The SoapBoxers

It has been a quick rise to the top for Cam Newton.  He hit rock bottom in November 2008 when he was arrested for theft of a laptop (charges were dropped after Newton completed a diversion program).  This dark day resulted in Newton transferring to Blinn College, whom he lead to the JUCO national championship.  He then transferred to Auburn, leading them to the NCAA national championship and snagging a Heisman Trophy along the way.

The critics weren’t sure that Newton’s game would transfer to the NFL.  Would he become a super star, or go the route of JaMarcus Russell and set his NFL franchise back a few years?

Two games into his NFL career, Newton seems to have answered his critics.  With 422 yards in his first game and 432 in his second game, he broke Kurt Warner’s record for most passing yards in the first two games of the season (which had been 827).  Tom Brady smashed the mark later in the day when he reached 940 yards for the season, but that certain didn’t diminish Newton’s accomplishment.

However, before we build a statue for Newton, it’s time to take a step back.  First of all, other than Newton’s time at Florida (before Blinn) where he backed up Tim Tebow, he really has just one season of major college football under his belt.  This also means that there’s not as much film on Newton as there are on other rookies.  Newton is also on pace for 664 attempts.  Only twice in the history of the NFL has anyone thrown more than that many times – so it’s likely that his pass attempts will trend downward a bit.  Let’s also not overlook the 4 interceptions.  I’m not saying that Newton won’t be a great NFL quarterback – but let’s not start the work on his Canton bust quite yet.  Two games does not an NFL career make.

Around the NFL

The city of Philadelphia watched in horror as Michael Vick suffered a concussion and was replaced at quarterback by Franz Kafka.  Sorry, MIKE Kafka. Philly’s normal backup, Vince Young, was dinged up an inactive for this game.  That means that over the long term, the Eagles will be a bit stronger at QB than they were for this game (no disrespect to you, Mike – you certainly made the best of your opportunity).  A big factor in whether or not Michael Vick is worth $100 million is his health, especially has he ages.

Rumors are starting to swirl that the Colts might pursue Brett Favre in an attempt to save their season.  Really?  You want that soap opera on your team?  I’d take a pass and work out someone like Duante Culpepper.

Teams that have started the season 2-0: Patriots, Bills, Jets, Texas, Redskins, Packers, and Lions.  Teams that have started 0-2 are the Dolphins, Colts, Seahawks, Vikings, and Cam Newton’s Panthers.  The AFC North has a four way tie for first place, with the Ravens, Bengals, Brows, and Steelers are starting the season 1-1.

Cyclones Rally Behind Man of Steele

Iowa State QB Steele Jantz engineered a 4th quarter comeback for the third straight game, pushing the Cyclones to a 3-0 record with a win against Connecticut.  The state’s “other” 1-A team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, rallied from a 21 point second half deficit to knock off the Pitt Panthers.

Sadly, Notre Dame notched their first win of the year.

In realignment news, Syracuse and Pitt are the newest members of the Big East.  Iowa State and Baylor have initiated discussions with the Big East regarding joining the conference if the Big XII implodes (which seems to be a near certainty at the moment.  I think I’d prefer to simply become a 1-A independent, but the money is probably better as a conference member.

Around the diamond

Detroit’s Justin Verlander picked up his 24th win of the year with a complete game 3 hitter on Sunday.  Nobody has reached 25 wins since Bob Welch went 27-6 in 1990.  In the era of the five man rotation and extensive use of the bullpen in late innings, this is an almost impossible achievement, even if you’re on your “A” game all year.  I’m in the camp that says a starting pitcher can be an MVP candidate.  While it’s true that they don’t play every day, they have a massive amount of influence on the outcome of every game they player.  Even Albert Pujols has a lot of games where he’s a small factor in the outcome – position players simple have fewer opportunities to affect the outcome.

The Red Sox are finishing the season the way they started it (remember that awful April), losing 11 of their last 14 games.  After being arguably the best team in baseball for the majority of the season, the Sox are only two games up in the wild card race as we head into the final two weeks of the season.

In the National League, the Cardinals have tightened up a wild card race that was a runaway a few weeks ago.  They stand 3 1/2 games back as we head down the stretch.  The streaking Giants (8 straight wins) are just four back of the Braves in the wild card and five back in the division.

My favorite Brad Pitt movie ever?

