Think the owners are being the stubborn ones? Think again

[lamafist]

The very point you are arguing for is that someone suggested that it is viable, and I said it is not, when you decided to jump in and misuse eminent domain.


[ quote]Or are you just pretending that have only been objecting to the specific application to the NFL when I made it perfectly clear that I was replying to your general statement that the US government doesn't forcibly buy out private businesses and make them public, when, in fact, its authority to do so is clearly derived from the 5th amendment to the constitution, under the condition that it provides compensation. Just stop, ok? You only make it worse when you keep digging yourself in deeper.

Once again, when you are wrong you redefine what you really meant.
I don't know what conversation you were having, but no one else here was talking about war time government intervention or public safety issues.[/QUOTE]

Keep digging, buddy.

 

[Tunescribe]

This thread is insane -- just like the owners and players. :bricks:

 

[reflexblue]

This thread is insane -- just like the owners and players. :bricks:

Ive only visited it for a couple of seconds a couple of times and i agree.

 

[Joker]

 

[TruthSeeker]

Not really. In recent vintage, the US Supreme Court has upheld the acts of state and municipal governments to claim privately owned land from its owners to then sell to developers to build shopping malls and Walmarts -- hardly something that can't and isn't being accomplished by other means all the time. Its widely been used throughout US history to force buy outs of private utilities companies by local governments not because the private utility was failing to perform their function, but because the municipalities felt the long-term interests of the communities were better served by publicly controlled utility providers. I'm pretty sure most of this is discussed in the links I provided.

I was also careful to make clear in every post touching on eminent domain that I couldn't really imagine a scenario when it would ever be applied to the NFL.

As for the founding fathers, sorry, but they considered themselves progressive just for insisting that the government not take private property "for public use, without just compensation" in the 5th amendment. As British colonials, they were used to laws of eminent domain from the Magna Carta and later that didn't even require that the crown or parliament compensate people they deprived of property.

Thanks for the informative post.

 

[TruthSeeker]

I don't think the unions ever claimed to want financial information for any reasons involving justice. They want financial disclosure so as to be able to judge for themselves whether the owners' offers are something they want to accept or not. Towards this end, the audited review of the information the owners have already offered the NFLPA really isn't worth all that much. So far, the only franchise-specific information the owners have offered is a single number scoring the profitability of each franchise.

The independent auditor would verify this numbers' accuracy, which is not what's in contention. The NFLPA felt they needed more detailed information about the franchise's spending and revenues contracts to insure that the revenues are being maximized and the credit deductions that took $1 billion off the top of the CBA aren't bloated. I think the players demands of ten years of audited complete financial statements is certainly overkill, and that there is room in the middle for the two sides to meet on the sharing of financial information.

As for De Maurice Smith's intentions with the documents, I doubt that using them to smear the owners and win the PR battle is on his mind. For one thing, this case is going to be settled in a court other than the one of public opinion. Winning the PR battle just isn't valuable enough to justify the kind of tent-peg status Smith has put on disclosure. Secondly, any financial information the NFL turned over to the union could and would be subject to a binding non-disclosure agreement that would cost the union dearly if it were broken. How much is the data worth in the PR battle if he can't comment on any of its specifics?

OK, you can believe that if you want.

 

[BPF]

What was the point of this thread again?

 

[Joker]

What was the point of this thread again?

the point??????...why, TRUE ENLIGHTENMENT of course.....

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one---big hitter, the Lama---long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

What was the point of this thread again?

LOL Who is being the stubborn ones, of course.

Florio's take on fairness is the same simple common sense issue that tipped the balance for me out of the gate.

Basically, the players decided when faced with the strong possibility of a lockout to pull the ripcord on a decertification parachute, which converts the situation from a labor dispute into a class-action antitrust lawsuit against the league.

Let’s assume that the owners got a great deal in 2006 and that the players wanted to get more in 2011. The players could have gone on strike. And the owners couldn’t have done anything to stop it.

Just as the players have the right to strike if they don’t like the terms that are being offered, the owners have the right to lock the players out. But the players have launched the decertify-and-sue tactic as a way to prevent the owners from doing precisely what the players would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot — stopping all work until a deal is worked out.

