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By Brian Nichols

March 9th marks the official start to the NFL Free Agency period. For those of you unaware as to what free agency is, here is a basic summary:

-NFL teams have the choice to either a) let their currently players with expiring contracts test the open market as a free agent, thus allowing them to sign with any team or b) players are cut by their respective teams based on their age, injury history, off-the-field issues, inflated contract salaries, etc and then are allowed to test the open market as a free agent (again, free to sign with any team).

While this is an extremely basic introduction to NFL Free Agency, it is useful background for those of you reading this article with no prior football background.

While teams were preparing for this years free agent market, I began to think about the realities of the NFL marketplace, where players and draft picks are being bought, sold, and traded and how the NFL, with its self imposed salary cap for each team, proves that socialism doesnt work.

For some background, it is important to note that each team is granted a league-determined salary cap. This salary cap is a dollar amount imposed by the league each year that restricts teams from spending boatloads of cash for players. The idea of the salary cap was to create a more fair system in which all teams were placed on a level playing field in terms of how much money they can spend on players. While teams like the Dallas Cowboys have billions of dollars at their disposal, smaller-market teams like the Cleveland Browns have no such resources. This years salary cap per team is a whopping $167 million per club. This means that each club has up to $167 million in funds that they can allocate to player salaries.

To put this in perspective, lets consider a hypothetical football team: The Libertarian Ninjas. The Ninjas, like all 32 other NFL teams, will be allowed to spend up to $167 million in player salaries this year. They can determine how it is they want to spend that $167 million, but they cannot spend more than that fixed amount of salary. Some teams are able to finagle their salaries to fall well below the league imposed cap, while still signing some good players (while other teams not so much).

This background into free agency and the salary cap bring me to my main point: The NFL is proving, without a doubt, that their socialized salary cap does not work.

Take for instance, the typical NFL quarterback. Quarterbacks are arguably the most important players on any team. Teams that have good quarterbacks to what they can to keep them, while teams without good quarterbacks search tirelessly to find one.

The average salary for a quarterback in the NFL ranges between $15-$20 million per year, but this number is, without a doubt, smaller than it should be.

Consider the following: Yes, NFL quarterbacks are statistically the highest paid players on their respective teams. But are they getting a true market value for their services?

The answer is both yes and no, and heres why.

Yes, while the quarterback market is dictated based upon the value of a good quarterback, the scarcity of good quarterbacks, and the value teams place in good quarterbacks, their actual market value is substantially deflated thanks to the NFLs salary cap. With only $167 million allocated for each team to spend on player salaries, teams must be weary in terms of how they allocate those funds. So while a quarterback position might be receiving one of the highest average salaries in the NFL, it is only relative to the salary cap that has been imposed by the league.

To better contrast this, consider if there was no NFL salary cap-

Currently, Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts is the highest paid quarterback (based on his average annual salary) at $24.6 million per year. That means at his current annual salary, Luck takes up 15% of the Colts salary cap space. To put this in perspective, Luck is valued at the price of 2 Richard Shermans (Cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks, whose annual salary comes in around $14 million).

Now, for you football fans out there, I ask you this: Would you rather have 1 Andrew Luck, or 2 Richard Shermans? Yes, Sherman is a great player, but if you were able to have a strong quarterback like Luck on your roster versus 2 strong corners, wouldnt you want the quarterback? And if so, how much would you be willing to pay for him?

One could argue that in a world without the NFL salary cap, great players such as Luck or any other stellar quarterback, would make tens of millions of dollars more than they currently are now, as teams would be willing to pay as much for their services.

See, even though the NFL imposed the NFL salary cap with the goal of implementing fairness in the league, they ended up hurting their own employees: the players.

Instead of players being justly compensated for their skills, teams are forced to pay lesser salaries relative to the salary cap. Instead of an amazing quarterback like Tom Brady making $50 million per year (as many could argue he deserves), the NFL salary cap keeps his annual salary around $20.5 million.

This also doesnt take into consideration the fact that the NFL, which wouldnt exist without its players, is projected to bring in $13 billion in revenue next year.

