Balta1701

QUOTE (G&T @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 04:44 PM) Well the theory would be that if the teams actually have a shot at the playoffs, more people will come. I would imagine they would still have their fill of the Yankees and Red Sox to keep attendance up. Maybe we can make the Yankees and Red Sox play a 190 game schedule.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 04:53 PM) A.J. I think already has 4 LOB. Shame on whoever it was suggesting him at the 4th spot in their lineups. Leave that man low in the lineup Oz. He's probably going to wind up hitting #5 unless Teahen has a seriously good start to the season. Otherwise, there's at least 4 righties in a row in the middle of that lineup.

Quentin is running A LOT better so far this year.

Quentin HBP. Midseason form.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 04:45 PM) Yes. Don't know why I didn't think of the Rays right off the bat. I'd say they're exhibit A with the Rockies next in line. How about the D-Backs too? Follow the Uptons.

Started a game thread.

2 run triple for Rios in the first. Video available at Whitesox.com.

QUOTE (flavum @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 04:09 PM) 8 cuts today. Down to 44. http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/press...sp&c_id=cws Only 2 I'd note are Dolsi and Nunez, just because they're officially out of the race for the bullpen spot.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 03:48 PM) Quick question: How do you cut 500 billion from Medicare and extend its life by a decade without hurting benefits to seniors? By cutting unnecessary expenditures, which in other circumstances would be called "government waste" if it was proposed by the other party.

On a slightly different note, I'd just like to thank both parties for the incredible education in arcane government procedures that discussion of this bill has produced over the last 13 months or so.

SI's Tom Verducci tried to crunch some numbers by looking at the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry in terms of "Which teams' top starters make the most starts". He then looked around the league for comparison, and wham, guess what hit him.

Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter is a "Goat F***ing Child Molester". That's the kind of brilliant thinking that, if you put it out in public, gets you a job a CNN.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 11:55 AM) Pollstar.com is a good source for concert info. July is still a ways out to get a real idea of what will be happening then. A lot of the big tours have booked their dates already, but the smaller venues will take their time to see who else goes out.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 12:45 PM) It would be nice to see how many years that was for. I'd imagine it's a similar deal to Alexei/Viciedo, just with differing on how many years of arb-eligibility it may buy out.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 12:50 PM) Interesting that it seems to have been done many times before. I'm still unclear on the end result. Will the house and senate have both voted on the same bill at some point? Or, will they have voted on slightly different bills, but go through the generally accepted practice of Reconciliation? Or does this solution mean the House never votes on a similar bill at all? Basically, both the House and Senate will have voted on 2 bills, the Senate Health Care bill and the reconciliation bill. But because the House doesn't want to vote straight-up for the Senate Bill and have ads against them saying "Person X voted to give Nebraska a huge subsidy in exchange for Ben Nelson's vote", the House is going to combine those 2 votes into 1 and only vote once. The Senate has already voted on the Senate bill, so the Senate will then only have to pass the reconciliation bill. The procedure in the House is done entirely for political ass-covering, but there's no reason why its against any standing rule.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:58 AM) The more the fed has become obligated to the executive branch, the less effective they are, and it shows. That hasn't changed, and actually it is getting worse. Really, you'd argue that the Fed has become increasingly more folded into the executive branch?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:32 AM) For the exact reason that they are now sitting with more. So, basically, what you're telling me is that since the Fed sets the rules, if they want to set the rules such that it doesn't matter if they lose money, and then change the rules if things ever recover, there's really no issue with it. Even if they wind up being in a place where they're technically losing money, they can just essentially print more (a good thing in a near-deflation setting), and if that winds up driving inflationary pressures, they celebrate because they're able to raise interest rates.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:22 AM) If you buy something as important as health insurance without going through what it's providing you, then you deserve to end up with a TV that doesn't turn on when the humidity is above 50%. That, in my opinion, is on the consumers end to properly do research. There IS consumer responsibility involved in everything. Ignorance does not equal innocence. And what do you think happens when a person gets an illness that isn't covered? Are they allowed to die, or does it wind up on the taxpayers? You already know the answer to that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:18 AM) As to the last line, yes, the federal government assumes the debts of the Fed bank. Profits go onto the ledger as pluses against our deficit, losses add on to it. If the federal government actually followed the laws that it requires for accounting, all of those toxic assets would be showing on the books as losses right now. But since they exempted themselves from mark to market, we will see a Japan like situation, where those assets float in nirvana forever, taking up valuable capital and stifling growth. So then how was it the Fed was sitting on $1 trillion before the bailouts started?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:10 AM) When I want to buy a TV, I'm not FORCED to buy it only in IL...insurance should be no different. There are MANY insurance companies out there, a lot of them non-profits, that many of you would love to be able to negotiate with. But here's the exact comparison...when you go to buy a TV, you buy that TV expecting that it will be a TV. When you push the power button, it will turn on. If you went across state lines to buy a TV and you thought you could get it for 1/2 price, but there was a hidden note that said "any time it is above 50% humidity this TV will not work", you probably wouldn't buy that TV. However, for insurance, you're very, very unlikely to go through the details of exactly every single thing that is covered before buying it. Then, you get Leukemia, and you discover it isn't covered. This is the "Race to the bottom" effect we talk about when we say there's a key flaw in the type of competition you describe...and you can't pretend we wouldn't see that, because we've already seen exactly that happen with banking deregulation. Of course, to be bi-partisan, there is a version of exactly this sort of competition allowed in the bill, where states can band together as groups and decide to allow purchasing across their lines on their own. It's risky in the race-to-the-bottom sense, but it's basically what you want.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:07 AM) Rose doubtful again for this game. Who do you got tonight, the Bulls, Winthrop, or Arkansas Pine-Bluff?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 10:07 AM) there are a few main health care providers in IL, and that's the choice you have for insurance. There should be MUCH more choice on that front. Then, choice needs to be opened on the other end, too. PCP's shouldn't be picking who you see, just that you NEED to see them. PPO's don't have to deal with that...if you want to see a specialist, you can, anytime you want. This is exactly why some of us wanted a national public plan as an option. It immediately creates a competitive market in every market in America, most of which, as you note, currently border on being monopolies.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 09:53 AM) That's what I am getting at. Obviously emergency care is a different thing, there's not really going to be any shopping around. So...here's my question, especially to Y2HH...how exactly do we accomplish this without completely blowing up the entire current insurance system? A big part of the reason why shopping around is impossible is that once you're affiliated with an insurer, especially an HMO, you're basically locked in to their network. There's never going to be a price advantage to going outside of their network once you're insured, thus, the only way to get actual competition I see would be to get insurance companies to massively expand their network, at great cost to them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 09:37 AM) We are talking about two trillion dollars in assets owned by the Fed. I know a trillion dollars in debt isn't a big deal for the Democrats anymore, but really? It is also interesting you completely blow off policy potentially being influenced by the Fed bank doing things it really isn't set up to do. Oh, you mean like the Federal Reserve turning a blind eye to the inflation of a giant housing bubble and telling Congress there was no need for any actions to deal with it because the Fed would do its regulatory job. Anyway, this still hasn't answered my basic question. Doesn't the Fed basically function like an independent bank? They started this off with what, nearly a trillion dollars sitting on their balance sheet, right? They've taken on $2+ trillion in assets, but if they lose it, and they're the ones who basically create money, if they lose that money and in the process do not trigger inflation (because we're up against the lower bound of interest rates anyway), what happens? The rest of the government doesn't step in with taxpayer money and bail out the Fed, does it?

Heyman