Are the Yankees Violating the New York State Workers' Compensatrion Law?

Apparently the New York Yankees are seeking to fine Alex Rodriquez for seeking a second opinion about his leg injury.  Although they Yankees believe that they may be able to do this under baseball's collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Players Association. It may be a violation of the New York State Workers' Compensation Law.

Under Workers Compensation Law §13-a any injured worker has the right to choose their own physician.  To fine an employee for exercising their rights under the law in bringing a workers compensation claim and exercising their §13-a rights can be argued to be a discriminatory act.   That would be a violation of Workers' Compensation Law §120.

If the Yankees fine Rodriquez will he protect his rights before the New York State Workers' Compensation Board?

Pre-Election College Football's Election Impact

The tv, radio and newspaper pundits have failed to look at the one factor that will decide the election.  The issue is the success of the alma mater of the Republican vice presidential candidate's alma mater's football team in their final game before election day.

The election was decided last Saturday on the football field.  In 2008 the University of Idaho lost its last football game to before the election to San Jose State.  Sarah Palin graduated from Idaho.  Paul Ryan's alma mater, Miami of Ohio was thumped last Saturday the UB Bulls.  Hence the reelection of Barack Obama is a lock.

Thank you Pat Clarke for the buzzer beater field goal for the UB win.  You had no idea how much pressure was on you at the time.

Makes me proud to know what UB has done to help resolve the election.

Romney Declares His Record Out of Bounds or He Runs Away From It

So Willard M. Romney says he should be President and can fix the economy based upon his experience at Bain Capital. However, he is offended when someone looks at what Bain Capital did while he was CEO, President and sole shareholder of the company. If you cannot take the heat get out of the campaign kitchen.

I guess he never claims he should be President based upon his record as Governor of Massachusetts because his biggest accomplishment was imposing a tax on people who did not obtain health insurance. Sounds like the Affordable Care Act was based on his work as governor.

His policies would widen the income disparity in America and he wants to repeal overwhelming insufficient regulations in Dodd - Frank that will allow the financial and venture capital industries to make obscene sums of money and caused the financial crisis.  For graphs and an explanation of how the financial industry and the 1% have benefited over the last 30 years Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman shows the numbers.

After the problems of last week with his role at Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002 it seems that at the same time Romney decided to give a contract to make clothes for the torch runners at the 2002 Olympics to a brutal military regime in Myanmar.  When asked about it because the labels also said Burma as well the Olympic Committee said that Myanmar and Burma were different countries.  Wrong!

This also raises questions about Romney’s foreign policy experience.  Despite a long short list of potential vice presidential nominees, none of them have any real foreign policy experience.  The only name floated as a possible vice presidential nominee with foreign policy experience is Condoleezza Rice.  She has a problem because she would be forced to answer questions about a war she supported on false grounds.

We are in mid-July how many other issues will Romney claim are not fair game for debate during the campaign?

Romney Economics - Bad for the Bay State - Bad for America

Hockey Takes a Cue From Baseball

Hockey seems to be taking a page out of the last day of the 2011 baseball season.  For those who do not remember in a period of time of just over two hours the teams in and out of the 2011 post season took dramatic turns and allowed two great comebacks to put the Rays and Cardinals (the eventual 2011 World Series Champions) into the playoffs and knocked out the Red Sox and Phillies.

As the NHL enters the final day of the season there are numerous games that will affect the first round of the playoffs as well as the winner of the President’s Trophy, for the best regular season record.  Let’s start in the Pacific Division.  The Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and Phoenix Coyotes are all in the playoffs.  Currently the three teams have the third, seventh and eighth seeds, respectively.  Depending on the final day of the season the Kings could go from third to eighth.  If the Sharks beat the Kings and Coyotes beat Minnesota the Sharks move to third and the Kings drop to eighth with the Coyotes moving up to seventh.

Meanwhile in the Central Division if the Detroit Red Wings win and the Nashville Predators lose Detroit will get the fourth seed and home ice advantage over the Predators.

The Eastern Division is a little bit more set, but that does not mean nothing is at stake.  The most important game is the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals game in New York.  If the Rangers win they will win the President’s Trophy and then face the Capitals in the opening round of the playoffs.  The Capitals still have a lot to play for as well.  If they win and either the Florida Panthers or Ottawa Senators lose then the Capitals could move to the third seed (Florida loss) or seventh seed (Ottawa loss).  On the other hand as long as the Rangers do no worse than the Vancouver Canucks they will still win the President’s Trophy.

Although there will be only eight playoff series in the opening round, with two days left in the season there are 29 different playoff combinations that can happen.  Hopefully, hockey will not make any changes to its playoff system to keep excitement in the game until the season is over as opposed to baseball which on the heels of a great final day of last season has changed the post season eligibility rules so that all of the excitement they had last year would have been a dull night with very little at stake.

Beware the Sweater Vest and the Destruction it Leaves it its Wake

          There has been much talk about the sweater vest being worn by Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum.  The way people talk about the sweater vest it is as if no one has ever worn one before.

          Well as usual people have very short memories.  Prior to Santorum the sweater vest was made popular in Ohio by disgraced Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel.  This was Tressel on the sidelines in Columbus, Ohio.

Notice the “stylish” sweater vest.

          As George Santayana said “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  Coach Tressel has had two major jobs in coaching.  First at Youngstown State and then Ohio State.  He left both jobs only to have NCAA sanctions imposed at both schools after he left.  Tressel was head coach at Youngstown State from 1986 until 2000.  On February 28, 2000 the NCAA sanctioned Youngstown for multiple rules violations during Tressel’s tenure.  Tressel had to resign from Ohio State in disgrace over rules violations.  Those violations led to major sanctions being imposed against Ohio State.

          So as Republicans go to the polls in the next few weeks they should remember what the last man to wear a sweater vest left in his wake and ask themselves, Will Rick Santorum do for America what Jim Tressel did to Youngstown State and Ohio State?  This is not to say someone should vote for Willard M. Romney, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich, as those three have dog issues, racist publication issues and ethics issues, respectively.

Don't Know Much History...

          As economies around the world continue to struggle to come out of the recession that began in 2008 it seems that (with apologies to Sam Cooke) not only do they not know much history but they have not learned or have forgotten economics.

          Economics is a science, maybe not a hard science, but at least a social science.  As such it must be studied and learned from, with concrete examples and economic models.  Also as with history people must learn from economic actions of the past or they are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.  As was recently pointed out, austerity by governments in times of economic downturns does not work to revive an economy.  Today more proof that governmental austerity in an economic downturn does not work and makes the recovery from a recession slower and more painful.  This is nothing new, as the austerity doctrine has been debunked for years and debunked again.

          It is time for Milton Freidman’s 1965 quote that we are all Keynesians to come true.  If not we are bound to continue to have a very slow and painful recovery from the Lesser Depression.