jackie hayes

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 18, 2008 -> 04:30 PM) Ok, this seems a bit underhanded. We all know that Obama's heading overseas this weekend, but it seems like they've been trying to keep the exact details under wraps for security reasons, especially the timing of visits to specific countries. Reuters is running an article now saying that this morning, Senator McCain may have divulged some of the details they were trying to keep quiet, including potentially the day of his Iraq visit. If Obama's schedule did originally call for arriving in Iraq today or tomorrow...then that's probably a pretty obnoxious security breach by the McCain camp there. Or he could have just been talking off the cuff...but still, if the Service is that worried about security that they're telling him he can't visit certain locales, shouldn't you be a bit careful with those sorts of details? Probably shouldn't have said that, but I'd chalk it up as an innocent mistake, not "underhanded". It doesn't give him any political advantage to divulge that info now, and I can't imagine McCain purposely jeopardizing Obama's personal safety.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 18, 2008 -> 02:15 PM) Yes, but why recruit programmers? To code. Programmers often spend most of their time not programming, but the actual programming and resulting software are still without question the key deliverable. If recruiting was their key deliverable, they'd be recruiters. It was just an example. He could also read books to become a better programmer, or make coffee to help keep everyone awake. It doesn't matter. The relevant analogous question is simply, Should he code if he's not making the company better off by doing so? It depends on the job description. If the employer asks him to code, code, code, then, sure, churn out the stuff, no matter how pointless. If he has a broader objective, then perhaps he should do something else. This is similar to a senator's job. If his job is to represent the state's interests, then he should vote on every single bill, even if his vote is irrelevant. If his job is to serve the state's interests, then he should vote when it will be more productive than anything else he could do. Which means, not always, necessarily.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 18, 2008 -> 01:43 PM) Look, here is an analogy. Being a Senator is a job - they do it full time (at the national level anyway). They probably only spend 10% of their time in voting activities, maybe less. So does that make voting less important than the other 90% of their work? Consider this. Your average computer programmer, working at a software company, may spend 10 to 20% of their time actually coding software. The other 80 to 90% of their time is spent on documention, testing, communications, project management, training, and all sorts of other activities. But what if we used bmags' line of thinking here? That voting doesn't matter? For a programmer, if they aren't coding, they are accomplishing very little for the company. They are failing. And all that other stuff is lead up. Its done FOR the coding to occur. Same with a Senator. All the other stuff they do is the dance before mating. Its setting the table for the real show, the real event, which is passing legislation. That is their primary job, just as producing software is for a programmer. You can't program 60% of the expected code and be successful. And you can't vote 60% of the time and be a successful Senator. That depends on what the programmer's stated objective is. If his employer wants him to write code, then he should write code. If his employer wants to him serve the company's interests, he should do the following -- write code when it will actually help the company, but when it is a piece of code that won't be improved by his working on it, he should spend the time doing something else that will help the company (eg, recruiting good young programmers).

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 18, 2008 -> 01:28 PM) I made no point about what these constituents may feel, as I have no way of knowing. bmags didn't either. He was saying that it doesn't matter, I am saying it does. I also said, earlier, that I don't entirely blame the candidates for it in this case, because of the absurd nature of a modern Presidential campaign. As a Senator, your #1 job is to represent the interests of your state (which, often, is by way of accomplishing things that are in their interests, as you re-stated for me). You say representing the interests of the state is "often" a way of accomplishing things that are in the state's interest. I agree, that is often true. But not always. If he can serve the state's interests better by campaigning than voting, I see no problem with it. You state as absolute fact that the "#1 job is to represent the interests of your state". I just don't know that exact statement is true. The word "represent" is particularly meaningful, here. If one changes it to, the #1 job is to serve the interests of your state, it's a much different statement, and I'm not sure it's not a better summary of a senator's obligation.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 18, 2008 -> 02:13 PM) Buh? How can you possibly say, from any perspective, that "it really doesn't matter whether they are there or not". You might say that some votes on some issues are a little silly, or that you understand they can't be there 100% of the time while running for President. But I have to say your statement here is off base. A Senator is there to represent the interests of their state. And if they don't vote, they aren't doing that. That bolded part isn't necessarily true. One could argue that they are not there to "represent" the state's interests, they are there to accomplish things that are in the state's interests. If there is virtually no chance that a senator's individual vote accomplishes those things, it may be better for the state that he raises the probability that he is elected president. Of course, once he is elected president, he no longer serves the interests of just one state. If, however, he was elected because his basic beliefs are supported by the state, that state may prefer that he is campaigning in an effort to enact those beliefs, rather than casting a vote that will accomplish nothing. Just saying, it's not that clear that his state would oppose campaigning over casting votes. bmags does have a point.

