Event Recap - Meeting with Niv Shah, September 28, 2021

Niv Shah, the developer of the popular fantasy baseball site, Ottoneu, discussed both fantasy and real baseball with the Cleveland Club on September 28

Niv Shah, the developer of the popular fantasy baseball site, Ottoneu, discussed both fantasy and real baseball with the Cleveland Club on September 28. Shah developed an attachment to the Cleveland Indians while a high school student. He watched the Indians at Jacobs Field and played crude fantasy baseball with his high school friends. After college and a stint as a software developer in Silicon Valley, he began a fantasy site that more realistically duplicated what Major League Baseball (MLB) general managers do to build a winning team over time. This means studying player statistics and then buying or trading for them – within a salary cap – with other GMs who are working just as hard to develop their own winning teams. Shah’s site – ottoneu.fangraphs.com – creates 12-, 14-, and 16-team leagues composed of real players with their attendant real statistics that update with every real game those players play. Teams have as many as 40 players and each Ottoneu GM creates a lineup for the day, including a pitching rotation and player positions. Teams rise and fall within their leagues based on real-time statistics of the players who compose the separate teams. An inspiration was the Michael Lewis book (and subsequent movie) Moneyball. Unlike some other games that dissolve their teams at a season’s end, Ottoneu teams trade and buy through the winter just as their real counterparts do in hope of emerging with a winning combination as the spring season starts. People who have played Ottoneu have moved on to front office jobs with MLB teams. Ottoneu now has 4,000 GMs playing in 370 leagues.

Shah told participants that a friend put him in touch with Indians’ GM Mike Chernoff, who has admired the site and given advice, as well as watched games with Shah.

Asked which real MLB teams Shah thinks will be strong in the post-season, he named the White Sox and the Astros, and called the Dodgers a great team.

Asked about this summer’s pitching substance abuse issue – MLB cracked down on substances pitchers sometimes worked onto the balls they were pitching in order to increase the ball spin rate -- Shah said it had an effect on real pitchers, whose statistics then sank and thus created consequences on Ottoneu teams as well. He surmised that pitching injuries would be on the rise in the coming year on account of trying to compensate by attempting to throw the balls faster.

Shah said in his opinion the Indians have been quite astute in their trades in recent decades, including moving on from Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer at the right time. He also pointed out that the Indians use their farm system differently than, say, the Yankees -- the Indians try to develop talent for the long haul whereas the Yankees look to purchase super stars once they have developed.

You can learn more about Ottoneu at ottoneu.fangraphs.com and more about Niv Shah from the April 13, 2021 article in the Washington Post.

Event Recap - Meeting with Senator Sherrod Brown, September 14, 2021

The Senior Senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, met with the Cleveland Club of Washington, D.C., on September 14

The Senator and his wife Connie Schultz live in Cleveland. He told the Club he loves and is proud of the city and thinks it’s one of the best places to live in the country -- though he believes it needs to do a better job promoting its advantages such as the hospitals, colleges and universities, and arts institutions.

Senator Brown said he lamented the “decades” of trade and tax policy he has felt for a long time undermined NE Ohio’s industrial base. But he is proud of having recently helped to pass the American Rescue Plan, which, he said, contained a pension fix that would help small businesses and 100,000 Ohio union workers. He is proud of the work he did to expand the Child Tax Credit, which he said will help families of 92% of Ohio’s children. He also was pleased with the Senate’s passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, aspects of which will help Cleveland and Ohio industry.

He said that traditionally the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has given undue attention to big banking, whereas he as Chairman will steer it more to addressing such smaller financial institutions as community banks and credit unions. He will also work to shift its focus to housing, including inequities arising out of historic redlining, and to reviving inner cities. He noted that in the 1950s when Cleveland’s population was about 900,000 only 2,000 people lived downtown whereas now with less than half that population, 20,000 persons live downtown. He said he is working to help real estate companies convert commercial office space to affordable residences in city cores – as is happening in Cleveland – because internet usage allows more people to work from home and thereby frees up existing office space.

Other points Senator Brown made when answering questions from Club participants:

• With respect to trade, he said he believed Congress won’t make the mistakes of the past and welcomes reforms in the Competition Act, including better provision for using U. S. materials and workers rather than outsourcing.

• He advocates a small tax on corporation stock buy-backs to encourage companies instead to invest in their workers, research and development, and other value-creating activities, and believes some form of his proposed legislation concerning it will be part of new federal revenue-raising.

. . . .

Senator Brown is Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Finance Committee, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

You can learn more about Senator Brown’s positions at his website www.brown.senate.gov or in his three books: Myths of Free Trade -- Why American Trade Policy has Failed; Congress from the Inside; and Desk 88 -- Eight Progressive Senators who Changed America.

Event Recap - Report on Politics with Kyle Kondik, April 20, 2021

Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which is published weekly by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, discussed political trends and consequences with the Cleveland Club on April 20. The author – as well as co-author with the Center’s Larry Sabato – of several books on politics and voting trends, Kondik discoursed on Ohio and national voting affairs.