If anything, the NFL has shown that despite their claims to be promoting fairness, they are in fact promoting unfairness, especially when it comes to their players.

capitalismcapitalism v socialismeconomicsmarket valueNational Football LeagueNFLSocialism

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NFL Free Agency: How the NFL Salary Cap Proves that Socialism Doesn't Work - The Libertarian Republic

Bernie Sanders captivated the hearts and minds of tens of millions of Americans when he ran for president in 2015 and 2016 manyof them young and relatively new to the political arena.

In his doomed candidacy for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination, Sanders spoke with unbridled (and unpolished) passion about the economic injustice that so marks American society. As the campaign wore on, he expanded his message to include racial and environmental justice, as well as the most anti-imperialist platform a major presidential candidate has put forth in recent memory (although admittedly that isnt saying much).

It was Sanderss honesty and integrity on these issues that allowed him to bypass what many pundits assured the American people, time and time again in the mainstream media, in debates, and in thinkpieces for liberal sites such as the Huffington Post, was his greatest political weakness: the word socialism.

Sanders had identified as a democratic socialist at least since his tenure as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, where he had taken a hard line against business interests that sought to undermine local labor.

Interestingly, Sanders seemed to (whether consciously or not) distance himself from the label during his presidential campaign, for all the good it did him. When pressed on the subject by Stephen Colbert (who hilariously called Sanders a liberal and a socialist in the exact same sentence), Sanders fell back on the social democratic record of Scandinavian nations such as Denmark and Norway, touting those nations better education records and higher standards of living.

Redefining socialism as social democracy may have played well for the liberal-progressive audience Sanders was courting on Colbert, but with this tactic (which Sanders would use many, many more times throughout the campaign) Sanders drew the ire of the Left, of true socialists, Marxists, communists, anarchists, et al.

Many of these people seemed personally offended that a SocDem like Sanders would take up the mantle of socialism, which calls for a democratic and worker-controlled society, emphatically not the still-bourgeois-but-with-more-welfare state Sanders seemed to beadvocating.

Sanderss shaky record on American imperialism, such as his lukewarm supportfor (or, more accurately, his failure to ardently oppose)imperialist Israel, was a frequent target of criticism from the Left. Never mind that Sanderss position was by far the leftmost of any candidate in either major party; many Leftists would accept nothing less than total ideological purity.

Sanders was also accused of being a sheepdog for the Democrats an establishment shill who runs a destined-to-lose campaign to the left of the partys preferred candidate, then serves to shepherd their voters back to the center during the general election. When Sanders was ultimately defeated and endorsed rival Hillary Clinton, most of Sanderss critics felt (somewhat-justifiably) vindicated.

Today, many months after the end of the Democratic Party and after inaugurating a new, reactionary president, many on the Left are just so over Bernie Sanders. To some, his campaign has shown just how fruitless reformism is destined to be, and how ultimately useless electoral politics (at least on a national level) are for those yearning for The Revolution. No more charismatic leaders, no more ideologues, no more saviors.

But what many on the hardline left have forgotten, and what everyone on the Left should be celebrating, is the energy and life the Sanders campaign has brought to our movement.

Of course Sanders is not a real socialist whatever that is. He is still a liberal, albeit as far to the left as a liberal can be. His brand of social reform ultimately serves only to prolong the life of capitalism by putting a friendly, more caring face on it. (The fact that those policies could potentially save millions of lives is rarely discussed among these circles.)

That does not mean that Sanders is not well-intentioned, or that he has not been a boon to all stripes of American socialists.

A YouGov surveyin early 2016 showed as hysterical reactionary publications like The Federalist and Breitbart were quick to explain away as a result of millennials not knowing history that millennials have an overall higher opinion of socialism than capitalism. Another studythat year, from Harvard, showed a majority of millennials rejecting capitalism.

