Balta1701

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Mar 15, 2012 -> 10:33 AM) I don't think people are down on Brewer, I just think they value him more as a member of the Bench mob. If Brewer is starting, it weakens our bench. Our bench is one of our best assets. Yeah, Brewer isn't "holding this team back", but especially since Deng's usefulness as a scorer is lost with his wrist injury, the bench right now basically has Kyle Korver as a threat to make a shot. Gibson and Asik can get some dunks if you generate ball movement, and getting CJ back would help with that too...I'm not trying to be hard on Brewer I just would say that he'd be much more effective in the right role for him.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Mar 15, 2012 -> 10:16 AM) I'm happy were keeping the rights to Mirotic, but my worry is who plays the 1? I mean now we have Pujols, Howard and Noah who all play the 1. Thibs is going to have his hands full. Pujols is only 6'3", I don't think he's going to be much of a rebounder.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 15, 2012 -> 10:07 AM) Yeah, it's all about health. I'm not going to jump up and down and say last night proves anything, the Bulls shot ridiculous from 3 point range. I DO THINK I saw something intriguing in the way Thibs coached. He let LeBron and Wade get theirs and resisted double teams, and that REALLY WORKED. In a 7 game series it wouldn't work every night, but could it possibly work 3 times when we can't score and then maybe a 4th when the MVP goes nuts? It's possible. We have quite possibly the best coach in basketball and a roster hungry to listen, which I'm hoping gives us an advantage. Like I said, I'm a bit more confident after last night, but seriously the Bulls can't beat the Heat in 7 if they can't get their roster healthy. CJ being gone is one thing, but losing Rip hurts the entire setup because Brewer has to fill the starter role. ANd yeah, that Rose guy is kinda important.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 15, 2012 -> 09:43 AM) Well, I highly doubt the Bulls lock down a big splash today. They need to somehow get healthy and I still believe they can take the Heat. I'm still uncertain but last night did provide some confidence. The Bulls just aren't in a position to make a trade right now, they don't have the assets to do it unless some GM decides to help the Bulls out. The only way they are getting better is having Jesus waive his arms over the roster.

Link

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 10:29 PM) Peyton Hillis signs with the Kansas City Chiefs. One year - 3 mil. Man. He would have looked real good with Forte - at only 3 mil. If he wanted to come to Chicago...and if he coudl actually play and stay healthy. The people in Cleveland supposedly were really tired of him.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Mar 15, 2012 -> 12:53 AM) No, please trade Boozer. He was so f***ing worthless. No one's taking that contract unless you give them a lot to do so, and the Bulls don't have the assets to do so. They can decide whether to amnesty him next summer or the summer after based on where they are re: the luxury tax.

QUOTE (TheCut87 @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 08:32 PM) why is gar forman on the pregame show....get on the horn and get drose some help! This is one team that is probably going to live and die with what it has.

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 05:43 PM) I'd love to see the chain reaction if Calipari goes to Knicks, Donovan goes to Kentucky, Grant or Shaka to Florida. Illinois better act fast. Is there an active investigation on his program right now?

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 05:26 PM) Does he? I only saw his first AB today. There's very little different in his actual position at the plate between when he's succeeding and failing...it's all in how he uses his legs and wrist when he actually swings. When he got on a brief role last year, he still set up the same, but you could tell he suddenly was getting more action out of his legs and hips, then he went back to swinging with just his arms.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 04:04 PM) He was pretty effective with Chauncey. That's because Chauncey could be an effective PG without needing the ball in his hands and was lethal from downtown. The other thing I associate Chauncey (and George Karl) with is a pretty solid defense. Ditto Martin. Somewhat ditto Nene and Kleiza. Throw in JR Smith and we've covered most of that team. So basically, Melo needs to be paired with spotup shooters who can hit the 3 and also play defense, and big guys who rebound and play off of the ball. That's pretty rough.

In that case, is there any sort of team in the NBA where Carmelo can actually succeed? He would kill a passing PG by slowing the game down, he would kill a scoring PG by needing the ball in his hand himself, he would kill a team with a low post game by taking the ball out of the low post...it seems like the only way to structure a team where he could win is if the other 4 guys are there for defense and Carmelo is the only one who really provides offense (Funny, this sounds kinda like the team where he had the most success in Denver).

