The big business of college sports in the U.S. is for the better or worse, and has many causes and consequences. One reason that the two highly commercial features of most programs–football and men’s basketball–are such big tickets is that they not only carry their own ever-heavier weight but also that of most of the other team competitions, including those for women. For half a century, federal “Title IX” strictures have been requiring schools to aim for equitable treatment of the two sexes in athletic as well as other activities. As the weekend’s New York Times article shows, this has had an unexplored and rather awkward result: The American campuses have become a training ground for the world’s female athletes, many of whom go on to compete in the Olympics for their home nations. In most of those countries, there is no comparable level of facilities and training available to women, particularly, and not with college attached. They don’t have Title IX, and they don’t have big-money spectator sports like football and March Madness to provide for such support. Now, what you make of this depends on whether a) you’re bothered by college sports being more about “Inc.” than “B.A.”; b) you think bringing in star athletes benefits everyone involved with the school; and c) you don’t care where the recruits come from or whether they go back there. (It’s a financial double-whammy: foreign students on scholarships are getting a free ride on what would typically be an institution’s highest tuition charges.) Maybe, on some level, this still amounts to a premium American “export.” It is probably not what the authors of Title IX envisioned.
A Tale of Montauk’s Camp Hero
This personalized recollection from the retired Hamptons publisher Dan Rattiner in the current issue of his old magazine, Dan’s Papers, sets the historical scene for one of eastern Long Island’s most unusual preserves: Camp Hero near Montauk Point. Now an ocean-facing state park on nearly 280 acres, it was a secretive military base during the middle decades of the 20th century, as Rattiner describes. What he leaves out of his tale is its crucial final years as U.S. government property, and how it almost was sold for luxury residences during one of the South Fork’s early boom periods. At the time, the new Reagan administration was driven by budget director David Stockman’s wish to unload surplus parcels to the highest bidders. As often happens, local officials and representatives protested–including in this case Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, a key Republican ally of the White House. That proved decisive, and after extended and complex negotiations, the land was turned over to the state of New York in 1985. Several years later, the onetime Montauk Air Force Station was opened to the public, mostly “as is,” as Camp Hero. Ironically, given its brush with resort-type development, the site first became host to an early “worker housing” project of the town of East Hampton, which includes Montauk. Camp Hero Estates, as the 27 units were called, repurposed base housing into bargains for lucky winners of a lottery, though rubs soon were apparent. Not paradise, it turned out, but not to be a parking lot, either.
SEE: https://www.danspapers.com/2023/02/inside-camp-hero-montauk-military-past/
Will State Pensions Pay Off?
This Bloomberg article captures the growing worry about state pension promises, and the resistance to reforming them, such is evident on the streets of France. In the U.S., we call these benefits Social Security, and efforts to contain its taxpayer cost are said to touch the political “third rail.” The authors here speculate that only the privileged will someday enjoy their retirements. Will this include government employees? In a new article at Discourse Magazine, I discuss the threat even to these paydays posed by unfunded plans at the state and local levels. Too much is being expected in most places, and too little is being contributed. It’s time to be “thinking about tomorrow.”
How a Good Retirement Risks Becoming Just for the Privileged
Popular discontent with the idea of having to work for longer is building as state pensions feel the strain.
Socialized Medicine a Dream? NY Is Nearly There
Vermont notably tried a form of socialized medicine a few years back and had to give up on the program for fiscal reasons. But the dream endures and New York State is coming close to realization: This New York Post article reports how 9 million residents are due to participate in Medicaid this year, per the governor’s budget. That’s 45% of the population, and a growth from 5.2 million in 2012, when New York was already at the forefront of the federal-state program for the poor. Add those relying on Medicare for the elderly and easily more than half of New Yorkers have government medical coverage. (Termination of the official pandemic “emergency” on May 11 may retard the number somewhat, as supplemental eligibilities end.) Some will see this as a positive development for public health, although as my December article for Discourse detailed, there’s reason to think part of this enrollment is a scam. Whether New York, which is losing its bigger income-earners, can continue to pay these bills is another matter.
