Category — Rant

Ever since Mr. Obama’s now-infamous chat with Joe The (Unlicensed) Plumber, where he admitted that his tax plan was designed to “spread the wealth around”, his political opponents have tried to label him as a socialist. However, if you are at all familiar with the basic tenets of socialism, you know that this charge is both ignorant and ridiculous.

Obama’s proposed tax plan uses the progressive income tax, which basically means that the more you earn, the more you are taxed. This has been standard practice in the United States since 1913, and it is something that even Adam Smith, the godfather of the free-market economy, argued for. Obama will use it to give the middle class (those earning under $250k per year) a tax cut, while at the same time allowing the tax cut that President Bush gave the very wealthy to expire. So is that socialism? No.

Socialists believe that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of the population, creating huge inequalities. Thus, they advocate the establishment of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly. To do this, socialists argue for abolishing the free market and replacing it with state ownership and administration of the means of production.

It could be reasonably argued that Obama’s new tax proposal may “level the playing field” somewhat between the very rich and the poor, but that is not anywhere even close to the degree of equalization called for by actual socialists. And it’s not like the taxes paid by the rich will be funneled directly to the poor anyway. The increased tax revenue will go to fund things that everyone uses: schools, parks, hospitals, roads, and so on.

Obama will not set up a government agency to plan the economy. He will not nationalize industries or turn them over to the control of the workers. He will not require businesses to meet production targets. He will not outlaw profit. Obama only wants to regulate the market, not get rid of it. This is nothing more than regular Democratic liberalism, not socialism.

Don’t get me wrong, though; Obama’s policies will be far from perfect. But that being said, calling him a socialist does nothing more than display one’s breathtaking ignorance of simple definitions and pathetic susceptibility to fear-mongering catchphrases. So whether you agree with his plan or not, can we please move beyond childish name-calling?

Thank you.

While I was watching Mike and Mike the other day, they did a segment about a certain baseball statistic that bothers me. The issue was this: knowing a given team’s win-loss record, how does one correctly calculate the number of games they are under (or over) a .500 record?

For example, let’s say the Cincinnati Reds win-loss record is 10-20. There are two different ways to calculate their games under/over .500 statistic:

The First Method

Since the Reds are now 10-20, winning the next ten games in a row will put them at 20-20, which is a .500 record. Therefore, the Reds are currently 10 games under .500.

The Second Method

If the Reds would’ve won 5 more games than they actually did (and consequently lost 5 fewer than they actually did), their record would be 15-15. Thus, the Reds are 5 games under .500.

Which one is correct?

There is no doubt that the first method is far and away the most popular, but it’s not popularity I’m concerned with so much as being correct. And the correct method is, you guessed it, the second one.

The flaw in the first method is revealed when you start thinking about the total number of games played by a team when you calculate their over/under .500 stat. Saying that a 10-20 team is 10 games under .500 is incorrect because you are factoring in the outcomes of yet-to-be-played games. That is, if they won the next 10 games, their total number of games played at that point would be 40 (20 wins + 20 losses). But notice that, as of the time you calculated the over/under stat, the team had only played 30 games (10 wins + 20 losses). And this is where the first method fails, because it uses hypothetical outcomes of future games to determine a current statistic.

The bottom line is that the number of games that a team needs to win in the future to get back to .500 is a separate statistic from the number of games that they are under .500 in the present. They are related numbers of course, insofar as the number of games to get back to .500 will always be twice the number of games that a team is under .500 right now, it’s just that everyone uses the wrong one.

So c’mon people, start doing your math correctly. This isn’t rocket surgery.