As football fans know, Tim Tebow is currently the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos. Before his time in the National Football League, Tim Tebow played for the Florida Gators, winning two Southeastern Conference championships, two national championships, and the Heisman trophy. As a quarterback in college, he was highly lauded both for his on-field success and off-field personality. Tim Tebow is a devout Evangelical who was known for wearing Bible verses on his eye-black. As an NFL quarterback, Tebow hit the national stage this year, leading his team to multiple late comebacks and taking them well into the playoffs.

Tim Tebow, wearing his eye black as a Florida Gators player. Courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel

Tim Tebow, however, has become one of the most polarizing figures in sports. Simultaneously loved and hated, Tebow drives even those pundits most clueless about sports to argue about his religion, his political beliefs, and the manifestations of them. Then, there are those who have grown to hate not necessarily Tim Tebow but the incessant media attention given to him. It is important to note that these two narratives, while linked, are rooted in different aspects. While Tebow should not receive criticism over the expression of his Christian beliefs, the media certainly should be responsible in its portrayal of him.

In college, Tim Tebow certainly garnered a great deal of media attention, but it was more localized given college football’s regional appeal and based generally on his success as a football player. Certainly, his John 3:16 eyeblack generated some talk, but any non-football praise of him more generally reflected his good character. His debut on the political scene came after his senior season, when Focus on the Family ran an advertisement during the Super Bowl. Pro-choice groups exploded in outrage as word came that Tim Tebow would appear in the pro-life advertisement. Ultimately, the advertisement recalled the situation of his parents, who were approached by physicians advising an abortion of Tim Tebow due to health concerns. The commercial focused on the refusal of Tebow’s mother to undergo an abortion, and Tebow himself only makes a brief appearance.

The arguments continued to this year, where the act of “Tebowing” became hot topic. Tim Tebow, after a successful play, often gives a quick prayer on his knee during the game. While it is certainly not inconspicuous, it is nevertheless an expression of his religious belief.  Tim Tebow is clearly not thanking God for completing that reception or getting a great block downfield. Rather, it is a note of thanks for the success overall that he has achieved. Yet, “Tebowing” soon became a point of derision, to the point where players sacking Tebow would give their own mock prayer. As the New York Times‘s sports blog notes, would the media not immediately attack any player mocking the public religious expression of a player of a different religion? Certainly no one would think to criticize a modern-day Sandy Koufax for skipping a pennant game because of High Holidays.

Detroit Lions player Stephen Tulloch "Tebows" after sacking Tebow. Courtesy of the Denver Post

Rather, it seems today that people are simply unaccustomed to public displays of religious devotion in life. And it is certainly true that a number of other professional athletes, such as Albert Pujols, are quite public about their Christian faith. That said, in the ranks of the NFL, the most famous actions of athletes seem to be less than savory. Between Ben Roethlisberger, Michael Vick, and Donte Stallworth, a less publicized but horrific case of a current NFL player who killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, the public isn’t particularly used to cases of squeaky-clean athletes. The public in this case is so incredulous at a case such as Tebow’s that it almost “has to be” fake. Daniel Foster of National Review echoes this feeling and compares it to the major media attention given to preacher scandals. Perhaps there is some dark secret that Tebow is hiding, and the derision of him is based upon the hope of one’s existence. However, there is absolutely no indication to believe that Tebow is nothing more than a very fervent Christian who feels it is appropriate to attribute his success to God.

This is not to say that Tebow is beyond reproach. What was mentioned above covers the disdain for Tebow as a public evangelical, and the attacks on his religious expression are inappropriate. However, there is a more legitimate criticism that simply a disagreement with his religious expression: Tebow gets far more attention than he deserves. As a quarterback, he can have moments of brilliance, but fundamentally he has major flaws. His throwing motion looks like he’s throwing a shot-put, and while his victories are spectacular, his losses are equally embarrassing. Most frustrating for football fans is that he has received much greater love from the sports media than quarterbacks than he deserves. In comparing his stats and those of Cam Newton, another mobile quarterback, Newton, a rookie from Auburn, has much more passing yards, touchdowns, and completions than Tebow has had in his two seasons.

What is most frustrating is that the media has constructed an image of Tebow as a pitiable underdog. In a commercial for FRS Healthy Energy, Tebow uses lines by his detractors as motivation for his success, such as “They said I couldn’t get a D-1 scholarship,” “They said I couldn’t win a Heisman,” and “They said I couldn’t win a national championship”. The problem is that this hagiography as the “underdog” is simply false. According to the major recruiting services, Tim Tebow was a five-star recruit, the highest possible ranking. Both Alabama and Florida, two premier programs in college football, offered Tebow a scholarship. A brief flip through 2008 editions of football previews shows Florida as the clear favorite to win the national championship. Tim Tebow even won the Heisman trophy as a sophomore in 2007, which was previously unprecedented. To summarize, Tim Tebow was the starting quarterback of one of the best football teams in the best conference in college football. He is many things, but underdog is not one.

