Basketball as a Social Experiment

23 February, 14

Our family attended a UCAM Murcia pro basketball game today. UCAM is a basement dweller, number 17 out of 18 teams. They were playing Unicaja, which is 4th in the league. What should have been a blowout ended up to be a nail-biter, right up to the very end. We lost 78-76.

I have spoken about basketball in Spain before. It is a different game, played more horizontally, something like women's basketball in the USA. You could make the argument that this is a more pure form of basketball, requiring more passing and better defense than the NBA's run and dunk methodology, but really that would be nothing more than an excuse for not having big enough players to make it a vertical game.

Several years ago, the Spanish player's unions got together and bargained for a rule that would limit the number of foreign players allowed on the court at any given time. The measure aimed to give Spanish players more slots to play, thus protecting their jobs. On the surface this makes sense. Who doesn't advocate protectionism for their own personal interests? Go ask a farmer if he wants the market for lettuce or beef flooded with low-cost competition from a third world country. The problem, however, is that competition always improves a market and that protection always smothers a market. Competition forces costs to drop and quality to improve. Think about how much your computer cost today, versus 15 years ago, and how much more powerful it is. What used to be a luxury is now a high quality, feature rich commodity, thanks to competition.

In a totally open, free market, the customer dictates everything. Demand pulls products through the system. If your tomatoes are good and relatively cheap, buyers will show up at your stall to purchase all of them. If you insist on charging more for the same product as your competition, you will be throwing a lot of rotten produce at bad actors.

American sports models aim to create a level playing field for all teams in a particular sport by sharing revenues among the teams and imposing salary caps. Baseball is the exception to the salary cap rule. By sharing revenues, small market teams, like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Green Bay Packers, can be assured a chance to secure top talent and vie for championships. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have won a combined 33 of 71 championships. The other 24 teams share the balance. Many different teams have dominated in certain eras.

Historically, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have garnered 48 out of the 57 ACB championships. The rest of the 16 teams share 9 championships. The league is whop-sided and shows no signs of changing. Spaniards like to point to the Olympics and say that they have the most competitive basketball country, other than the USA. What they fail to take into account is that Olympic basketball is almost an afterthought for American players.

If they want to truly know their level relative to the NBA, I propose a championship tournament, representing every major basketball league in the world. This will accomplish several good things at once. The NBA is always looking to open markets to garner more fans and revenues. The other leagues will be playing against the best, creating opportunities to grow and develop players.

Spain also needs to develop a better farm system for cultivating young talent. Any Spanish 10 year old can outdribble an American high school soccer player. The reverse is true in basketball. Implementing a strong system would change the basketball culture here and elevate the game.

Everywhere I look, I see the need for free markets, free trade and free opportunities to exploit those markets. I am a Capitalist and proud of it. China doesn't scare me near as much as protectionism.

Now if I can just convince the ACB to let me run the league...

Bert the Immigrant

30 September, 13

Susan's family teems with immigrants: 50% Swedish, 25% German and 25% Polish. I am 100% Mutt. Her dad, Bert, immigrated to the USA when he was a boy, way back in the 19-Teens. He was old as dirt. In fact, he was older than my mother-in-law's mother. Weird.

Bert was in his 80's when I first met him. He was not as spry as he had been in his old days, but he was still sharp. I remember studying before making a visit to his Palm Beach, Florida home, in preparation for the onslaught of questions. I could not even get in the house before he was grilling me about interest rates and depreciation schedules on our rental properties. 1,001 questions.

“What's the vacancy rate on your mini-storage?”

“When are you going to refinance?”

“What’s the product mix on your storage units?”

“How long will it take to build another one?”

It was like drinking from a fire hose, and I loved it.

Bert was an incredible encourager for me. He always pushed me to take risks, while at the same time, coaching me on potential pitfalls. When I stepped on the inevitable financial land mine, he was always ready with an anecdote from his past about one of his failures. Bert was like a second daddy to me.

