Softball Apathy

[R1Letterman]

The 2019-2020 south carolina women's basketball team is listed as "deFacto consenus" national champions. Why is cajuns 2020 softball team not afforded similar honors?

[CajunT]

Regarding the above, this letter to the editor, printed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, from one of Reagan’s former advisors was interesting. He’s replying to a letter by Andriy Yermak, who is head of the Office of President of Ukraine. Mr. Yermak argued that President Reagan intentionally worked with OPEC to drive the price of oil way down, and he insists that the U.S. should work work OPEC to drive prices down to $30/bbl. Truth is, if you do that, it probably won’t be pretty for the Gulf Coast. See below:

Sorry, this is not news to me. Reagan was my first Presidential election. If you follow history, Reagan did break the Soviet Union while forcing them to escalate their domestic spending on their military. Gorbachev tried to keep with our level of domestic spending, including the development of (SDI) Strategic Defense Initiatives. The Soviet Union could not keep up with the spending due to the OPEC and REAGAN agreement.

I don't think you would have seen the destruction of the Berlin Wall without the economic pressure. Of Course, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma paid a huge economic price for his agreement with OPEC.

[Cajunsmike]

I read a story once indicating Reagan and Bush were shocked at the negative implications the OPEC production increases had on the US oil and gas industry. It was on the brink of complete collapse in late 85 and early 86. Once the administration realized that, they asked the Saudi’s to decrease production and the industry survived, barely. Of course that led to a volatile period in which layoffs occurred every 2 to 3 years for the next 30 years.

[Cajunrunner]

I read a story once indicating Reagan and Bush were shocked at the negative implications the OPEC production increases had on the US oil and gas industry. It was on the brink of complete collapse in late 85 and early 86. Once the administration realized that, they asked the Saudi’s to decrease production and the industry survived, barely. Of course that led to a volatile period in which layoffs occurred every 2 to 3 years for the next 30 years.

Some of that, actually a good bit of it over the past couple of decades, has been self-inflicted by the shale companies and a lack of fiscal discipline. I think the bottom truly falling out in 2020 with the combo of the Russian-Saudi price war and government shutting down demand in their overly aggressive responses to Covid has, hopefully, taught that lesson once and for all.