Tebow does not deserve scorn, but the media should cool off in its praise of him. This distinction in the criticism of the media treatment, not Tebow himself, must be maintained  It is laudable that there is a good role model for young football fans. Clearly, he should not be criticized for his public expressions of faith. That said, his defenders who want to build him as some eternally persecuted hero against all odds should remember that Tebow was the crusher of underdogs in college. Tebow has gone through a great deal of criticism for his religious beliefs, and clearly that is wrong. However, the media has greatly overreached in trying to build him up as a football underdog struggling against the system.

“As an economic historian, I appreciate what manufacturing has contributed to the United States. It was the engine of growth that allowed us to win two world wars and provided millions of families with a ticket to the middle class. But public policy needs to go beyond sentiment and history. It should be based on hard evidence of market failures, and reliable data on the proposals’ impact on jobs and income inequality. So far, a persuasive case for a manufacturing policy remains to be made, while that for many other economic policies is well established.”

Indeed, Romer makes a cogent economic argument against government preference for manufacturing industries over others. And while she points to increased infrastructure spending as the more economically wise alternative—which she is certainly correct in doing—she merely hints at the truth that the only path to a vibrant, sustainable, socially-inclusive U.S. economic recovery is through support for entrepreneurship and innovation, not subsidies for entrenched corporate and labor interests unsuited to America’s role in the globalized world.

The financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession offer the United States the perfect opportunity to examine the economic failures of the past and chart a new future. This does not mean looking back to the 1950s in search of answers; the world today, and the United States’ place within it, is quite different from the post-war world. Instead, it means playing on America’s comparative advantages in innovation, high-skilled production, and services provision. Though Obama recognized this reality in his State of the Union address, his proposal to subsidize manufacturing seems incongruent even in his own worldview.

Such a stance on manufacturing represents just one example of our nation’s main failure in response to the crisis: a lack of policy imagination that favors returning to the status quo of pre-crisis days, a failure sponsored by the huge corporations and financial firms that profit from a government beholden to their interests.

On trial here is not capitalism. In fact, as economists Edmund Phelps and Saifedean Ammous contend, the dominance of immense companies resembles more the corporatism of Mussolini than the capitalism envisioned by Adam Smith, our Founding Fathers, or any true free-market proponent before or since.

To put it another way, every business goes through a life cycle. At its conception is an idea, a productive and innovative use of capital that garners resources through this ingenuity. As it grows larger, however, it seeks resources not only through fulfilling consumers’ utility, but also by lobbying the government for more favorable tax policies, subsidies, and regulations. In a country like the United States, where money is speech, the richest companies use the government to help them get richer, while new entrepreneurs and startups must fight over whatever resources remain. This barrier to entry is as much political as it is economic, and it serves only to perpetuate itself.

For years, this distorted capitalism thrived in the United States with little visible negative impact (besides, perhaps, increased income inequality—but who was complaining when they could buy a house for 5% down and cash out on the refinance as their house’s value skyrocketed?). But in 2008, the bursting of the financial bubble and the bailouts that followed exposed this perversion of capitalism to all who were willing to look. Truly, the United States’ current iteration of capitalism, in which the government upholds established corporate interests at the expense of new, innovative firms (here is just one example), bears little resemblance to the capitalism upon which it was founded.

Yet we are not doomed. Again, the crisis provides a unique opportunity to reexamine the orthodoxy of the past, to work towards an economy that rewards all Americans for their hard work instead of rewarding a few corporations through government-subsidized inertia. This does not mean that all corporations are bad, that Wall Street should go away, or that a great business cannot become bigger and better. What it means is that all Americans should have the opportunity to contribute their most productive self to the economy, and that anything less is no route to recovery.

The United States can no longer afford to let millions of its workers go underutilized and thus underpaid. While manufacturing—in the high-skilled and innovative sector rather than the archaic—will play some role in America’s economic recovery, it is not the answer to our woes. Indeed, the United States should not want to return to being a manufacturing country when it has the potential to do much better—and when other countries will remain better at manufacturing than it (in most cases). Competing with them will only drive wages lower and government expenditures higher. Instead, we must improve our education system to provide every American with the tools and creativity necessary to innovate. We must support startups and remove preferences for parasitic corporate interests, simplifying the tax and regulatory codes that benefit those with the most expensive team of lawyers. If we are to learn anything from history, we should note that innovation transformed the United States from a British colony into a global superpower. With this in mind, we should look to the new, not the old, for a path to a better future.

The President asserted in the State of the Union address: “Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you—America will always win.” While he was referring there to China’s trade policies, let us hope that he bears the same in mind when crafting economic policy here at home.

Photo Credit: http://galleries.pgatour.com

Photo credit: nytimes.com

Zweig thinks that the reason the NFL insists on withholding the All-22 footage is because they want to keep fans dependent on NFL experts for the types of strategic insight that can be gleaned from All-22. He also suggests that they don’t want to make watching the game too cerebral; they’d prefer to keep it dramatic by showing us the up-close athleticism of the players and the emotion and focus of their faces.

