Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 09:20 AM) Consumer choice is still a non-player here. What sort of consumer choice are you referring to? The ability to shop around before going in for surgery to see who has the lowest price?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 09:19 AM) Is that the federal reserves job? The Federal Reserve's job according to Wikipedia is: I think you could make a legitimate argument that taking a loss on those securities falls under any of those. Yeah, there's likely some corruption built in that we need to correct, don't bother lecturing me about that, i'll be the first to admit it. I want to know a priori why I should worry if the Fed loses money.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 09:00 AM) Also depends on what you mean by "lose money". It's a pretty vague question. More specifically, if the Federal reserve buys up a toxic asset at an inflated price and every mortgage in it goes bad such that it becomes essentially worthless, why should an average taxpayer care?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 09:05 AM) And that more granular point I agree with as well. This plan, and others Congress have toyed with, try to artificially reduce costs charged by insurers, but do nothing to change the bizarre billing methods of doctors and hospitals. I've said many times before... the fundamental flaw here is that the presence of insurance companies, whose rates are basically flat per service, removes the normal capitalistic controls in place in other consumer-provider relationships. You have to find a way to get that consumer CHOICE back into play, or you will never be able to properly control costs. Actually, the Senate Bill (I'm focusing on that because I don't know yet where to find the actual reconciliation deal) includes quite a few points which would make Medicare do exactly what you're asking for, which is why the CBO keeps saying it will produce significant long-term savings. Funding comparative effectiveness research, to figure out whether or not the surgery that costs 100x more is actually better or worse for you than the cheaper treatment is a good start, and that is in both versions. Beyond that, there are significant competitive incentives built into the bill to actually have Medicare begin paying better for better outcomes, rather than just sheer number of procedures done, which is the current format. That also neglects to mention the creation of the "insurance exchanges", which should give many more people a legitimate option to shop around for an effective plan, and should also give people much more information on how to make those choices by making that info available.

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 11:55 PM) Ozzie might be leaning towards batting Kotsay 5th! http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,3094909.story There's going to have to be a lefty hitting 5th. Otherwise you just have a long string of righties. That was the real flaw in this lineup. It'd be really darn useful if Teahen could find an .800 OPS form and take that role.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 08:16 AM) 4.4 quake in SoCal. Yawn. Go back to sleep.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 07:14 PM) The problem is that mlb pitchers will go right at him and force him to put the ball in play. In a full season (500 AB's or so) he'd probably k about 100 times if he kept up the same rate. That's basically Podsednik territory, so it's fully workable. For comparison, I'm praying that D2: the Mighty Danks can get himself down to a

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 03:47 PM) Just to play devil's advocate... what happens to the existing providers of broadband? Will they be the ones playing in this sandbox, much like the privitization of phone companies ended up? Quite frankly, I'm almost certain that's how it'll wind up.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 06:47 PM) I interned at WIND a few years back. There's some really great people over there. Not that it has anything to do with the event. Just sayin. I'll admit, I only read the link title, and I was confused as to why any renewable energy company would bring her in.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 06:27 PM) I don't know that De Aza is going to give you a good OBP. He's going to have to hit for average, and his career minor league batting average of .275 isn't exactly good, let alone trying to replicate it in the majors. De Aza might be on the shuttle to the majors a few times this season, but he'd be a pretty terrible choice for DH, like bad enough that I'd prefer Mark Kotsay to be the full-time DH to De Aza. Not going to disagree with you on Kotsay/De Aza. One thing worth noting about De Aza's Min. stats though is that even if he's had a poor batting average in some stops, he's actually had a decent OBP due to taking a good number of walks. Starting in A ball, batting average/obp .255 .346 .286 .370 .278 .346 .300 .370 Those are his minor league stops where he's had 100+ at bats since 2004.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 06:17 PM) I'd say the chances of Retherford making the opening day roster are slim to none, simply because he has options and Nix does not. It doesn't mean he's necessarily an inferior player to Nix (though he might be right now), it just means that they have him under control for longer. I dunno, I know there's precedent in the opposite direction (see: Anderson coming north with the team), but Ozzie's been pretty vocal about not liking how Nix plays the game with the bat, and he's starting to get complimentary towards CJ. If Nix keeps being as godawful as he has looked so far...