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40 Years Later in $alt Lake City
The snow in Park City, Utah, was the best in decades for an end-of-January ski trip that also inspires these observations:
*Utah was a cheaper and sleepier alternative to Colorado mountain resorts when I started going there 40 years ago. It has ceased to be that, for the most part. And not just at luxurious Deer Valley (which doesn’t miss a beat now–$17 a day to leave your shoes in a secure basket). Even after the Sundance Film Festival leaves town, Park City is replete with costly shops and restaurants along with several of the old honky-tonks. Some of the fine dining is a disappointment, including the long-favored Riverhorse, which is put in the shade by the newer Firewood.
*Tourist areas of Mormon-influenced Utah no longer have quirky liquor laws that years ago had you joining “clubs” at an eatery (for an extra fee) to get a drink. But the state still has a monopoly on wine and spirits sales, and the official store in Park City has all the marketing charm of a county jail.
*The ski canyons have always enjoyed under-an-hour access to Salt Lake City airport, which has helped to foster the boom in expensive homes that underlies the commercial upgrades, but the airport itself is now one of the busiest I remember. The fast-food outlets often have lines 10 people long at many hours of the day. But there are still some seemingly provincial gaps: on a Thursday morning, I could not find a Wall Street Journal at any of the news-and-sundry shops…and got blank stares when I asked.
*For all of the gathering sophistication, the local TV news programs out of Salt Lake City are amateurishly folksy and littered with ads that are worse still. There must be higher-quality local programming but I could not find it on the cable.
*Simple population growth–better than doubling in Utah over these 40 years–explains much of the change a longtime visitor apprehends. But a youth culture–the youngest median age among the 50 states–is part of the dynamism. That combines with a bent for outdoor sports (Salt Lake wants to host another Winter Olympics after managing it in 2002) to occupy attention…and space. The ski mountains seem to sport more competitions than ever. That’s great unless you have a $200+ day pass and one of your favorite runs is roped off.
In so many ways, the price of popularity is rising in the Wasatch Range.
A Chinese Banquet Where I Needn’t Eat My Words
Along about 2012, I began telling audiences in Greater China that I thought the GDP growth trajectories of the U.S. and the PRC would cross. These were groups composed mostly of family business principals who were making good coin off China’s rise, and had they not been enjoying a nice meal from the business magazine I was editing, they might have hooted me out of the hotels instead of just being bemused. After all, this came shortly after China had outshone the world during the Great Financial Crisis and America was seen as past its shelf date. But for lots of reasons, especially the declining return on investment that the Chinese economy was experiencing even during apparent boom years (h/t to Michael Pettis, then a professor there), I didn’t think those gains were sustainable. And I also didn’t buy the gloom still then surrounding the U.S. system. Well, it took a decade but as this story from Reuters and others this week confirms, Chinese growth fell short of the U.S. in 2022. And that’s by the Communist Party’s own statistics (3%), which are always suspect, while Washington’s number (3.2%) is more believable. Of course, there were the Covid lockdowns in Xi Jinping’s realm, so yes, it was an extraordinary year there. But no more extraordinary, I’d argue, than the conjured growth of many previous years–not just in the official figures but in the state-directed capital rushes plus the housing speculation
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driven by the population’s desperate search for a return on its savings. Many expect a snapback in Chinese GDP in 2023. I think it will exceed what comes out of a recessionary U.S., but with all that weighs on China–Xi’s dictatorial rule, a now-declining population, and a shunning by much of global business–I wouldn’t count on meeting so many puzzled stares after dinners around the Mainland anymore.
Nonfiction: Populace Asked to Pay for Public Spending
It’s remarkable how often contemporary Danish politics has mirrored the action in “Borgen,” a serial drama from that country that has been popular with American streaming audiences. If only the U.S. could learn something from a recent attempt at sane governing by the real-life female prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Faced with expected increases in Denmark’s military budget–largely to respond to a new European security emphasis after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine–she is asking her nation to make a tradeoff: Give up an annual holiday, the centuries-old Great Prayer Day, in order to raise additional tax revenue from the expected commercial activity in its place. Imagine, a politician suggesting you (not just “the rich”) pay for some new expenditure! As this New York Times report notes, the idea faces opposition from various labor and leftist elements, as well as clergy. Frederiksen has a parliamentary majority but, as Borgen watchers know, the Danes govern through layers of loyalty. As we here look forward to another national holiday on Monday–because New Year’s falls on one of our (historically religious) Sundays–might we think of at least not continuing to add days off to the American calendar?