I have a different hypothesis as to why the NFL won’t release the footage: they don’t want us to realize how truly violent the game is.

Anyone who has played competitive football will tell you that the most violent collisions occur off of the ball: on things like kickoffs, punts, and plays in the open field. When a running back runs up the middle, everyone in the immediate vicinity is flying at the ball. That running back takes some vicious hits, to be sure, but—for the most part—he sees them coming. He’s prepared to absorb those blows, and his primary objective is avoiding getting his head knocked off.

The type of off the ball hits, especially on special teams, that are visible on All-22 are much less controlled. Players are running full speed in open space, and when they collide, they often do so at awkward angles and when one of the players isn’t prepared to take a hit. Necks snap back, heads hit the turf. When the camera is trained on the ball, nobody sees these hits. When the camera is watching the whole field, the brutality of the game is on full display.

Football is wildly popular, and the NFL is the most profitable professional sports league in America. Youth football is booming, and while most of these kids will never play for money, the ones that do make the big time fill NFL rosters, and the ones that don’t still watch the games and buy the tickets and jerseys. To a certain degree, getting these kids hooked on football is hugely important to the NFL’s bottom line.

The analogy is perhaps strained, but the NFL is not unlike the cigarette industry: an enormously profitable industry pedaling a product that is harmful. Now, watching the NFL isn’t harmful, and while playing football might give you joint damage, a bad back, and dementia, it won’t give you cancer. But there is no question that concussion-risk is a huge problem for the sport, and letting high school kids slam their brains together inevitably does something more than just “build character.”

The NFL isn’t stupid. It realizes that the number one threat to its long-term profitability is people realizing the risks of playing football—and caring about them enough to stop letting their kids play. Releasing the All-22 footage would make the brutality of the sport that much more apparent.

Cigarette companies want kids to think their product looks dangerous and cool. But they wouldn’t play up the true danger of their product if they could help it. The NFL is no different.

When Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia on December 17^th, 2011, it started a revolution that sent aftershocks around the world, from Egypt to Syria, with plenty others in between.

When the subprime mortgage bubble collapsed in the United States it too affected much of the world, as we saw during the eerily similar crises that followed around Europe.

Now, the world seeks to contain the European sovereign debt crisis.

Italian PM Mario Monti (credit: pbs.org)

All over Europe, people are dissatisfied with the mutli-party political systems that have been in place since World War II. The current frameworks are too divisive for times of such extreme economic distress, and political vitriol is destructive for the health of any nation, as the United States discovered when an argument over the debt ceiling forced its credit rating down to an “AA+”.

In place of party politicians, so-called “Technocrats” – officials not linked to a career in politics, but rather to expertise in their given academic field – have provided beacons of hope for the European (and thus, the world) economy.

In Italy, Mario Monti is pushing to reign in sovereign debt and make Italy a leaner competitor on the world stage. An economist by trade with experience in the European Union, Monti has been described as “competent,” and “gifted,” far cries from Italy’s previous PM, Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi, a media magnate with a wild personality and a history of scandals during his time in office, stepped down as economic conditions in Italy worsened.

Last November, Greece saw the appointment of Lucas Papademos as interim Prime Minister. Papademos, with a background in banking and academia, is arguing for cuts to Greece’s pension system, as well as tax and benefit reform.

Greece's interim, Papademos (credit: telegraph.co.uk)

More and more often, countries are looking for a scientific approach to solving fiscal dilemmas. Two European leaders throughout the current crisis, France and Germany, are working to keep the Eurozone afloat by insisting on tight budgets and lowered deficit spending. Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor and an austere star in the economics world during these past few months, has come out particularly strongly against irresponsible government and tax policies.

Even in the United States, Republican presidential hopefuls have battled over their respective commands of business knowledge. In the end, it seems as if Mitt Romney – who holds business and law degrees from Harvard University – will be the party’s presumptive nominee to run against Barack Obama in the 2012 general election.

So, why a push towards Technocracy? In an economic age in which the complexity of problems is outweighed only by the difficulty of their solutions, leaders with strong academic foundations and little interest in lengthy careers in government offer answers outside of the day-to-day political battles that now seem so petty.

One is reminded of the story of Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who, in a time of war, was called by his fellow citizens to take the role of dictator and save Rome from attack. They found him in his back yard, maintaining his fields. He exchanged his plow for a sword, and led Rome to victory. 16 days after assuming the dictatorship, he returned voluntarily to his farm.

Cincinnatus’ story rings true with many around the world struck with the current sovereign debt crises. Politicians interested in short-term victories and long-term legacies aren’t what Europe is looking for, and the technocratic option has risen to become the most viable one. For now, the deft guidance of expertise will try its best to lead Europe through the storm.

