Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 10:02 AM) You do realize that NYC isn't the whole country, right? But it is an enormous distortion, both because of the availability of transit options and the concentration of the extremely wealthy.

Today's version:"]Today's version of the Howard deal[/url]: 3 way setup with Bynum to the Rockets, draft picks from Rockets to Magic, Magic also get to clear Richardson's contract. This is just overall a better setup for the Magic than anything either the Bulls or the Nets can put together.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:35 AM) And even your numbers generated by the American Public Transportation Association, show it is a primarily middle class or better activity. Here's the graph I was trying to track down. There's also a decent discussion there of how New York City offsets the transit use quite heavily.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:47 AM) I honestly have almost no faith in either the FDIC or the SIPC if things really fell apart...I'm sure I could put in a claim for the money...and I'm sure I'd get it back... In 35 years. The FDIC has done an exceptional job through the crisis. Their only real blemish was Washington Mutual falling, which hit them before they'd figured out how to deal with a closing bank from the mortgage crisis, and even then they still held up their end of the bargain for most people within a period of a couple weeks. At the time they weren't covering up to $250k so a lot of people lost money past the $100k limit, but that part can't be blamed on the FDIC, that's how the law was at the time. Aside from that one, their "sell off the bank, take the losses onto the FDIC, and no one loses a cent from deposits" has worked exceptionally well, with the exception of the too big to fail banks which it can't cover. The SIPC...well, it's not designed to do what the FDIC does, it's not designed to be deposit insurance.

This is pretty clearly the future of the midwest, as more canadian heavy oil gets shipped to refineries on the Gulf coast for export over the next few decades.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:42 AM) Devin Hester had three returns for touchdown last year alone. His value hasn't been stunted much, if at all. Also, I like how you throw out "some teams are getting better at directional punting". Right. Great stat. And to add, he was ineffective for about 1/3 or more of the season because of an injury (was it a hamstring?)

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:43 AM) Correction...they are not backed by the FDIC, they are backed by SIPC Protection Example: E*TRADE Securities LLC and E*TRADE Clearing LLC are members of SIPC, which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash). Explanatory brochure available upon request or at www.sipc.org. Ok, I was checking through my FDIC law there because it didn't sound accurate at all to me. the SIPC is a different beast.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:42 AM) Stocks/bonds in brokerage accounts also have FDIC backing. This doesn't seem accurate to me.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:41 AM) Or anything related to government... Especially since the FDIC has nothing to do with the government .

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:38 AM) Of course there is...you can't take advantage of something you...um...don't take advantage of. The point is, they CAN take advantage of it. I'm terrified to because of the gigantic, systemic corruption, fraud, and lawbreaking. Of course, I can say the same thing about my savings account (at least that has FDIC backing).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:29 AM) Like I said, it doesn't look at effect it has on individuals who utilize the cut. It looks at the bracket as a whole, which skews the data. But that also means that there is a skew in who can really make use of that cut.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:23 AM) I'm not seeing that at all. My mass transit experience over the last 14 years is seeing way more people from middle and upper class areas versus poor areas commuting to jobs. Do you take the bus very often? That's the method of transit that skews strongest to the lowest income brackets.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:11 AM) Not to mention the data presentation is skewed to make a political point. It is presented by income brackets instead of by what individuals receive as a percentage of income. Tax breaks in the lower group at a lesser percentage are more important to those income groups than larger income breaks at higher percentages because of the nature of their limited income. Even though a lower percentage in those brackets are able to utilize these benefits, they are vastly more important to the ones that do. The reality is any tax break is going to skew towards the wealthy because they are best able to utilize them. Pick a break and it will be true. Should we eliminate the break for mortgage interest? The poor don't own houses, right? I'm sure if you could find a chart on it, it would skew highly towards the upper income brackets. Something like mass transit would skew the same way. The ultra-poor aren't commuting to jobs, it is the middle and higher classes that are. The poorest groups either aren't working, or they are working at very low income jobs close to home. Should we shut down mass transit, because it doesn't benefit the poor. College loans/grants? They aren't going to the poorest income groups, as they aren't utilizing the lower levels of education, let alone the higher ones. Should we shutdown things like the Pell program? This is yet another case of skewing data to make a point, without realizing what the point should be. Frankly, yes, if we could start all over again, the tax break for mortgage interest winds up being a terrible setup, huge waste of money compared with other means of subsidizing/stabilizing home ownership, and a giant subsidy to encourage people to buy more house(s) than they reall can afford. The problem with getting rid of it, of course, is that people have made 30 year purchase plans assuming that credit would continue to exist, which makes getting rid of it extremely difficult. Mass transit, OTOH, actually skews quite poor, because they're the group that can't afford cars.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 08:57 AM) Again, that's not what it's designed to do. This is the key point you keep erroneously leaning on, and I've already pointed out why it's a bad use of generalized data. The question isn't if it spurs investment...the questions is does it increase the percentage of LONG TERM INVESTMENT within those investments? The data doesn't differentiate investment types...it simply shows investments, and again...they're not the same. So...let's put the onus on you then. Can you show us some data that remotely suggests "Long term investment" has increased since 2003 in any way, shape, or form? I'm going to bet you can't. The savings rate has continued going down despite the recession. The entire financial industry is even more oriented on short-term gains. Give me some evidence that the $150 billion+ spent on that tax cut has done what you keep insisting it's supposed to do.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 02:13 AM) Didn't they agree to take a pay cut in order to pay together? Yes. And also important...they removed everyone else on their roster other than Chalmers to be able to do that. If you wanted the Bulls to offer 2 max deals in addition to Rose...you have to renounce your rights to extend Gibson, otherwise his RFA cap hold would be too big to make the 2 other offers.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 10:16 PM) The Tigers are really choking this game away to screw over the White Sox in the WS Yeah. And the Royals too?

