Author Archives: Tom

Ida Mae reports on the Horns

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Ida%20Mae%20Crimpton.jpgThose Texas Longhorns are playing football again (albeit not very impressively), so it’s time for Ida Mae Crimpton to provide the inside scoop on the Horns first game, straight from her front porch in beautiful Elgin, Texas. According to Ida Mae, the first game was bad, but the after-the-game Longhorn locker room was much worse:

And based on what Mack’s wife, Sally, told me, it wasn’t any picnic in the locker room after the game, either. Sally said that Mack really read the guys the riot act. He yelled at them and told them that after the way they played, they didn’t need to expect any post-game orange Gatorade, either (and he was true to his word, tooÖhe made them stand in line at the water cooler). And then when Offensive Coordinator Greg Davis got back from gassing up Mack’s car and bringing it around (he also lets the air conditioner run for a while so it’s nice and cool when Mack gets in to drive home), he told the offense how disappointed he was. He said that Mack had every right to be pissed off and that they would be doing double drills this coming week in preparation for TCU. Well, that made the guys groan, let me tell you. It was a pretty glum locker roomÖyou’d have thought we’d lost or something.

But that’s not all. Read the entire piece.

A worthy campaign

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herskowitz235-2.jpgJames Anderson over at AstrosDaily discovers a glaring oversight — the dean of Houston sportswriters, Mickey Herskowitz, has not been elected to the sportswriting section of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Not only is Herskowitz the finest sportswriter of the past generation in Houston, he was also intimately involved in encouraging the investors who ultimately brought Major League Baseball to Houston in the early 1960’s. As Anderson notes, Herskowitz is richly deserving of this honor and all longtime Houstonians who have had the opportunity to enjoy his work over the years should be squarely behind the campaign to award him this honor.

DeLong on the rise from poverty

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1900%20MckinleyTeddy1900.jpgYeah, things might be a bit testy lately in the credit markets, but Brad DeLong does a magnificent job of reminding us just how much better we have it than folks who lived not all that long ago:

. . . in 1905 an anonymous American college professor–“G.H.M.”–wrote a four-page article for the Atlantic Monthly in which he pleaded for more money for college professor salaries, and claimed to be vastly underpaid. The first thing to note is his salary: he claimed that the “average college professorís salary”–the salary that he saw as clearly inadequate and unfairly low–“is about $2,000” in the dollars of that day, 1900. Yet Stan Lebergott’s estimates in the Historical Statistics of the United States are that the average annual earnings of an employee in America in 1905 were $490 dollars if employed for the entire year (or $451 taking account of the hazards of unemployment): $2,000 was four times average of GDP per worker at the turn of the century. In order to match turn-of-the-century professors in terms of income relative to the national average, a professor today would have to make an academic salary of $300,000ña height rarely attained, and far above any average.

There is much more, so don’t miss it. DeLong’s chapter is a vivid reflection of the power of compounding economic growth. Sort of makes you wonder about those folks who advocate shaving a bit of economic growth here and there to promote some special interest. Over a century, compounding that small loss of economic growth can have a huge impact.

Another great college football resource

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a%26mfans.jpgThe Web continues to amaze with the depth and quality of the sites being generated. Check out this one analyzing the win-loss record of every BCS and mid-major college football team and conference in the U.S. What a great way to track trends among conferences and teams — or simply to keep up with your favorite team — throughout the season.

You don’t say?

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speeding%20ticket.gifThis NY Times article reports on more research that goes into the “who needs a research project to prove that?” category:

. . . the broader question ó whether police officers in some towns are motivated by fund-raising as well as safety when writing traffic tickets ó has been examined systematically by others. Michael D. Makowsky, a doctoral student in economics, and Thomas Stratmann, an economics professor, both at George Mason University, studied the issue in a recent paper, ìPolitical Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?î
They examined every warning and citation written by police officers in all of Massachusetts, excluding Boston, during a two-month period in 2001 ó over 60,000 in all. Their conclusion wasnít shocking to an economist: money matters, even in traffic violations. They found a statistical link between a townís finances and the likelihood that its police officers would issue a speeding ticket. The details are a little sticky, but they show that tickets were issued more often in places that were short on cash, and that out-of-towners received tickets more often than drivers with local addresses.

