Independent Country

James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.

Thursday, June 05, 2025

Our Democracy

 


Silver dollar certificate, 1886. Photo Credit: Neuroforever


Today (June 5, 2025) is the 142nd birthday of John Maynard Keynes, the English theorist behind Keynesian economics. Keynesianism advocates using the State and its central bank to stabilize the market economy. It calls for government deficit spending to create jobs in periods of high unemployment, and tax hikes during an "overheated" economy to control price inflation.


Keynes's birthday provoked three thoughts, which aren't really about him, but about the nature of his work.


First, the purpose of economics is the same as the purpose of democracy: to stave off revolution. We're told that the government exists to protect our rights. However, the state is based on violence, and all it accomplishes is through violence or the threat of violence. All existing States are inheritors or usurpers of previous States from time immemorial. The rulers rule for the benefit of themselves, their friends, and their allies. 


Democratic institutions and the encouragement of civic participation are concessions by the rulers to keep us emotionally invested in the regime. When the State commits awful crimes and oppresses us, we're encouraged to point our finger at our neighbor who voted for these "leaders" and not at the institutions of the State.. When people organize for the voting booth, they're not organizing revolutions.


However, if the people are starving, they may revolt, regardless of how democratic the system is. That's where the economists come in. They inform politicians about what can and cannot be done to 1) make the people economically dependent on the State, and 2) make this dependence sustainable. That is, to stave off bankruptcy and revolution. The people won't overthrow a system if they're dependent on it and can't conceive of how to replace it.  


My second thought is that jobs are a form of social control. A significant concern of Keynes was unemployment, which was understandable given that his theories were developed during the global Great Depression of the 1930s. 


But why do people need to be employed? How much work do we really need to do to feed and shelter our families? Not a lot, if we want to live simply. Especially if we know how to build things and trade with our neighbors, we wouldn't need much money at all in daily life. However, if we don't work hard at a full-time job, we won't earn a lot of money. That means we won't pay a lot in taxes to fund the military, prisons, and interest on government debt.


That's why the State has a vested interest in keeping us working and encourages us to aspire to attain higher living standards in the form of luxuries (what American politicians call the "American Dream.")


The entire Keynesian model is based on these unspoken premises. Keep us employed so that we can buy more stuff, with the resulting taxes going to political cronies. Use the "stimulus" of deficit-based government spending and subsidies to put more money in people's pockets, increase consumer demand for stuff, and employ more people to make the stuff.


Keynes advocated fiat currency, which creates money out of thin air and whose value is based solely on the credit of the government itself. Much of the world now relies on fiat money because the U.S. dollar is a fiat currency. In the former system, bills were certificates that were exchanged for gold or silver. Precious metals could be put to other uses (jewelry, tableware, electronics); they have practical value. Under fiat currency, however, the dollar bill is inherently worthless because its only value is as a medium of exchange; the dollar can't be used for anything else.


Monetary inflation leads to higher prices, which hurts everyone, but the lowest-income people most of all. Remove all bigotry in America, and there will still be social injustice as long as there is inflation.


And that's not all. My third thought is that inflation is bad for the environment. When the Federal Reserve "prints" money, or creates more money with computer keystrokes to finance government deficit spending, it produces what otherwise would not have been made. It "stimulates" activity that would not have been stimulated. That is, it consumes energy (fossil fuels, etc), and otherwise takes from the planet what would not have been taken at that time.


All for the sake of "jobs," which are for the sake of taxes, which are for the sake of the military, prisons, government debt, and all the programs the government provides to keep us loyal and prevent revolution.


Well, the system has "worked" in that modern democracies haven't had revolutions. But there's no romance in it, and it's hard to ascribe "good intentions" to those with political power, regardless of party. Our leaders don't care if you have a job, or have good schools, or decent medical care. They don't care about you, even as they may provide these things with your taxes. You can tell how much they care about you, about human life, by their foreign policy. Those who would starve and bomb people abroad are perfectly capable of doing the same to you. The only difference is, they want your vote.


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James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You can contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

Tuesday, June 03, 2025

AL and NL MVP Chase Updates

Photo credit: Tage Olsin

The following is an update of the AL and NL MVP Chases through the May 31 games.


The MVP Chase reflects the number of games in which:


  • The player's team won the game

  • The player had three or more Bases Gained (BG): total bases + walks + steals


The chief determinant for the MVP is the sheer number of games in which the player had three or more bases gained (3+ BG) in a victory. When players have the same number of such games, I rank in order of percentage of team victories in which the player had 3+ BG.