Brad Pitt takes to the silver screen this weekend in the movie adaptation of the Michael Lewis book Moneyball.  I’m a big fan of the book, but am worried that the movie will distort or over-simplify the Bean approach.  Contrary to what many people think, it’s not just about walks (although a number of teams still don’t realize the importance of a free base on balls).

I’m convinced that “jobs” is a four letter word in the Obama Administration. I can see it now. Barack stubs his toe on an end table and yells, “Oh jobs!” *giggles*

But in all seriousness, I find it interesting that he’s been the President for TWO AND A HALF YEARS already and JUST realized that jobs is an issue. Either that or he “hoped” that things would “change” without him having to do anything.

And yet, he did have to do something. So he did what he does best….the only thing he ever does. He gave another speech.

Now, those who voted for Obama who are upset with him and his performance, I don’t feel sorry for you. You elected a man because he gave good speeches….are you at all surprised that it is all he’s done thus far?

Back to the jobs bill. During the speech Obama kept saying “pass it” and to be honest, it had a little bit of an Obamacare feel to it. Do we need to pass this bill to before we can know what is in it? I don’t like it. Not one bit.

Here’s what I know. The Government can’t mandate that people hire. Only the people can hire. When people have more funds to hire, they hire. And that’s where this “income adjustment” aka taxes comes in to play. Keep taxes low, people have more of their own money, with more money they can hire more people, more people working means more money in the economy…it just makes common sense.

Then again, common sense is something this Administration is severely lacking.

I love watching the Liberals start freaking out about 2012. Unless Obama does something big–and I mean really, really big, he’s not going to win. America has had enough and, like I said unless something really big changes, we’ll have moving trucks in front of the White House in January 2013. But hey, that’d be a few jobs Obama could take credit for creating!

I hope you all enjoyed my live tweeting of the straw poll and the GOP debates. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, be sure to follow @SoapBoxersLive on twitter.

Image via CrunchBase

Wikipedia has had a huge impact on the ability to quickly research a topic.  Back in the old days, people had to dust off the encyclopedia to get in depth information on a topic, and the information might be decades old.  The world wide web in general helped bring update information to the masses.  Wikipedia took it a step further by creating a central repository for knowledge.

Some people love Wikipedia; others (particularly teachers) dislike it.  The general criticism is that it’s not a reliable source since anyone can edit it.  A high profile example of this was a 2008 edit to the page of Big 10 commissioner Jim Delany which claimed that he shot down proposals of a playoff in NCAA football, “making him a complete and total douchebag.”  While this incident was amusing to some playoff proponents, it was a black eye for Wikipedia.

Is Wikipedia a Reliable Source?

No, definitely not.  Wikipedia won’t even argue this.  Wikipedia doesn’t purport to be a source, but rather as a site that presents data from other sources.  Essentially, Wikipedia is a big research paper, with citations noted within each article.  Original research is explictly forbidden.  The sources themselves must meet the standard of being a reliable source – personal blogs are not allowed.

If you’re using Wikipedia for formal research, you should cite the actual source, rather than the Wikipedia page.  I’ll even take this a step further and suggest reading the source, to ensure that you have the proper context for the information.

Anyone Can Edit Wikipedia

This is true.  You can sign up as an editor on Wikipedia today and immediately start editing articles.  However, if you’re being (in  the words of Jethro Gibbs) a real jackwagon, you can find yourself banned pretty quickly.

In general, disputes on Wikipedia are handled via a dispute resolution policy.  Often, this centers around an article not conforming with Wikipedia’s policy that articles have a neutral point of view (naturally, this is more of a problem with articles of a political nature).

Articles that are particularly prone to vandalism or subject to edit wars (where editors with conflicting viewpoints constantly overwrite each other’s text) can be protected so that only privileged accounts can edit the article (anyone can suggest a change, though).

What’s Going On Behind The Scenes?

At the top of every Wikipedia article, there is a “Discussion” tab.  Click on this tab and you will find a discussion about the content of the article.  Not a general discussion of the topic, but a discussion as it relates to the exact content of the article.  This is often more informative than the actual article itself – it can provide an interesting context to the information in the article.  Take a look at the pages for Barack Obama or Sarah Palin.