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 05:29 PM) I remember seeing A Tribe Called Quest there about 16 years ago. Front row for Foo Fighters there, front row for Wilco there, etc.

The Riviera and I got along very well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 04:30 PM) Those specs cost $450 to $500 in most other brand names. Are you sure? On sale or regular price?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 04:51 PM) That's about what I was thinking, though 2 and 3 might be pretty much tied at this point. The next week of play will tell us more. If 2 and 3 are tied, then that means you gave Lilliputian about a 10 slot head start.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 02:31 PM) Serious question. Does it really matter if the Federal Reserve loses money? Can anyone take a crack at this for me?

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 03:36 PM) He would be ALOT more entertaining if people weren't always on his ass. A lot more people would be on his ass if he was more entertaining.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 03:45 PM) Lets do this s*** and join the rest of high tech western civilization. We can't join the rest of western civilization. Wellpoint AT&T says so. We have the best system in the world anyway.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 02:39 PM) STIM: $787B authorized, all to be spent, to give us what? Temporary construction jobs, and other stuff not sustainable? How can you not see the STIM bill as a much greater failure than TARP? Because the unemployment rate has stabilized, we've avoided deflation (temporarily at least) and the economy is actually threatening to show signs of being declared to be growing again. I'll be the first to admit it could have been done better. Fewer tax cuts, more directed spending, 1.5 to 2 times as large. But it did pretty much exactly what it was supposed to do given its size; avoid a second "Great Contraction" and give the Fed ammunition to keep pushing the effective interest rate down.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 02:29 PM) You mean the toxic assets on the fed's balance sheet that they do NOT want to talk about. The one's they hope to hold until they deem them above water. What a joke... Serious question. Does it really matter if the Federal Reserve loses money?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 02:09 PM) I am much more upset with the debacle that was the Stim bill, which is paying very little in the way of returns, certainly not to the level of its cost. Just a remarkable statement for so many reasons.

There are some new rules coming online in baseball this year to try to continue cutting down the number of exploding and splintering bats that we see.

There was another possible way to deal with those folks that was legitimately discussed at least on the left...nationalize them. Do what you did to the auto companies. Take them over, fire everyone who ran the place, dismantle them, and sell them off piece by piece. T...his is basically what happened at AIG, and as the government is selling pieces of them off, it's actually gradually cutting into the enormous sum of money that it cost us to take them over. Or...alternatively...make use of the fact that they're going under to actually extract concessions from them, regarding things like compensation and the structure that rewarded the folks for blowing up the system, their size, their over-leveraging, their off-the-books accounting, their lobbying, etc. Neither of those were done. Thus, we're in a situation where every underlying cause of the 2008 meltdowns has been worsened, not improved, and the people who ran things into the ground have made off like bank robbers. Literally.

Lewis's book sounds worth checking out, based on this review also.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 11:18 AM) Why? The Democrats have been doing all kinds of things to people who aren't falling into party lines, including the worst punishment of all, trying to get them out of office by running other people against them. I know that isn't the popular theme, but its not like they are standing by and just accepting people not following marching orders. There are plenty of pissed of Dems too. It depends on who you define as "The Democrats" and whether you focus on the ones in office, who come to the defense of their brethren against primary challengers (it worked great when they defended Lieberman, I tells ya) or the actual people on the ground or outside groups (i.e. Moveon). There's a reason why the Republicans are able to keep single voters from supporting an opposing president's legislation while 30% of the Dems would wind up breaking ranks to vote with the Republicans on stuff Bush wanted, and it's not "they might face a primary", both sides have that threat starting to work right now.