Bears reportedly close to a deal with Williams: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...1,7067675.story

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 17, 2008 -> 03:29 PM) When I go to O's games, which has been a fair amount the last year or so, I get the vibe that they are about tired of Cabrera here. It's mixed, I think. At Orioles Hangout, they had a 'keep 'em, trade 'em' poll for Roberts, Sherrill, Cabrera, Huff, others. Cabrera was right around 50% keep, 50% trade. (Sherrill was something like 90% 'trade him'.)

From rotoworld:

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 17, 2008 -> 03:03 PM) From the stuff I'm seeing, he's actually starting to get pissed off that he's still down there. According to news just out today, Liriano has contacted the union about pursuing a grievance against the Twins for keeping him in AAA, because he feels like they may be doing so just to delay the onset of his arb/FA years. He's 7-0 with a 2.73 ERA in his last 9 starts and his fastball is back. No way! First time I've heard about Liriano filing a grievance...

QUOTE (Benchwarmerjim @ Jul 17, 2008 -> 03:08 PM) link? It's rotoworld. From what I've read, Liriano should have passed the super-2 deadline by now, and if I'm the Twins, I do want to see more than a handful of solid outings before calling him back up (maybe not 9, but 6 or 7, anyway). I'm not really buying the service-time argument for why he's still in AAA.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 01:44 PM) How many times would you like me to type the samethings over and over for you to nitpick something out of that really has nothing to do with the main arguement in the first place, or could you just save the time and cut and paste the questions and answers again? There is no real point in taking this any further if you are just looking to see how circular you can make this. Put whatever words you want into my mouth, have me reach whatever conclusion you want me to reach, and move on. I'm done. You were the one who differentiated between what posters were saying and what the article was saying. And that's wrong, you were saying the same things. If you don't like being called on it, well damn, that's tough. Don't say it in the first place. As for the main argument, you made a bogus comparison between this bailout and the spending of this administration on all sorts of things, including the Iraq war. It was a ridiculous comparison, and you haven't backed it up one bit. If I keep asking the same question, it's because you won't answer it except to whine about how I'm treating you unfairly.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 02:37 PM) But no one ever said it was ONLY him. You can read into things and keep making up what you want to see. It is not there. Oh, people put little caveats in, like, Well, maybe they would have eventually failed. Even the "editorial" said those things. So why are you saying that it said something different than you?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 02:25 PM) The editorial did, not any person on here. My point was that members of Congress shouldn't be speaking ill of individual businesses and industries for political gain. Please. You said Schumer took down IMB: "We have Congress people in positions of power who should be minding their words knowing that they can move markets, taking down banks." That's not any different than the "editorial" saying that Schumer "caused" IMB's fall, or saying it fell "because" of him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 12:40 PM) Aside from a handful of liberal crazy tinfoil hat bloggers and far left economists, none of whom deserve any respect because we're so far outside the mainstream that they keep being, um, right...who did? I'm not saying anyone did.

