Rev. James V. Schaal, a priest of the same order as Pope Francis:
An amusing citation from Margaret Thatcher reads: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” The socialists, however, were not the only ones who would run out of other people’s money. Democracies are quite capable of duplicating this feat. The question is this: What entitles us to acquire other people’s money in the first place? Do other people have any money that is not ours if we “need” it? Taxation, with or without representation, is about this issue. Who decides what we need? Who gets what is taken from us? On what grounds do they deserve it?
C. S. Lewis said that no one has a right to happiness. Our Declaration only says that we have a right to pursue it. Whether we attain it is not something that falls under the perplexing language of “rights.” If someone else guarantees my right to be happy, what am I? Surely not a human being, whose happiness, as Aristotle said, includes his own activity, not someone else’s.
In a world of rights, no one can give anything to anybody else. Everything is owed to me if I do not already have it. If I am not happy, I am a victim of someone else’s negligence. A “rights society” is litigious. If I am unhappy, it has nothing to do with me; my unhappiness is caused by someone else who has violated my rights. Unhappy people witness the violation of their rights by someone else; their unhappiness does not involve them. Their mode is not, “What can I do for others?” but, “What must they do for me to make me happy?” In his Ethics, Aristotle remarked that, if happiness were a gift of the gods, surely they would give it to us. No Christian can read such a line without pause. Is not the whole essence of our faith that we have no “right” either to existence itself or to a happy existence? Some things must first be given to us, no doubt—including our very selves, which we do not cause.
Indeed, the whole essence of revelation is that we do not have a right to the eternal life that God has promised to us. We cannot achieve it by ourselves, because it is not a product of our own making or thinking. God does not violate our “rights” by not giving us either existence or happiness; creation is not an act of justice. The doctrine of grace opposes the notion that we have a right to happiness. It is not even something that we deserve or can work for. …
Much of the world is filled with what I call “gapism.” The so-called gap between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots, is a sign, not of the natural order in which some know more and work more, but of a dire conspiracy to deprive me of what is my right. So the purpose of “rights” is to correct the world’s “wrongs.” A divine mission flashes in the eyes of those who would presume to make us happy by giving us our “rights.” People lacking the “right” justify the takers.
So we do not have a right to be happy. The assumption that we do lies behind the utopian turmoil of our times. The attempt to guarantee our right to be happy invariably leads to economic bankruptcy and societal coercion. By misunderstanding happiness and its gift-response condition, we impose on the political order a mission it cannot fulfill. We undermine that limited temporal happiness we might achieve if we are virtuous, prudent, and sensible in this finite world.
Schaal should have added “flawed” and “sin-filled” to “finite world.” Of course, the concept of sin isn’t in these days.
I don’t eat much at McDonald’s. I prefer other fast food options (namely a Wisconsin-based company whose products are superior except for their French fries). And we do buy food from the local farmer’s market.
That having been said, I think Kyle Smith brings up valid points while being amusing:
What is “the cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history” Hint: It has 390 calories. It contains 23g, or half a daily serving, of protein, plus 7% of daily fiber, 20% of daily calcium and so on.
Also, you can get it in 14,000 locations in the US and it usually costs $1. Presenting one of the unsung wonders of modern life, the McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger.
The argument above was made by a commenter on the Freakonomics blog run by economics writer Stephen Dubner and professor Steven Levitt, who co-wrote the million-selling books on the hidden side of everything.
Dubner mischievously built an episode of his highly amusing weekly podcast around the debate. Many huffy back-to-the-earth types wrote in to suggest the alternative meal of boiled lentils. Great idea. Now go open a restaurant called McBoiled Lentils and see how many customers line up.
But we all know fast food makes us fat, right? Not necessarily. People who eat out tend to eat less at home that day in partial compensation; the net gain, according to a 2008 study out of Berkeley and Northwestern, is only about 24 calories a day.
The outraged replies to the notion of McDouble supremacy — if it’s not the cheapest, most nutritious and most bountiful food in human history, it has to be pretty close — comes from the usual coalition of class snobs, locavore foodies and militant anti-corporate types. I say usual because these people are forever proclaiming their support for the poor and for higher minimum wages that would supposedly benefit McDonald’s workers. But they’re completely heartless when it comes to the other side of the equation: cost.