So, basically, the players’ plan disrupts the proverbial yin and yang of strike and lockout. Setting aside all statutes and precedents and legal arguments, there’s something about this that, at a visceral level, seems unfair.

If Judge Susan Nelson feels the same way, she’ll be able to instruct her law clerks to construct based on all statutes and precedents and legal arguments a path to a ruling that the lockout should not be lifted due to the players’ maneuverings.

Once again, we simply wish the two sides would resume communications and work out a mutually acceptable deal. But if, as it appears, this fight will land in a courtroom on April 6, the idea that the players are using a device to block a lockout when the owners would have had no similar way to block a strike strikes us as inequitable, regardless of whether it’s ultimately determined to be appropriate.

And I'll take Florio's charge one step further and say it wasn't the strong liklihood of a lockout so much that prompted the union to act when it did. It was a combination of timing (because they wanted to get to FA and start the bonus money flowing) and the fear that an actual compromise might be on the horizen. They wanted into court before they started losing any more PR or % points. The owners took their claims to the NLRB pre-emptively in order to establish this was clearly a labor relations issue. Then the NLRB offered mediation which the NFLPA couldn't say no to without losing face in the court of public opinion. Mediation always posed a problem for the union because it represented a possibility that this thing never did get to court, which is what De pretty much based his campaign for Gene's job on - getting the players back into the setting where they had won the most gains in the past.

This thing was never going to be settled before the NFLPA took their best shot at moving the arguments to a venue they felt tilted the balance of power to their side. Had the owners handed them the financials they claimed they had to have, they would have continued to find reasons to claim the data insufficient while simply using portions of it to attempt to spin public opinion in their direction.

The union isn't concerned about being locked out in September. They know there is too much on the line for all sides for that to happen. They were concerned about being locked out during bonus time and draft time and the effect that timing would begin to have on continued unity of player support for maintaining hard lines and tilting at bs utopian windmills as summer and ultimately fall approach. Come July if five hundred guys don't know where they'll be living and working this winter and several hundred more fringe or aging guys begin to wonder if they aren't simply witnessing their remaining shot at a career or opportunity for extending one slipping away - tilting at windmills along side Brady and Manning and Brees will feel a lot less utopian.

Which is why ultimately the best thing Judge Nelson can do on April 6th is tell the players to rethink their strategy and find a way to get back to the business of negotiating a CBA with their employers because that's the prescribed manner as well as the swiftest means to achieve the goal of ending a logical lockout their strategy and ultimately actions triggered.

 

[townes]

Are you positing that the players are any less greedy than the owners?

It would be nice if there was some balance in your posts (some of which I've attempted to provide in this thread) but I guess it may never happen. At least, I haven't seen any evidence of it recently. But I am an optimist.

Yes, i am, and since the players weren't and aren't asking for more of an extremely profitable situation for all I think that is grounded in fact. Given the fact that the owners were surrepticiously looking for more money for no product than for the actual product I don't think their word can be trusted on anything.


Here is the great irony, in this thread I have had some people refer to me as a "communist" and as a "dictator" for my position on this issue, yet when looked at with clear eyes it is the owners who are acting as one entity and equally sharing the moneypie between them.......................Hmmmmmmmmmm can't get more commie than that now can we? America's great capitalists in a communist organization---go figure?

Now realize that those same owners are completely controlling the means of production and are denying the workers a free market to operate in, dictating who they must work for and where they will work, and, get this folks, they are actually demanding that those workers stay in a union that can only "negotiate" with them and on their terms. If that ain't "unamerican" I shur don't know what is. Can't get more commie dictator than that now can we?



I think that it's time for some of you to retake history and economics to get a better grasp of what "communist" actually means as the real "commie dictators" are the owners.

 

[townes]

The owners deemed it unfair by opting out.
Just because both sides make money does not mean the deal was fair.





.

Like I said, your argument is that the deal was "unfair" simply because the owners say so, and that isn't based in fact but rather in bias.

 

[townes]

I am not supporting either side. IT may seem that way because you are so blindly on the players side. I don't consider either side greedy, I think both are simply doing what they need to do. I see no difference between a lockout or a strike, because in eiter case both sides failed.