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L.A.’s Loosening Grip on the Golden Goose of Trade
California’s middle class, a mainstay of the state’s prosperous growth in the mid-20th century, is due to suffer another pinch. Already pressed between the high land costs driven by a technology and entertainment elite and the galloping social costs of large poverty pockets and tight environmental and legal strictures, this median economic sector is beginning to lose one of its great employment bases–trade logistics. Today’s Wall Street Journal captures the shift under way in port traffic in the U.S.–generally away from West Coast docks and toward the Gulf and East coasts. The cause: A supply chain adjustment to reduce reliance on China and to find more reliable and less congested entry and transfer points. Part of the story (which also affects Seattle) is the intransigence of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which includes many highly-paid members along the Pacific waterfronts. The ILWU’s leverage for real and threatened walkouts compounds the bottleneck issues in critical ports like Los Angeles-Long Beach, historically the busiest in the U.S. The traffic there in turn has supported hundreds of thousands of trade-related jobs in Southern California, reaching well inland. We therefore see another example of what author-pundit Joel Kotkin has deemed “neo-feudalism” in the Golden State: a privileged (if rough-hewn, in this case) stratum of the economy whose status effectively stresses the broader working population.
California Long Ruled U.S. Shipping. Importers Are Drifting East.
Companies that depended on the West Coast as a point of entry for their goods are turning to other parts of the country as global trade gets upended.
Trade Divides the D.C. Parties Internally
Among the issues continuing to split the majority (Democrat) party in America is global trade, especially in goods. Today’s report in the New York Times about warnings within the Biden administration of inordinate harm to blacks and the poor from freer trade is further indication that a return to the national party’s international commercial bent of recent decades is not in the offing. Instead, the current White House has maintained many of the preceding Trump barriers and may selectively seek more. Increasingly anti-corporate Republicans could go along. This, despite the generally inflationary effects of trade restrictions. While the “McKinsey” wing of the governing establishment continues to tout globalism (and in its own new report says trade remains healthy, particularly in services), the consensus for such policies is as fragile as the supply chains that lately have broken down in the wake of Covid-19. Of course, most trade proponents always recognized that it can have short-run losers, but argued, in the spirit of Pareto optimality, for compensating appropriate parties from the general bounty to be gained. One method for doing this, the often-controversial Trade Adjustment Assistance program, has expired amid congressional division. Any movement on that front, as on freer trade overall, appears unlikely in the current political environment.
Foreign Trade Competition Has Hurt Black and Disadvantaged Workers Most, Report Says
A government trade agency report suggested that the impact of trade policy differed for workers depending on their race and socioeconomic status.
Where Trump Took the GOP Down
One notable casualty of the Donald Trump deadweight that burdened Republicans on Tuesday was a previously safe GOP seat in Michigan that had been held by one of the most libertarian members of Congress, Peter Meijer. The incumbent was defeated in a party primary by a Trumpist after having voted for an impeachment article against the 45th president. (D.C. Democrats helped fund the hit on Meijer.) Sure enough, an Obama Democrat captured the seat in what was a general setback for Republicans in the swing state, as well as in other key parts of the national election map. It was a reminder to the GOP that, whatever galvanizing effect Trump may have on parts of the “base,” his influence also puts a ceiling on the party’s gains even during a period of unpopularity for many Democrats. Together with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s smashing victory yesterday, this may dissuade many party officeholders and funders from jumping aboard any Trump candidacy for 2024 that materializes as early as next week. A lot may depend on how Tuesday’s results are described in the realms of Fox News and other right-wing media, which had led their audiences to expect much better returns in the midterms. These echo chambers did not do their side any favors this time.
Michigan Elects Hillary Scholten to Fill Longtime GOP-Held House Seat
Democrat Hillary Scholten Tuesday captured a Western Michigan House seat, defeating Trump-endorsed candidate John Gibbs in the onetime Republican stronghold, the AP has projected.
Ms. Scholten, a lawyer who focuses on immigration issues and who worked in the Justice Department during the Obama admi
Tim W. Ferguson 