Michael Vick: The $100 Million Man (Again)
So two years after getting out of jail and being cleared to play football, three years after filing for Chapter 11, and four years after pleading guilty to federal felony conspiracy charges, Michael Vick has signed a new $100 million contract with the Philadelphia Eagles; six years, $40 million guaranteed. Back in 2008 when his lawyers told a bankruptcy judge that Vick would likely be able to “earn a substantial living” again, they weren’t kidding.
In terms of sheer size, this one isn’t quite the $130 million, 10-year contract he signed with the Atlanta Falcons back in 2004, which made him the highest paid player in the NFL. But the new deal actually comes with more guaranteed money, and a higher yearly salary. As far as I can tell, this makes Vick the rare pro athlete to sign two contacts worth $100 million or more, and perhaps the only NFL player ever to do so.
Two weeks until the regular season opens, the Eagles better hope that shaky offensive line jells sooner rather than later. That’s an awfully expensive 31 year-old asset they have behind it.
New York City Media’s Hurricane Overkill
By last Friday, New York City was in full-on hurricane panic mode. Public transportation was scheduled for a Saturday shut down, stores were selling out of batteries and flashlights, windows were being taped, sandbags stacked; three-hundred and seventy thousand people were evacuated. This was going to be bad, the local media kept telling us. Really, really bad. Even the number-crunching, data-driven Nate Silver got in on the action, posting an extensive piece on his fivethirtyeight blog that if Hurricane Irene got close enough to New York City, it could be the costliest natural disaster ever. And by Friday, it was heading straight for the Big Apple.
By midnight on Saturday, things (in the words of NBC anchor Brian Williams) were “getting a bit sporty” in NYC. Wind was gusting, rain was coming sideways. The streets were empty, save for dozens of intrepid local TV news reporters deployed throughout the city, standing ready to report on the impending damage. Which, remember, was going to be bad.
The center of Irene hit New York around 9am Sunday. Winds reached 65 mph, the strongest in 25 years. By 10 am, the worst was over. No hurricane-shattered skyscraper windows, no preemptive power outages, no real flooding to speak of. The general tone among New Yorkers Sunday morning was, “That’s it?” But to watch the local TV news on Sunday, the storm had been epic. Rather than call in their battalion of reporters stationed around the area, the NYC TV news media kept reporting. All day. Read More »
The Economist’s Guide to Parenting: Economist Kids Photo Gallery
For our latest podcast, “The Economist’s Guide to Parenting” (you can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen live via the media player, or read a transcript here), we asked for parenting advice from a most unlikely group of people: economists. The roster of guests includes our very own Steve Levitt, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers; and also features economist parents Bruce Sacerdote, Melissa Kearney, Valerie Ramey, and Bryan Caplan.
As a bit of extra fun, we decided to make a photo gallery out of the cute family pictures they sent us. Take a look at these proud economist parents!
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 