Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 02:41 PM) Looking at it that way, it makes even elss sense. If the loans are already crammed down, then they aren't eligible for HAMP. And furthermore, the holder of the loan - not the lien - still has to ASK for HAMP. And by the way, HAMP does not write down the linked asset. It writes down the loan principal. The banks can use whatever math they'd like to value the hard assets. The loans aren't already crammed down, if they were, then this settlement wouldn't have any applicability anyway. Secondly, the holder of the loan has to ask to participate in the settlement as well, right? Did I say somewhere that HAMP was writing down the value of the asset? If I did I apologize, that sounds stupid. The value of the asset has depreciated on its own. HAMP was paying financial institutions to write down the value of the loan to more closely match teh value of the asset. This settlement will do exactly that...financial institutions will write down the value of the loan by some amount to move it closer to the value of the asset...which is again, exactly what HAMP offers incentives for the financial institution to do.

Back when I got my license, my dad had a crappy old car that he put my name on as a driver, and I actually drove that fora about 6 months. After that, he decided to sell that car, and he found that his insurance premium went up a ton. Turned out that I'd moved from being a full time driver on the car with almost no value to being a part time driver on one of the more expensive newer cars, and that was enough to increase the insurance he was paying by a lot. Don't remember the actual number but it was in the hundreds. You're probably not going to get a whole lot on a trade for a 222,000 mile car, right? But even if your daughter doesn't technically drive that car much, if you can have her name on it for the purposes of insurance, that might be worth more to you than the value of the trade on the car over the course of the next couple years. Thus, keeping it might well make you more money than selling it.

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 02:17 PM) Fascinating how this all came down with the opt out. Never even thought that was an option. I can't fathom why the A's would do that either. Do the A's think they have a 4 year window? If not, then they're just blowing money on a guy so they can trade him.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 02:31 PM) He'll go down in the recall election. Honestly, I'll be really surprised if that's the case. People don't like recall elections and they shouldn't. That alone will poison the well against whoever is running against him.

I think you're overthinking it. The Bank hypothetically is the lender in these cases. They have lent money to buy assets which have decreased significantly in value. The settlement involves them writing down some portion of that value, taking the losses on those loans. The HAMP program paid banks to do exactly that, offering incentives to write down some portion of the value of those loans. The HAMP program did not involve payments to the borrowers, that'd be socialism, the HAMP payments went to the lenders or people who owned the loan, not to the borrowers/people who owned the asset.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 01:31 PM) The Cubs were an easy sell because they sell 40k tickets a night. No one is going to buy that team if they have a $100 million payroll and 10k showing up a night. I seriously doubt someone who made billions of dollars in life is going to be dumb enough to not know the history of that franchise, especially if the crowds start disappearing if the team does end up in 3rd or 4th again this year. After watching what has gone down with franchises like the Dodgers and Cubs, not only do I think that the Marlins would still be sellable after 1-2 seasons in their new park because of some businessman being convinced that he can fill the stadium, I'm also not sure it's a losing move financially...given how rapidly franchise values have been shooting up. Even if the new owner were to be losing money on the payroll, he could be making up that ground in franchise value.

PPP is out with Michigan data, they have Santorum up 15 over rMoney in a state that should be rMoney's prime real estate, since his dad was their governor. Pretty small sample size, but the lead is well outside margin of error. Rmoney needs to turn this around quick, if he can't score solidly on the 28th, he'll be in real, real trouble a week later for Super Tuesday. Also, a number of conservative papers/orgs have begun calling for Newt to withdraw from the field, to clear it out so that it can be straight Santorum/Rmoney. There appears to be 1 scheduled debate before Arizona and Michigan vote, on the 22nd. Edit: ARG is also out this morning showing a 6 point Santorum lead in Michigan...they have Rmoney at a similar level, but they show a larger gingrich share than PPP does.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 11:13 AM) They are only bad if you are a member of congress with a "wide stance" wind up with police in the stall next to you.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 12:17 PM) I don't think so. HAMP is customer-requestor, not lien holder requested. And if the customer's loan was already written down, they don't need HAMP. So where are you getting this connection? At this point, all I can give you is blogs, of course, but here you go.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) The biggest issue will be they have to figure out how to keep people coming to the games. That might be a job for the next owner. If Loria can push that stadium close enough to full in his first year and then immediately sell, he could probably convince some fairly normal business man that the revenue growth he just had was sustainable.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 10:22 AM) That might be the best Rogers write up I have seen in a long time. Honestly I can't believe none of the national writers have wrote that story yet, when it is so completely obvious (at least up until the Mets part). I'll be honest, I was expecting the end result to be a 2006 style selloff, not a Cubs style sell-the-team-and-let-the-next-guy-clean-up move, but the latter makes a lot of sense when the payroll has doubled and there's a shiny new ballpark.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 08:39 PM) What, no votes for the Minneapolis airport bathrooms? Depends on what you're looking for.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 06:23 PM) They might end up with all three of Concepcion, Soler, and Cespedes. Wouldn't surprise me. They've signed more Cubans than the Sox in recent years too. $75 million put into those 3 maybe?