QUOTE (DBAH0 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 10:50 AM) Well I mean they would have had to have done a salary dump to get under the cap so they could acquire Camby (and maybe renounce the rights to Deng and / or Gordon also). The only team really out there with cap room was the Clippers (originally) and Memphis. Memphis doesn't need Hinrich with 3 PG's already on the roster, and Hughes has what 2-3 years left on his deal for around $15M? Pretty sure Hughes has 2 years left. Same as Camby, iirc.

Right, that's why I said that I don't know if they would have wanted Hinrich. Just saying that that sort of move probably would've been good for the Bulls.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 10:20 AM) He did actually. Sep 2007 May 2007 So its not like Schumer was suddenly vocal on this issue last week. He's been talking about it and trying to do something about it for 15 months, whether or not his actions are correct is not something I can tell you. He also remarked on the issue in March 2007, http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/p...?id=272752& But that was still too late to really do anything. I think he deserves some credit for talking about the issue earlier than most, but he didn't seem to see the problem as it was happening.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 10:33 AM) How much money was withdrawn by customers before the distinguished Senator from New York opened his pie hole? I'd be interested in the data, if you have them. IMB reported that in the two days following the comments, $100 mil was withdrawn, and then said that on Monday, withdrawals were "substantially lower" (or something like that, I don't have the exact quote in front of me). Shortly before Schumer's comments, the ratings on IMB's bonds were lowered, and on Tuesday a policy group report was issued that blasted IMB's mo. A little later, IMB laid off half its employees. The bank was losing money and its mortgage default rate had exploded, and all this was public knowledge. It was already little better than a penny stock. Yet you think IMB's only problem was Schumer's comments?