You can go a step further and and become a Wikipedia editor yourself.  This can be a responsibility that takes a large amount of your time, or a small amount.  I became an editor several months ago.  No, I haven’t made any sweeping changes.  I’ve made a handful of very small changes (obvious thinks like incorrect links) and contributed to a few discussions in the Discussion tab of a few articles.

Everything is bigger in Texas. Include in this list, Ego’s, Greed and Attitude.

Things started down a road of fragile eggshells last year before the season got started. A&M had looked into leaving the conference. Missouri then rumored that they wanted to go to the Big 10. Then there was more speculation that Nebraska might be looking to jump ship, and then Colorado.

Besmirched commissioner Dan Beebe put out the ultimatum to all conference members “Are you in or out”

Well turns out that Colorado was not on board and like we say here in Nebraska, we were “N” ………. IN with another conference that is.

This put the Big XII in a precarious situation. No more Title Game sponsored by Dr. Pepper. No more charging extra money when Nebraska comes to town on the ticket prices. No more Red Clad state people to yell about to blame all of our woes upon and to say “how dare you take your ball and leave Huskers”

Enter the Texas Football Network. Enter lots and lots of heated debate particularly among Texas schools such as Texas Tech, A&M and Baylor. Enter Mack Brown saying “this does not give us an unfair recruiting advantage.” Enter more schools thinking this is a bad idea, and enter the NCAA possibly looking into it.

Fast forward another month. Exit Texas A&M…No one seems to be throwing them under the bus like Nebraska was in the conference last year. (Let’s see how many signs are posted at away games this year bad mouthing the Aggies…I am guessing not many) Exit the idea that this conference is going to stay around much longer.

Now it appears that Oklahoma holds all the cards. They are involved in exploratory discussions with the Pac 12 to pursue membership in the league, and will likely be in cahoots to bring little Brother Oklahoma State along with them for the ride.

If you have read my columns for any amount of time here on the Soap Boxers, you know that I have no issues in throwing Texas under the bus. Texas has pushed out other teams that used to be in the league due to their egos. Now their greediness has led the likes of Texas A& M and other schools to pursue leaving the conference (well you could argue the Aggies have had their pride hurt so that is the main reason that they are wanting to leave for greener pastures). Above it all, the Attitude still permeates that the Longhorns are above board, and to heck with everyone else.

Oklahoma hopefully sees the writing on the wall. It is better to leave under your terms to a situation that is best for your University, than be dumped to the wayside, which is likely the fate for schools like Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor and Texas Tech.

When the Longhorns are out playing independents in two years and filling the football schedule with the likes of UTEP, North Texas State, SMU, Rice, Houston, and any other local Texas school you can name, it will be interesting to see how the boosters will view the Burnt Orange and their new independent digs.

Texas has brought this on to Texas. Good riddance Big XII…errr 10….errrr nine. The falling apart of your glass house is eventually going to lead to a handful of super conferences in college athletics, and unfortunately for you – – – it is unlikely that one of them will have a commissioner’s office located in the Republic that some of us consider the State of Texas.

Until next time….stay classy Stuart, Florida

The topic of gold investing is a divisive one. One group of people say that gold is a great way to hedge against inflation and that it is a much better than currency. Others, such as myself, feel that the gold investors are simply replacing a de jure currency with a de facto currency. Are people investing in gold because of an underlying value in the product, or because they feel it will be a valuable trading chip in the case of an economic meltdown? If it’s the latter, then gold has become a de facto currency. If both are currencies, should we ridicule the dollar while at the same time praising gold?

Who knows more about precious metals than the people who go deep into the crust of the earth to extract them? Today, we sit down with Engineer Joe, a metallurgical engineer currently working at a mine in Peru.

Kosmo: First of all, why invest in metals at all? Why not put your money into other raw materials, such as rock, paper, chemicals, or water? What makes metal special?

Engineer Joe: You can buy rock (minerals), natural resources (paper, wood, whathaveyou), and most of the chemicals needed to make plastics are metals or derivatives of metals on the market. Water is not considered a tradable thing because of its abundance, but the metals and chemicals to treat water can be bought.

But none of those things retain their value like metals. Metals are easier to reuse (thus why they pay you to recycle aluminum and other scrap, but you have to pay to recycle paper and plastics), easier to extract, and easier in general to work with.

Kosmo: OK, gold is pretty, and it conducts electricity really well, but if you’re starving, you can’t eat it. It seems ridiculous to pay $1900 per ounce for something with fairly limited uses.

