The CPI and Inflation:
StatisTRIX don’t just exist in sports, which is full of them, they also exist is many areas of life including government, politics, and business. Take inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). While we’ve all been told that inflation is low and it will definitely rise one day so look out, and the CPI showed a drop in the month of November, the StatisTric is that it’s a false number. Just measuring prices alone does not measure inflation accurately, even if the government’s numbers are accurate. All you have to do is go to the grocery store to understand this as many of you do, but may not think about it this way. Have you noticed over the years how much less product you get for the same price or how much less the quality of the product is these days for the same price? It’s Big Business’ way of increasing prices without increasing the price. Take cereal for example. The Raisin Bran you buy used to be a full compact box. Now it’s got a lot less Raisin Bran in it. Just shake the box and you’ll see. This is “hidden inflation” that doesn’t get calculated into the CPI. But, it’s inflation no less. Don’t be fooled by the StatisTRIX. Inflation is higher than they are telling you. The biggest inflation is in the egos of the people that are telling you their prices haven’t gone up in years!

Interest on the National Debt:
This is probably the biggest StatisTric of all time because it hardly ever gets addressed when all our great politicians rant, rave, and try to debate what we’re going to do about our debt. And, it’s certainly the largest StatisTric we know, in terms of a pure number. Yes folks, it most certainly is. Are you aware that only three national expenditures outweigh the annual interest paid by the United States of America on our national debt? Those three expenditures just happen to be Defense spending, Medicare, and Social Security, three of the hottest topics around and the big piles of meat and potatoes on Bill Maher’s plate every week. But, Bill should have another big pile; a pile of interest or “Stuffing”. And, since interest rates are so historically low, we are getting an enormous break on our payments to China and other Asian investors that loan us their money.

The interest on our national debt last year was approximately $220 Billion. It is projected to grow to $1 Trillion by 2020 if we don’t do anything about it. That’s a lot of money that can be used for a lot of programs and people here in the United States. But, it’s going to China and other parts of Asia, not to feed their poor, but to allow them to become more powerful than we are and expand. So, what are we to do? First of all, we all have to stop berating each other’s parties and leaders for the mess we are in. Yes, we all know the wars were and continue to be very costly, and we probably had no business being there and got there under false pretenses. After all, there were no weapons of Mass Destruction and it only took six Seals to kill Osama. So, why did we need over 10 years in each country, tons of lives affected forever, and massive unnecessary expenditures that ran up our national debt? And, why does the debt keep rising now? Any politician will give you some good reason and then blame his opposing party for it all. But when they all sit down to talk about it, and they all try to debate it in front of the American people, and now want to have Stupidbowl II to discuss reductions in spending, they never talk about the interest on the debt. Why?

When you buy a home for say $350,000 and you need a mortgage to finance it, don’t you worry the most about the interest rate you are going to pay, and don’t you realize that by the time you are done paying it off your $350,000 home could end up costing you $700,000? When you send your child to college (if you even can) or that child tries to pay his/her own way, don’t we offer discounted loans and financial aid, but still at a rate of interest so the cost of attending college ends up costing much more than the tuition? Isn’t this basic “Finance 101”? Then why aren’t your leaders talking about this instead of blaming everyone for the debt? Most likely because it’s too alarming and they probably don’t either understand it themselves, or they take the American public for fools. Stop arguing about it already though; it’s over and done with. You can’t cry over spilled milk. Come up with a real plan for everyone, because everyone is involved. And, explain it to the American people in a way they can totally understand it not by insulting their intelligence.

You see, when Obama continually kept telling the American people that we are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, it really didn’t click with most people. Why? Because most people that lived through the Great Depression are dead. Most people that are affected by this economic crisis can only relate to this economic crisis. Therefore, it’s not that our president wasn’t being honest, open, sincere, and caring, it was that he wasn’t communicating it properly to the American people who cannot relate to standing on bread lines for an entire day just to get a piece of bread and a spoon of soup. How can we?

