to the Astros, who then lost to the Royals. What can I say, if you don't hit, you can't win.

Anyway, it occurred to me that there aren't too many World Series left where I could sit down with my father and take in the game. Who knows what my circumstances will be next year, and having just turned a venerable eighty, there are far more MLB post-seasons in the rear mirror than ahead for my father. It was just good old family stuff I've been missing out on because I've been at the Events Lighting company all these years. It's nicety get off the carousel of work and experience family life.

Game 2 was notable for Johnny Cueto pitching a complete game 2-hitter for the Royals. The first guy to do so since Greg Maddux in 1995. The Mets looked like they were never going to hit off Cueto. They also looked terrible in the field. The Yankees outplayed the Mets this year and the hallmark of those games were the errors the Mets made when put in the crunch, which allowed the Yankees to get on top. The Mets didn't look to have improved with the glove since the Subway series, so it's really not looking good for them as they fell to 0-2.

A 2-hitter is a terrible thing, given the context where you're botching it up in the field. Curtis Granderson looked out of sorts with the bat; David Wright looked like he couldn't hit a watermelon travelling at 92mph; Yoenis Cespedes looked like he was drowning in a deep slump; and Daniel Murphy who might be the Mets' hottest hitter right now, went 2 strike outs, 2 walks, and no hits. What can I say, if you don't hit, you can't win.

Sort Of Unrelated...

I went to see Fleetwood Mac on the weekend with Walk-Off HBP. At some point during the concert he offered the opinion that some of the songs were a little too sexy and jarring to be sung by a 70year old (Stevie Nicks is actually 67, but you get the drift). I offered up the counter opinion that Fleetwood Mac were like Wilmer Flores, the shortstop for the Mets. Quite serviceable but it's not like he's A-Rod or Jeter or Nomar. Fleetwood Mac are quite a serviceable pop rock band, but it's not like they're Led Zep or The Who or Pink Floyd.

I tried writing up a crit for Fleetwood mac, but couldn't be bothered finishing it. Ultimately, I feel I've got them well pegged as the Wilmer Flores of rock music.

From The Reading List

I'm still working my way through Piketty's 'Capital in the 21st Century' on my Kindle. It's actually too big a book to have on Kindle in my opinion, as it is hard to reference multiple pages on the fly, unlike a physical book.

I'm also muddling through 'Who Owns The Future' by Jaron Lanier but I've also picked up 'Ill Fares The Land' by Tony Judt. Amazingly, all three of these books cover the rise of the post-war middle class as a historic anomaly. Piketty demonstrates that it was indeed anomalous through figures; Lanier arrives at it through the weight of anecdotal evidence he has gathered, and Judt goes through the philosophical ructions that led to heavily socialist programs to limit wealth disparity after the two world wars.

While it may be the zeitgeist that we are discussing wealth disparity and inequality in a way we haven't up to now. The Reaganomic and Thatcherite economic program of deregulation and privatisation have essentially undone the efforts of the post-World War II thinkers, politicians an institutions, so it insult natural to see a return to the sort o wealth disparity and inequality we saw in the 1920s. Perhaps  this is even why we've seen TV productions such as 'Boardwalk Empire' which brought the disparity in the late 1910s and early 1920s into sharp focus, as well as 'Mad Men' which delineates the pinnacle of society where there was much less wealth disparity and inequality, albeit with terrible, inexcusable sexism.

It may not seem to be an immediately solvable problem, but if politicians don't address these problems soon, they're going to make conditions for the rise of extremist ideologies once again. Dare I say we may even be seeing it already, given that we did elect Tony Abbott to be prime minister, and even after having been removed, he's proven himself to be ideologically indistinguishable from being a flat out fascist.

The Lanier book is particularly instructive in telling us that the creative destruction of capitalism as described by Schumpeter doesn't reconstitute itself in a more egalitarian society, but that it reorganises itself to suit ever smaller numbers of people with the accumulated wealth concentrating in ever fewer people. The Judt book is a little more disturbing in that it dissects the ideological roots of economic thought that has led us to our present day and it is clear that the welfare state that gave rise to a middle class could only offer one-size-fits-all solution, when in fact the middle class got accustomed to being consumers and consumers necessarily demand choice. In the case politics, this descended into the fragmenting New Left of the 1970s centred around a misunderstanding of Marxism and the proliferation of identity politics. meanwhile the return of the Right is merely a self-justification of those with wealth to justify their disproportionate wealth built on the destruction of the middle class.

In other words, the futures bleak, the past was bleak and the present is like a meatloaf going cold on the table. Piketty's massive tome merely gives us the numbers on just how bleak the past was and why, and the likely bleakness of the future based on the slowly dying consensus of today.