Balta1701

Great start for forte.

QUOTE (whitesox901 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 08:03 PM) Since the Sox will only trade for Major League talent, is it safe assume the Sox will probably field the same team next season that is on the current 25 man roster? Assuming of course they don't trade off Danks, Floyd, Quentin, etc Remember...this is still trader Kenny. And this is an offseason that could benefit from a shocker.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 06:24 PM) Be sarcastic all you want. The timing of this is incredibly suspect. Just wait until she's on Nancy Grace to further "the cause." Yes, it is suspect that people would start doing background checks on a guy surging to the top of one party's nomination polling and publishing things within a month or so of the start of his surge. By "Suspect" i'd assume you mean "Completely normal and expected." Rev. Wright also agrees.

QUOTE (knightni @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 06:08 PM) The Joker is The Joker. Comics, Cartoons, TV Shows, Movies. Cesar Romero, Mark Hamill, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Larry Storch, Frank Welker, Kevin Michael Richardson, Jeff Bennett, Steven Blum, Richard Epcar, John DiMaggio, Corey Burton, Brent Spiner. All The Joker. In that case, I'll let you figure out how to deal with my 2 Joker votes. And Brent Spiner?

If Terry Ryan is taking over, then the delay was probaby caused by them talking Terry Ryan into stepping back in.

and pretty clearly, it's going to be a while before this goes away

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 01:17 PM) Royals_Report Bob Dutton by Ken_Rosenthal #Royals trade OF Melky Cabrera to San Francisco for P Jonathan Sancez and minor-league pitcher Verdugo. Is that Jonathan Sanchez? The guy who threw the no hitter and who people keep suggesting KW/Coop might trade for?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 10:42 AM) For the record, I'm no fan of what these big banks have become, or even the small ones. There was a time when they actually paid a fair interest rate on the money they "borrowed" from their depositors in order to lend it out for an albeit higher interest rate of their own. Today, they borrow your money for almost nothing (less than nothing in many cases since they charge various fees for using their services), turn around and lend it out at an interest rate of at LEAST 5% on most items. Again, wait a second...yes, there was a time when banks would pay out 5-10% interest on savings, but at the same time, they were also getting 15% rates on mortgages. The decline in long term interest rates has been an effort of the federal reserve. Has the gap between interest paid out and rates charged significantly? In 1980, mortgage rates sat at around 18%, and savings rates sat at 10%, so I certainly wouldn't say that the gap there has changed.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 10:11 AM) This is 2011, where you can't touch QBs and you can't even breathe on WRs. Nobody is playing Bears-level defense this season. Actually, the defense has gotten a lot better over the last few weeks. Most of the secondaries seemed to do a terrible job to start the season, and then tightened it up rapidly recently. The lockout seems to have really hurt the secondaries, so early in the Season we had Brady throwing for 500 yards a game, and yesterday he was shut out for a half. The Bears defense was better against Tampa, but Tampa isn't the offense that philly is, so I'm withholding judgment. They need a big performance tonight.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 10:12 AM) Most of those people unwittingly did BOA a favor, unfortunately. BofA is not being done any favors by losing deposits.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 10:08 AM) If Durbin is really that worried about it, he needs to be after the SEC fees, which pre-date by decades, any electronic banking fees. Where is the line on my receipt that says "$.44 debit card fee"? I can easily find receipts for stock transactions showing SEC fees, tallied exactly, from 25 years ago.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 10:01 AM) Doesn't matter, cash and other banks carry fees according to Balta, and so every single industry in the US is a monopoly, so there is no way around the fees, ever. If the fee is not charged to me, then of course there's no way around it! What the Hell man? How on Earth am I going to avoid a fee charged to a retailer that the retailer is forbidden from passing directly on to me? There's zero incentive for me to avoid that fee if the fee cannot be passed on to me directly. The only way for me to decide whether to pay a fee or not is to have me know about it...to have it be visible.

We've entered the Gloria Allred phase of the Hermain Cain story.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:52 AM) No more of a choice than they had before according to B yes you do, that's the whole point of having the fee go from hidden to transparent!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:52 AM)

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:38 AM) Price changes should have happened. They didn't, just like was said. The economic conditions didn't change during this process. Durbin just lied to everyone so he could pass profits to one group over another, and in the end, he is costing consumers more money in the middle of a recession. Which is exactly what he was told would happen. Well, first of all I'll express surprise that you so casually admit that capitalism doesn't work. I never would have guessed that Adam Smith would finally be proven wrong by Dick Durbin.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:29 AM) It was the opposite actually. The merchants are just pocketing the extra profits. Consumers are paying more in the end. And of course, unless we're in a full and organized monopoly in every industry, a competitor will realize there is market share to be gained with a slight reduction in prices, which will undercut another competitor and cause them to lower their prices slightly, until a new price-equilibrium is established reflecting the new, slightly decreased cost of doing business.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:24 AM) By that logic, the prices should have dropped to reflect that change. They didn't. Seriously, didn't you teach basic high school economics? The interplay between the cost of doing business, competition, and prices is pretty much the most fundamental part of why a "Market economy" works. Prices are, of course, slightly sticky on the way down, so it takes some time for a price decrease to wind its way through the system, but this is as basic as it gets...cost of doing business, narrow profit margin, profit margin prevented from increasing due to competition.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:23 AM) They have this exact tax on every single trade done in the US, with the exact same rules that apply to the old way of doing business, all of the way down to it being illegal to bill clients for it being an SEC fee. Note the difference here. What you've described is much more akin to a sales tax. It is a tax charged, as you describe...on "Every transaction". It is not a subsidy to one type of payment over another. I can't avoid SEC fees by using cash, which you've repeated as a way out of debit card fees repeatedly here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:20 AM) Except when the government does it apparently. And you'd be outraged if the government had a $.40/swipe tax on these type of transactions. But if the money goes to the financial industry, it's ok.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:19 AM) Do you really believe that doesn't happen? It happens through higher prices on goods overall. If I walked into the grocery store in late August, before the rule changed, and swiped a debit card versus paying cash, I'd be charged the exact same amount. That means the $.40 per transaction is being absorbed into the cost of doing business, and is thus being spread around to every customer, regardless of payment method.

Keep the chant going.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:14 AM) You completely missed my point, as it had *nothing* to do with what you just explained. My point was that these new fees they're backing down on will work out the SAME WAY that ATM fees worked out. Yes, you can avoid them -- just like you could have avoided these newly proposed fees. Point is/was, ATM's went from being free to being a way to make money, and despite the public outrage of the fees increasing despite the technology bringing costs DOWN, they raised them anyway and got away with it. Why shouldn't services provided by a financial institution be a way for the financial institution to make money? I have zero problem with the concept. We don't have a nationalized, not-for-profit banking system in this country and I'm pretty sure I don't want one. If a bank is going to offer products and services that allow them to make money...fine. If they introduce a new or better service and expect that they should make more money because of offering a better service, fine. There is nothing unreasonable about being able to do so. What is unreasonable is to have a government mandated fee amount that is not transparent and is not competitive.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 09:06 AM) Cash has no hidden fees. If a retailer is being charged $.40 every time a debit card has to be used, and the retailer is legally forbidden from passing that fee along to the debit card user, and I use this retailer and pay with cash, I am paying a higher price for goods because of the swipe fee. I'm actually subsidizing usage of debit cards by paying with cash.