Balta1701

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:26 AM) you mean a giant bubble and still-huge deficits? To be fair...$400 billion deficits being called huge would require a different word be applied to $1.2 trillion deficits.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:25 AM) The Feds numbers are not on the books. It is why they are controversial in the first place. But the Treasury's are. That's what gets counted as the "national Debt". I don't care how much the Fed is holding, I really don't. The only way it matters is if they buy up so much that they wind up pushing inflation, which clearly, they have not done.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:24 AM) Texas guy was last year http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/02/18/pilot...ti-irs-suicide/ Ok, I got them half crossed up, the Florida one was 2002, that was a 15 year old stealing the plane and crashing it into a building in Tampa. But that's at least 2 cases, one recent, making it seem that this sort of attack is plausible.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:22 AM) It doesn't get counted. No one has any idea exactly how much it is. Yes it does. We don't know how much of the debt the Fed has bought, but the number of bonds that the Treasury department has sold off is the number that gets reported. There's no secret path for the Fed to send money to the Treasury, they do it by buying up U.S. bonds.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:21 AM) Hudson and McCarthy had very similar career arcs. When was Santiago drafted? Hudson and McCarthy stormed upwards.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:19 AM) We are deficit spending to the tune of a trillion and a half a year. That is without the trillions that the fed has pushed into the economy and isn't on the books in the deficit. In reality our GDP vs debt is probably close to Greek levels if we actually put that fed spending on the books. It isn't like we are running a surplus here. No, we're no where close to Greek levels, they're at 167% and we're still below 100%, the amount the fed has dumped in still gets counted by all the debt clocks, and furthermore, since we have our own currency whether or not we're at Greek levels matters less.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:16 AM) I could potentially see the issue with small planes flying under radar, but wasn't that sort of the big security breach that was involved with 9/11? That a lot of those guys got trained at small airports in smaller planes? I thought at some point the rules for getting a flying license changed. Haven't we already seen 2 cases of pilots of smaller planes crashing those planes into buildings? I know there was a guy in Texas about 5 years ago and I'm vaguely remembering a different one involving a younger pilot. Neither of those planes had explosives or anything that would supplement the impact's force on the plane.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:15 AM) The biggest problem with writing off the tax cuts as non-productive is that they were in large part counteracted by the states and municipalities increasing taxes and fees on everything under the sun. Most people haven't seen it. Which, of course, argues for deficit spending at the federal level and much larger assistance to states and local governments (which was in the stimulus but was cut back a lot in the final agreement). A lot of people also saw those tax cuts, but like me, have about $3-$4 k extra sitting in the bank because there's little compelling reason to spend it right now.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:05 AM) Read more: The 5 Most Wildly Illegal Court Rulings in Movie History | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_18815_the-5...l#ixzz1SBOBlSKt That review is correct that a Juror can't bring outside items into the deliberations without permission, but the law regarding what jurors can do as far as I understand it is far less open and shut than is presented there. Although judges can give substantial amounts of guidance about the rules jurors can follow, a juror actually has wide latitude to decide how to go about considering a case.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:35 AM) Who cares? 16 players dropped out this year. 40 years ago people cared about the game, because the players cared about the game. Now it is a sideshow. Only what, the 3 Yankees dropped out and didn't show up though.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:21 AM) And that's why Hector Santiago is, at the very least, intriguing. He sustained 93-94 and touched 95 over 3+ innings. Mix in his repertoire of pitches, the screwball....you might have something. I trust our minor league development guys 100X more with pitchers than hitters. Although we do have a habit of rushing guys....Boone Logan comes to mind right away. The comparison isn't Boooone, the comparison I'd give is Clayton Richard. Guy who was seemingly languishing then suddenly things clicked.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 10:01 AM) Does it make sense for say an entire accounting department to upgrade to 7 from XP? Why not just stick with what works? Pretty soon it will yeah, Windows 7 is actually better and will improve productivity...but only if you're also upgrading other equipment/productivity software. If your office is still running an older network, Office 2003, with old computers that are adequate for your businesses computing needs, then the gains from upgrades are limited.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:58 AM) If the stimulus hadn't failed, we wouldn't even be talking about it. Wait, so over a trillion dollars in tax cuts over 3 years didn't stimulate the economy much, but I'm supposed to be scared about a couple hundred billion in tax increases over 10 years?

I'm getting really sick of going into someone's thesis defense, asking a question at the end, then being pulled over by the person's adviser and told that question is exactly what they're working on/struggling with right now and that's why the student's answer wasn't complete. If I'm this good at figuring out other people's research then someone give me a faculty job and let me grill these people in defenses already!!!! /Rant.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:51 AM) Students shouldn't be learning on Windows XP...it's nearly a decade old. They should be learning on Windows 7. The scary thing is...a lot of the business world still runs the equivalent of XP, because no business in their right mind was going to upgrade to Vista, and Windows 7 came out at a timme when business investment jumped off a cliff.

Technically doesn't that get him a suspension?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:33 AM) I'm sure taking a bunch of money out of the one sector of the economy that is actually hiring won't have any bad effect on things... I don't hear you complaining about the end of unemployment benefits and the huge drag that's putting on the economy.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:34 AM) The problem is when SCOTUS decides, over 200 years, that there's something implied in the Constitution despite the fact that there is express language dealing with the issue. Can you give an example of the SCOTUS deciding something that is explicitly in opposition to something in the Constitution?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 09:29 AM) Well, Flowers will be in Chicago a good long while. It might be roster expansion time before Castro is back anyway, so, he may be up here the rest of the season. So... do you give Lucy full time play, or give Phegley a chance to challenge himself? Here's one other option for consideration. Full selloff...including moving of the expensive (next year) but hitting well (this year) catcher. If you don't get a major league catcher back as a return in the selloff, then Flowers/Phegley catch to finish out the season?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 08:56 AM) Because we didn't extend Teahen this year. If it has to be this year's guys...so we kept Kotsay and didn't sign Dunn, and instead signed 25 top guys from Latin America. We wouldn't really be any worse.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 08:51 AM) I'd rather kill the ASG entirely. Not only is it an enjoyable event and the best of the all-star games, but the ASG funds the MLB Pension fund. I'd just rather not have ESPN do the Monday night events.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 08:50 AM) Which in real terms means we don't Jesse Crain or AJ this year. Or means that we don't have Teahen. Why is it that we'd still sign the people who underperform but fail to sign the people who overperform? That's double-plus bad management strategy...in all cases keep the underperforming guys

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 15, 2011 -> 08:39 AM) What is SLC? Salt Lake City.

That's an aggressive move upwards for Phegley. Has he been hitting well enough to belong in AAA?

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 10:32 PM) In fairness, the Latin America market is pretty crazy right now. You're paying 16 year olds as much as a top 10 draft pick and the scouting conditions are typically sheltered simulated games set up by the player's agent. I wish they would spend more on the draft in general, but I can't argue with not spending internationally. They've actually done pretty well in Venezuela recently. Escobar, Gonzalez, Carlos Sanchez and going a bit further back Jose Martinez. Still though...if you're paying each of those guys $1-3 million...for the price of a Mark Teahen extension, you're talking about what, 5-8 of them? A 20% success rate makes your return on investment something like $50 million.