Engineer Joe: Gold is the flubber of metals. It can do some weird shit, along with looking cool. It’s extremely malleable (a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, or an ounce into 300 square feet), one of the most chemically resistant solid elements (for complete dissolution, you need to use a teflon coated beaker), more dense than most metals (almost twice as dense as lead), and it’s pretty rare (as of 2009, only 165,000 metric tonnes have ever been mined in human history, whereas most of the larger metal mines produce over half a million tonnes a year of common metals). Take all that, and find that it has a relatively low melting point and conducts electricity. It has all the most desirable characteristics of metals, rolled into one.

Kosmo: OK, gold is flubber. Very versatile and great for a lot of things. However, is there a point at which you go to a substitute? If gold goes to $1 million per ounce, obviously you’d need to use substitutes for a lot of uses. Not optimal, but acceptable. $1 million is an extreme example, but where is that line in the sand? $2500? $10K?

Engineer Joe: Yep, one of the best substitutes for gold is silver, which may be in part why its value has grown so much over the last two years. Certain applications can use other metals, which drives their value up as gold rises. But there are certain things that only gold may be used for, such as thin film deposits as on circuit boards. Only gold can be applied so thin and precise, and not corrode over millions of uses in many environments.

Kosmo: There are a lot of mines currently extracting metals from the earth. Is there any way I can keep track of the status of mines?

Engineer Joe: The USGS maintains a list of total inferred reserves (inferred by initial exploration), total proven reserves (final prep before mining), and total available reserves (in mines currently operating). As a company starts to reopen a mine, it moves the reserves from proven to available, which usually causes speculation that more supply will be available, and thus a price drop.

Most people are looking at the total reserves available for mining right now and the demand on the market. London Metal Exchange (LME) keeps track of all available raw metals available for trading on the market, and, for a price, you can see how many tonnes of any metal or significant mineral are available. You can also track the demand with their system. They also act as a middle man for buying large quantities.

Kosmo: One of the factors that keep the price of gold and other precious metals so high is the perception of scarcity. In theory, a mining company could strike a rich vein of gold tomorrow, right?

Engineer Joe: Actually, there is a mine in Alaska near Bristol Bay (Pebble Mine) working on obtaining necessary permits. If they can get things rolling in the next couple of years, you will see a drop in Gold, Silver, Copper, and other metals. It is the largest polymetallic deposit in the world, and their initial estimated production numbers show that it will dwarf all other mines currently in production. But they still have a long way to go.

Kosmo: When oil prices began to skyrocket, I heard about oil companies re-opening wells that had been capped years before. Oil wells that were unprofitable when crude was selling for $50 per barrel were profitable when oil was selling for $90 per barrel. It makes sense that there would be a similar situation in the mining industry – mines where the cost of extraction was high enough to make them unprofitable when gold was selling for $500 per ounce could be a cash cow with gold selling for $1900 per ounce.

Engineer Joe: Yes, this is the case of many mines. Most large mining companies will expand and buy these old properties, or just the mineral rights to them. They will do an assessment, determine the cost of remediation and reopening, and set a minimum price needed for reopening.

The Climax Mine in Leadville, Colorado is a good example. It was shut down in the early 90’s (as well as many times before), but Phelps Dodge (now owned by Freeport McMoran) announced in 2005 that it would refurbish the processing mill and reopen the mine. In 2008 Molybdenum prices dropped below where they though it was profitable to continue with reopening, so they idled the project. They resumed in early 2010 when both their stock price and Moly prices rose. It still has yet to be opened. Many presume that they just want to get the property “ready to operate” but not actually produce anything because it deters other companies from trying to develop a new mine or would be a good property to sell to a company looking to expand. It can take over 5 years to develop a new metal mine in the US right now. The EPA actually gives precedence to issuing permits if a company wants to reopen a mine because it includes clean-up of any problems that may exist and that the government is currently funding. So the process is faster than obtaining new permits from the EPA.

The problem that Freeport and many other companies see with reopening is the price of environmental remediation, and the fact that after buying the property, entering into environmental contracts with the government, the prices may drop due to the increase in proven reserves available for mining. That is why it is good for large mining companies to own the mineral rights, but not develop the old mines until the price gets so high that even with a drop it will be profitable to operate the mines.

