Monday, November 29, 2010

Hot Links!

1. Mary Anastasia O'crazy is starting to make sense to me.

2. Why Albert Pujols should own a piece of the Cards.

3. Hayek uber alles.

4. Tyler revises his views on the progress of Obamacare.





1 comment:

Dirty Davey said...

Interesting. Re: Pujols. I recall that when Magic Johnson retired the first time he had some small share of ownership in the Lakers, but when he un-retired he had to sell that stake in order to re-join the NBA players' association.

(Some of the below may also be in the article -- all I can read is the teaser)

Professional sports is an odd field in that (a) labor/management conflicts are fierce, (b) labor is well-compensated, and (c) franchises are privately owned.

In the regular economy, almost everyone compensated with a significant ownership stake is a part of management. In sports, a player with an ownership share would be caught in the middle of labor dispute--would Pujols-with-shares support growing player compensation (increasing his salary at the cost of corporate profits) or holding down player salaries (taking less salary now for more long-term profits)?

(Further -- what is the relationship between an ownership stake and free agency? Is a player who takes an ownership share effectively closing out any opportunity for free agency?)

And because the franchises are privately owned, ownership stakes are not liquid -- the capital gain is purely theoretical unless/until there is an opportunity to sell the shares at a profit.