Driving up McDonald’s wage costs would drive up the price of burgers for millions of poor people. “So what?” say activists. Maybe that’ll drive people to farmers markets. …
Junk food costs as little as $1.76 per 1,000 calories, whereas fresh veggies and the like cost more than 10 times as much, found a 2007 University of Washington survey for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. A 2,000-calorie day of meals would, if you stuck strictly to the good-for-you stuff, cost $36.32, said the study’s lead author, Adam Drewnowski.
“Not only are the empty calories cheaper,” he reported, “but the healthy foods are becoming more and more expensive. Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods.” Where else but McDonald’s can poor people obtain so many calories per dollar?
And as for organic — the Abercrombie and Fitch jeans of food — if you have to check the price, you can’t afford it. (Not that it has any health benefits, as last year’s huge Stanford meta-study showed.)
Moreover, produce takes more time to prepare and spoils quickly, two more factors that effectively drive up the cost. Any time you’re spending peeling vegetables is time you aren’t spending on the job. …
Fuel prices, like food prices, disproportionately hit the poor, so do-gooders do everything they can to raise energy costs by blocking new fuel sources like the Keystone XL pipelines and fracking. And they are always up for higher gasoline taxes and regulating coal-burning energy plants to death.
If the macrobiotic Marxists had their way, of course, there’d be no McDonald’s, Walmart or Exxon, because they have visions of an ideal world in which everybody bikes to work with a handwoven backpack from Etsy that contains a lunch grown in the neighborhood collective.
That’s not going to work for the average person, but who cares if they go hungry because they can’t afford a burger anymore? Let them eat kale!
There is one problem with Smith’s thesis: The McDouble doesn’t include bacon. (Sold separately.)
The point here is not the McDonald’s Double is superior to all other food. The point is consumer choice, something that liberals seem to oppose when those choices disagree with theirs. (See Bloomberg, Michael, Soda Size Regulations.)
If this makes you hungry, I believe lunch doesn’t start at McDonald’s until 10:30 a.m.
A couple of weeks ago, I read that only 47 percent of American adults have a full-time job. I thought at the time that was the most damning legacy of the Obama (mis)administration I could find.
Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration’s emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to “rebuild ladders of opportunity” and reverse income inequality.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy “poor.” …
While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government’s poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.
The gauge defines “economic insecurity” as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent. …
Going back to the 1980s, never have whites been so pessimistic about their futures, according to the General Social Survey, a biannual survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Just 45 percent say their family will have a good chance of improving their economic position based on the way things are in America.
I read this, and I conclude that we are screwed. The economy cannot be fixed or made better anymore. Like where we are now? Good, because this is as good as it will ever get.
The Wall Street Journal pointed out last week that the median American family income has dropped 5 percent since Barack Obama took office. Seems that after five years of confusing publicly traded companies with business (the former comprises exactly 0.1 percent of the latter), and after attacking job creators and wealth, the economy is worse off. And as Timothy P. Carney points out:
“Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits,” President Obama said in his economics address last week, “nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1 percent.”
It’s odd that Obama touts these facts, because the facts indict his policies. …
Obama’s first term, with all its tax hikes, regulations, mandates, subsidies and bailouts, saw stock markets rise, corporate earnings break records and the rich get richer, while median income stagnated and unemployment remained stubbornly high.
Obama rightly calls the last few years “a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water.” …
Median household income has fallen by 5 percent since 2009 — when the recession ended and Obama came into office — as the Wall Street Journal pointed out after Obama’s speech. But corporate profits and the stock market keep hitting record highs.
How does Obama think these are points in his favor?
If he’s using this data to prove he’s no Marxist, fine. Point granted. But Obama seems to think that middle-class and working-class stagnation under Obamanomics somehow calls for more Obamanomics.
The unstated premise is this: More government means more equality, while the free market favors the rich and tramples on the rest. …
Government grows, the wealthy, the big, and the well-connected pull away, and the rest of us struggle.
One reason: Obamanomics leans heavily on trickle-down economics. How does Obama promise to create jobs? With more loan guarantees to sell jumbo jets and more subsidies to make solar panels — taxpayer transfers to the big companies with the best lobbyists, with some crumbs hopefully falling to the working class.