QUOTE (DBAH0 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 09:22 AM) The Nuggest were desperate to dump salary so that they didn't have to pay the luxury tax. That's what you get when you resign Nene to a 60/6 deal though, and have Kenyon Martin making close to a max contract. The Bulls would have had to trade either Hinrich or Hughes to be able to acquire Camby. And that would have been bad because...? I don't really care much, as I don't see the Bulls competing next year, regardless. But short term, Camby's a nice player to have, and long-term, you get out from Hinrich's contract. Not sure if they would have wanted Hinrich, though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 10:07 AM) Expected tax receipts aren't an asset? Geesh, there is really no point. You are going to believe whatever you want to believe, and really aren't going to listen to anything else, and just make up the rest. You're really grasping at straws now. But it's good to know you're such a huge proponent of massive government spending. Anything to get that multiplier going. The cost of the bailout is not going to be anywhere close to $1 trillion dollars. The cost of the bailout is not going to be anywhere close to the cost of the Iraq war. You can huff and puff anyway you want, your comparison was a joke.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 10:04 AM) I'm glad your reading skills are as good as your economic skills. I never said regulation was bad, I said the way we regulate wasn't working. I would love to see where I said regulation itself was bad. When an institution has a self-interest in how something is run, and lots of time their re-elections depend on whose skids they are greasing, the system doesn't work. I would love to hear your case for how we are doing things now is working. I have said forever that the system where we have a regulating body for each piece of the financial sector which is completely disconnected from the others doesn't work. It has led to a needlessly complex and overburdening system complete with contradictatry rules as you move from sector to sector. Those posts you can find all over the buster. You said Congress should have nothing to do with banking. ("The Congress has no business worrying about banking, finance, trading, or any of the other things like this that they oversee.") Any conceivable body that could have authority over those things is brought into existence and is at the whim of Congress. But Congress shouldn't even be involved. Alrighty then. I guess the FDIC and the Fed would have willed themselves into existence. Banks would graciously submit to their demands, even without Congressional mandates.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 09:00 AM) The simple answer is exactly where they should be... clueless. The Congress has no business worrying about banking, finance, trading, or any of the other things like this that they oversee. Our financial system is way to complex for these politicians to understand. It really needs to be under the arm of the federal reserve bank to regulate these sectors, not Congress. We don't need a committee for each of these and a regulating body to match. It is a waste of manpower, and all you have to do is look at recent history showing this regulating bodies asleep on the job to understand this. There is way too much partisian interest here for these groups to be managed correctly. Look no further than an idiot like Chuck Schumer not understanding that it isn't a good idea to talk about a specific bank failling. In the 11 days after he opened his yap, depositors took $1.3 billion out of IndyMac. Don't tell me he didn't have an effect on them going under. That is the reason guys like Greenspan, Paulsen, Bernanke and company measure their words and talk in general terms! They know that their words move markets. Congressmen are too busy worrying about the 30 second soundbyte to care about the effects of what they say. Congress needs to be stripped of all of their responsibility and oversight for our entire financial sector, as they just can't handle it. Because you don't plan on listening to anything that doesn't agree with what you already believe. But I'm glad you finally gave that speech about how regulation is bad. Awesome.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 08:54 AM) If you want to go into second and third levels of costs, that isn't right on either account. First of all you know there is more to cost than just getting the money paid back. There are all of the set costs of what the banks are going to lose that we are going to absorb. There is also the opportunity cost of not being able to use that trillion dollars for something else, just like the Iraq War. We are most likely also losing money on the loans themselves because I doubt we are taking the money from somewhere else. We are borrowing the trillion from someone, and loaning back to the banks for a smaller interest rate with almost certianty. Then we are hoping they pay it back eventually. Until then that trillion dollars is gone. It is a cost until that loan is repayed. Remember mortgages are a 30 year commodity. Secondly when you can't make a narrow assumption of the banking money showing up eventually so that is OK, but the Iraq War money just disappearing, which is pretty much economically impossible. In fact a case could easily be mad that the war spending is good for the economy as well. That money isn't just going into a void. It is being spent mainly on defense contract, which provides some of the highest paying jobs in the country. People need to build all of those tanks, bullets, etc. All of the troops over there are getting paid. All of the jobs they left at home are getting filled by people who might not have them in the first place. You can go into the multiplier effect there as far as you want. The idea that they money isn't "coming back" is laughable. That money is a lot more relevant in the current economy than the banking money which is truely disappearing until the banks maybe repay most of it. The multiplier effect is lost here because this is money just to cover the money that has already been lent out. The cost of the loans certainly was accounted for. I said the government would absorb bank losses. I wasn't assuming any particular interest rate on the loan; everything I said holds for an interest rate of zero, even. And the opportunity cost is the interest expense, which I pointed out -- any "something else" that the government wants to do can be done with borrowed money, so the cost is the interest on that loan. You seem unable to understand the notion that the government can borrow money ("the banking money which is truely disappearing until the banks maybe repay most of it"), but, no, really, it can. We are talking about the cost to the federal govt. A loan (albeit on unfavorable terms) to Fannie and Freddie leaves the government with an asset, an outstanding loan. Iraq war spending on services leaves the government with no assets, obviously. The same is true on spending on goods, although you have to be careful with the numbers (goods that are unused should not be accounted for as Iraq war spending). From an accounting perspective, that money is GONE. Your economics is wrong too (but the part on the troops), but that's neither here nor there. The fact is, the cost of the bailout isn't going to even approach $1 trillion, nor the cost of the Iraq war, and nothing you've said has refuted that.

Marcus Camby traded to the Clippers for jack s***.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jul 15, 2008 -> 05:07 PM) "Laughable. And you're the one talking about faux outrage. Show me a credible source of your claim that Fannie and Freddie will cost the federal government $1 trillion. Not that they'll have financing available, blah blah blah, but that the END COST will be $1 trillion. You are comparing it to other costs, so unless you're just being flagrantly dishonest, that's what you should mean. Can't wait." It sure seems like you were advocating a bailout of Fannie and Freddie, as you argued the cost would be fairly low and that the poster you were countering had a laughable argument against. So why bold the other part of the post? I wasn't arguing for or against a bailout, only saying the cost would be WAY less than $1 trillion. That doesn't mean it's low. If it matters, I do think it's probably a good idea. There should be reforms, but I don't think letting them crash now is a good option.