Raised in Independence and a graduate of Ohio University as well as its Scripps School of Journalism, Kondik offered all manner of statistics on recent elections and some speculation on future ones.

Reflecting on Ohio politically – which he said could also stand in general for the Upper Midwest – he noted a “Democratic collapse outside large cities.” He observed that Ohio’s three largest counties – Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Franklin (Columbus) and Hamilton (Cincinnati) -- make up about 30% of the state’s vote, the other 85 counties composing 70%. Biden did 66,000 votes better than Obama’s 2012 total in the three big counties in 2020, he noted, but more than 700,000 worse in the other counties. “Democrats used to count on such cities as Warren and Youngstown, but not anymore,” Kondik said.

“There are lots of voter shifts going on,” Kondik said, “but the one most notable to me concerns the four-year college degree. Voters without a four-year degree used to be Democratic but have been trending Republican while those with a four-year degree used to be Republican but are trending Democratic. And in a state like Ohio there are more voters without a four-year degree than those with one.” To make Ohio competitive again for Democrats, he said, Democrats have to do better in the big city suburbs and claw back among the whiter, rural counties. These trends echo in Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania are affected more than Ohio by their mega-cities and higher percentages of four-year college degrees. Besides higher education, Kondik noted a cultural divide: cultural liberalism vs cultural conservatism, with persons who used to vote Democratic loosening their loyalties -- perhaps associated with unionism – to the party on account of cultural issues. He also noted “negative partisanship,” the tendency to vote against a party or candidate rather than for one.

Other points Kondik offered or made in response to questions:

About Ohio

• State offices are likely to remain Republican in 2022. Rob Portman’s U. S. Senate seat likely will remain Republican though Ohio historically elects a moderate Republican to the Senate rather than one more to the fringes of the party.

• Democrats could peg their hopes on 1) Republican votes declining without Trump on the ticket (because some Trump voters are loyal to the man rather than the party’s positions), and 2) growth being larger in the three major cities than in rural areas.

• Kondik lamented the diminishing resources of local newspapers including ones in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. He noted that people are relying less on mainstream media and that trust in government and media is low.

About the nation

• Political polling has not been as reliable as in the past, some states such as Florida and Nevada being considerably difficult to poll accurately.

• Redistricting on account of the 2020 census will likely help Republicans. Neither house of the U. S. Congress is guaranteed to flip, but of the two the House is the more likely to go Republican.

• Redistricting will likely reduce Ohio’s House seats to 15 [proven correct on April 26] (population in the state is growing but slower than in some other parts of the country) and the district likely to disappear is the one Cong. Tim Ryan now holds. Kondik foresees a 12-3 or 11-4 Republican-Democrat mix for U. S. House representation.

• Owing to demographic changes, Georgia will become increasingly Democratic.

For more on Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter and the University of Virginia Center for Politics, see: https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/.

Event Recap - Report on Federal Reserve Bank Of Cleveland Event, February 17, 2021

Federal Reserve of Cleveland Group Vice President in the Research Department Guhan Venkatu reported to the Cleveland Club on February 17, discussing the regional and national economy and answering questions from participants. Mr. Venkatu’s views were not necessarily those of the Cleveland Fed.

Presenting slides, Mr. Venkatu said:

• Recent U. S. economic statistics have been historic. The 30+% drop in GDP early last year was the steepest since modern recording began in 1942 and likely the steepest since the 1890s. But the rate of the initial rebound was also historic so that by the end of 2020, GDP was only 2.5% less than in the 4th quarter of 2019, when the recession officially began.

• Not counting the $1.9 trillion aid package currently contemplated by Congress, the federal government has spent four times the amount it spent to save the financial system during the collapse of 2008-‘09. This federal spending has increased the debt-to-GDP ratio from roughly 110% in the first quarter of 2020 to roughly 130% through the third quarter of 2020. The federal largess has helped to keep family disposable income at roughly pre-pandemic levels. Consequently, national spending on goods has been strong, although on services – which includes movie theaters, hospitality and restaurants – has been weak.

• Sectors sensitive to interest rates -- which have been low -- have done well, for example auto and homes sales.

• A study by the Cleveland Fed nationally has shown that over the last year net migration into core cities has dropped slightly, though the reasons remain murky.

• Cleveland area employment has mimicked that of the nation; all gains made up since the Great Recession have been lost. Most affected have been low-skilled workers.

• Small business survival has been slightly better in Ohio than nationally.

• State and local governments’ bottom lines have been stressed, which may lead to lower investment and consequent deterioration of education and human capital.

• Statistics studied for evaluating the fair value of the stock market are mixed.

• The Federal Funds Rate is likely to stay as low as today into 2023.

• The pace of economic recovery will depend on the rate of recovery from covid-19.

Answering questions from participants, Mr. Venkatu said:

• A carbon tax is looming less likely on account of the inroads made by renewable energy production and prospects of an increasing electric-car fleet.