Also, Obama’s regulations crush small businesses, protecting the big guys from competition. This hurts Mom & Pop and would-be entrepreneurs, but it also hurts the working class. New businesses are the engine of job growth, but new business formation has accelerated its decline in the last few years, hitting record lows.
Given how well Obama focused on the economy before now, his most recent pivot to paying attention to the economy will accomplish nothing. You cannot take away enough from the 1 percent to make the 99 percent’s economic lives better. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out last week:
For four and a half years, Mr. Obama has focused his policies on reducing inequality rather than increasing growth. The predictable result has been more inequality and less growth.
The top half of the income inequality issue is the least important. Rich people are always able to prosper despite political attempts to make them prosper less. Simple math says the gap between rich and poor will always increase. The issue, therefore, is the less-than-rich, and Obama has made them, and us, more less-than-rich.
We’ve already seen before it’s implemented that ObamaCare has resulted in American workers’ losing their full-time jobs. And the U6 measure of unemployment and underemployment has never been higher under any presidential administration than it is right now.
With the help of a top Democratic Party official, Madison millionaire Mary Burke is meeting and talking with Democrats around the state about whether she should challenge Republican Gov. Scott Walker in next year’s election. …
Setting up the meetings and acting as her political adviser was Jacob Hajdu, political director of the state Democratic Party. Last month, state Republicans filed a complaint over a poll testing the political viability of Burke, a former state commerce secretary and former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive. …
On July 17, Burke and Hajdu held court at Wilson’s Coffee & Tea, meeting face to face with state Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine), John Lehman (D-Racine) and Mayor John Dickert to discuss next year’s governor’s race. While at the coffee shop, Lehman introduced Burke to a local alderman and young GOP operative.
The operative, Sam Wahlen — a 20-year-old Marquette University student and Racine County Republican Party board member — said Burke was described as “running for governor,” with no qualifications.
“I was very surprised because I didn’t hear she announced,” Wahlen said in an interview this week.
Burke and Lehman disputed the student’s account. Burke emphasized that she has yet to make a decision.
First: When a party tries to clear the decks for one candidate, that doesn’t necessarily mean the candidate will win. The Democratic Party did the same for recall gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett. That didn’t work out, to say the least. In 2006, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker dropped out to allow U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R–Green Bay) to run by himself against Gov. James Doyle. Not only did Green not win, but he was replaced in Congress by Rep. Steve Kagen, the D in “D–Appleton” standing for “dense.”
Second: When a party chooses a candidate based on his or her ability to self-finance his or her campaign, that says volumes about the state of the party. The Democratic names you’ve heard of — Barrett, Russ Feingold, former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D–Alma), U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D–La Crosse) — have all declined to run for governor, at least so far. Burke’s running as a supposedly “self-financed” candidate means the Democratic Party doesn’t have to spend money (or as much money) on a race the Democrats are probably going to lose. And that’s despite the fact that there is no U.S. Senate race in 2014, which should give the Democrats more money to spend on all other races.
As for Burke herself: I heard her talk once. I don’t remember anything about the talk. A business person running as a Democrat would be a good thing for the state, but only if Burke espoused pro-business policies, such as cuts in taxes and regulation, instead of merely parroting the Democratic bible. It would be interesting to hear Burke’s take on economic development, given that she ran the Department of Commerce just before the state’s economy started to crater under the person who appointed her. That, however, will require taking positions beyond platitudes like “the state should help businesses.”
The Democratic president has suddenly decided the middle class isn’t doing well. That statement requires proposals on how to fix that, and that requires getting out of the usual Democratic claptrap of taking money from those with jobs and shifting it into the government to primarily benefit government employees. I eagerly await the Democratic reform proposals on, for instance, education beyond the phrase “give them more money.” Indeed (not that the Democratic Party ever takes my advice), the Democrats really need to get off the usual menu of abortion rights, teacher unions, the environment (that is, catering to the Earth First! types), public employees and unions. None of those groups represent or support the middle class.
It will be interesting to see if the Democrats run as something other than Not Scott Walker next year. When a majority of state residents, based on the most recent poll, think the state is going in the right direction, that suggests a need for a new playbook, to use a football metaphor. (Start, Mary, by firing your state party chair.) Recallarama blew through a lot of money, but resulted in no change in Madison — we still have a Republican governor, and both houses of the Legislature are still in GOP hands, which was the case after the November 2010 elections, and remained the case after the November 2012 elections. Democrats need to do something substantially different if they are going to earn the vote of the nonaligned voter in 2014.
