DQ here.  I was laying out this theory to Bookworm at lunch today and she asked me to post about it.  Sports team owners understand that they cannot help themselves.  They will spend too much on players if they are not stopped by some outside force.   Thus, they negotiate with the players to put restrictions on themselves.  Major league baseball taxes the teams that overspend.  They pay into a pool of money which is then given to the teams that spend the least.  The National Football League has a hard cap.  There, each team may only spend so much each year on players, period.  Every team has at least one person who’s full time job is to “manage” the cap to be sure that it gets the most for its money.  The National Basketball Association, which should be playing basketball right now, is not, largely because the players and owners cannot agree on how strong the restrictions should be on the owners.

As you might expect, in all of these cases the owners want to protect themselves from themselves, while the players want to have as few limits on the owners as possible.

Now consider politics.  Politicians want to “win” by being re-elected every bit as much as sports team owners want to win.  And, as Bookworm pointed out to me, they are spending other people’s money to do it, not their own money, as the sports team owners are.   And, of course, the special interests who benefit from spending, like the players, want as few limits as possible.  Inevitably, politicians will overspend unless external limits prevent them from doing so.  That is why the only, and I do mean only, long term solution to the budget problem is a Balanced Budget Amendment.  As is proven in Washington every day, and as was proven again by the failure of the Super-committee today, politicians can no more help themselves than sports team owners can.  It goes against human nature to ask them to control their own spending.  Only a rule that forces them to do so will work.  And, obviously, the sooner the better.

It really does seem to be pointless, done for the thrill of it:

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20110807/EU.Britain.Riot/

Sadie sends this along.  I doubt there’s anything to it, but it is an interesting story, anyway:

In California, Gov. Brown just signed a bill that would require the state’s electors to vote for whoever gets the majority in the presidential election nationally, regardless of the vote in California.  This idea has always struck me as strangely undemocratic, but nowhere more so than in California.  Consider that California is solidly a Democrat state.  The chances of a Republican carrying California and not winning the national vote are minimal.

On the other hand, a Democrat might well win a solid majority in California but lose nationwide.  Yet California Democrats are the one who pushed through the requirement that, in that case, the electors must go against the wishes of California voters and vote for the Republican.  Amazing!

Here’s DQ’s take:

I admit ignorance here, as I haven’t read the official explanation by S & P.   I’m not sure I’d believe it anyway.

One theory I heard was that S & P was happy as a clam as long as everyone understood that the debt ceiling was a completely meaningless number that would automatically be raised whenever needed.  But once somebody in Washington suggested the number should be given meaning, that we should actually try to stick to it, S & P panicked at such a bizarre notion and downgraded the U.S.  Under that theory, those who had brought up the bizarre notion, the Tea Party wing of the Republicans, of course, could be safely blamed.  Remember, the Republicans are always to blame.

The problem with this theory is the timing.  If that was really the reason for the downgrade it would have happened months ago, when it became clear the Tea Party members of the House were serious.  Or at least weeks ago, when it became clear their seriousness might lead to actual problems.  It certainly would not have happend now — after the deal was struck and the debt ceiling safely raised.

My theory is that S & P is upset that the Tea Party was not more successful.  I’ve heard that S & P said they were concerned that taxes weren’t being raised.  But that is not the real concern.  The real concern is that not enough is being done to rein in the exploding deficit.  It shouldn’t (and, I suspect, doesn’t) really matter to S & P whether this is done with spending cuts or tax increases.  But, it needs to be done.  S & P is right about that.  And the Democrats’ (and also most Republicans’) refusal to actually consider systemic cuts, as opposed to fantasy cuts like the imaginary trillion out of the defense budget from not fighting wars we weren’t planning on fighting anyway, is every bit as much to blame as any refusal to raise taxes.   Why give Washington more money if all Washington is going to do is continue to spend it and more?

Here’s Sadie’s take on a related, though not identical topic:

Thanks again, Sadie:

In an age of visual media, a picture is no longer worth a 1,000 words. It’s a photo “shoot” and if by “shoot” your intent is to maim an image.

Who’s in charge of Newsweek cover graphics now — a Media Matters Soros Monkey? A random Daily Kos commenter? Keith Olbermann’s intern’s intern? When was the last time Time or Newsweek put a halo around a conservative politician?

Money Problems Cause Divorce

Basically, it’s spenders vs savers plus values.

Organizing your divorce

Again, basically it’s create a budget, cut monthly spending, consolidate and reduce.

Seems simple enough advice from Divorce.com.

Isn’t it where we are now .. in the divorce court of public opinion. Alimony and child support issues are not much different than what we think we are owed and what is actually due and the child support questions are entitlement programs.

The marriage of the two parties is on the rocks and the couple is still living in the same house. It’s a divorce that cannot take place without bringing down the big roof. Does the “couple” stay together for the sake of the children. Does it set a good/bad example? It’s not as though you can wait for the children to grow up and then part ways – there’s always another on the way. The couple likes the house they’ve been living in and they’re asking all the kids to chip in, so that they can live in style. Never mind, that some of those kids are now grown men and women and no longer want parents dictating where or how they should live.

The parents are also growing older and it’s time to down size, before the house needs a new roof.

Can this marriage be saved?

From Sadie:

Can’t resist an opportunity for a pun and commentary – Watts Going On?

If this happens, it will be very intereting to see how the public reacts to such a transparent move.

From Sadie: