You Know Me Bud
Selig
President Tilghman’s formal statement addressed to U.S. Senator Grassley’s “Roundtable” earilier this month reminded me of Bud Selig’s testimony before Congress in March, 2005. He said that baseball’s steroid’s program was working, and he backed it up with statistics on the declining percentages of positive tests. Commissioner Selig pleaded with Congress to forego regulation of steroids in baseball.
Ms. Tilghman told Sen. Grassley that Princeton’s endowment is working, and she backed it up with statistics on the declining net and real-dollar cost of being an undergraduate at Princeton. She pleaded with Congress to forego regulation of college endowment management, because such regulation would “erode the flexibility” that colleges need.
That sounds like the argument that free-market apologists have been making since 1776 against government regulation of all industries—namely, that regulation would restrict “flexibility”. I like the argument. In 14 years of pitching and bitching about Princeton’s mismanagement of its endowment I never have advocated government regulation. If we don’t fix the problem ourselves it will be like falling out of a boat on the upper Amazon. The same tiger-eating animals are in those waters and in Washington. Although I therefore agree with Ms. Tilghman’s plea to be spared from regulation, her argument in support of the plea is as out-of-touch as Bud’s. She should not have said, and should not say again, that there is no problem. It’s a see-through argument. She should be saying: “we have fixed this problem.” And the only credible fix is this: waive tuition and the tax exemption. We do not need, and cannot justify, either.
Dire as that may sound (despite being obvious), there is comedy in it—as there is in most places. Remember August, 1964, when the Yankees lost a doubleheader in Chicago and on the way to the airport Phil Linz, sitting in the back of the bus, started to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on his harmonica. Yogi, then the manager, sitting in front, yelled “knock it off”. Linz didn’t hear him. He asked Mantle what Yogi had said. Mantle told him that Yogi wanted him to play louder.
We know that the entire Economics and Politics faculty at Princeton continues to advocate more federal regulation, not just regulation of health care insurance, oil profits, hedge funds, banks, mortgages, and baseball, but of everything else as well. So what are the chances that these emminent scholars would find in Pres. Tilghman’s plea for exemption of college endowments from federal regulation (in the name of “flexibility”), a principle of general application, or, at a lower level of expectation, so much as a sunflower seed of logical inconsistency between her prayer for exemption and their own teachings of the beneficence of universal regulation? No chance, of course, and therein lies the humor, at least for me.
But fear not, there is humor for all of you endowment-loving Princetonians as well. Sen. Grassley will stagger around briefly under the platitudinous fungo lofted up by our esteemed field general, be blinded by the glare of her mathematics, and fail to glove the ball. Cover your head, senator. And Phil, play a little louder.
Ms. Tilghman told Sen. Grassley that Princeton’s endowment is working, and she backed it up with statistics on the declining net and real-dollar cost of being an undergraduate at Princeton. She pleaded with Congress to forego regulation of college endowment management, because such regulation would “erode the flexibility” that colleges need.
That sounds like the argument that free-market apologists have been making since 1776 against government regulation of all industries—namely, that regulation would restrict “flexibility”. I like the argument. In 14 years of pitching and bitching about Princeton’s mismanagement of its endowment I never have advocated government regulation. If we don’t fix the problem ourselves it will be like falling out of a boat on the upper Amazon. The same tiger-eating animals are in those waters and in Washington. Although I therefore agree with Ms. Tilghman’s plea to be spared from regulation, her argument in support of the plea is as out-of-touch as Bud’s. She should not have said, and should not say again, that there is no problem. It’s a see-through argument. She should be saying: “we have fixed this problem.” And the only credible fix is this: waive tuition and the tax exemption. We do not need, and cannot justify, either.
Dire as that may sound (despite being obvious), there is comedy in it—as there is in most places. Remember August, 1964, when the Yankees lost a doubleheader in Chicago and on the way to the airport Phil Linz, sitting in the back of the bus, started to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on his harmonica. Yogi, then the manager, sitting in front, yelled “knock it off”. Linz didn’t hear him. He asked Mantle what Yogi had said. Mantle told him that Yogi wanted him to play louder.
We know that the entire Economics and Politics faculty at Princeton continues to advocate more federal regulation, not just regulation of health care insurance, oil profits, hedge funds, banks, mortgages, and baseball, but of everything else as well. So what are the chances that these emminent scholars would find in Pres. Tilghman’s plea for exemption of college endowments from federal regulation (in the name of “flexibility”), a principle of general application, or, at a lower level of expectation, so much as a sunflower seed of logical inconsistency between her prayer for exemption and their own teachings of the beneficence of universal regulation? No chance, of course, and therein lies the humor, at least for me.
But fear not, there is humor for all of you endowment-loving Princetonians as well. Sen. Grassley will stagger around briefly under the platitudinous fungo lofted up by our esteemed field general, be blinded by the glare of her mathematics, and fail to glove the ball. Cover your head, senator. And Phil, play a little louder.
posted by mcd at 10:31 AM
2 comments