2007 Weekly local football review

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UH%20Casey%20Keenum.jpgThe Labor Day weekend marks the beginning of the college football season and HCT’s weekly local football reviews, so here’s the first edition of the 2007 season:
Oregon 48 Houston 27

Well, you have to hand to the Coogs, they certainly don’t schedule only creampuffs for non-conference games and they keep things entertaining. After spotting Oregon a 14-0 first quarter lead, the Cougars closed to within 34-27 with 1:50 left in the third quarter. But then on the next play, the Ducks exploited a chronic weakness of the Cougars during the Art Briles era — a porous defense — for an 80 yard TD run for a 41-27 lead that took the wind out of Houston’s sails. The Cougars actually outgained the Ducks (538 yds to 468 yds), but Houston’s five turnovers (two interceptions, two fumbles and blocked punt, three of which were inside the Oregon 20) more than made up for that offensive output. Despite the continuing defensive struggles, the Cougars appear to have found a good QB in redshirt freshman Casey Keenum and will have two weeks to regroup before taking on Tulane in New Orleans on September 15.

Texas Longhorns 21 Arkansas State 13

H’mm. Texas fans are rightfully concerned after watching the Horns fumble and stumble against Arkansas State. The Indians outpassed the Longhorns (272 to 223), outrushed them (125 to 117), tallied more first downs (26 to 23), punted fewer times (3 to 4), threw fewer interceptions (1 to 2), had a stronger kickoff return game (94 return yards to 73), and held the ball longer in time of possession (30:12 to 29:49). The Longhorns have been tabbed as 10 point favorites in their game against mid-major power TCU (1-0) next Saturday in Austin, but expect that line to move down a bit as the game approaches. Absent a substantially better effort against the Horned Frogs, the Horns could well lose that game.

Texas Aggies 38 Montana State 7

After spotting Montana State an early 7-0 lead, the Ags methodically hammered out the victory using their somewhat boring but effective strategy of emphasizing the rushing attack, throwing short passes and restricting turnovers. However, even the most optimistic Ags have to be concerned about an Ag defense that gave up over 400 yards to a Division I-AA team that replaced its head coach just three months ago and an offense that still does not appear to be able to execute a pass play of over 7 yards or so. The Aggies get a stiffer test at home next week against Fresno State (1-0), who enter the week as 17 point underdogs.

Nicholls State 16 Rice 14

Coming off the Todd Graham affair, this is not how the Owls wanted to kick off the David Bailiff era. The Rice Football Webletter commented as follows in this article entitled “Could It Get Any Worse Than This?”:

Perhaps the worst strategic decision made on the turf of Rice Stadium Saturday night came not from the Owl quarterback, not from the head coach ñ though both sources stunned the crowd of 11,800 with the length and breadth of their miscreancy during the course of this excruciating, five and one-half hour game.
Nope, the worst decision came from the tongue of Rice Athletic Director Chris del Conte, who, given the election of sending the teams home and playing the game over later in the season after the second of two, hour-long, lightning-induced weather delays ñ or electing to wait it out and get the game in ñ chose to stand fast and play ball.
The Rice Owls responded by imploding their own building here Saturday night as a, shall we say, less-than-imaginative offense yielded up five key turnovers en route to a 16-14 loss to an aroused, strutting and confident Nicholls State team.
The fancy banners which newly-adorn the stately, former-72,000-seat-edifice still stand on a muggy Sunday morning. But down like so many tons of concrete and structural steel have fallen the remains, not of a building, but of a rebuilding.

Ouch! The Owls attempt to rebound as 6 point underdogs next week in Waco against Baylor (0-1).

A continuing abuse of power

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James%20Brown%2090107.jpgEconomist James Buchanan won a Nobel Prize for his work on applying economics to explain how incentives impact the behavior of government officials. In short, Buchanan concluded that government officials are people who behave in the same selfish manner as most folks. For example, when dealing with the government’s awesome prosecutorial power, prosecutors often could care less about discretion and justice. Rather, they often use that power to advance their personal interests, to extort tribute from the private sector, to blackmail politicians into increasing prosecutorial resources and privileges, and to manipulate the media in their favor.
The foregoing seems to be an apt explanation of what continues to go on in the Enron-relates debacle known as the Nigerian Barge case:

A federal prosecutor wants a former Merrill Lynch & Co. executive to serve the entire prison term imposed for five Enron-related crimes even though three of those convictions were overturned by an appeals panel last year.
But lawyers for James Brown say the prosecutor is pushing to incarcerate their client for the remainder of his three-year, 10-month term because he has refused to plead guilty to another felony and possibly testify against two co-defendants.

Read about the entire tawdry affair. Brown’s perjury and obstruction of justice convictions were upheld in this Fifth Circuit decision that reversed the convictions against him and his co-defendants on the other three charges. However, Judge Harold DeMoss’ dissent lucidly explains just how flimsy the convictions on the perjury and obstruction charges are:

[The majority decision relies on] two types of evidence [to support the convictions of Brown on the perjury and obstruction charges]: (1) business negotiations preceding a deal ultimately reduced to a written agreement and (2) an after-the-fact oversimplification and shorthand description of the barge partnership investment by Merrill employees during the discussion and evaluation of a subsequent and entirely unrelated deal. Neither of these types of evidence should be used to support an inference of the falsity of Brownís testimony.