Kosmo: In the oil market, OPEC has the power to set prices. They act as a cartel, working in concert to fix prices in a manner that maximizes their profit over the long term. This does not violate U.S. anti-trust laws because as a foreign entity, OPEC is not subject to these laws.

Does a similar situation exist in the metals market? Is there a cartel setting prices, or does the price fluctuate simply based on supply and demand?

Engineer Joe: I’m not aware of any cartels in the mining industry, other than diamonds. The most accessible diamonds are in Africa, and those mining companies did a good job over the years of protecting their investment. Things are changing now, as many jewelers won’t buy diamonds from Africa. There aren’t really any other companies or countries that have the most of a particular metal.

There is, however, an entity that plays a major role in the market.

There is this country in the Far East, with over a billion people. Maybe you’ve heard of it? For the last decade, they have been buying and stockpiling metals of all sorts, based on what they think they will need for the development of their country. This is probably the single reason why metals skipped a downturn in the mid-2000’s. Right now, they are still buying metals used for alloying steel, along with copper and other critical metals, and just stockpiling them. They’re still in raw form, so when processing prices drop, they can take advantage and have as much as they need. And if the prices rise, well then, they’re in a good spot to sell at a rate that wouldn’t flood the market.

Within the country, there are many natural occurring rare earth elements not found in abundance in many other places. They won’t sell those on the open market, and many speculate it’s because most rare earth elements are used in missile guidance systems and smart weapons. They really aren’t breaking any rules, but many speculate if there was a war, China (oops, just said their name) would be the most powerful country because of the amount of resources they have stockpiled. That is kind of scary, but the truth. And who knows how many oil reserves they have.

The President of the United States was involved in two major events over the last week.  Most recently, he was the guest of honor at the 9/11 remembrance in New York City.  The president along with all of the other dignitaries and special guests did a phenomenal job of participation without ostentation, but with dignity and reverence.  The right wing fears of exclusion of first responders and prayer were just simply wrong.  The memories of those who lost their lives on that September morning 10 years ago, and those who have lost their lives in the defense of our nation since then, were honored.  The poems, letters and scriptures read, the musical performances, the reading of the names, and the personal testimonies, all added to the somber yet hopeful atmosphere of the entire day.

The second event, was a speech before a joint session of congress, advertised as the solution for the joblessness being experienced in the United States.  This event was not nearly as mature, dignified, or effective as the 9/11 anniversary.  This speech, which was supposed to be a new message, was in fact a restatement of some fifty previous speeches that he president has given.  The immaturity of the event was exposed in the political squabbling that went on before the actual speech accrued.  First, the president asked for the joint session on the same night that a previously scheduled debate of the Republican presidential candidates.  The speaker of the house, a republican, refused.  His refusal was not well taken by the White House, both sides acting like children.  The President eventually asked for the joint session on the following night.

The content of this speech in no way required a joint session of congress.  The speech promised a proposed piece of legislation that he insisted must be passed quickly.  He had already promised to have legislation ready when they returned from their summer vacations.  There was no legislation, that is the prevue of the congress anyway, there was just another promise to get it to them.  Now there were some ideas presented that are good, but not new.  Training for the long term unemployed is a great idea, a democratic congress with Ronald Reagan had a program for the same purpose back in the 1980’s.  Preferential employment of veterans is another good idea, but it has been in place for federal employment, post office and contractors to the government since World War II.

The most frightening part of the speech was not the repetitiveness of the ideas for jobs, but the repetitiveness of the exorbitant cost and methods of payment. Yet again the suggestion is hundreds of billions of dollars spent.  Once again there is a call for taxing the “more fortunate” members of society, as if earning is a gift that is not fair.  And again, we here of a rich man who does not think it is fair that he pays less in income tax than his secretary (Mr. Buffet, you do not have to claim all of your deductions if you think you should pay more).  Although there are plenty of things wrong with the tax code (the complexity alone is mind boggling), increasing taxes is not the solution.

The only way to get the economy going again is to have actual work for people to do.  Not shifting of payment of projects from states to the federal government, not addressing an unreported surplus of unemployed teachers, and definitely not another hand out to some bankrupt entity be it an car company, a bank or a union.  This country needs to spend within its budget and reduce the burden of taxes and regulation on everyone.  It worked for Kennedy and Reagan.  When we spend beyond our means and broaden the scope of government, the economy goes into the tank, as happened under Johnson and prolonged by the “price freezes” of Nixon and Carter and is now happening from the spending frenzy of Bush and Obama.  In each case, we identify the president, but the blame is equally if not more the responsibility of the congress at the time.