This is striking because it has never happened before in American history, with any generation. While it is quite probable that many of those surveyed were basing their conception of socialism on Sanderss SocDem reduction of it, the point is that the word is no longer scary. It is no longer an automatic disqualifier. And thousands upon thousands of eager young people will be taking to the internet and to their local library to get the skinny on what the word their parents detest with such fervor actually means.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, American conservatives and liberals alike have proclaimed that the irrationality of socialism and communism have been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. Socialism in the United States has been so identified with Marxism-Leninism that the idea that true communism (as defined by Marx) has never actually existed would puzzle most Americans, factual as it may be.

But when young people do independent research, when they are put on a path of self-discovery to understand a term and its historical background of their own vocation, they are immune to the misinformation decades of American propaganda has instilled. This is what the Bernie Sanders campaign has inspired: thousands upon thousands of young people who want to know what socialism really is.

Some will no doubt be scared away by obscure terms like means of production and dictatorship of the proletariat. Others will learn for the first time (thanks, garbage American public education!) the link between socialism and communism and be turned off.

But many others will realize that the vision of socialism really isnt so bad. Many will begin developing a true class consciousness. Many will discover Marx and his political descendents in the course of their research, and become radicalized into the Left proper.

I know because that is exactly how it happened with me. I used to scoff at communism and think of socialism as simply when the government controls industry. Sanders inspired me (and thousands of others) to take another look, to think for ourselves, and to question whether or not capitalism can really be reformed. Along the way, I discovered that Christianity and socialism are much more compatible than I ever would have dreamed.

Sanders has the wrong idea about how to liberate the working class capitalism cannot be reformed and must ultimately be done away with. But he is earnest in his wrongness, and through his talent for energizing his base, will inspire many more in the years to come to move further and further to the Left. A gateway drug to the Left, if you will.

He has done this by relentlessly questioning the status quo, even if his solutions do not go far enough. What he has proven to all of us is that sometimes you do not need all the right answers to make a difference; sometimes, merely asking the right questions is enough.

More here:
Socialism By Any Other Name - Why Bernie Sanders Matters to the ... - Patheos (blog)

Socialism missing from religion: SC The Hindu The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern at the threat of musclemen taking over charge of religious assets and properties. Everywhere with temple and church properties there is a problem ... there is a problem of musclemen taking over temple ...

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Socialism missing from religion: SC - The Hindu

Filmmaker Michael Moore once celebrated Venezuela's socialism, but it has brought average Venezuelans nothing but misery. (AP)

Sometimes it's been hard to tell with socialist filmmaker Michael Moore whether he's trolling you or really serious when he says certain things. Case in point: An old tweet on Venezuela, vintage 2013, in which Moore celebrated the nationalization of that nation's oil company, PDVSA. It's been an unmitigated tragedy.

"Hugo Chavez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all," Moore tweeted nearly four years ago.

Time hasn't been kind to Moore, in many ways. This tweet in particular now seems like little more than rank ignorance by someone who actually seems to believe that socialism a system that has never succeeded anywhere it's been tried on earth is superior to the free market.

But we shouldn't be surprised. After all, Moore's "documentary" "Sicko" paid glowing tribute to the Stalinesque, two-tier Potemkin village that is the Cuban health care system. Moore was used by Cuba's communist rulers, who let him film scenes of "typical" Cuban health care in clean and well-stocked medical centers that were used exclusively by VIPs, communist officials and cash-only foreigners.

He didn't film what the average people are subjected to: filthy clinics, bloody and bug-ridden hospital beds, medicine shortages and substandard care.

So you wouldn't expect Moore to get Venezuela's oil disaster right, either.

We mention this old tweet now because in a piece this week in Forbes, Johns Hopkins University economist and energy expert Steve Hanke shows just how wrong Moore was, calling Venezuela's PDVSA "the world's worst oil company." It's not hard to see why.

After socialist Hugo Chavez took Venezuela over in 1999, oil output for the newly nationalized oil company immediately began to slide, along with the nation's proved reserves. In 2003, faced with growing unrest and resistance to his heavy-handed rule, Chavez purged the company's management and replaced them with his socialist cronies.

