» MGPoE Mark Graham Plan of Excellence

February 3, 2011

Where’s the money?

Filed under: Fitness,Mark's World,MGPoE,Sports — Mark Graham @ 8:22 pm
Tags: Basketball, fitness, Football, MGPoE, OSU, Sports

So as I sit here and watch the OSU versus Michigan (go Bucks) I start to wonder, where is the money?

Why can’t these athletes get paid? Is it because college is somehow held to a higher moral standard than professional sports? I don’t think so – millions are made by athletic programs around the country. The NCAA has to make a TON off of college sports, let alone everyone else. In fact, college sports are one of the most ‘sellout’ sports ever. They have a bowl game called the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl – really? Why is it everyone makes money here, except the athletes?

Anyway, before I continue too much on my rant, I do sort of get why they can’t be paid by colleges – believe it or not. If athletes were paid by the school, wouldn’t they just be a minor league team? What about all the smaller colleges that can’t afford the best athletes, their programs would suffer dramatically.

So what’s the Mark Graham Plan of Excellence suggest? Well, it suggests allowing the students to make money. Not by the school, but by sponsorships. If Nike wants to sponsor a Terrelle Pryor – why can’t they? Because the NCAA wants to keep as much money as possible, that’s why. Is it any wonder why the NCAA allowed Pryor and others to play in the sugar bowl game after they ‘broke’ the rules by selling their stuff? Because the NCAA wouldn’t have made near as much money had they not played.

Why did I put quotes around the word broke you ask? There is no question in my mind that those players broke the rules, but that doesn’t mean the rule is right. And no rule is ever going to get changed unless it is challenged first. I think it is a stupid rule, and it needs to be challenged and eventually done away with.

So I say let them make as much money as the market will bear!

P.S. Basketball players have to be the worlds best actors. Its amazing how a light touch will send a player skirting across the floor.

January 30, 2011

Walking the Unemployment Line

Filed under: Mark's World,MGPoE — Mark Graham @ 5:40 pm
Tags: employment, finances, jobs, MGPoE, unemployment

With unemployment currently around 9.1 percent, I think we need to start taking a look at where the problem lies. The Mark Graham Plan of Excellence suggests that the problem really lies with the government paying people to not be employed. Can you believe it? The government will actually pay you while you are not employed. With a deal like that, why ever get a job? Oh, wait a second…. I think I’m on to something here.

Personally, I’m not for unemployment compensation – I think it is too burdensome on businesses, and generally I think people need to be prepared in life for anything that might happen. Is it any wonder why we run our credit limits to the max? We always have a nice cushy pillow to fall back on – unemployment, social security, Medicare/Medicaid, and the list continues. Anyway, even though I’m not for it, I realize we can’t just totally end this job killing social program. So I’ve come up with a Mark Graham Plan of Excellence program to help this situation.

Let’s face it; unemployment stands to only encourage people not to work. It’s simple economics – if you reward someone for doing something, they will continue to do it. In this case, the reward is the money they receive for not working. Now how can we fix this issue? Well, the MGPoE suggests we change the system completely around and give incentives (in this case rewards) for going back to work. The MGPoE prescribes two ways to handle this issue:

Lump Sum Payment – Let’s say the average unemployment claim, for the entire time the person is unemployed, averages around $10,000. Now the MGPoE’s recommendation would be to take 85% of that amount and pay it out to the newly unemployed filer. You get no more, and you get no less. Thus the faster the unemployed finds a job, the more of the $8,500 says in their pocket.

The other option is similar, but the unemployed person would continue to receive their weekly unemployment compensation. For this situation, lets say the average unemployment claim per week is $416. So if the unemployed finds a job in the first month they would get a nice big check for $6,000. If they find a job in the second month, they get a check for $4,500. Third month they would get $3,000, fourth month they would get $1,500, and nothing after that. All unemployment benefits would run out, period, after the 6th month.

Now I don’t think that everyone is lazy when it comes to trying to find another job. But I do believe that as long as people are getting paid for not working, they will not settle for anything less than what they were getting before (at least until their benefits run out). So let’s say you make $50,000/year and you lose your job. A few weeks later a potential employer offers you $42,000/year to come work for them. Under the current unemployment compensation program most people wouldn’t consider this as an option. However, under the MGPoE unemployment compensation program these kinds of offers would be a lot more tempting – because you get to keep a lot more of your lump sum payout.

Obviously a lot of market research would need to go into these options, but this would be an excellent way to save money on unemployment, and give incentives for people to increase their effort into finding a new job. There would also need to be some rules placed on the above programs to ensure they aren’t scammed like today’s unemployment program. For example, a rule that would be required is how often can one file for unemployment compensation? I would argue it should only be once ever 4 or 5 years.

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January 26, 2011

So can he be President or Not?

Filed under: Politics — Mark Graham @ 7:28 pm
Tags: Law, MGPoE, Obama, politics

You know, there is a lot of speculation as to the nationality of President Barack Obama. President Obama’s argument is that he was born in Hawaii, which would automatically give him US Citizenship, and therefore, eligible to run for the President of the United States. The, what I’ll call, conspiracy theories suggest that President Obama was born in Kenya, and therefore not eligible to become President.

Now comes the Mark Graham Plan of Excellence Argument: It doesn’t matter, either way he is eligible to become President of the United States.

Now before you go on a rant suggesting that I’m a huge liberal, I can assure you I am not. I’m quite conservative, but I take a realistic approach to issues and review them and create a solution or answer. Thus the Mark Graham Plan of Excellence.

So let’s dive into this a little more shall we? Who is eligible to become President? The constitution is fairly straight forward with this, or perhaps not. It says the following:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Ok, so you have to be a natural born Citizen, you must be at least 35 years old, and have to be a resident of the United States for 14 years.

Where everyone is getting hung up is the term natural born citizen. Unfortunately, that is where the ambiguity starts. There isn’t a real definition of the term ‘Natural Born Citizen’ – likewise, there is a lot of ambiguity of the requirement of being a 14 year resident – does that mean if you left the country for a day in the last 14 years you are not eligible to become President? Of course not but I digress.

So my argument is centered around US Birthright law. There are two ways to get a citizenship automatically upon being born.

Jus Soli: This is where if you are born in the United States, you are automatically given citizenship, and therefore you are completely eligible to run for President of the United States. Even if both your parents were foreigners (legal or not), you are instantly given citizenship to the US because you were physically born here.

Jus sanguini: This is where one of your Parents, in this case President Obama’s mother, is a US Citizen and you are born outside of the US or one of its territories. Because Obama was born to a female US Citizen, he was instantly given US Citizenship.

Particularly, my argument centers around 8 U.S.C. Section 1409 paragraph (c) and 32 CFR 584.5 which says (summary) if a female ‘natural born US Citizen’ has a child that was born out of the United States, to a foreigner, and out of wedlock, that child would receive the same “nationality status of his mother”. Thus, if Obama’s mother was a natural born citizen, Obama would inherit that trait as his citizenship and should be considered a natural born citizen.

So why is there this big conspiracy? Because courts have yet to rule on people running for President with citizenship by Jus sanguini. Given a proper challenge in court, I think the courts would decide that anyone with a Jus sanguini citizenship would be eligible for Presidency, given the spirit of the law.

I mean how far are we going to take this ‘natural born citizen’ thing? What about a child that wasn’t born naturally – lets say a US Mother and US Father have a child, in the United States, by In Vitro Fertilization? That certainly isn’t natural, so should the child be eligible for the Presidency? Give me a break!

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Mark Graham Plan of Excellence