The last issue with the speech was the return to blaming the previous president for the problems being faced today.  There is always a lingering effect of the previous administration, but up until now, the president has remained above the blame game.  It is one thing if a partisan group blames Clinton for 9/11, it would have been quite another if the Bush had gotten on front of congress and blamed him.  Yet again, President Obama is blaming Bush.  Since he took office, the deficit has gotten bigger, unemployment has gotten worse, and up until eight months ago, he had gotten everything he wanted.  Eventually, the president and especially congress will have to start acting like adults.  We cannot expect the partisans or the press to mature, but we should expect it from our elected officials.  It will not be possible to create jobs until at least one thing happens – Congress must do its job and actually pass a budget.  Nothing that the president suggests or sends to congress to consider will have any meaning until a budget is in place.

I was in a meeting when the planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center.  I know that the meeting was related to the project that re-wrote the system I support – turning a fat client application into a thin client one.  Any details of the exact content of the meeting have long since faded.

At the time, I worked in a building that houses five thousand IT professionals.  The building has a constant buzz of background conversation as people work together to solve problems.  On a typical day, you’ll see most people at their desks, with 2-3 people at some desks.  As we walked back from the meeting on September 11, 2001, where was none of this.  We became aware of the fact that larger groups of people were huddled around monitors.  At first, this seemed a bit unusual, but not overly so.  After all, in such a large building, there will be a handful of slightly odd occurrences at any point in time.

We quickly noticed that this was not an aberration – there were lots of groups of people huddled around monitors.  Curiosity got the better of one member of our team, and he joined one of the groups.  A minute later, Jeff caught up to us and shared the news – terrorists had attacked by crashing planes into the World Trade Center.

Most of the rest of the day was spent following the news as it unfolded.  Management didn’t make much of an effort to deter people.  Work wasn’t getting done, but there was the overriding feeling that this was an important day in the history of the country.  Impromptu prayer services were organized.

Later that day, I was in my car and noticed a single air plane flying across the sky.  Since US air space had been closed earlier in the day, the jet was clearly Air Force 1.  It felt very odd being able to look into the sky and know exactly where the president was.  Then the plane passed, and the sky was entirely devoid of air traffic.  Surreal.

Gas prices had risen dramatically during the day.  I had filled up a few days ago, so I wasn’t forced to buy at the panic prices of September 11.  I resisted the urge to top off my tank – would an extra two gallons of gas do anything for me?

I’ve never been the type of person who watches very much news.  However, that night, I was glued to CNN.  For the next several days, I followed the developments – praying for the victims, and hoping that more would be pulled out alive.  Hoping, too, that there would not be a backlash against American Muslims who had nothing to do with the attacks.

The Iowa State – Iowa football game was scheduled for the following weekend, and  I had a ticket to the game.  Like all other games that weekend, it was postponed.  I decided not to let the terrorists win, and I went forward with the weekend as planned – sans football game.  I drove the 330 miles to Ames, Iowa and had a good time hanging out with friends (including The Crunchy Conservative).

It’s certainly not as dramatic as Zarberg’s personal memories of 9/11 (great article with several photos), but that’s my story of September 11, 2001.

Where were YOU on September 11?

On Thursday, Amazon was given a one year reprieve from collecting sales tax by the state of California. During this year, Amazon will likely lobby California legislators in an attempt to make them, and other internet-based vendors, exempt from the duty of collecting sales tax.

Historically, only in-state sellers have been responsible for collecting and submitting sales tax. If a California resident drives to Oregon and buys a big screen TV, the Best Buy in Oregon does not collect California sales tax on the TV (and since Oregon has no sales tax, this means that no state received sales tax revenue from the sale). Of course, residents of states that have a sales tax are required by law to file a use tax form on which they list out of state purchases and pay taxes on those items. However, this is widely ignored, and a large chunk of the population is completely unaware of this requirement.  You would think states would make an effort to education people, but I haven’t seen evidence of this occurring.