Today in 1977, John Lennon did not get instant karma, but he did get a green card to become a permanent resident, five years after the federal government (that is, Richard Nixon) sought to deport him. So can you imagine who played mind games on whom?
For the second time, my favorite rock group, Chicago, will play the opening-night concert at the EAAAirVenture in Oshkosh Monday.
Unlike 2010, however, I won’t be there. It is basically impossible for me to be there since I now live about three hours to the southwest, and unlike most of my career before now, Mondays are marathon days at work. And my work doesn’t require an EAA media pass, so I have no professional reason to be there either.
I’m in this photo. Over by the stage.
The 2010 EAA concert was the third time I’ve seen Chicago.
The first time was in Madison (accompanied by much of the UW Marching Band) in 1987, and the second time was in Fond du Lac, when the group was brought in by a local radio station for a fundraiser, in 1997.
The EAA location, however, is the most unique place I’ve ever seen them — on the flight line, with the notes bouncing off airplanes. It’s not a typical music experience, but the opening-night concert has turned out to be one of the best additions to AirVenture.
Chicago is one of the best selling rock acts in rock music history, with 47.7 million albums, singles and music videos and more than $100 million sold, more than such acts as George Michael, Bob Dylan, Cher, the Beach Boys, Kiss, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, the Who, Santana, Foreigner and other rock icons.
Chicago is also one of the few rock acts of the ’60s and ’70s that continues to record and tour with at least some of its original members — trumpet player Lee Loughnane, trombone player James Pankow, saxophone player Walter Parazaider, and keyboard (and “keytar”) player and singer Robert Lamm. Chicago is not, however, in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, even though it should be.
Chicago is either the first or second, depending on how you measure it, brass rock group to get radio airplay. (The second or first was Blood Sweat & Tears.) Horns have been part of popular music for a long time, but Chicago was the first or second act to use horns as part of the melody, not merely as accompaniment.
The first Chicago song I remember hearing was “Just You and Me” in the early ’70s. The first time I saw Chicago was on an ABC-TV special taped at the Colorado recording studio/ranch where the group recorded at least one album.
I got hooked on Chicago a few years after that. It was at my aunt and uncle’s house, which included a reel-to-reel tape player on which my uncle had the entire 12-minute-55-second-long “Ballet for a Girl in Buckhannon,” which includes Chicago’s first released single, “Make Me Smile.” And he played it. Loudly. And as a middle school trumpet player, suddenly playing trumpet meant something. Our wedding 15 years after this included another part of “Ballet,” “Colour My World,” in part because it was part of one of Jannan’s sister’s weddings, but also because of who recorded it.
There are at least five versions of “Make Me Smile” in existence. The three-minute radio single version …
… is the first and last parts of “Ballet,” technically “Make Me Smile” and “Now More than Ever.”
WIBA-FM in Madison used to play “Make Me Smile” from the album and stop on the fadeout before part two. WLS radio in Chicago did a longer single version, initially played only on their airwaves, that combined “Make Me Smile” up to the second “Ballet Song,” that is also part of “The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning,” which runs 4 minutes 25 seconds. Between WLS’ and “The Very Best” was my version, done on a cassette recorder (you remember cassettes, right?) that was about 4 minutes 25.5 seconds, because it included two drum beats that preceded “Now More than Ever” on “Ballet.”
Chicago’s second album, now called “Chicago II,” though it wasn’t at the time (the band’s original name, Chicago Transit Authority, got truncated because of a threatened lawsuit by, you guessed it, the CTA, which apparently didn’t care about nationwide free advertising every time the band got airplay), also includes “25 or 6 to 4,” a song about … writing a song …
… although it could be about filling a weekly newspaper in the middle of the night before production day:
Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Flashing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes …
Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should I try to do some more
25 or 6 to 4
Feeling like I ought to sleep
Spinning room is sinking deep
Searching for something to say
Waiting for the break of day
Anyone who played for a high school or college band should be a fan of Chicago. (That might explain the impressive age range of those attending the concerts, the upper end being, I assume, fans who heard their music in its original release.) The horns are not just an add-on like in the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love”; they were integral to nearly every song, at least until the regrettable sappy ballad phase began with the band’s first number one single, “If You Leave Me Now.” Even in the ’80s, when excessive keyboards crowded out nearly everything else, Chicago still used horns more than any other rock or pop band.