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 09:26 PM) So last year's closer who had to be replaced by a rookie is going to close again? What do you think the chances are Thornton remains the closer? If Matty winds up actually holding the closer's job, that's probably a big hint that he'll be traded.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 08:28 PM) Is it just me or are they having the exact same argument in multiple threads? Any thread that Marty shows up in turns into a "KW should be fired" thread.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 08:24 PM) The hole the franchise is in was created by the GM that is in place today. If last year was a fluke (for those three) my belief is that the Sox will contend. If last year was their true talent level, you're putting the guy who made the call to acquire them in charge of the rebuilding. It would be a reckless thing to do and should not happen. Schueler contributed Buehrle, Konerko, Garland to the 2005 team. Nobody was sad to see him go when he left, it was time. So, in your opinion KW should be allowed to serve as long as he wants and then step up to Senior Vice President whenever he wants?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 07:58 PM) Unless the real GM target for JR is someone like LaRussa who says he's not quite ready for a full-time job just yet and wants a full year off as a "media commentator" or whatever other reasonable explanation they can come up with, such as spending time with his children and grandchildren, etc. Then LaRussa is stuck with a bunch of players that KW picked up that he wouldn't have wanted. That's nuts.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 07:57 PM) The last thing I will say on this subject is to reiterate that if Dunn, Rios, and Peavy have bad years again there is no way Williams can be brought back as GM. You can't sell a rebuilding led by the same GM who mis-evaluated those three players by that big of a margin. If you think that's unfair so be it, but for the health of the franchise Williams would have to be let go. If you were firing him because of those 3 players, you fire him when those 3 players let you down in an "All in" season. The job from now is to get out of the hole that last year left us in, and that is a multi year commitment. Replacing the GM next year is like replacing a college coach after his first recruiting class. You have no idea how it will look in 3 years. We could win 60 games next year, then find out in 2 years that Sale, Molina, Danks, Castro, and Humber are the newest version of the early 2000's A's rotation, just destroying the league.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 07:48 PM) How do we have any idea what kind of conversations the White Sox FO has had in the last year? A whole range of possibilities could be on the table. KW could have an agreement where he moves on after another year. JR doesn't necessarily have to love Hahn and be in a hurry to shift the reins to him. LaRussa could want a year before getting an important position here. There are all kinds of possibilities. The story is JR chose KW over Ozzie, but we still had rumors last year that KW was wearing thin on JR as well and that they could both be out. Seeing as how it's a rebuilding year, it could very easily be JR deciding to postpone a decision on KW a year since stakes are low. Point being, we have no idea what's going on with them. All guesses are just that. If KW was likely to be removed after this year, then the Chairman just made a mistake almost as silly as keeping a manager who wanted to go to Florida. If you've got a team that needs to be rebuilt and you're about to hire a new GM, why on Earth would you let another GM start the work of rebuilding?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 07:38 PM) Setting *any* standard would be met with your objection. THis year? Correct. It is theoretically impossible to evaluate the White Sox's future based on where this year goes. That's why a GM has to be a 2-3 year commitment at this point.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 07:23 PM) Anything that you can blame on Kenny Williams is good for you. Except for the fact that the last manager got another chance in 2011 after already having quit on the franchise.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 06:35 PM) Isn't there a certain level of English proficiency required to become a citizen? If she can't speak good enough to run, how the hell did she speak good enough to become legal? This community sits on the border and is largely spanish-speaking. It's entirely plausible that she's a natural born citizen who hasn't needed english.

LOL that out of bounds, hit Noah, then hit Deng, but then hit Pierce while he was out of bounds.

Rondo dragging deng down by his bad wrist.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 05:54 PM) 1-2 sentence authoritative assertions are cool. Yes they are.