The core question, really, is whether Amazon is like the Oregon Best Buy (which is not required to collect California sales tax) or like a California Best Buy (which is required to collect California sales tax). The California brick and mortar stores say that Amazon should be treated the same as they are – but Amazon could just as easily say that they (as an out of state internet retailer) should be treated the same as an out of state brick and mortar retailer.

In recent years, a number of states have passed – or strengthened – legislation defining the meaning of a business nexus. In California, affiliate programs such as the Amazon Associates program are deemed to be a business nexus, which would trigger the requirement to collect sales tax. Personally, I think this constitutes a pretty weak business nexus, as the associates are clearly independent contractors rather than people who are captive to Amazon.com.

(For those of you who don’t know what the Amazon Associates program is, it’s a system that allows people to earn a commission on Amazon sales by linking to Amazon on their web sites. The links contain a special code that allows Amazon to determine the source and credit the correct account. Look around The Soap Boxers and you’ll see a few of these.)

When California’s new law went into effect on July 1, Amazon immediately terminated agreements with thousands of Amazon Associates. No Amazon Associates meant no business nexus in California. Now that Amazon has a one year reprieve, will they immediately reinstate their affiliates?  There has been no word yet. Here are some reasons why they might not.

• If Amazon wants to continue to lobby for an exemption to collecting sales tax, they will want to minimize the perceived important of the Associates program. Rushing to reinstate the Associates will make it appear as if the Associates are a critical aspect of Amazon’s business – a bona fide nexus. Thus, they may choose to exhaust their lobbying efforts before reinstating affiliates.
• Amazon has retained mathe heavy hitters. There were some people making thousands of dollars per month from the Amazon Associates program. Many of these people set up shop in a neighboring state when Calfornia’s law went into effect (which had the effect of taking income tax money away from the state of California).
• While many people switched to a different affiliates program when Amazon drop the Associates program, many simply left the old links in place. In some cases, links were sprinkled across hundreds or thousands of pages on a web site, and there was the perception that it would take too much effort to make a change. These links are golden to Amazon – they are still directing traffic to Amazon, but Amazon isn’t paying a commission on the links.

I know I asked the question, but I don’t even know that I can answer my own question. It’s very difficult to make an argument for anything being the “best ever”, but I do have to say that the makers of Madden made some SIGNIFICANT improvements in this year’s game.

Gameplay-wise, I think the biggest improvement is the all new collision system. The game is also “smart” enough to take the size of different players into consideration. If Darren Sproles gets hit by Brian Urlacher, chances are, he’s going to be hit backwards. The new system flows very well, using a players momentum in tackling. The days of 8 defenders suctioning onto a running back (or any offensive player for that matter) are over. Gang tackling, better and consecutive hits make the game much more realistic.

In previous versions of Madden, certain pass plays were always extremely easy. Slant across the middle, catch just about every time. Zone defenses seemed extremely easy to beat. Now, Madden has some enhancements that give defenders a clue on what their assignments should be, and it works! My first time playing the game, I immediately fell back on the same plays that I always use, and to my surprise, they weren’t bread and butter like usual. Good! Anything that makes the game more challenging.

Visually, the big change being promoted is 3D grass. Honestly, I can’t tell much of a difference. The graphics are indeed better this year than they have been in years past, but as far as being able to tell the grass is 3D…come on. Maybe it’s really there. But to me, that doesn’t matter. What does matter, is players kicking up grass, dirt, snow, etc, when running on the field. Actually seeing the elements is pretty cool, and you definitely can this year.

Play calling has been given a huge upgrade this year. Rather than cycling through every single play in your teams playbook, you can choose the game flow system, where a select few plays will be displayed and you can pick one. The plays to seem to line up pretty well with your teams situation (1st and 10, 3rd and 2, etc) from what I’ve noticed while playing. It does shed a few minutes off of your game time, meaning 1 game might take 45 minutes instead of an hour, but still pretty cool.

The Franchise Mode also received a big overhaul, adding in expanded rosters and also roster cuts during the pre-season, allowing you to trim your roster of bad contracts and obviously adding more realism. I haven’t made it to an off-season yet, but free agent bidding should now be much better than in the past. And maybe the coolest thing of all…if you’re in season 6 (or whatever season) of your franchise and you’re tired of your team, you can now switch to another team without needing to completely restart your franchise mode. I haven’t done this, but still seems very cool.

Overall, I love the game. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give it about a 9.5, simply because giving any game a full 10 is just hard to justify. But don’t let that deter you. This game is fantastic and I highly recommend it to any football fan.

