(03-12-2024 01:52 PM)BruceMcF Wrote: (03-12-2024 01:30 PM)JRsec Wrote: ... No, I don't. He was making an exaggerated point, but the ratio is still about right. And remember, food and fuel are conveniently left out of price indices when calculating inflation.
2022 Q1 GDP deflator (2017 base), 115.135
2012 Q1 GDP deflator (2017 base), 92.525
Cumulative Nominal GDP inflation, 24.4%.
That's not a market basket measure, that includes all newly produced goods and services, for all sectors of the economy.
Do you do the grocery shopping in your household? That is the single product line that impacts most American homes, along with energy costs. Then look at the fast-food inflation from pre COVID to post COVID. It's all far greater than 24.4%. One has to dig into these tabulations to find the variances. But in the meantime, at the checkout lane of your local chain grocery, butter that was 3 bucks in 2018 is over 5 bucks now. A loaf of non-brand specific bread which was a buck in 2018 is over 2.50 now and may be higher depending upon the store. Fish and beef are up though not quite double, chicken is up as well, and pork is oddly not. The average checkout price is up over 30%. Most wages aren't keeping up for people on fixed income. My wife and I are on fixed income, but we both have pensions, no debt, and are comfortable. Many I know aren't. Some of the working poor I knew from past work experience are really hurting. Minimum wage doesn't keep pace.
Disintegration always starts at the bottom and works up. It's like losing plankton in the Oceans' food chain. Lose the plankton and everything else is impacted. Then add to those most hurt at the lower rungs the mass influx across the borders and it has only a downward pressure upon their abilities to work more hours and two jobs, which is what most chose to do in response to the affordable care plan and to inflation.
I did non-profit work before retiring. Wall Street numbers, and the Fed's way of measuring things aren't reflective of the street reality. They weren't in the 60's and they aren't even in the same ballpark now. For those of us who live well it seems that nothing is wrong. Get out and work with the poor and your world view would change, and your sacrosanct numbers would be exposed for what they are, data manipulations designed to placate investors and defray blame for unsolvable problems by largely ignoring them.
I get tickled when pick a denomination church members go to Mexico, Central America, Haiti, or South America, spend two weeks with the truly impoverished and come back to the states feeling like we don't have those problems. While ours aren't as severe the poverty is here and hurting households where there are industrious parents trying to care for their children. It's not seen on sitcoms, gameshows or the most unrealistic programming ever, "reality programs." You might get a whiff of it on a "real crime" show but then those you witness are guilty of something so easily dismissed.
When you find a single parent home where a mom incorporates her oldest child to care for the others while she works sometimes 2 full time jobs or a full time and 2 part time jobs to make ends meet, you'll change your confidence in statistics and price indexes.
It's those small tremors in the seabed of humanity that eventually rupture a fault and cause that wave. And since the super wealthy hide in gated communities with personal guards, it is way past time for the middle class to pay attention. These people don't care if the core inflation rate for nonperishables is 24.4%. They care about those 35% to 50% increases in the cost of fuel and the doubling of food staples. And the numbers of those marginalized are only increasing.
Now, let's bring this back to College Athletics for an application. If the professionalization of college sports prices a number of smaller schools out of the offering of sports, and it will, what does that do to the hopes for an education or a way out of those marginalized by economic conditions? Corporate level thinking applied to all situations is like flying over the oceans in jets while pinging sonar. If you had an echo return you wouldn't be able to identify the target. The method is too broad for the application. These numbers are fine for those on Wall Street who interpret them for investors. They aren't fine for the poor. And helping the strongest athletic programs circle the wagons for survival is just that, about survival, and not about sports. And if you can reach the same markets with fewer schools that is great for the networks (corporate America), but it is horrible for the upward mobility of the poor. Your measuring stick is too broad to detect what is under your nose. In poor neighborhoods that measuring stick is useless. It is intended as information for the wealthy to make determinations about investment, and not specific enough to measure the economic conditions for the poor. The numbers weren't designed to measure what happens below the middle class precisely because that demographic doesn't invest.
In America our mission field is on the other side of the tracks, or in the poor section of town, just as surely as it is in Brazil, Mexico, Haiti, or Columbia. It's just that our mission teams don't get to see a place they haven't seen before if they work 2 weeks across town, and if they had the guts to do so, they don't want to have to be accountable to those people 364 days a year. 14 days and a lot of distance and a whole different language away seems much safer. But isn't it wiser to deal with our problems here to make our own backyard safer? If sports offerings cease to exist or diminish significantly at lower rungs in our society due to economic hard times what will that do to the despair among the poor, and to the crime rate?
Like what's happening in our Sports world with the court rulings, we only howl when our ox is gored, and if the richest among us protect themselves, we have the illusion of safety. And instead of acknowledging the reality of the cause, we deny it, and pretend it is something else. 34 trillion in debt, and a lowering of the rating of the U.S. dollar to a B+ rating wasn't enough to get our attention. And it is quite possible that reducing college football to 48 to 72 relevant schools won't get it either. But the ill effects of not having sports offerings subsidized at lower levels will impact the quality of life for all of us if drug use and crime expand to fill that vacuum. I think the courts are right to pay athletes. I just think in looking only at that level of sports play and making that decision, they have not considered at all the collateral damage that will be wrought by not considering the impact of their decision upon the very community they believe themselves to be helping. This is why limits upon earnings and intentional pass down to lower tiers of sports have to be accounted for. And I'm not talking taxpayer subsidies for small town U to have sports facilities to rival larger schools. I'm talking about community level activities for the young in poor areas. And at universities affordable to them and accepting of students with growing edges academically. One size fits all rulings leave gaps that our adversaries and their philosophies can exploit. We claim to be an enlightened society, but to be one all aspects of it have to be considered.
It's the things happening around you every day, if we would only look, that tell us what's coming and help us with early detection to be able to avert catastrophe.
What could be done? Let the professionalization take place at the upper tier. Let the pass-downs be in terms of caps at levels below the upper tier with the cap being lower in each succeeding tier with the lower tiers remaining scholarship only. The existence of the other tiers provides options for athletes who desire to optimize their professional chances. Let those who use athletics to actually get an education do so and their acceptance of a scholarship track versus a paid track is their decision. It can't be legally one size fits all when motivations and missions vary so widely throughout various tiers. As long as athletes have choices which reflect their personal objectives do not impose the ruling on the upper tier upon all, but uphold the various choices afforded to them so they can personalize their life track accordingly.
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Jim Phillips: “You can go from 28 to 6 sports in one fiscal year.”
