Paradocracy

Every year, there is talk across the major sports leagues about which players are due for contract extensions and huge paydays. The chatter is seemingly endless, and it often seems to cast a shadow over the sports themselves — talking heads arguing and debating, insisting that so-and-so is going to ‘reset the market’ or so-and-so is demanding the ‘market rate’ for his position.  This is where the conversation goes awry, economically speaking.  The truth is that players  are not commodities: they are neither fungible nor interchangeable. Each player brings a distinct skill set, and each team operates within a unique scheme, meaning that each player’s value is situational rather than universal. There is, thus, no ‘market rate’ for any player or position; contracts exist in relation to each team’s particular situation, and every dollar spent on one player (in a salary-cap league) directly reduces the resources available for others — where ‘overspending’ in any case necessari...

The claim that America was built on “stolen land” is not only a politically-loaded oversimplification, but a deliberately narrow framing that keeps America — and America alone — under perpetual moral scrutiny. It collapses fundamentally different actors, motives, and historical processes into a single accusation, thereby obscuring more than it explains. At a macro political level, land claims have  always  been in flux. Long before European contact, tribes across North America routinely warred over territory, resources, hunting grounds, and waterways. Claims were seasonal, contingent, and often overlapping, shaped by migration patterns, environmental conditions, and intertribal treaties that themselves shifted over time.  Had Europeans never settled in America, this dynamic would have continued to dominate; it was the prevailing condition of the continent. From this perspective, “ownership” has never been an abstract moral constant but a function of enforceability under a...

A  recent YouTube post by the political organization PragerU betrays the truth about the American Revolution. It goes as follows: “Britain spent a fortune defending the colonies in the French & Indian War. America’s response? Boycotts, protests, rebellion. Ingratitude that sparked a revolution.” This description of history is not just a reductive reframing of the issues; it is a crude and provocative statement insulting the intelligence of Americans who remember their history and disrespecting the men who staked everything in their noblest of causes during the American Revolution.  One commenter in the comments section even sided with PragerU, taking to task any who dares criticize the post: “Are you incapable of creating scenarios from the opposite side?” Unfortunately for this commenter, true history isn’t about “creating scenarios”; it’s about understanding what actually happened — the totality of the circumstances. So, let us do just that: let’s get straight to the fac...

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, two recent shootings involving officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency have left two citizens dead. This has caused an uproar from those who don’t appreciate the simplicity of this issue, those who have their clever ways of getting around or ignoring these simple facts: those who enter or remain illegally within the borders of the United States are criminals and fugitives from justice. Those who interfere with or obstruct any lawful investigation or lawful apprehension of such persons are also in violation of the law. Beyond this, any added complexity amounts to obfuscation, complexity for the sake of confounding the issues and confusing minds, reframing for purposes of virtue-signaling, fomenting outrage, or attempting to moralize and thereby draw people into the protests (whether as active participants or as contemptuous supporters).   In almost every case, however, it is a person distracted or hypnotized by the narrative, away ...

At the time of this writing, the price of silver is down over $31/oz (27 percent) on the day, with gold posting losses of $480/oz (8 percent). These are huge losses, growing larger as the sell-off creates its own momentum as markets approach the Friday close. With this historic sell-off during American trading hours, gold is now trading below the $4,900/oz level, with silver trading below $84/oz. These represent the steepest dollar declines in the two metals since 2011, after gold and silver peaked above $1,900/oz and $49.50/oz, respectively.  On September 23, 2011, silver posted a single-day decline of 16.5 percent, with gold sliding by 6 percent on the day. The case of 1980 was even more extreme: on January 22, 1980, gold prices declined by more than 13 percent; a couple of months later, on March 27, 1980, silver prices were slashed in half. As for today's sell-off, it comes just days after silver and gold set all-time highs (at least nominally), when the metals rose to around $1...