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 03:44 PM) While I agree with Steve that Lin shouldn't shoot so much, both Melo and Stat have sucked, both are having off years. And I'd say the fact that both of those guys have generally sucked has been a much bigger problem for them than Lin.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 03:26 PM) I must say, any coach that can't adapt his system to get Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire more shots than Jeremy Lin doesn't deserve his job. Honestly, do you really think the problem with the Knicks right now is that Anthony and Amare aren't shooting enough?

That'll put a dent in Lin's numbers.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 11:53 AM) It says the net provision costs are now 1.24 trillion. That's still up from the 900 billion initially. You went through in enough detail to find that specific line item but ignored the text around it which indicated that it wasn't comparable to what you're trying to compare it to.

Articles you write when you leave Goldman Sachs.

The $900 billion price tag, according to repeated CBO numbers is the cost of the "Provisions related to insurance coverage" in previous CBO estimates. That line is comparable to this line in the updated version: It went up last year because it was including future years, but went down this year because Medicare and Medicaid costs have grown slower than previous projections. The larger number is including substantial portions of Medicaid and CHIP, which already existed but which were grouped into the PPACA because they were partially reformed by it.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 11:05 AM) You're looking at the change from 2011 estimates to 2012 estimates. I'm talking about the 2009 estimate spouted by the administration to pass the bill (900 billion) compared to what it is now (1.7 trillion). I also like the footnote, to the initial number from March 2011 to March 2012, wherein it repeatedly states something like "subject to further change." Yeah, i'm sure that change is going to go down. Again, still not the same line.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 10:40 AM) Edit: and I'd agree with you if it were was a minor cost adjustment. This is damn near doubled. In 2 years. What happens 2 years from now? And 2 years after that. And 2 years after that. etc etc. You can talk all you want about the supposed savings, but the fact is we didn't need to push this particular plan through, it didn't address any of the REAL issues, and it just put another 20 million Americans on the government teat. And guess who those 20 million vote for? No one, most of them don't have ID's and the poor have very low turnout rates even before that. And no, the cost didn't damn near double, you're comparing 2 different lines. The $1.7 line has gone up by $50 billion...that line is "Gross spending" while the number being reported as the cost to the Treasury relative to the baseline of not establishing this program has actually gone down by $50 billion because of slowing health care cost increases.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) Well, i'm still in the boat that the world wouldn't have ended if these companies had been allowed to die. If the average tax bill for one auto line worker is what, let's say $5000 (10%) for easy numbers, then $25 billion is equal to the tax paid by 500,000 of those workers. If you lose 500k workers by closing auto plants and then spend no money on them, then the loss would be break even. of course, that's not the case. First step is unemployment benefits, which, again for convenience, let's put at $1000 a month (available for 24 months). Then, throw in Medicaid. The average cost per enrolee on Medicaid is over $10k a year because it often gets stuck with the people who are actually sick, but let's assume this group is fairly healthy and say $5k as a base number. Now, all we have to do is put 100,000 people out of work for a period of 1 year to have that $25 billion be less than we'd have spent had we not intervened...and that's with fairly conservative numbers (assuming healthy people, moderate incomes, low tax rates, forgetting about the Social Security tax, and assuming people find work within a year). The world doesn't have to end for that to be a reasonable investment for the taxpayer, it just needs to have saved a small portion of the people in this country who work in the auto industry.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 10:17 AM) More likely they need someone else who can return kicks because Johnny Knox probably won't be around this season. That's the first, most obvious thing I'd take from that.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 14, 2012 -> 10:06 AM) We're still like 12-13 bucks away from the stock price we bought at. So there's a chance we break even, but we're still going to lose money on this. At the very least we'll be losing some tax revenue. Really, we're losing tax revenue? Compared to the possible situation of several hundred thousand (or if you believe everyone other than Kap, 2k5, and romney) several million people going from employed to unemployed? Tax revenue is the biggest gain out of all of this, except for maybe a few more credit default swap payments out of AIG. Kept enormous numbers of people off the rolls of unemployment and Medicaid and instead kept them as active taxpayers.

1. Make projections from 2011-2020. 2. Pass law based on those projections. 3. 2 years pass 4. Make projections from 2013-2022. 5. Discover shockingly that the total cost has changed when the years included change. 6. Ignore whether or not the bill is actually paying for itself. 7. Angry!

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 13, 2012 -> 11:02 PM) I sucks to lose one of the truly liberal members of Congress, but I don't really know that he was very effective in shaping policy, pulling discourse leftward or getting anything major done. I'd say the biggest problem is that he made the "liberal caricature" too easy.