.

Are you seriously suggesting you aren't on the owners side?

5,0000 posts and 100,000 words in favor of them would disgree.

 

[townes]

T

Wow, you take this way too personally. Let me explain.
Your OPINION that the government should step in and take away ownership from the owners of the team is unAmerican. It is not the capitalist, entreprenuerial methodology that this country is founded and thrives on. It is very Communist in its basis.
That does not mean I think you are unAmerican, it means I think your idea is foolish.


.

Actually it is the NFL that isn't a "capitalist methodology." The NFL is a communist methodology operating a government sanctioned monopoly with anti-trust status in a capitalist system, and I'd love to see the argument that it isn't.

 

[townes]

I think you are applying the human personality traits you wish (correctly) to see to a business. A businessman who fights hard to do the best job he can and maximize profits, then turns around and donates a sinificant amount to charity, is involved in his community, church etc, is not a greedy bastard only concerned about money, he is a person who is able to succeed in many ways. Bob Kraft appears to be a good example of this, and I think if you take off the blinders you would see that most owners do as well.

I actually like, respect, and I'm grateful to the Kraft's for essentially saving the Patriots for their fans I just disgaree with their stance on this 1000% and believe that they have taken a stand because their hand was forced by the ownership club. The Kraft's were the ones who structured and argued for the deal that was opted out of, and I believe the reason Bob and Jon Kraft weren't at the bargaining table was because the owners knew they would be too reasonable and too willing to make a new deal fair to all, and that was never the owners goal.

As for me there is a great deal of truth to what you are suggesting, as i do believe that people operating businesses are benefitting from the communities around them and have a social responsibility. An unpopular view in what has become Ayn Rand's AmeriKa but my view nonetheless. Communities and government investment in infrastructure absolutely play a role in the success of most businesses and I believe their is a reciprocal responsibility from all of us benefitting from that, whether that be as individuals or business entities. If that makes me a "commie dictator" as wicked pissah and some others suggest then so be it, i'm fine with that, as are my people, who even gave me the day off when I said i was taking it off.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Yes, i am [positing that the players are not as greedy as the owners], and since the players weren't and aren't asking for more of an extremely profitable situation for all I think that is grounded in fact. Given the fact that the owners were surrepticiously looking for more money for no product than for the actual product I don't think their word can be trusted on anything.

Well, that's not how I read human nature. But to each his own.

 

[townes]

Well, that's not how I read human nature. But to each his own.

Human nature doesn't have anything to do with it, the owners want more and the players were fine with things as they are.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

As for me there is a great deal of truth to what you are suggesting, as i do believe that people operating businesses are benefitting from the communities around them and have a social responsibility. An unpopular view in what has become Ayn Rand's AmeriKa but my view nonetheless. Communities and government investment in infrastructure absolutely play a role in the success of most businesses and I believe their is a reciprocal responsibility from all of us benefitting from that, whether that be as individuals or business entities. If that makes me a "commie dictator" as wicked pissah and some others suggest then so be it, i'm fine with that, as are my people, who even gave me the day off when I said i was taking it off.

You really jump around a lot and dont stay on topic, you werent called a commie or dictator. Your idea that the government should take the teams away from the owners and run the NFL was called a communist idea.

 

[townes]

You'd make a great dictator; that's what they do.
.

.........................................................

 

[townes]

You come across as supporting a communist idealogy.

......................




You're right cmass, no-one has suggested i'm a "dictator" or a "commie" just that I would make a great dictator who supports communist ideology.

My mistake.

 

[townes]

You really jump around a lot and dont stay on topic, you werent called a commie or dictator. Your idea that the government should take the teams away from the owners and run the NFL was called a communist idea.

I jump around to respond to the posts of those who disagree, my take is simple, both sides are making huge money and the owners created this situation because they want to make a whole lot more. If people want to stick to those simple facts that's fine with me, however both are indisputable so they move on to what owners can and can't do and what is american and not american and what a good commie dictator i would make even though the system they are actually supporting is a communist model that dictates where players can and cannot make their living, if they are allowed to make it at all.