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Spring Break Thoughts                              #265

By Hank Silverberg 


I'm on Spring Break this week, so I have been watching a bit of the World Baseball Classic on TV this weekend. It's wonderful to see how America's pastime has grown into a worldwide sport with teams from more 20 countries competing. That's increased from 16 teams in 2017. 

Many of those teams have MLB players on their rosters, either born in or with connections to other countries. Many of them play for the Dodgers or the Red Sox or any of the other 28 teams during the MLB season. 

It really is a small world. Team USA is loaded with All-Stars, but other teams have lots of talent as well. Xander Bogaerts plays for the Netherlands because he's from Aruba, a Dutch "constituent" country, and former Red Sox Ryan Lavarnway was catching for Israel because he's Jewish. 

You probably know about the professional leagues in Korea, Japan and Mexico, because their best players often end up playing in MLB. But there is also a professional baseball league in Australia. 

Did you know they play baseball in the Czech Republic and Italy? 

America has given a lot to the world over the last 247 years. Baseball, a pastural team-oriented game where the idea is to make it home, may be one of the USA's best exports. 

The star-studded USA team may win again this year as it did the last WBC in 2017, but the tournament is not really about nationalism. It's about friendly competition. And as long as we're playing baseball and not going to war with each other, the world will be a better place.

Unfortunately, the Russian team was banned from playing in the qualifying rounds this year because of the invasion of Ukraine. 


A Race Backwards


You have already heard in this blog and elsewhere about GOP lawmakers, both national and local, who are trying to rewrite history. Well, in some places they are trying to recreate it. Take Arkansas as an example, where the new Governor Sarah Huckabee Sauders, another one of Trump's minions, has just signed legislation that weakens the child labor laws in her state. Gone is a requirement that the state verify the age of anyone under 16 who are seeking work. Fourteen-and 15- year-olds used to require a work permit before they could take a job. She calls that portion of the old law "burdensome and obsolete". This comes after a cleaning company there was caught illegally employing a 13-year-old, and federal regulators discovered hundreds of age violations in meatpacking plants.

They may eliminate some age restrictions in Iowa as well. allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to work in certain jobs, also in meatpacking plants. That legislation will also shield businesses from civil liability if a young worker becomes sick or is injured or killed on the job. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arkansas-gov-sanders-signs-law-loosening-child-labor-protections/ar-AA18mxOH


https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162531885/arkansas-child-labor-law-under-16-years-old-sarah-

huckabee-sanders

What Goes Around, Still Goes Around!

Do you have your old LP's sitting in a bookcase or a box somewhere and wonder why you still keep them instead of replacing them with CD's or a digital play list?

There may be a good reason either consciously or unconsciously. 

Vinyl albums outsold CDs last year for the first time since 1987,
according to the Recording Industry Association of Ameria. Vinyl sales were up for the sixteenth consecutive year in 2022 with 41 million sold, a 17% increase that topped the 33 million CDs that sold. Vinyl records brought in $1.2 billion compared to $483 million in CD revenue. 

But that is still very small when you compare it to streaming services, which now make up 84% of all recorded music revenue.  

Here's the real exciting part. The pandemic spiked the demand for vinyl, driven largely by younger buyers.

One difficulty, though. Manufacturers struggled to meet the demand for vinyl and some performers were actually forced to delay the release of new work because of a shortage in companies making records. 

Why the return to vinyl records? Many musicians and fans believe they have a richer, more detailed sound than CD's, or even the digital download device you are listening on. 

 Where's the big money? Ad support streaming like YouTube brought in $1.8 billion, while digital downloads including both albums and single tracks, dropped to $495 million. 

There is also an increased demand for old vinyl as well, so if you are trying to get rid of those LP's you haven't played for a decade, now is the time to approach the local record store. Yes, there are still a few of them around. Or you can always put up a table at the local flea market. 

Now before you get all excited about the return to the old days, no one is making new eight-track or cassette tapes, and it's hard to find an old Sony Walkman that still works. 

Vinyl Records Outsold CDs for the First Time Since 1987 | Hypebeast


Dumbest Quote of The Week!

The failure of a bank is nothing to joke about, nor is it the kind of thing a politician should make an uninformed off-the-cuff remark about. But that's

just what the GOP Chairman of the House Oversight Commitee did Sunday. Kentucky Congressman James Comer had his own explanation why the Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday. Appearing on Fox News (where else?), Comer said the bank collapsed because: 

"They were one of the most 'woke' banks." 

Now, I am not an economist. And I am also not sure how a bank can be "woke," but this comment so fits the ridiculous nonsense that is coming out of the GOP these days that it had to be this week's dumbest quote. Comer implied that SVB's failure had something to do with the bank's Enviromental, Social and Governance policy, but there's no evidence of that. Some economists are blaming the lax regulation of some banks during the Trump Administration for a few recent bank failures. But there is a much broader context of some bad investment by the bank's leadership, including over investment in high tech.  

Like I wrote, I am not an economist. But what we don't need are politicians making dumb comments that might lead to panic. Let's hope cooler heads prevail. 

 (Your comments and suggestions for this blog are welcome, see comment section below)  


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