Yes, we heard about it from our parents growing up, but we did so while watching our new color TV’s. And, while some have read “The Grapes of Wrath” and get the picture, most haven’t and it’s all about perception. It’s just like being a parent. You tell your kids things so they won’t make mistakes. At least you try. But do they ever listen? No. But, ask yourself this; did you ever listen to your parents? No. So, why would you expect them to listen to you? They’d rather hear it from their friends who have as little a clue as they do, or even someone they never met on Facebook or Twitter. They’ll listen to anyone over their parents and then they will make the mistakes you have been trying to teach them to avoid. It’s very frustrating. But, all of us have to learn from experience; from making those mistakes that affect us and hit us smack in the face before we really understand. You can read all the books in the world about how to be a great salesman, but until you make hundreds of sales calls you won’t know what it’s like. It’s the same thing here.

How does this StatisTric affect our future and the future of our children’s children? Well, first of all interest rates are going to rise one day; perhaps sooner than you think. Once they do, then the interest we have to pay on our debt is going to climb enormously. It could reach $1 Trillion. To pay off that interest alone, we will have to print more money. This will lead to higher inflation which will affect every single American negatively in so many ways. If you think you have it bad now, just wait. So, we all need to come together on this. It’s not just about cutting spending. We are starting negative. Before we can make a dent into the actual debt, we first have to make our interest payments. And, those payments, unlike your mortgage interest, are not tax deductible. America can’t just write it off. Even if they tried, it would be like Jerry saying to Kramer; “You don’t even know what a write off is.”

Just think about the personal debt that you have now. Think about the amount of debt you are in; then add $50,000 to it. That’s the amount of debt each person in America has incurred from our current national debt. While the very rich and moderately rich are balking at paying more taxes, and the middle class doesn’t want to be burdened by more, we are all going to have to pay that $50,000 back somehow. There is no magic formula with mathematics. Math is math. It always adds up and that’s a fact Jack. How many times did you hear president Obama say to Mitt Romney that “the math does not add up?” But, how many times did you hear president Obama explain to you exactly what the math is and how it works? Not once. Since most people aren’t good with math, it really needs to be explained over and over in a third grade kind of way, because it’s really just arithmetic. It’s not brain surgery, and it’s not magic; it’s math! If we don’t pay off $50,000 per person, soon to possibly grow to $75,000 per person, or more, then America could clearly go bankrupt and end up like Greece and other European countries. If you don’t think that could happen then you aren’t good at math or you aren’t paying attention. And, if you aren’t good at math or science, or not paying attention, you need to start waking up. Why, well, just watch the 60 Minutes segment that aired this past Sunday about Robotics and the future of technology. It’s here and it’s moving at lightning speed. And, as they said, jobs are coming back to America and other countries from China and India, but they aren’t going to you, they are going to robots. If you didn’t catch it, watch the segment. You can catch it online on CBS.com, or on your cable TV. It’s fascinating.

So, everyone in America must come together and pay their share somehow or we will end up paying for it later. Maybe not you personally, but your children, their children, and their children certainly will have to. You can’t just print money forever, pay other countries with it, and expect to be the richest and most powerful land on earth with the best life on earth for its citizens. The extremely wealthy (the one percent) need to pay, the very wealthy (the other one percent) need to pay, the middle class, and the poor all need to pay somehow and contribute their share in some way, shape, or form or it’s just not going to work. So, stop whining and understand that this is the America you live in now. It’s not the America you still dream of (the 1950’s) which was only good if you were a white man with a job. If that’s the America you still want, then move. Like George Carlin said, “If you don’t like the weather; move!” You are here because your grand parents or great grandparents came here and made a life for themselves. Why should the “American Dream” only be a dream for white people whose white parents, grandparents, and great grandparents came to America? Why shouldn’t it be the “American Dream” for everyone that is willing to work hard and pay their share regardless of the color of their skin or where they are from? If you actually get to know some of these people you will find that they are a lot like you. They are just people, and many of them work just as hard as you or harder, but they don’t have and didn’t have the same opportunities you did. You can learn much more about life by talking to the poor than you can by talking to the rich. THINK ABOUT IT!