• Anxiety over the level of U. S. debt-to-GDP is ameliorated by the purpose of the spending, which lately has been to retain the economy’s infrastructure, the health of which will be used to pay off the debt. Mr. Venkatu likened current government spending to the spending for winning World War Two.

• Cleveland’s strengths are “Eds and Meds,” meaning educational and medical resources, human capital and infrastructure. Mr. Venkatu pointed out that the United States in the 1930s and 1940s understood the economy was shifting and that the one-room schoolhouse would have to be replaced with a greater educational infrastructure. He thought the present adoption of digital technology is similar to the conversion from an agricultural to an industrial society then. The digital economy may benefit non-coastal areas such as the Midwest on account of being able “to do the work” anywhere. He also said there was at least anecdotal evidence of persons interested in moving from high-cost coast cities to cities offering good weather and a more congenial life-style.

• Mr. Venkatu responded to a question about cryptocurrencies by saying that currencies need wide-spread confidence, not yet enjoyed by cryptocurrencies when compared to the trust in such tax-supported currencies as the dollar, the euro and the yen. But he conceded that cryptocurrencies were making inroads and that even central banks were becoming increasingly interested.

Mr. Venkatu pointed out that persons can receive free Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland newsletters by going signing up here. Persons can learn more about the Cleveland Fed’s research at www.clevelandfed.org or its regional analysis here.

The Cleveland Fed is always seeking economic insights from those in senior leadership positions at their organizations, who can comment, with a fair amount of detail, on their firm’s and industry’s current conditions. If you know someone who may be interested in joining one of the Business Advisory Councils, please share this form.

Mr. Venkatu also encouraged persons visiting Cleveland to tour the Federal Reserve Bank and its Money Museum (when permitted by pandemic-related rules).

Event Recap - Report on Len Downie, Jr. Event, January 12, 2021

Len Downie, Jr., the Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 1991 to 2008 met with the Cleveland Club on January 12; he discussed journalism and his career.

Downie outlined his budding interest in journalism beginning with research and reports in elementary school on Cleveland’s West Side, then with the junior high school paper (for which Donna Shalala was editor in the class preceding) and high school paper. Having studied journalism and political science at Ohio State, Downie won a summer internship at The Washington Post. His work was so successful the Post offered him a job, where, among Easterners, he became known as “Land Grant Len.”

He soon became an effective investigative reporter, wrote a book broadening his exposure of the capital’s dysfunctional Court of General Sessions, and was awarded a year’s fellowship to study U.S. and European urban land issues. Returning to the Post, he was made Deputy Metropolitan Editor just as the Watergate scandal broke. Downie kept the reporting in the Post’s Metro section rather than having it transferred to the National staff and oversaw many of Woodward and Bernstein’s investigative stories. From then until 2008 when he retired from the Post as Executive Editor, he managed the major news stories of the nation. Since publishing All About the Story: News, Power, Politics and The Washington Post he has authored two lengthy reports currently available at the website of the Committee to Protect Journalists (cpj.org): The Obama Administration and the Press, and The Trump Administration and the Media.

“My biggest professional regret,” he told Club members who participated in the virtual meeting, “was not running more stories examining the allegations that the weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMD) intelligence running up to the 2003 Iraq War was faulty.”

Asked about current changes in journalism, he noted that whereas advertising used to support newspapers, the digital age eroded that model. One result was the sale of the Post to Jeff Bezos, who has invested heavily in technology means for the Post to survive. “Bezos has kept his word to Don Graham to keep his hands off the editorial product while moving the Post to a company supported by subscriptions and adept on multiple platforms – currently the Post is second only to the New York Times in daily digital views,” Downie said.

Downie’s answers to some Club member questions included:

• Regional journalism needs help, including in Cleveland. Billionaires in various cities are making some papers stronger, but in far too many places investment companies buy newspapers and run them only for profit, thereby shrinking newsrooms and selling their buildings for cheaper quarters. Nonprofit efforts in some cities such as San Diego are making a good start and may be a solution.

• Beginning with Ben Bradlee, the Post has had a strict division between the Editorial Page and the Newsroom, each having its own editor and reporting separately to the publisher. Downie said that in order to better keep an open mind about subjects when he was the Post’s head editor he stopped reading the Editorial and Op-Ed pages and even stopped voting.

• Downie felt his job was always to report the truth, no matter the feelings of the subjects or the readers. One of his toughest decisions, and after counter-arguments by the CIA and President Bush, was to publish Dana Priest’s story about secret CIA prisons set up in Eastern Europe after 9/11.

• He said he is heartened by the quality he sees in students taking his University of Arizona investigative journalism courses, but he advises them that owing to the demands of the job they should expect and accept a diminished social life. He also said journalists today have to be skilled not only in research and writing but also in the developing techniques of the internet, radio, video and podcasts.

• Asked about movies, Downie said only three captured contemporary journalism: All the President’s Men; Spotlight; and The Post.