The result has been an utter disaster. Venezuela used the oil company as a national cash cow, draining its coffers for short-term social spending projects that came to nothing. PDVSA, meanwhile, is a company in collapse.

Chavez died in 2013, which is what prompted Moore's tweet. But he was replaced by Nicolas Maduro, another deluded socialist. The country's decline has continued apace, and so has PDVSA's.

Hanke notes that the giant oil company owes just over $10 billion this year in debt payments but, after being raided repeatedly for its cash, is desperately short of financing for badly needed investment. Citing unnamed sources, Hanke says PDVSA has just $2 billion in cash on hand, while the government's foreign exchange reserves all it really has to stave off mass starvation, since Venezuela imports most of its food stand at just $10.5 billion.

Oil output is off 23% since Chavez came to power.

PDVSA, says Hanke, is in a "death spiral." So is the entire country.

Venezuela's devastated oil company, which sits on one of the world's largest pools of oil, is emblematic of the entire deeply troubled country. Because of the imposition of socialism, Venezuela's economy is collapsing. The once-prosperous nation is now ranked 179th in the world on the Heritage Foundation's respectedIndex of Economic Freedom, just ahead of another socialist paradise: North Korea.

Today, Venezuela suffers from endemic corruption, 800% inflation, a -19% annual GDP growth rate, and interest rates of over 20%. Rampant food shortages are causing malnutrition, and all the diseases that come from that. One area of improvement: Income inequality. Now, most of the country is equally poor, with the exception of those in power.

Maduro, of course, blames his country's woes on "capitalism." It's a bad joke, but it doesn't hurt capitalists. It hurts average Venezuelans. Children die for lack of decent food and medicine. Jobs are scarce, and families are being destroyed. Crime is rampant: The murder rate is now the highest in the world, a dubious honor that makes it safer to live in downtown Damascus or Tripoli than in Venezuela's capital of Caracas.

Just like the Castros in Cuba, Venezuela's older socialist twin, Chavez, Maduro and their allies have turned a country once known for baseball and beauty pageants into a living hell. Michael Moore and the many other celebrity fools who have held out Venezuela as a shining example of enlightened socialism should be ashamed.

Today, in the U.S., more than a third of college students in recent polls give a big thumbs up to socialism, preferring it to U.S. style capitalism. So here's an antidote to this Moore-inspired foolishness: Rather than continue to waste money on their kids' obviously useless left-wing indoctrination at college, parents would be wiser to fork over their money instead for their precious progressive snowflake to spend a year studying in that socialist paradise, Venezuela. That would be a real education, one that would last a lifetime.

RELATED:

Venezuelans Now On A Forced Starvation Diet Thanks, Socialism!

Venezuela: Why Can't The Left Take Voters' 'No' For An Answer?

Socialism Is Dying Everywhere Except For The U.S.

Link:
An Old Tweet From Michael Moore Underscores That Socialism Doesn't Work Ever - Investor's Business Daily

The logo of the legendary Mosfilm Studios, depicting the Vera Mukhina sculpture Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. | Mosfilm

Dear Editor,

I thank you for your recent article Ten films that shook the world, detailing ten very earlySoviet films, as we look towards the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik victory over royal imposters, oppressors of the masses,and archaic forms of autocracy.

I am an arm-chair historian and am already working my way through these films, at least the ones that are easilyavailable online. Thank you, once again!

If you ever get the chance, consider viewing the Nazi propaganda films such as The Eternal Jew, and the work of LeniRiefenstahl on behalf of that insanewallpaper hanger and thelittle corporal, Herr Schicklgruber.These films, especially The Eternal Jew, are so outrageous in proclaiming every lie about the Jews.

Finally, Im out here in rural western Wisconsin, small towns mostly, so having your work andeducational phone/video conferences keeps the flame alive in my heart that once we move beyond the currentultra-right, so-called populist regime that we will one day come to realize, more and more, Bill of Rights socialism being embraced by the working class in our land.

In solidarity,

Darren Foster

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Enjoying Bolshevik films and hoping for socialism - People's World