Monday Morning Quarterback:
In sports we all like to talk about the game after it happened in a way like we actually knew what was going to happen. It’s pretty easy to have 20/20 vision once something has occurred. But, what really irks ND and many people is the StatisTric that many announcers and radio talk show hosts falsely try to feed your brain with. Take the early season Green Bay vs. Seattle game that ultimately led to the Replacement Refs being fired later that week and the Real Refs being brought back. At the end of the game and for days after, all anyone could say and talk about was how Green Bay got screwed and this one game could cost them a playoff berth. Well, isn’t it ironic that both Green Bay AND Seattle are still playing? But, what people talked about last week, after the season ended and before the playoffs began, was how different the seeding would have been if Green Bay got the right call and won that game. This is not only a StatisTric; it’s hogwash. Their logic was that both Seattle AND Green Bay would have won and lost their remaining games exactly as they did and Green Bay would have had one more win and Seattle would have had one more loss. So Green Bay, not San Francisco would have had the two seed and a first week bye. Who’s to say that is accurate? Whose to say that that game and that call didn’t turn the light switch on for both teams and give them more motivation, more drive, more incentive to go on winning streaks and make the playoffs? No one can say with any certainty how these two teams would have ended up if Green Bay won that game. You can’t just assume they would have won or lost their remaining games the same way they ultimately did. You can’t assume anything in sports and in life. Announcers do this in baseball every day. Didn’t Felix Unger teach us all that when he was defending Oscar Madison in court? “You Assumed?” Felix asked Oscar. “Don’t you know that when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME? Enough said. THINK ABOUT IT!

Baseball Attendance:
Baseball attendance has been a StatisTric for a long time. Years ago the American League and National League calculated it differently. Today, they both do it the same; by number of tickets sold. We are told by the brilliant “Used Car Salesman” commissioner that Baseball attendance is stronger than ever; that the game is stronger than ever; that financially we are stronger than ever. Bullcrap! The number of tickets sold by a baseball team for the season and for any game is not indicative of the number of people attending, nor does it relate directly to the financial condition of a team. There are many games where the attendance is announced at 24.324 when there are literally less than 10,000 people in the park. You see this all the time even midseason when teams are still in the race. It’s a joke when you see all the empty seats in a big stadium and they try to tell you that the attendance is 40,000. Sure, that’s the number of tickets sold, but when and for how much? Many are season ticket holders. Many are bought by scalpers and ticket agents trying to sell them on StubHub. When it gets closer to the game, check out how much cheaper the tickets actually are on StubHub these days; even for the New York Yankees. You can go see a Yankees game for as little as $10 some days. But, you won’t see as many people in the stadium as they tell you are there. And, what about all those ridiculously priced seats behind home plate that are always empty at many stadiums?

Here’s a concept. Why don’t teams start announcing the real attendance, open their books so their fans can really see what’s happening financially with their team and why they won’t spend any money on players, and then have the team fill the empty seats with kids who can’t afford to go to a game. Let kids under 14 in free with their parents. Reduce the prices dramatically for kids in college and from 14 to 21. Create more family days and nights. Fill up the stadium any way, any how. It’s only going to benefit your team and city. Here’s why. More kids and people mean more food at the concession stands. This means more money as concessions are a high margin item. It also means more parking revenues and revenues for the city from mass transit (although these kids and their parents should be given free parking and metro passes to come to the game) and in many cases more tolls. Unfortunately the downside for all these parents is that even a free ticket or four can still end up costing them $200 for the night. Perhaps food and parking vouchers might help or at least dollar hot dogs.

It also helps the team when there are more fans in the seats. There will be more people cheering and more kids really learning the game just like we all did from our parents. Finally, baseball can get what it always talks about and what it says it wants; to have families affordably be able to come to the games; to have dad’s pass down their knowledge about baseball to their sons and daughters and bond with them over their team; to be able to have a whole new generation of young fans who are driven to the so many other activities and sports there are today.

And, enforce the code of conduct. Believe it or not, there still are places you can watch a baseball game in person without fearing for your life. Washington, DC is one of them. While it may seem odd to a New Yorker, or a fan from Philadelphia or Los Angeles, when you go to a game at Nationals Park, they actually make you wait to go to your seat with your beer and/or food until the batter is out or the inning is over. “This isn’t the opera”, someone was overheard saying. “This is a baseball game. I’m from New York, I’m going to my seat.” Pretty funny, huh? But, there is a downside to going to a nice friendly, civilized ball park; the fans don’t have a clue about the game. At least in DC they don’t where you have more people chatting it up about politics than actually watching Steven Strasburg or Bryce Harper. So, there has to be some kind of medium. Perhaps there is in Pittsburg or Kansas City, two once great organizations that could clearly benefit from letting in tons of kids for free with their parents to fill their vastly empty beautiful ball parks. THINK ABOUT IT!