Flicker Fusion

What can we say – it’s December and the BCS is in chaos again

What can we say – it’s December and the BCS is in chaos again

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Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and sponsor of a bill before Congress to force college football to use a playoff system rather than bowl games to determine the national champion.

I realize our Congresspeople are perfectly capable of handling multiple tasks at once and that the bowl system is a terrible way to handle this. But there is absolutely no way anyone will ever convince me that this merits the attention of our elected officials. If they’re breaking the law, enforce the law, otherwise, stay out of it.

I’m also curious if Rep. Barton, ranking Republican on the committee that determines this country’s energy policy, has spent the same time and effort on, say, understanding the science of climate change as he has his efforts to reform college fucking football.

Five Congressmen who voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 want to bring it back

Five Congressmen who voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 want to bring it back

Glass-Steagall, passed in 1933, prohibited commercial banks from underwriting stocks and bonds (among other regulations, such as establishing the FDIC) – essentially, keeping commercial and investment banks separate. The repeal of the act, proposed by Phil Gramm (R-TX) in the Senate and Jim Leach (R-IA) in the House, passed thanks largely due to Republican majorities in the House and Senate. It allowed already huge banks, like Citigroup, to become even bigger – “too big to fail” as some said during last year’s financial meltdown. It also allowed banks and bankers to get fabulously wealthy on exotic notions like sub-prime loans instead of making actual investments in real things.

The reinstatement of Glass-Steagall faces a fairly uphill battle as not even President Obama supports it.

These kinds of big-picture regulations strike me as a good thing and, knowing as little as I do about macroeconomics, are the kinds of regulations I’d like to see put in place. I’m curious what the arguments against reinstating Glass-Steagall are.