Balta1701

QUOTE (SleepyWhiteSox @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 03:59 PM) Quick question: I'm starting to look into winter stuff that's going on sale on-line and am looking at Marmot jackets. What's a good store in Chicago to try some on before I purchase so I know how it fits? Edit: And also to check out prices in-store Top of the list: REI. Just checked and they are in Chicago. Other possibles: Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shops.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 03:55 PM) Sort of funny... Balta is saying that real income versus business performance hasn't risen at the same rate and that's the problem, while Y2HH is saying that the definition of "need" for middle classes has changed and that causes the problem. Um... how about, its all the above? The reason I'm a jerk on things like this is that Y2HH's POV leads to the conclusion that improving middle class living standards is a bad thing.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 03:14 PM) almost not enough to play. Exactly 11. No subs. And two of the girls are usually good for 2 or 3 minutes per half because I have to play them. Instead they were cones for the other team to go around. Balta style defense, I see.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 08:52 AM) I'm just on the realistic side...I don't care what a vegan eats, they can do what they want. But the world doesn't have enough food in it without animals being a part of the food. And if you think killing animals to food links to murder, you are reaching far in search for what isn't there. Huh? Producing meat products takes an awful lot more food-products than simply eating the food/grains yourself. If you want to be a realist on the amount of food available, then meat is the last thing you should eat. It's a pyramid. If you eat everything at the base of the pyramid, you have the most available food. If you eat the next level..the level that eats the base below it, there's less food available. Every level you move up, there's less available at the level just below.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 03:05 PM) Female logic: "if it makes her happy it doesn't matter how much it costs to send flowers." Male logic: "what a waste of money this is, I could accomplish the same thing by laying money out for a week before burning it."

Zero players show up?

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 02:47 PM) Rios just really isn't that great of a hitter, Dunn and PK should really be batting 3-4. If you got the 1st 2 months of last year Rios for the full year you wouldn't complain...but then you'd have Rios putting up a >.900 OPS.

Unfortunately, there is data which can be applied to that exact question as well. If people are getting themselves into trouble because they're making more purchases on entertainment-related items than they were in the past, then entertainment-related spending as a share of income should be rising. Here is data through 2000: Here's a chart from the NYT through 2009 showing the breakdown in a different way. The amount of their spending that has gone to those luxury items you say people are using to bankrupt themselves has hardly changed over 40 years. What has changed? Well, food costs have gone down. Housing has gone up. Transportation has gone up (which is what happens when you need to have a 2 income household and have to maintain 2 cars). And health care has turned around and is now going up. Here's another presentation, showing virtually constant household expenditure fractions on entertainment goods since 1990. Here's the BLS version of the same data. The real difference is that wage growth for everyone outside the top of the top earners has not kept up with productivity growth or with the costs of living.

Dislike.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 12:31 PM) Does Google bother anyone with how they predict what you're typing and automatically add something you're not actually looking for? Nope

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 12:17 PM) It's amazing that in 12 votes, 7 players have votes. This tells us 2 things. First, we don't have a top, top, top of the league player (yet). That's not great. But, we also are very well rounded; there's very few people on this team that are easily beaten.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 12:01 PM) For me, it is. Not actually reading it (because in most cases I have legitimate access), but accessing it via an unauthorized medium (the commercial Internet). Just because classified information appears in public doesn't mean it's de facto declassified so if I started browsing Wikileaks at work it'd be treated like any other security violation. There's actually a real issue here...If the Congress wants to make a law reacting to the things Wikileaks has done...or if the intelligence service wants to evaluate what impact it has had on say, the Tunisian uprising...how do they do that if it's illegal for them to look at the documents? The Congressional Research Service's official job is to investigate issues at the behest of Congress to help Congress make laws, but they're not allowed to view the Wikileaks cables. So how can Congress possibly react to those events if they're not allowed to gain any information from them?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 11:48 AM) For 2011 and beyond........................Beckham. If John could avoid that 5-8 start period where his changeup leaves him, he could start talking about awards too.

My first instinct was John Danks I then went and checked some fangraphs just to make sure. He's at least tied with everyone else I'd think of in WAR for last year. I'll take Johnny.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 11:34 AM) I've not nothing against Morel, and I think he will be a solid player. I just think if we have a chance at Michael Young for 2011 remembering the whole "All-in" thing, we take it. I hear what you're saying, I just think we're more all-in with Brent than with Young. I really do.

Here's a different way to look at that data. It used to be that as worker productivity increased, that money made its way down to the workers. Starting around 1980, that changed. Median income today is, inflation adjusted, almost unchanged from 1980. The U.S. worker is working harder, longer, and getting paid less per hour for it.

Xian province probably fields a team that could beat yours.

So, no one owned goods that would be deemed luxury goods 30 years ago? All you're doing is stating that the luxury items of today didn't exist 30 years ago and therefore everyone is worse at managing money. And I'll note 1 more point...you also explicitly blamed the credit providers in your effort to defend them...by saying that they were happy to provide people lines of credit that they wouldn't pay off.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 10:34 PM) I can respect that. At the end of the day, I think Young>Morel for 2011 if you take out salary. Really, it's hard to disagree with the sentiment...and I'll admit I'm always more pumped about our young guys than others, but I think Morel is going to seriously impress this year.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 10:02 AM) Now a Morneau that's not healthy/productive or a Nathan that requires at least a year to work back to prior levels as the closer, that's going to hurt them a lot more than a down season for Mauer. Unless they have insurance on some of those contracts.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 06:36 PM) There is a big difference in the timing of playing SS and 3B. And yes, Andrus would be better anywhere else that wasn't astroturf, because the balls stay in the infield longer. I gotta say, i don't buy this being a significant effect at all. If you can supply me home/away splits that somehow show guys in Texas get much better on D on the road, I'll listen, but I don't buy this at all.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 06:28 PM) Michael Young won't look nearly as bad once he gets off of that basketball court that is the Rangers infield during the summer months. Really? There's an established correlation between playing in Texas and worse defense? How good would Elvis Andrus be if you took him out of Texas?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 06:18 PM) Yes. The concern is over the "cracking" process where the pressurize the rock by pumping a bunch of chemicals into it to free up the gas. It's not supposed to get into water tables and underground aquifers, but it does. The term is "Fracking", not cracking. The trouble with insisting that it does is that whether or not it does is a much more open question than was presented in that movie.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 06:18 PM) Even in his decline, Michael Young's numbers will blow away Brent Morel in 2011. Depends on if you count defense or not. If you do, it should be very, very close if Morel hits at all.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 06:11 PM) If the team is willing to pay it, I'd take it without a second thought. Even if I try to ignore the money, we'd be committing to a 34 year old with obviously declining numbers, already weak defense, and huge splits at the ballpark in Arlington, for 3 years to be the starting 3b through age 36. That's not winning the future.