Yes, divorce rates are high in the Untied States relative to other industrialized nations, but so is the rate of remarriage. In America, for example, 50% of children who experience a breakup in their parent’s marriage find themselves in a new stepfamily within three years; a rate much higher than in Sweden (33%), Germany (29%), France (23%), or Italy (8%). If the US divorce rate suggests marriage is dying in America, the rate of remarriage suggests the opposite. What is more, 90% of people in the United States are projected to marry (a figure that has remained stable for the past couple of decades and shows no signs of decreasing). These two paradoxical findings – high rates of both divorce and marriage – indicate that there is more to the story of marriage in America than the TLR article suggests. If marriage were dying, it would not be such a popular institution, nor would so many people rush to remarry after experiencing divorce.

Professor Andrew Cherlin of John Hopkins University, widely regarded as the preeminent researcher in family sociology, explains this paradox by analogizing the state of marriage in the United States to a merry-go-round. American’s are hoping off and on the marriage wagon at a rate much higher than their counterparts in Europe. Cherlin suggests that the confluence of two strong cultural ideals – individualism and matrimony – explains this turbulence in American marriage relationships. They are the cultural forces that spin America’s marriage-go-round, which simultaneously pushes people into and out of marriage relationships.

Although the USA can loosely be described as individualistic since its inception, sociologists use the term expressive individualism to describe American culture in the modern context. This variant form of individualism arose as women began to participate more fully in the labor force and is characterized by an added emphasis on the self. That is, it emphasizes personal and emotional growth and establishes this as the ultimate standard of success. By this new standard, however, many marriages in time fail. Whereas before, women had no choice but to remain in troubled and or devitalized marriages, women in the modern age face no such contraints. Indeed, both sexes have come to regard personal development and growth as the primary purpose of marriage. This cultural ideal pushes many unions toward dissolution and it is one of the main reasons why divorce rates are so high in the United States.

The rate of marriage and remarriage in the United States, however, also remains high. Cherlin explains this by observing that marriage in America remains a strong cultural ideal:

The United States is unique among nations in its strong support for marriage, on one hand, and its postmodern penchant for self-expression and personal growth, on the other hand. You can find other Western countries where marriage is strong, such as Italy…and you can find Western countries with highly individualistic values, such as Sweden…but only in the United States can you find both.

The Cherlin thesis is thus, in one respect, the exact opposite of that offered by “True” Love Revolution. Cherlin posits that it is precisely because marriage remains a strong cultural ideal in America, coupled with the equally strong cultural ideal of individualism, that we see in the United States high rates of marriage, divorce, and remarriage – a situation unique among Western nations.

Who is correct then? There clearly is a mass of sociological literature on both sides of this matter, as there typically is on all hot button issues. There is no need, however, to resign the search for objectivity. Readers should carefully evaluate the explanatory power of the Cherlin thesis, relative to that advanced by “True” Love Revolution. If marriage is dying, why do marriage rates in this country hover around 90%? Why do remarriage rates remain so high after divorce? And why is debate on the definition of marriage so heated in America, relative to other nations? It is precisely because marriage remains a strong cultural ideal in this country that the aforementioned phenomena are observable. It is precisely because marriage still means something important in our society that both liberals and conservatives are fighting so ardently to define it.

The whirlwinds of individualism and matrimony have left marriage in the United States viable, yet fragile. I share with members of “True” Love Revolution a concern for this new fragility and the deleterious effects it has on the rearing of children. I disagree with them, however, on how best to remedy the situation. The TLR article suggests that only in reverting to a “traditional” definition of marriage can we strengthen matrimony. This remedy is nothing more than empty words. If there is one consensus in the sociological community on matters of family, it is that there is no such thing as a “traditional” marriage. Marriage has meant something different from one culture to another and from one generation to the next. Moreover, numerous sociological studies confirm that various family-types are suitable for the proper rearing of children once one controls for confounding variables such as poverty. In the end, the single greatest factor that contributes to the well being of children is stability – something that grandparents, heterosexual parents, and homosexual parents can equally provide.

How to achieve stability in marriage is a question I will not attempt to answer here in any great detail. However, I very much doubt that stability in our time will be found by looking to the past. Newly emerging research suggests that peer marriages, where men and women have equal and indistinguishable roles in matrimony, offer a more resilient marriage model for the present era. Indeed, the circumstances that place modern marriages under duress are unique in world history. For this reason, those who seek to remedy the present situation by offering a pill marked “traditional” offer a therapeutic that has already expired.

Concluding Thoughts

Marriage is not dying; it is only changing. The rise of expressive individualism in the United States coupled with the continuing strength of marriage as a cultural ideal has created a uniquely American context characterized by high levels of both divorce and marriage. For the time being, the confluence of these two cultural forces has resulted in marriages that are much more fragile than has historically been the case. There is hope, however, that in the future new progressive norms around marriage may add stability to these relationships. In the end, marriage itself (no matter how badly bruised by modern forces) remains a viable institution. Indeed, the very fact that marriage is changing suggests its viability. That is a point that perhaps is lost on some conservatives, who time and again fail to see that in society, as in nature, the only things that die are those that fail to evolve.

