Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:43 AM) I am curious as to what Conan's contract looks like. Are their out clauses by NBC? My guess is that if he chooses to quit, he looses all his money and there is a "no compete" clause that bans him from joining other networks for a period of time (6 months-year, or the life of his NBC contract) I can't imagine he'd have signed a contract like that which didn't guarantee him the 11:30 spot. The whole reason why he got that show in the first place was NBC knew that he had enough bargaining power that he could have left for another network if they didn't give him the Tonight Show.

Kinda looking forwards to experiencing some classing southern BBQ now that I'm in this area.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 12:58 PM) You may be right if we can't improve in the next couple years, but right now, in terms of unemployment by ANY of the measures, this is nowhere near the Great Depression. The thing I'd like to point out in reply is that the Great Depression didn't become the Great depression because of what happened in 1929. That kick started it, but the Depression became a 25% hole because of the "Great contraction" from 1930-the day of Roosevelt's inauguration. We had a kick last year the magnitude of what happened in 1929. We've just managed to, so far, avoid the great contraction. That doesn't mean we the threat of it is permanently gone.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 12:54 PM) That's pretty disgusting. All politicians in positions like this try to play the game, but in this case, to outright factually lie, about situations that ended up in people's deaths, to make your party look better... that's pretty low. Not to mention that when these things occur is not really something you fault the President for anyway, whether Bush or Obama. Unfortunately, there is a significant chunk of the population who doesn't understand that, and they'll take statements like this and leap to unfounded conclusions. The problem is not the politician telling as bald-faced of a lie as he can get away with. It's to his benefit if he can get the audience to believe it. The problem is the politician telling that bald-faced lie to a member of the media...and then not getting called on it.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 12:47 PM) I think you're confusing length with speed. Please go to those curves, or any other graph for that matter, and tell me which derivative I should be looking at to see your point. At best, we've been stalled for 4-5 months, or losing ground slowly, after about 12 months of freefall.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:31 AM) Its been a fast recovery on many fronts - but not all. All recessions are not the same, of course. Ok, I have to totally disagree with you on this one. Please cite for me which fronts you're talking about. It has already been 2 years from the employment peak and we've done nothing but go downwards since. We've gone so far down the hole that if you repeated the Clinton expansion in jobs, it still wouldn't get us back to where we were in December 2007. GDP is only being sustained by massive efforts from the government, and even then, those efforts have only been enough to make things level out (at least temporarily) after 18 months, not to start pushing them upwards. Look at that last graph I posted. 18-24 months in, just about every recession had turned around completely and had unemployment back to where it was pre-recession, except for the 2001-2003 event. This one, we're just starting to level off. Even the 2001-2003 event, things were turning around much more rapidly than this.

One more unemployment numbers comment; November through January is when the heaviest seasonal adjustments kick in, because they need to make up for the typical part-time hiring for Christmas. So even if the numbers in Nov. were flat, I've never been confident that you could really state anything with that much accuracy at that time of year.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:15 AM) So you are saying you think a double-dip is likely purely because the recovery has been so fast (thus far)? I think what is entirely possible is that the stimulus impact will start declining in the 2nd half of 2010, and because the stimulus included so many tax cuts it wasn't really designed to boost job growth as much as GDP growth, so when the stimulus impact starts to decline off, we're going to find ourselves having lost a lot of jobs and having done nothing to set up for future growth. Thus, the tax cuts go away, the government decides to focus on deficit concerns, unemployment benefits dry up for a lot of people, and the bottom drops out again. (Not saying I know for certain this will happen. Just saying, this is how the jobs situation could filter back and cause the 2nd dip) One other point now that I reread your post; by the standard of past recessions other than 1930, the "recovery" hasn't been that fast, it's been very, very slow. It's a combination of the deepest employment hole since 1930 and the new modern slow-job-recovery recession together. That's what we've not seen.

