Balta1701

I wouldn't have expected to read those posts and find the Bulls up by 3.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 09:00 PM) Any company that had a line of credit? Oops. I'm waiting.

I would really love one single example of a company able to obtain substantial funding between the fall of Lehman and the passage of the stimulus with no assistance or guarantee by the fed. I'll even take a company that was no where near bankruptcy and only needed billions, rather than tens of billions.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 05:22 PM) I think you hit every single talking point. Whereas yours is just "funding was available. Shut up."

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 05:16 PM) Looking at those pictures made my heart aflutter. The only complaint I have is that some of them, like the one that appeared at CNNSI yesterday, are obnoxiously airbrushed.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 05:21 PM) And with a scoreboard there would be less reason to pay attention. Well, if nothing else...the advertisers would think that is a great thing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 05:15 PM) Why wouldn't they go in front of Congress? They got a way better deal than they would have in bankruptcy court, and they didn't really have to make any hard decisions. I also don't think you appreciate the marketshare difference, or hard asset difference, not to mention the amount debt we are talking about going into default here if GM went under, which is exactly why it wouldn't have happened. Then again, by the logic being spouted here, Barack Obama wanted MF Global to fail, along with all of the farmers that went with them. Did you even pay attention to 2008? The literally trillions of dollars the Federal reserve shoved out the door to keep credit markets functioning? Companies that were otherwise healthy couldn't get financing for their most basic functions. Proctor & Gamble took over half a billion dollars in Federal Reserve loans because of a lack of financing. Basically every company out there that relies on credit in any way found the credit markets frozen. Profitable companies with assets taht shoudln't have reasonably been questioned couldn't get loans, because the people doing the loans couldn't make them based on assets that were suddenly worthless. You yourself have said that the 2 auto giants were on the hook for tens of billions of dollars that they couldn't pay back. And yet somehow, despite the fact that companies that were in much, much, much better shape than GM couldn't get funding for basic, day to day operations, the private sector was going to come in and provide bridge funding at rates that were reasonable enough that the companies wouldn't shut down. And then the fact that the companies were in bankruptcy, with no one standing behind warranties any more, wouldn't have any impact on sales during those bridge years. And then the fact that Ford, the company that survived without the bailout, said flat out "you need to bail out my main competition" doesn't matter at all. You're right about one thing. They got a better deal by going to the government. Because the alternative was Chapter 13.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) I don't mind baseball without a scoreboard. It just means you have to pay attention to the game. Because when we think of places where the crowd pays attention to the game...we come up with...Wrigley?

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 04:53 PM) Does Dealey Plaza count? Yes.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 03:29 PM) The idea that GM and Lehman are anything similar show how little you understand the situations of the two firms. Leaving out all the actual economic data and basic facts of the 2008 situation, my personal favorite refutation of the idea that bridge funds are available is the fact that they were asked for in the first place. Think of it. You've got 3 captains of industry, guys who are getting paid millions of dollars per year, guys who get to fly around in private jets and get tens of millions of dollar severance packages...going before Congress, begging, hat in hand, for tens of billions of dollars to keep their companies running. Not only do they have to humble themselves that much, but then they have to deal with hours and hours of Congress berating them for sucking...and the Shermanator sitting there and making them look like fools for taking private jets to a hearing where they're asking to be bailed out. The idea that these guys would put up with Congress if there were legit bridge funds available is laughable.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 02:35 PM) I wonder what happened. The WSJ has suggested it was a personal family emergency for Mr. Colbert. As he has kept his family quite private despite his public face, I wouldn't be shocked if that's the last detail we got.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 01:06 PM) I don't care about the coverage, it just annoys me that people try to deny WHY there is so much coverage for those 2. I don't think this one has nearly as much to do with Jesus.