The four Republican primary candidates are learning the hard way something that every orange-juice-drinking, airboat-riding, sun-bathing, Sunshine State resident has known for a long time: Florida is one big state.

All 50 of Florida’s delegates, now “at-large” due to RNC sanctions, are up for grabs to today’s number one vote getter, but Florida’s political landscape is truly unique. Pinellas County, home to Tampa, holds 26% of the primary electorate. Seminole County has 21% (Orlando), and Miami-Dade County has 14%.

That’s right; more than half of Florida’s Republican primary voters are split between just three counties. What this means for the four Republicans currently romping across my home state is simple: The battle of the airwaves will determine Florida.

Because of Florida’s size and diversity, it’s fairly impractical to try and win the state in a ground game, especially if the election is “winner-take-all,” as it is this year. Rick Santorum won Iowa by knocking on doors and stopping by pizza ranches, but in Florida, we have a name for the cross-state road trip: The 1,000 Mile Journey. Combine that with a reliable elderly voting population that would rather stay home than go to campaign events and the message is clear: stick to commercials.

So who’s the smartest guy in this regard? Mitt Romney. In terms of sheer numbers, Mitt Romney has vastly outspent any of his competitors by millions of dollars in Florida, and the results show it. Including the super PACs that support him, Mitt Romney has aired 12,768 television commercials in Florida as of Wednesday, according to a study by the Wesleyan University Media Project. Newt Gingrich and his super PAC allies have shown just 210. And indeed, according to the most recent poll by Quinnipiac University, Mitt is ahead 43% to 29%.

This influx of advertising is an increase for Romney compared to his 2008 campaign in the state. This is mainly due to the increased influence of super PACs since 2010′s Citizens United ruling.

So, what’s a poor old Speaker of the House to do? Frank Luntz said it best in a recent quote to the Washington Post: “Newt may not have the money, but he has always had the skill of grabbing attention.” Targeting Florida’s space industry, immigrant population, and huge amount of foreclosed homeowners, Speaker Gingrich is focusing his energy on trying to break Romney’s momentum. Besides his sermons preaching a moon colony, Gingrich launched fierce attacks on Mitt’s supposedly anti-immigration past. And increasingly, Newt is hitting Mitt where it hurts: the Governor’s history at Bain Capital and on Wall Street.

As usual, Newt Gingrich shines when he has an enemy. Mitt can count on the Speaker’s unrelenting wrath until at least tomorrow night, but it seems as if the sheer amount of money involved on Romney’s side will carry the day. For now, at least, the lesson is hammered home once more: For a precursor to Florida’s primary results, look to the TV guide, not the town bulletin.

Photo credit: www.adweek.com

With the fourth contest in the 2012 Republican primary season just days away, the race in Florida has become increasingly heated. As evident from recent debates, tensions run high and attacks abound. The Florida primary may very well be the most significant election in the nomination process, providing the champion the momentum necessary to convince the GOP that he is the most qualified. Governor Mitt Romney and Speaker Newt Gingrich have fought tirelessly for the lead in the primary season thus far, and a victory in the Sunshine State would provide a valuable boost to the winner’s campaign. Senator Rick Santorum, recently declared the victor in the Iowa caucus, would also greatly benefit from a first or second place victory, as it would provide the spark that his campaign has lacked since his impressive finish in Iowa. Finally, Congressman Ron Paul, the only candidate who has not claimed a top finish to date, is perhaps most in need of a victory in the near future to provide confidence to his supporters and voters across America.

Photo Credit: David S. Holloway/CNN

Florida offers the winner of Tuesday’s election far more delegates, fifty, than any of the past three states, despite losing half of its votes (it had 99 originally) due to a penalty for setting its January 31 election date earlier than March 1, the earliest date allowed by the Republican National Party. Florida is one of five states, along with New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and Arizona, to suffer delegate losses in 2012 for violating voting date regulations. However, the loss of delegates is likely compensated for by increased influence in determining the future of the election and this is presumably the Florida Republican Party’s motive for setting its date earlier than permitted. This highlights a recent trend of states attempting to move their primary election dates earlier each election year in an effort to be more influential in determining the nominee. A primary in a state such as Florida with an earlier voting date could play a significant role in the primary process, resulting in a candidate dropping out or gaining momentum that he rides to the nomination, while a state whose election is on Super Tuesday (when eleven other states are voting) is relatively inconsequential in determining the nominee, who may have all but won the race at that stage.