In this list, I have included not only the number of 3+ BG in victories, but the overall record of the team when the player has 3+ BG. It gives a clue on how effective teammates are in helping win the games.


AMERICAN LEAGUE  MVP


  1. Aaron Judge, Yankees: 24-9 66.7% of team victories

  2. Rafael Devers, Red Sox 18-8 62.1

  3. Cal Raliegh, Mariners 18-8 56.3%

  4. Steven Kwan, Guardians 17-3 53.1

  5. George Springer, Blue Jays 16-7 51.6

  6. (T6) Paul Goldschmidt, Yankees 15-5 41.7

  7. (T6) Ben Rice, Yankees 15-4 41.7

  8. (T8) Spencer Torkelson, Tigers 15-7 37.5

  9. (T8) Riley Greene, Tigers 15-5 37.5

  10. (T10)Maikel Garcia, Royals 14-5 45.1

  11. (T10) Bobby Witt Jr, Royals 14-13 45.1

 

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE

 

  1. Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers 24-8 66.7% of team victories

  2. Francisco Lindor, Mets 23-4 60.5

  3. Kyle Tucker, Cubs 22-7 59.4

  4. Kyle Schwarber, Phillies 21-5 58.3

  5. James Wood, Nationals 20-8 71.4

  6. Seiya Suzuki, Cubs 20-4 54.1

  7. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs 20-4 54.1

  8. Manny Machado, Padres 17-6 50.0

  9. Freddie Freeman, Dodgers 17-5 47.2

  10. Pete Alonso, Mets 17-4 44.7


Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.


Check out JL Cells for my non-sports weirdness.

Monday, June 02, 2025

The NBA's MVP and All-League teams

 

Photo: Public Domain

The NBA MVP

The Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA) won the NBA MVP Award on May 21. He had won my MVP Chase because, by my measure, he had played great in 50 of his team's victories, far more than any other player.

The NBA voters also agreed with five of my top six finishers in the MVP Chase, and they were in the same order.

The one exception is Karl-Anthony Towns. I had him fourth, because he played great in 32 Knicks victories. He was behind only SGA, Nikola Jokic (39), and Giannis Antetokounmpo (34), and ahead of Jayson Tatum (31) and Donovan Mitchell (29).

The 100 voters of the NBA MVP disagreed. Eleven players received at least one fifth-place vote, and none were Towns. Here's why:

  1. The voters saw SGA, Jokic, and Giannis as the three best players in the game, and also believed, in Jokic's and Giannis's cases, that their teams would have been toast if they hadn't played as well as they did.

  2. Beyond those three, the best players on the winningest teams were Donovan Mitchell of the Cavaliers (64 wins) and Jayson Tatum of the Celtics (61 wins). Of the two, Tatum is the better player and finished fourth in the MVP voting.

  3. Every other team was at least nine games worse than the Celtics; the Knicks won "only" 50 games. When selecting players of similar caliber for awards, voters tend to favor teams with more wins.

  4. Towns is considered a defensive liability.

My measurements tried to account for defense and team cohesiveness by incorporating game +/- into the equation. That is, despite Towns's defense, Towns had more great games than all but three NBA players.

NBA voters, however, tend to look at the player they'd rather have. They also follow the game full-time. The MVP Chase, however, has a blueprint that says, "OK, the data suggests that Karl-Anthony Towns was a major contributor to more victories than all but three players. Give reasons why he shouldn't be 4th on the MVP ballot."

That's the intent of the MVP Chase: to set an objective standard, not to produce infallible results.

All-NBA teams

Towns did make the All-NBA third team. I would have had him on the second team, because in my ideal all-NBA teams, the selections would be position-specific. Jokic is my first-team center, Towns second, and Jarrett Allen (Cavaliers) third.

All five of the MVP Chase First Team agreed with the All-NBA first team. 15 of the top 19 finishers in the MVP Chase are somewhere in the three All-NBA teams. Three of my top 15 were "snubbed:" Allen, Ivica Zubac of the Clippers, and Alperin Sengun of the Rockets.

Thirteen teams won at least 48 games; eleven provided at least one player to the all-NBA teams, and three teams provided two. The Grizzlies (48 wins) and Rockets (52 wins) had no representatives, while Cade Cunningham of the 44-win Pistons made the third team. It's a credit to the coaching and management of the Rockets that they could produce a 52-win team without, in the eyes of NBA voters, a top-15 player.

Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

Check out JL Cells for my non-sports weirdness.