Kinsler you suck

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 09:59 PM) Forgot the game was on, any CWS players do anything yet? Just came in

Sale up next!

401ks allow you to defer high income years onto lower income years. That is an enormous tax subsidy.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 09:17 PM) Well, I absolutely think it's beneficial for incentives to exist which can attract new, younger, and less than rich investors into the market. It's a great avenue for saving/investing for the future. These incentives should apply to those making less than 500k (for example). The issue is, one way or another, the rich keep themselves rich via endless incentives and perks...and guess who we have in office? The rich. Some of them pretend to be on our side (Democrats), but they're not. And the republicans have made it pretty clear they're not on our side, either...unless it also benefits them (the rich). But in the end...all of them are rich...and they've configured the system to make sure they stay that way. I can accept that. But we're already doing that. The existence of 401ks alone is a cost of $50 to $70 billion or more per year to the treasury. It's there, it's a gigantic tax advantage already. The long term savings rate has just gone down and down since the 03 cuts of those taxes. Youd get better performance on long term savings by just employing people for that $300 billion.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 09:05 PM) On this...while it may be semantics, it bothers me. I don't like it when people use the word "cost" where it doesn't belong. It's not "costing" anything, it simply means they're taking in less tax revenue. It's not an expense...and I really dislike how people try to look at it as if it's an expense. It's a seriously wonky/f***ed up way of looking at tax revenue. If cap gains tax is at 15%, they're making 15% profit. If it's at 30%, they're making 30% profit. If it drop's back down to 15%, they're not LOSING anything, they're just not making as much. That's NOT a cost. And that is why we're having this discussion. Because it's never worth asking if any particular tax credit is an efficient way of subsidizing a certain behavior. As long as it is a tax cut, it's just assumed to be effective/useful.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 07:41 PM) This is a loaded question that would probably take hours to actually even scratch the surface of. First, there is no true taxpayer "cost" when it comes to incentivizing long term investments aside from a select few that do not have jobs that produce income, and their investments are their sole source of income. Keep in mind the base money in the market has ALREADY been taxed once. Any taxes after that point are all added taxes on successful investments. Of those successful investments, the loss of tax revenue from the ultra rich that do not work, and thus have no "income", comes primarily from dividend gains. They're already addressing this by proposing to raise the dividend rate on top earners to 30%, bringing it in-line with ordinary income taxes. That should correct your question of any actual taxpayer cost...the issue is, not many people in the world have the wealth or investment portfolio to live off dividends and long term cap gains. Second, most wall street criminal trading is not done via long term investments, of course it can be in cases of insider trading, but when it comes to long term investments, it's often too easy to trace such activity. The easiest place to do this sort of thing is in quick turn-around revolving markets, such as credit markets, etc...where the numbers change constantly. Third, I'm not sure what to say about the criminal wall street system...they have enough oversight in the world to police this, the issue is, they don't bother. I invest in the market and I do so without breaking the law. So because others cannot, I should get penalized, too? I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. Well, one, yes, if you invest in the market without cheating, you are getting penalized by the systemic lawbreaking. But that's besides the point. But take a look at everything else you wrote...nothing there argues that minimal capital gains taxes are an effective way of subsidizing long-term investment compared to the $300 billion 10 year cost. The question I'm asking is...is that the best use of $300 billion additional funds on top of the enormous 401k subsidy? For comparison, an alternative method that is employed in some of the financial centers overseas is a Financial Transactions tax. Combined with the hundreds of billions of dollars used to subsidize the 401k system, you now have a setup where there is a substantial tax benefit for investing, but then that builds into a growing penalty if you do not have a long term setup. The cost to the taxpayer of doing that is still substantial because the 401k subsidy for investment is huge, but it accomplishes the same task without spending hundreds of billions more on a capital gains subsidy. And you get the added benefit of penalizing the high frequency, day-trading markets at the same time, while raising tax funds from those who can most easily afford it; wall street. That's my question. If we're looking to encourage long term investment...and the cost of a capital gains tax cut extension is $300 billion+ over the 10 year period, we have to ask whetehr that's the most effective way of encouraging long term investment. It's not. It's extremely inefficient.

Heat add Rashard Lewis.

Well, looks like the AL's gonna have to take the WS on the road.