So who is in prime position to win Tuesday’s race? Following last week’s South Carolina primary in which Gingrich defeated Romney by a 13 point margin, Gingrich enjoyed a seven point lead in Florida. His strong debate performances were mostly responsible for this lead, in which his fiery rebuttals to Fox News’ Juan Williams and CNN’s John King received standing ovations and impressed conservatives. Coupled with Mitt Romney’s relatively dry debate performances and the criticism the Governor received for how he handled calls to release his tax return statements, Gingrich began to win over skeptics who previously thought he was incapable of defeating President Obama. However, according to the latest Rasmussen poll released Thursday, Speaker Gingrich’s lead has evaporated, as Mitt Romney has jumped into the front runner position, claiming 39% support in Florida, compared to Gingrich’s 31%; Rick Santorum has 12% support in Florida, and Paul (who has actually already moved to Maine to begin campaigning) has just 9%. Without the luxury of another debate, Gingrich may not be able to recover his lead before Tuesday.

The candidates know the economy will be at the forefront of concerns for Floridians, who suffer from a 9.9% unemployment rate. While all claim they will cut taxes drastically and balance the budget to reduce the U.S. debt, Romney has an edge as a result of his business experience at Bain Capital (though this has been used against him in recent weeks as well). Another issue that is significant to Floridians (17.3% of which are retired) is entitlement reform, and Social Security and Medicare reform are issues that all the candidates have promised to address as President. All candidates publicly support Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposals for reform, but none have offered specific plans that have attracted significant attention. These two issues, the economy and entitlement reform, are key issues in the Florida election, and will be in the general election, but no candidate has emerged as having the strongest, most supported plans to date, which emphasizes the significance of this election to the future of the primary season.

One thing is certain: Tuesday’s election has the potential to provide momentum to the victor and a major inhibitor to those with weak performances. And while the selection of the nominee does not hinge solely upon the results, it will likely provide clarity on the future of the race, with the hectic March rush just around the corner.

Photo Credit: International Business Times

Now, standing at the end of the thirty-year-old Apollo project that took men to outer space and then to the Moon, there is a grim feeling among us, especially those who shared the excitement of the moment when Neil Armstrong’s foot touched the extraterrestrial dust on the cover of the Moon. As the Apollo project takes its place on the dusty covers of history, and Atlantis, the last space shuttle, completes its mission, it is quite clear to many that humankind’s dreams of exploring the secrets of the outer space is quietly dying with the project as well.

What will happen to the dreams of the previous generation, to the dream of mankind walking among the stars? The next target, the next dream has been to successfully send a person to Mars and bring him safely back to Earth. However, as a society, we face many critical problems that prevent us from achieving this dream.

John F. Kennedy during his famous speech in Congress.

First of all, the public faces diminishing marginal returns from space exploration. Placing satellites into orbit in inner space has distinct advantages compared to sending probes to outer space, especially manned ships. The most obvious advantage is the economic one: it much cheaper to send a rocket into the Earth’s own orbit than to send one into the orbit of another planet. It is also true that we obtain many societal advantages from our satellites and probes in Earth’s orbit; these devices have revolutionized weather forecast, telecommunications, geology, and agriculture. Other than the overhyped “colonization of outer planets to save our species” argument, we do not get the same level of tangible benefit from the probes we send to Mars or the rest of the Solar System.

Second, it is unfortunate yet accurate to state that society in the 21^st century does not share the same passion for outer space exploration that its counterpart in John F. Kennedy’s time did. A major component of space exploration is the sheer human curiosity and imagination that drive humanity’s passion to always move forward. Revenues gained from the public are used to finance these exploration projects, and without the same amount of dedication and determination from society, it is quite difficult to convince the public to pay billions of dollars for a mission whose social and economic returns are unclear.

Another major obstacle is the technological barrier that aeronautical engineers have to overcome. Sending probes without humans into space is technologically complicated enough. Adding the human variable complicates the process beyond imagination. We can send humans to Mars with the current technology we have, but we do not possess enough technology to supply the force needed to bring them back from the surface of Mars.

All of these arguments leave us with an upsetting question: has the Space Age come to an end?

The historic moment: Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the surface of the Moon, with the flag of the U.S.A.

The leaders of the last space race from the Cold War, the United States and Russia, still have the most developed space technology in the world by far, but both seem to have prioritized social engineering over rocket engineering. Although the Russian agencies are continuing their space missions to some extent, the most likely future leaders in space exploration are the Chinese and Indian governments. The Chinese government has made considerable progress in space exploration, including sending a man into orbit in 2003, becoming the third country to do so. Yet the Chinese still have no rigid government agenda like the one John F. Kennedy had in 1961 . Even if they manage to send a man to the moon in the next decade or so, they are still more than half a century behind the original space race.

Many argue that private companies can prosper in the space race in lieu of public investment. Considering the economic and technological circumstances of outer space exploration beyond the Moon, however, this is a highly unlikely option. Sending a space tourist to the International Space Station costs around $30 million, while the cost of the Apollo program was nearly $20 billion (which is significantly more in today’s dollars). Yet, considering the fact that only a handful of people can afford space tourism beyond the limits of Earth’s atmosphere, it is quite unrealistic at this point to imagine that private enterprises can pick up from where NASA left off.