QUOTE (MEANS @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:14 AM) Jose Guillen and left fielder David DeJesus. They need to practice that move where Pods catches the ball and flips it to Guillen so that it can be thrown.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 09:50 AM) Jobs number from the Gov identical to the previous report NSS cited earlier this week... although November's number was revised upward and November saw a net gain of 6,000 jobs. Which I believe was the first net gain in two years - however small. But...October was revised downwards by 16000 jobs.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:09 AM) Something interesting I read yesterday (can't find the link now), is that even after the 2001 recession ended (which was much less severe than this one), it took two years before job gains began. The November job gains are unexpectedly early, from that perspective. The severity of the downturn in this recession was dramatic, but it appears the rebound has been as well, at least thus far. Here is that data expressed graphically, from CR, including today's #'s. This graph also shows well why there is still a strong worry about an unemployment and underemployment driven double-dip; we're in uncharted territory.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:01 AM) People like The Situation and Snookie can get married in NJ but not gays? What the hell is wrong with this world? Gays are icky.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 08:23 AM) Fox should jump on this yesterday. They're probably still reeling from the Chevy Chase show.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 08:28 AM) I don't know why Crittenton has received a pass so far, but if the incident happened like reported, he'll probably never play in the NBA again. There are reports that the earlier description isn't really what happened, in fact, I read where the gun Crittenton pointed at Arenas was one of Arenas' spares. That would make sense; you have to wonder as much why 2 of the Wizards would have guns in the locker room as you did when you first heard that one of them did.

Because I don't want to drive down a snowy, hilly road just yet, I wasted some time trying to check into Kap's assertion that Kennedy teamed tax cuts with simultaneous spending cuts to grow the economy. So far, every index or graph I can find simply fails to show any meaningful decrease in total government spending at the time. In inflation adjusted dollars, total dollars, total dollars spent per person, and total dollars spent per person compared to the year before, the government spent more money during the Kennedy years. I can't find evidence of these supposed spending cuts. Kap?

"Hey, you know what would be a great idea? If, instead of having just Josh Groban do the national anthem, we had Flea of the red hot chili peppers on the base backing him up. Then some random dudes playing drums and brass." Who are the advertising geniuses who came up with with that one?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 08:18 PM) Just remember, you are one of the people who think that America is at fault for everything bad. Capitalism, imperialism, you know, all the stuff that the GOP stands for... (And yes, I'm kidding). So wait, both capitalism and imperialism are good?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 06:29 PM) Fines go on top of losing your salary for a suspension. This.

Clemens is in the building. Quick, someone start drug-testing the longhorns.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 07:38 PM) But they are "terrorists" for liberals - it's all the fault of the imperialist United States. By definition, terrorism is targeting civilians with violence in order to achieve a political aim. While Blackwater has hit Civilians before, it's hard to argue that they're doing so deliberately or to cause political influence.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 07:37 PM) As I've said in the past, it didn't matter. JFK would be a Republican today. That's how idiotic the rift has gotten. I'd love to see a Republican advocate a 71% top level tax rate.

Mangini stays in Cleveland, for at least another year.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 06:03 PM) Conan is much better with a younger audience than Leno is, perhaps he wasn't a solid enough 11:30pm fit. In my opinion though, this move is more to placate Leno than to deny O'Brien's ability. NBC finally realized what we all did months ago - a daily 10pm TV variety show is a stupid idea. You are 100% right on everything. Conan grew into the 12:30 slot over time, that's exactly what he would have done in the 11:30 slot. But Leno already has that fanbase that he's developed over 2 decades and after having the Carson fanbase handed mostly to him. The problem is, that fanbase is almost as old as the average Fox News audience.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 06:00 PM) Conan on FOX at 11? I think he'd be a great fit on Comedy Central or even USA too. Either of those would give him the opportunity to get at least the same ratings he's been getting at NBC with his s***eous leadin. He's not taking the Daily Show.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Jan 7, 2010 -> 06:00 PM) Really, who would say that other than a Texan? Quit assuming that he's a Texan just because he's a Republican.