He was Swedish, and about Elizabeth's age, when he came to the USA. This was back when we welcomed immigrants with open arms:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows worldwide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

(Emma Lazarus, 1883)

His family came with nothing more than Swedish farmers from Varmland could be expected to bring. Bert finished high school and never attended college. One day he told me that was the best thing that ever happened to him, because if he had attended college, he would have ended up in a Corporate America cubicle.

Instead, he struck out on his own, going door to door, to sell new roofs, in the 1920's. One day he hit it big and came into a lady's tea party. He sold five jobs on the spot. Bert went on to build a big construction business in New York City and Long Island. He retired at 55 and moved to Palm Beach to raise his family. 

Bert recognized something vital. People are more important than things. He had plenty of things, nice things, but they were merely trinkets. His great joy was his wife and kids, to which he devoted all his time and energy.

Bert died 12 years ago, but I still have conversations with him in my head. He pushes me forward and provides guardrails as I go. Without Bert, there would be no Spain. 

Te quiero mi amigo!

Looking for Work

12 January, 14

 I was twelve years old with a vision for the rest of my life. I have total respect for people who work for others. There is dignity in every vocation, except maybe politicians. I just cannot work for other people, at least not for very long. Three years is my record.

Living in Spain has been an incredible adventure for me and my family. All of us have taken some bumps and bruises along the way, but it is definitely worth it. After four months, however, I am now ready to start work.

Work in Spain presents a bit of a ticklish problem for me. My "Non-lucrative Visa" does not allow me to earn income in Spain. Obtaining a "Work Visa" is very difficult, because priority for any job goes to a Spanish citizen first and next to a member of the EU. With 25% unemployment, the Spanish government is wisely protecting its citizens from an influx of cheap foreign labor, like me, by limiting the number of work visas. Other than working under the table, which I will not do, that leaves me only a few options.

I can make income, as long as it is paid in the USA. That means I can be a consultant or free-lance something. Many Spanish language websites need better English translations, which I can do from home. Getting published is another avenue. The other option is to get a job in America that pays me to be here, which is untenable for me.

This is an inherited trait, so I feel absolutely no shame in saying that I do not want to have a J-O-B working for somebody else. One day my daddy took me to lunch at the Rainbow Restaurant out on North 5th Street in Hartsville. Sitting at the table were 10 or 12 guys, all friends of my dad's. In a moment of clarity and inspiration, he asked me a question: "Boy, what's different about all these fellows at this table?"

I looked around, and other than the fact that they were poster children for the poorly dressed and slightly overweight, I really had no idea.

Then the Mind of Main Street said, "Everybody at this table right now owns his own business, and he's sitting here because he wants to be here. Everybody at the local mill, from the janitor to the president, is at work right now, because he has to be there."

That was a Eureka! moment for me. My dad has no recollection of it.

I am not lazy. I actually like to work. I love to see the results of blood, sweat and tears. Being highly goal-oriented makes work fun, most of the time. Since 1998 I have oriented all my energies toward creating passive income through rental real estate.

Some of that time, we have been poor. We qualified for Medicaid when Katherine was born. Other times we ate like kings. All the time, however, I knew I was doing the right thing for me and my family. All the time, Susan was by my side, walking some long hard miles with me.

Now we are in Spain. Everybody, in Spain and in the USA, asks us what we do for work. When we reply, "Nothing", an inevitable cloud of confusion and doubt creeps across the landscape of their faces. The concept of working for others is so ingrained in us, that seeing something other than looks false or unreal. That is the fruit of the Industrial Revolution. While obviously gaining from the incredible technological leaps, perhaps we have sacrificed some of our independence.

My family, on both sides, has a long heritage of entrepreneurship. A witches brew of Scots-Irish orneriness and Southern independence drives us to unloose the yoke of economic slavery. Sometimes we eat rocks, but free rocks taste better than hand-me-down steaks.