As men decide to walk only on Earth, it seems as if the dreams of an entire generation – to walk among the stars, to go where no man has gone before – are slowly falling into the ancient pillars of history.

Photo Credit 1: NASA History Office

Photo Credit 2: Daily Mail

Like many Establishment Republicans, I spent last weekend wondering what was happening to the world. Newt over Mitt? Why?

Because Newt is more conservative? No

Labeled “the least conservative candidate” by conservative standard-bearer George Will, Gingrich has often strayed from modern conservatism—here’s a (partial) rundown. He pushed the federal health insurance mandate long before Romney implemented a state mandate, and he later applauded the passage of Romneycare. He has savaged Bain Capital in particular and private equity in general, fundamentally questioning free enterprise and “embarrassing” himself in the Wall Street Journal’s estimation. He attacked Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform plan, the conservative political Bible, as “right wing social engineering.” He appeared in an ad with Nancy Pelosi pushing for climate change solutions, his immigration stance is well to the Left of Romney’s, and he was the victim of conservative rebellion as Speaker of the House.

If Gingrich had stood by his less-than-conservative beliefs, that would be one thing. He could say, ‘yeah I have some positions that don’t mesh with orthodox conservatism, but at least I’m being honest with you about what I believe.’ He hasn’t, though. He branded his support for a health insurance mandate “wrong,” called his denigration of Paul Ryan’s reform plan a “mistake,” and referred to the climate change ad as “probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years.”

So Newt isn’t more conservative than the alleged Massachusetts moderate, and he’s a flip-flopper too. We can rule out consistent conservatism as the reason for the Gingrich surge.

Is it because he is the populist in the race? No

Romney and Gingrich may both seem out of touch—Romney because he really is smarter and more successful than most, Gingrich because he only thinks he is. Romney is an elite by nature, Gingrich by choice. Newt is the author of perhaps the most elitist note in history in which he characterized himself as an “Advocate of civilization, defender of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, arouser of those who form civilization, organizer of the pro-civilization activists, and leader ‘possibly’ of the civilizing forces.” He was pompous enough to suggest he is such a good historian, not just such a good Washington insider, that Freddie Mac paid him $1.6 million for his opinion, and he has revealed that he made $60,000 per appearance on the speaking circuit. Personal qualities in general can’t be driving the Gingrich surge given his history of infidelity, ethics charges, Tiffany’s expenditures, and more.

If voters were looking for the most non-elite candidate (Ron Paul aside), they would have gone to Santorum, not Gingrich.

 So is it because Newt is better equipped to handle today’s issues? No

The central issue of this entire election season is the economy—Romney markets himself as the turnaround artist and business expert who will fix it, but Gingrich has no similar case to make. Romney’s strengths and the needs of the country overlap well, but Gingrich has no business experience to bring to the White House. Instead, he is a Washington insider and former politician, and thus he cannot speak to the anti-Washington sentiments and economic frustrations many Americans are feeling.

Voters may be looking for someone who can debate Obama in the fall, and Newt is a good talker, but so is Mitt. It’s not critical current issues that are behind the Gingrich resurgence.

What the Gingrich appeal is really about

If the Gingrich appeal is not about conservatism, populism, or solutions for today’s pressing issues, then what is it about? It’s about anger. Gingrich has been successful because he has been the maddest.

Republican primary voters are furious about the Obama presidency and the direction of the country, and Gingrich manifests that anger better than any other candidate. His tirades against the liberal media and personal attacks on President Obama are met with standing ovations and roaring applause. Romney, meanwhile, channels Ronald Reagan, cheerfully focusing on American exceptionalism and optimistically looking forward to an “American century” guided by conservative ideals.

The problem is, this isn’t the Reagan era. Just look at how many times per day Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, “thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican,” is violated. Good candidates like Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty who didn’t embrace the doctrine of anger have failed. Huntsman’s characterization of President Obama as a “remarkable leader” was a near campaign-ender in its own right, and Tim Pawlenty was derided for refusing to repeat his attack line on Obamneycare in front of Romney. They weren’t mean enough, mad enough.

In South Carolina, this primary was really about, to the exclusion of nearly all other considerations, who showed the most anger. Gingrich’s indignation may score him more victories, but only if Romney doesn’t take note. All Romney has to do is start spitting some venom. Candidates for public office attack and question one another’s character and qualifications all the time, but this is different. This is about anger for anger’s sake.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Let me be clear, I sympathize with the pro-piracy crowd (or are they anti-stopping-piracy? Or anti-“censorship”? Is this the reverse of the anti-life vs. anti-choice conundrum?) I find the prospect of having to pay for content that could be free intensely annoying. To think, the only thing standing between me and watching the new Katherine Heigl movie for free is the greed of some multinational corporation! I’ll try not to consider the possibility that my desire to avoid parting with my own hard-earned cash is fundamentally similar to the desire of an artist to be paid for their work.

Leaving aside the individual moral implications of internet piracy, let’s take a look at some of the blogosphere’s arguments on the economic and policy implications.