The group’s songs incorporate two of the universal themes of rock and roll, love and rebellion, with ’60s why-can’t-our-world-be-better-than-it-is idealism, and, contrary to most other groups, what you could call observational songs, including “Saturday in the Park” and “Old Days.”
Chicago has a somewhat epic backstory. (Then again, what ’60s group doesn’t?) Pankow tells this story about “Make Me Smile,” which came from Chicago’s second album:
“I was driving in my car down Santa Monica Boulevard in L.A.,” Pankow remembers, “and I turned the radio on KHJ and ‘Make Me Smile’ came on. I almost hit the car in front of me, ’cause it’s my song, and I’m hearing it on the biggest station in L.A. At that point, I realized, hey, we have a hit single. They don’t play you in L.A. unless you’re hit-bound. So, that was one of the more exciting moments in my early career.
If you ever watched singer and bass player Peter Cetera sing, he sings without moving his jaw. That’s because he went to a Los Angeles Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium where, according to Cetera, two Marines took a dislike to him (hair? Cubs fan?) and broke his jaw. Since he was making no money while not singing, he sang through his wired-shut jaw, and ever since then, he hardly opens his mouth to sing.
Chicago played, and recorded albums from, concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Chicago also had a TV special, “Meanwhile Back at the Ranch,” set at the Caribou Ranch recording studio in Colorado.
Then singer and guitarist Terry Kath died in an accidental shooting incident.
A decade later, singer and bass player Peter Cetera left for a (sappy ballad) solo career, right about the time the group was descending into Sappy Ballad Hell.
(Ironically, Cetera’s replacement, Jason Scheff, who looks somewhat like and sounds a lot like Cetera, has been in the band longer than Cetera was.)
Yet, the four originals — Loughnane (whose last name I vow to use for the hero in a future novel), Pankow, Parazaider and Lamm — still play on the road.
That seems to be because, despite the road’s drawbacks (see Bob Seger’s “On the Road Again”), the concerts themselves are a blast to play in. (I learned from my five years in the UW Band and my 25 years out of it that I prefer playing in the band to watching the band. Strange.)
The four of them appear to be having the time of their lives almost five decades after the group began. That’s a really good indicator of how good a concert will be.
The other thing the band appears to have reconciled themselves to is what its fans want — the “old stuff.” The band is now up to 30 numbered albums, plus a couple of concept albums (Big Band and Christmas), so they are still occasionally recording new stuff.
Chicago fans were all atwitter a couple years ago when an unreleased album from the 1990s, “Stone of Sisyphus,” was finally released.
I don’t recall anything from it being played at EAA.
I criticize Chicago for getting away from their early sound. Others criticize Chicago for being popular, as if one cannot do good work and sell a lot of records. (Popularity does not always equal quality, but popularity doesn’t necessarily mean lack of quality, Britney Spears and One Direction notwithstanding.)
One thing Chicago has done since before 2010 is auction off a chance to Sing with Chicago — specifically, on “If You Leave Me Now,” through an online auction whose proceeds go to the American Cancer Society.
The only musical ambition I’ve ever had was, as you know, the UW Band. (Which tried to have Chicago perform with them the day of the Madison concert; unfortunately, the logistics didn’t work out.) The only Walter Mitty fantasy I have (similar to my father the piano player‘s getting to play with Bobby Darin and Ray Charles) is playing with Chicago, although the fantasy of being pulled out of the crowd to perform is, to say the least, highly unlikely. (I’m sure I could play all the Chicago songs I’ve heard, with the exception of the really high notes, but not right off the bat.)
Today, Chicago’s only radio airplay is on oldies stations. Keep this in mind, though: “The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning” (which is currently trapped in my car’s CD player) went double platinum with no new music on it.
Since this post is already hellishly long already, I will conclude that Chicago is the band that … makes me smile.