My timing might be off on the article subject this month, as people might think I’m talking about the often controversial, usually brilliant former Apple Computer CEO.  I’m not.  Everywhere I tune in people are talking about how this economy boils down to jobs.  Too many people are unemployed, which leads to too few people paying taxes and spending money, which leads to layoffs in the public sector, which leads to more people being unemployed, which leads to more people not paying taxes and spending money, which leads to … well, you get the idea.

Back in the 1980’s “Trickle Down” was the term for how Republicans wanted to run the economy.  Their theory is that if you give tax breaks to the richest people those people will turn around and hire some non-rich folk.  Think of it like watering your plant, you pour the water on the plant and the water dribbles all down, into the soil, and makes everything in the area go to varying degrees of wetness – it “trickles down” over the whole area.  Trouble is, the economic theory doesn’t work like that.  It doesn’t really work at all, actually, so much so that Republicans have taken to calling it “Supply-Side Economics.”  Trickle down has that whole male urination connotation, “Supply-Side” sounds so much more business-like, so much more professional.  Too bad over 70% of the money that factors into GDP is because of consumers. The economy is consumer driven, so the real-world theory should be “Consumer-Side Economics.”

What does consumer driven mean?  Well, it means that the people who buy the bulk of stuff – everything from houses and cars to televisions and appliances to diapers and toys – are running 70% of the economy.  70% of the money that factors into GDP is because consumers – the bulk of which are everyday Americans – bought stuff after getting paid by their job.

One of the favorite current conservative talking points is that businesses aren’t hiring because they’re stifled by regulation and taxes.  As far as taxes are concerned, theoretically, that’s true.  Reality has a different view, however.  Using loopholes and tax breaks the richest of corporations can often avoid paying no taxes at all – GM didn’t pay a dime in taxes in 2010 despite having over 14.2 billion in profits.  The truth of the matter is businesses aren’t hiring because people aren’t buying.  People aren’t buying because so many are unemployed or underemployed, and the media has scared many into saving rather than spending.  While that’s not a bad thing, everything needs to be in moderation.  Saving for the future is fine, but not at the cost of the now.

So is government regulation the problem?  The 2008 Wall Street crash was because of a lack of regulation.  The 2011 Fukushima Nuclear disaster was because of a lack of regulation enforcement.  Bankers taking home billions in profits after getting billions in bailouts while the middle class saw nothing was because of a lack of regulation.  Say what you want about the government, but at least in theory I trust profit-driven corporations a lot less than I trust government.  I say “in theory” only because the current campaign finance laws and political atmosphere allow corporations to essentially buy politicians.  In addition, if government regulation is the problem, why are big oil, the finance sector and many other important economic players reporting record profits the past few years?  I don’t think Reagan making deregulation one of his biggest issues and the start of economic disparity in the US is a coincidence.  Corporations have proven time and time again that they will put profit ahead of anything, including the well-being of people.  You can argue that corporate charity does exist, it often does so only because tax breaks and good publicity make it economically practical to do so.

So jobs are the problem, what’s the solution?  I’m going to put one forward that all you right-wingers out there will completely balk at:  Government spending.  This flies in the face of the debt reduction debate this past Summer, but our country has faced bigger debt before and we spent our way out of it.  The power grid and transportation networks in the US are laughable, at best, compared to many other nations.  A government-wide sponsored program to rebuild/replace either of those two would employ millions for years – millions of people who would start spending again.  I’m sure conservatives will ask how can we possibly pay this off?  Well, eliminating the outsourcing of our wars would help.  It was recently reported that as much as 60 billion dollars was wasted or defrauded thanks to so-called “private military contractors.”  As far as the big-picture is concerned, take a look at any finance news the past few months – US debt is selling faster than ever.  The yield on treasury bills is at an all-time low, which means anyone with money is still scrambling to buy US debt.  If we had a debt problem, doesn’t free-market economics dictate that T-bills would be a bad buy?

Tonight President Obama is going to present a jobs bill, and no matter what he says Republicans will oppose it out of partisanship.  The number one way Republicans will take control of the White House in 2012 is for the economy to suck, so why is it in their interest to help the economy get better?  Like drooling, greedy shareholders they are slaves to short-term profit, and creating jobs just doesn’t mesh with their current goals.