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) But when do we ever look at the jumbotron at The Cell except for the opening montage? They don't replay controversial plays. So that leaves, what? The pizza races? Ads.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 12:26 PM) So let me ask you this...say this was in a work setting. Say a man was a homosexual but considered the matter private and kept it secret from his co-workers. Then one night, a group of secretaries show up in a gay bar and happen to see him kissing another man. Do the secretaries have the right to now expose this fact about his sexual orientation to his coworkers or his boss? (By the way, it's worth adding to this post that homosexuality is not a protected class under the laws in many states. At least as of 2009, it was legal to fire a person solely for being homosexual in 29 states (that's the date on the first article that popped up, and the legislatures that came into office in 2010 probably weren't likely to change that).)

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 11:06 AM) The idea there wouldn't have is just the direct statement of the CEO of Ford (who was thus arguing for the saving of his main competitors in what would be a horrible business decision if untrue), in addition to everyone else involved. Slight rewording there.

QUOTE (SpainSOXfan09 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 11:31 AM) A little off topic but does anyone know what exactly Theo did at Fenway to renovate without seemingly haveing to sacrifice the season? I think he only did some cosmetic refurb work and put some seats on top of the Green Monster, or am I way off? In that case, the ballpark was mostly structurally sound, so they did renovations sequentially over a series of offseasons. And I"m not sure how much you can credit "Theo" personally for the plan. Wrigley's problem is that the stadium itself is approaching the point where it will no longer be a structurally sound building. Simply doing piecemeal renovations to add seating capacity will not change that fact.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 10:41 AM) The propaganda surrounding this issue is blinding. The auto industry would have emerged the same if it went through traditional bankruptcy as it if didn't. They would not have been liquidated and made to disappear. They would have cut costs through the bankruptcy and reorganized. There would have been loans to the auto firms. There is too much money involved for them to just go away. They also wouldn't have logged billions of dollars in taxpayer losses. The whole, the Republicans wanted the auto industry to fail is just pure ignorance. I guess that means every struggling industry that Obama didn't bailout, he made them and wanted them to fail? Like when Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy and found plenty of transition capital available in 2008 to keep their operations running. After all, there were lots of lenders in 2008 willing to risk tens of billions of dollars of their own on something that you say "logged billions of dollars in taxpayer losses". Edit: Finally found the quote I was looking for:

QUOTE (Lillian @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 10:10 AM) Good point, and well taken. Nevertheless, he is a good OBP hitter. At least he was until he got to Cleveland last year and his numbers collapsed. If he puts up numbers similar to his total average last year...he's an above average backup/sub for corner OF positions. If he puts up numbers similar to those he put up in Cleveland, he won't belong as anything more than mopup duty.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 10:00 AM) US Cellular is the only feasible option I can see for the Cubs for that season. Maybe it happens in 2013 or maybe a year or two later, but it pretty much has to happen soon. I think that the move to two 15-team leagues may make the scheduling a little bit easier, but if there are more than a couple rainouts, one or both teams may have to make up those games on the road. It might well take someone actually getting hurt because of the quality of the facilities for it to really happen.

Lowest 1 week Jobless claims number since BearStearns went down.

Hey, Boone Logan, there's another 1.5 WAR I forgot in my compilation of players we traded away yesterday.

Mitt Rmoney will be outspending Rick Santorum by a ratio of 29 to 1 this week in Michigan.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 09:25 AM) I stopped reading this thread days ago. Why the hell is it even still going? Soler got dumped into this thread too.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 09:03 AM) Look at these split stats for his career numbers, when batting 3RD or 5TH: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/...=Career&t=b He has a career .390 OBP when batting 3RD or 5TH, over 550 plate appearances. That's a more interesting split stat than his numbers versus RHP/LHP. Do you honestly think this is a function of him somehow being better when he's in the middle of the order, versus him being put in the middle of the order during times when he's hitting well versus moved elsewhere during times when he isn't?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2012 -> 08:47 AM) To the first part, you can't just leave a bomb on the beach. So what? Put a brick on a string to hold down the pressure switch, run like hell, pull brick off once everyone is at a safe distance.