Sports Illustrated’s new Monday Morning Quarterback site assigned former Packer vice president Andrew Brandt to write about the world’s most unique stockholder meeting:
With profits at an alltime high, thousands of “owners” (fans who hold Packers’ stock certificates) will gather in an 80,000-seat boardroom (Lambeau Field) to hear about the state of the franchise (excellent, if you’ve gotten over last January’s playoff loss). During my time as the Packers vice president, I presented several of these reports breaking down the cap situation to the friendliest group of shareholders you’ll ever find. …
Former general manager Ron Wolf was always quite revealing when describing the team’s strengths and weaknesses. He played to the crowd, saving the quarterback position for last and being sure to describe Brett Favre as “the finest quarterback in the National Football League” to wild applause. The most common question that I received from fans at the annual meeting was, “Is Aaron Rodgers really going to be the guy who takes over when Brett retires?” I always said yes, yet few believed me. Most thought we would pursue a veteran quarterback. Current GM Ted Thompson is far less expansive in his comments, using bland descriptions of players like, “He’s a fine young man and we think he’ll play well for us this year.” Nevertheless, Thompson will draw steady applause.
Following the general manager’s report, the crowd thins. Subsequent reports on finance, marketing, investments, and community relations are important, but the majority of people want to hear about football, not business. And hey, the Packer Pro Shop and Curly’s Restaurant beckon! In recent years the Packers have given shareholders a free tour of Lambeau. It was important to add value, especially to those traveling long distances to attend the meeting, which now occurs before camp opens instead of at the end.
The shareholders’ meeting always reaffirmed my belief that the Packers are much more than a football team. They’re a community, a way of life. Many consider their Packers stock, which isn’t transferable and has no dividend potential, to be one of their most valuable possessions. When managing the Packers’ payroll and contracts, I often thought about what was in the best interest of shareholders. I viewed myself as a steward of a public trust. The closest approximation the Packers have to an owner is the Executive Committee, which deals with only off-field matters. The football operations staff is given complete autonomy in managing the team and player finances. …
Just last week, the rosiest report in franchise history came out: the Packers had a record profit of $54.3 million on revenues of $308 million. The profit represents a 26% increase from last year’s then-record of $43 million. Murphy, however, will try to tamp down the report and point to the cyclical nature of contract negotiations skewing the numbers—this offseason’s lucrative extensions for Rodgers and Clay Matthews will not be reflected until the next year’s report. No matter, this year still illustrates the huge uptick in financial performance for NFL teams since the 2011 CBA. Speaking of which…
Although the Players Association has long implored NFL teams to “show us your books,” the Packers financial statement is the league’s only one available for viewing. Which increases scrutiny on Green Bay from an array of observers. I remember giving a presentation at Stanford during the NFL’s career symposium and being peppered with questions about the report. I begged off, saying I didn’t have the documents in front of me. Upon saying that, the entire audience pointed to the screen behind me, where our revenue and expense chart was being displayed on a PowerPoint!
On a macro level, the Packers’ financials have always been an interesting subject when it comes to collective bargaining. Just like his predecessor, the late Gene Upshaw, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith argues that such a healthy profit—in the league’s tiniest market, no less—is compelling evidence that all teams should be sharing more money with players. I remember having many conversations with Upshaw over lunch during his annual visit to Green Bay. He would look out my office window, down at the Lambeau Field Atrium where tour groups and restaurants hummed along, and say wistfully, “We need to get some of that money.”
I would always remind him that while the Packers are one of the great success stories in all of sport, its unique brand doesn’t compare to anything else in the NFL. More more than 100,000 people are on the season-ticket waiting list, more than a million have toured Lambeau, and practice squad players routinely get recognized on the street. He knew all this, of course, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to argue his case. And to be sure, there is a key number in the Packers’ report that shows a glimpse into all teams’ financials. It’s the national revenue from the league, largely from broadcast deals, of $180 million. The import of that number is this: every team should be able to cover its player payroll from national revenue alone, allowing other income to be used elsewhere. Because there is no true owner taking the money for his/her own personal benefit, the Packers’ profit goes toward renovations and is put into a reserve fund that now exceeds $250 million. For a franchise with no stadium debt, this represents quite a healthy balance sheet.
Lombardi Avenue, meanwhile, shows off the Lambeau Field renovations for those shareholders who couldn’t get to the meeting:
The Packers reportedly claimed Wednesday that the top of the new south end zone is now the highest point in Brown County. That is entirely appropriate.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 