After what the prosecution has put Brown and his Merrill Lynch co-defendants through, the prosecution’s continued pursuit of this case borders on the barbaric. Here’s hoping that Judge Ewing Werlein rejects the prosecution’s continued pursuit of this Enron-related witch hunt in the same manner as he rejected the prosecution’s original over-the-top sentencing recommendations. Perhaps a few decision of that nature would induce some adult supervision to return to the Department of Justice.

The state of the Stros

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stros%20logo%20083107.jpgAs I’ve noted many times, the Chronicle’s coverage of the Stros is pretty pathetic overall. But markets are wonderful things, so the blogosphere has quickly developed into a far superior source of analysis about the Stros than the mainstream media. Although several blogs provide good information about the Stros (see the link list on the right), I have particularly enjoyed reading Lisa Gray’s analysis of the Stros over at The Astros Dugout, where Lisa blogs a post on every Stros game. Her insight is excellent and she writes in an engaging and clever manner.
Lisa is now branching out a bit and she recently posted this Hardball Times article on the state of the Stros. Despite the fact that I disagree with her on a few things (I think she is a bit harsh on Drayton McLane, who is the best owner that the Stros have ever had), Lisa’s article is the best I’ve seen on the mistakes that have been made in the Stros organization since the club’s 2005 World Series appearance. Check it out.
Bill James coined the “Law of Competitive Balance” to explain the trend that teams that win tend to slack off in the following year because team management doesn’t work as hard, don’t take risks to make the team better and think defensively. For example, Stros management reacted to the playoff appearances in 2004-05 by rationalizing that “if we won with Ausmus and Everett in those seasons, then why can’t we do it again this year.” Such complacency almost always is reflected in a poorer won-loss record, and the Stros gradual decline over the latter stages of the Biggio-Bagwell era is powerful evidence of the truth of the Law of Competitive Balance.

On the Billable Hour

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Stu%27s%20Views%20Me%20Hold.gifA couple of interesting posts recently on the scourge of the business community — the billable hour — gives me the opportunity to pass along the cartoon on the left from the always-insightful Stuart M. Rees of Stu’s Views.
First, local law school blawger Luke Gilman provides a compendium of links and analysis to his comprehensive review of the state of the billable hour. Meanwhile, Peter Lattman over at the WSJ Law Blog provides this post on the breaking of the heretofore sacrosanct $1,000-an-hour billing rate, which includes local attorney Steve Susman’s classic observation that he charges in excess of a grand per hour “to discourage anyone hiring me” on an hourly basis.
Me, I continue to subscribe to the theory that I won’t charge an hourly rate that is higher than I could afford to pay if I need to hire an attorney. ;^)

The Katrina legacy

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katrina_box%20083007.jpgThe “News-Hurricane” category of this blog began with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The second post in that blog was this one in the early afternoon of Saturday, August 27, 2005, which was one of the first in the blogosphere warning of Katrina’s potential danger to the New Orleans area and urging citizens to evacuate immediately. Unfortunately, most of the folks who stayed and lost their lives in Katrina probably had no way to read the recommendation passed along in the final sentence of that post.
Over the past two years, the “News-Hurricanes” category has developed into a cross-section of articles and blog posts on the various legal, economic and political issues involved in the rebuilding of New Orleans. On the two year anniversary of the storm, here are several more good ones:

Reason Magazine’s Daniel Rothschild has traveled to New Orleans twenty times over the past two years reporting on the reconstruction. Here is the first installment of a three part series that is a must-read for anyone interested in the reconstruction of New Orleans;
The NY Times’ Adam Nossiter, who has also reported extensively on New Orleans over the past two years, provides this article entitled “Commemorations for a City 2 Years After Storm;”
Moneyball’s Michael Lewis writes about the risk of Hurricane Katrina;
Nicole Gelinas of City Journal writes on how the breakdown in law and order continues to hamper the rebuilding of New Orleans;
Ben C. Toledano argues that New Orleans effectively died long before the hurricane struck; and
This Associated Press story describes the difficult task of re-establishing New Orleans’ small businesses, which were a major source of job loss after Katrina (a point made at the time). One of the most interesting aspects of the story is one small businessman’s view on immigration:

“Trying to find workers, that’s the toughest thing,” [small businessman Robert] Thompson recalled. “The people we dealt with ó craftsmen, carpenters, electricians, roofers ó weren’t home and if they were, they were decimated themselves.”
Help did come in the first few weeks and months, in the form of workers from Honduras and Mexico who arrived in New Orleans to work in the rebuilding.
“Thank God for them, they were the work force for many, many months,” Thompson said.