Our own Tom Leberg runs down the ways that SOPA and PIPA were hopelessly flawed and would have negatively impacted sites that don’t help people pirate. These problems make the proposed legislation unpalatable. The idea of enforcing intellectual property protections online in general, though, deserves a more realistic discussion than the one it is currently receiving.

Matt Yglesias, in his infinite trendiness, is against stopping internet piracy and in favor of “illegal competition [as] a valuable consumer pressure on the industry.” ¡Viva la revolucion!

Yglesias argues that the deadweight loss created when a producer charges money for an extra copy of a TV show episode that was essentially free to produce is mitigated by illegal downloading. This blatantly ignores the fact that while the copy of the episode was free to produce, the episode itself was not. Yglesias, perhaps, would prefer if producers covered their costs from the ticket fees of live studio audiences only.

Caleb Crain, also of Slate, does a fairly good job of taking apart Yglesias’s argument that piracy is OK because the money not spent on a pirated item enters the economy in other ways:

If I were to visit the Slate cafeteria, sit in Yglesias’ chair, and eat his lunch, it’s not as if the money that I failed to spend on a lunch of my own would vanish into a black hole. No! The economy will not suffer! Yglesias, after all, will have paid for the lunch I ate, and the money that I didn’t spend would still be in my pocket or my checking account or whatever. So I could take that money and spend it on, say, the new Shins album. Now I can afford vinyl! Flourish, Keynesian multipliers, flourish!

Still, I think he misses the point as much as his colleague. Poking holes in a flimsy Yglesias argument is a far cry from suggesting a better intellectual framework for the discussion.

Yglesias takes a stab at using deadweight loss to justify his position, and Crain somehow manages to take apart this justification despite the fact that he clearly doesn’t know what deadweight loss is. I think it makes sense, then, for me to take a stab at explaining the reality of internet copyright laws with another topic from introductory economics: the excludability of goods.

As defined by Harvard Economist, Mitt Romney’s continually ignored economic advisor, and prolific textbook author N. Gregory Mankiw, a good is excludable if “someone can be prevented from using it.”

Congress can't stop you from looking at these fireworks. Can they stop you from downloading songs?

So, for example, a private party with N. Gregory Mankiw is excludable because I can station bouncers at the door to prevent you from entering unless you’ve paid the cover charge. Conversely, a fireworks show in celebration of N. Gregory Mankiw’s birthday is not excludable, because I can’t realistically prevent you from standing 100 yards away from where I’m launching the fireworks and enjoying all of the pretty colors.

What isn’t immediately obvious, but is immensely important to this analogy, is the government’s role, or lack of role, in these two scenarios. In the case of the private party, if you somehow manage to overpower my bouncer and get into the party, the government will intervene by sending a police car and arresting you for trespassing.

In the case of the fireworks, the government isn’t going to help much. But they could. If Congress decided that you “stealing” my fireworks show was a grave concern worthy of sparing no expense to solve it, they could build really high walls around my fireworks display, or put together a special anti-fireworks-stealing-task-force to hunt you down and shield your eyes. The reason they don’t do these things is because they’re impractical. The cost of government enforcement of my profit-earning-potential outweighs the benefit.

This same logic holds for things like music and movies. If the government can cheaply and easily prevent you from pirating stuff (and if our elected officials want to), they should. If, on the other hand, the costs—which might include, I don’t know, the internet shutting down in protest—outweigh the benefits, they shouldn’t. This issue isn’t so much one of morality, or even of government incompetence (although it is that too). It’s an issue of practicality. If a law isn’t worth enforcing, it shouldn’t be enforced.

The other interesting wrinkles to this are the international implications. Whereas Yglesias’s argument about the health of the market might hold to a certain degree within the US—that is to say, the US economy probably isn’t hurt a great deal by something like an American pirating a song owned by an American record label, assuming they spend the money they’re saving from pirating on American products, a big caveat—it’s a whole other ballgame when we go global.

At the risk of generalizing, the US has a competitive advantage over the rest of the world in creating things (designs for iPhones, pharmaceuticals, and even media), and a competitive disadvantage over the rest of the world in making things (assembling those same iPhones). Because of this, the US government is right to be preoccupied with international intellectual property law. It’s why you see it near the top of the agenda for every trade negotiation with a foreign country. The relationship to copyrighted material on the internet is this: even if it isn’t worth the government’s time and resources to prevent Americans from pirating, it certainly is worth at least some resources to prevent foreigners from pirating.

Unfortunately, this is where practicality rears its ugly head once again. The internet has no borders, and there’s a good chance that any site that assists Russian kids in pirating music helps American kids do the same. From there, things are complicated further by the fact that the Russian kid might spend that surplus income on an American product, and the American kid might spend his surplus on a Russian product. In the end, the walls that would have to be built to keep American intellectual property excludable may be just too tall. Our conversation, at the least, should be about what shape those walls would need to take, and if they are worth building.