Ozone / Dr Saturday on Oversigning

The Big 10 does a very good job of not over-signing kids.  In the video shown on the front pages fews days ago, ESPN OTL had a graph and the Big 10 had the fewest number of signees over the past few years.

I think it is safe to say that Michigan or the Big 10 is above other conferences when it comes to over-signing.

As for the airlines analogy, the overbooked passengers at most have to take another flight an hour or two later, maybe overnight, perhaps given a token buy-out or free ticket for the inconvenience.  These kids have the rug taken out from under them, to say nothing of their scholarships.  They're suddenly faced with paying for an education when that may be out of the question or transferring to another school that may be of a quality, both in athletics and academics (but perhaps not in ethics), that is of much lower quality than the one that ditched them.  Or they may have to leave school and give up their dreams completely.

Yes, we all want our teams to win.  But the kids should come first, the winning second.  Glad I root for Michigan.  I'll take 20 minutes of stretching over this abomination any day.

I just get sick of filing taxes each year without having any idea if I'm violating the law or not.  I'm certain I don't pay the right amount each year, but I have no idea if I'm over or underpaying.

to those who are financially farthest and morally closest to bankruptcy. 

Better to be known for a cloud of dust or a mudpit?

You are placing the blame on all the wrong people.  It's not the government's fault (OMG! blasphemy!) - they simply react to people (read: mostly corporations) trying to abuse the system and not pay what they owe.

The Tax Code used to be much shorter and fairly straightforward.  Loopholes were rampant and the government knew it.  Instead of fixing it, they simply raised the marginal rates to recoup the shortfall from people cheating on their taxes.  The top marginal federal rate under Eisenhower was 92%.  Yes, that's right - certain levels of income were taxed at 92%.

The thing is, people rarely actually paid these rates.  They'd hire accountants or lawyers (like me) to find loopholes and exploit them.  This was truly inequitable - those with the proper knowledge or money would pay far less, while others with less knowledge or hired guns paid far more.

Eventually, the government stepped in and starting closing down loopholes (and lowering marginal tax rates).  It was an arms race - the people find a loophole, the government shuts it down, they find a new one, it's shut down, etc.  Now I have 2 linear feet of books in my office that make up the Code and the Regs.  However, the loopholes are now few and far between and people generally are taxed in an equitable manner (setting aside whether the actual rates are "equitable," I don't care to start a political discussion).

Sure, it requires specialized knowledge to understand the Code and all that, but it's not really required.  There's not much left to exploit and you can have "experts" at H&R Block or whatever make sure you get all the deductions, credits etc. due to you if you don't feel like studying tax law.

The only real downside is where the government overreacts and passes sweeping reforms that are very complicated and overbroad - see Code Section 409A passed in '04.  Or, when they see a small problem, anticipate further problems and try to preemptively kill the problem, like with Code Section 457A.  This makes corporations and some individuals pay out more in legal fees to solve a problem that might not really exist.

Point of this discussion?  Not sure.  I guess I get annoyed when people complain about the complexity of the Code when we the people (again, mostly corporations) are the reason for its complexity.

Maybe an investigation into how to put that rule you speak of into effect....

when a player chooses to enter the nfl draft early.

I don't want Michigan to be violating rules to win games. I want them to win games because they had the talent/played better or what ever, not because the skirted the rules, looked the other way, cheated or otherwise acted in an under handed manner.

A team gets 85 scholarship players, you can have more that are not on a scholarship.

Players who take medical hardship still complete their degrees and count positively against APR.  If I recall correctly.  They just don't count against the 85.