Balta1701

When do they just start walking him?

Good Op-ed piece in the WaPo by a guy from GE and a venture capital guy.

"AL named "Beckham's official league" for July".

Fascinating. I'll bet this has strong relations to the health coverage mess; you can't start a small business if it costs you your health insurance.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Aug 4, 2009 -> 01:36 PM) He had an OPS+ that year of 107. Beckham is at 120 right now. Lets not get goofy about the offensive prowess of Joe. Statues, HOF, pssh. Wait till the park is named after him. Welcome to Bacon Field, home of Your Chicago Whitesox. By that point he'll own the team too. And the Bulls. And the Hawks. And he'll turn around the Phoenix Coyotes somehow.

The Circus trip doesn't look as bad as the stretch in late January/early Feb loaded up with 7 sets of back to back games, a 7 game road trip out west including a back to back with Phoenix and Houston, and appearances by Boston, Orl, Atl, MIA, and Philly from the East leading in to the AS Break. The Bulls have 10 B2B sets in January and Feb.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 4, 2009 -> 11:48 AM) Can someone provide me a link to a place where I can find a somewhat brief and unbiased description of the current healthcare reform plan being sent forward? I dot have the time or energy to read thousands of pages. Quite frankly, no, because there are at least 3-4 different health care plans being pushed forward from different committees in the House and Senate, some of which are in "official nearly complete bill form" and some of which are still behind closed doors.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 4, 2009 -> 12:29 PM) That wouldn't have been all that bad from Seattle's perspective, especially the 1st trade, imo. Yeah, but they're right; there's no reason why they won't be able to get an equal package next year. Or perhaps even a better one if he keeps up what he's been doing since Mid May (2.40 ERA over that span).

Bring it Jose.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 4, 2009 -> 06:14 AM) For example, an aged person (I'm talking too old to still enjoy life for this particular person) or a person with a terminal illness that can be kept alive in a near comatose state via various machines that signs onto X insurance a day before they make the decision to live this way would cost the insurance company millions but would do nothing for their quality of life. This sort of situation worries me about these non "Pre-Existing" conditions clauses. Insurance companies wouldn't be able to stay in business if everyone at the end of their lives signed on to keep a person who is almost void of life alive via machines...and for what, so family members can be happy because the person is still breathing? Unrealistic. I know this sounds good -- but there is a finite amount of money out there. If insurance company X only has 3 billion -- then that's their limit before they're bankrupt and aren't making payments anymore. I know that one patient would never use this much money, but they have a lot more than one patient to worry about here. I do think the limits/caps should be raised much higher, but making them unlimited is just unrealistic. I know some of you may not like my opinions on this, but that's too bad. See, now these are points we can actually discuss. First point...if the Democrats proposed something with either lifetime limits or that limited people's ability to keep a patient alive on life support, wouldn't that immediately be jumped on as "Rationing!" and "Killing the elderly!". Even in this thread we've heard enough about the evils of rationing and how it happens in all those other evil countries but never here; isn't a lifetime cost limit basically the definition of rationing? You only get your ration and that's it. Second point...if coverage is truly universal, then the pre-existing clause issue doesn't really matter, because insurance companies can no longer really go shopping for patients who never use their insurance like they currently do. Third point...I think that if the White House got a plan that accomplished everything you just agreed with, while at the same time also provided a mechanism for insuring the 50 or so million uninsured on a regular basis, they'd have exactly what they want. It appears we've actually agreed a little bit here; the question is how do we accomplish those goals. The insurers made it 100% clear before Congress that they weren't going to take any of those steps willingly; they refused to even consider cutting the most egregious of those practices; the recission of insurance for unrelated issues (You've got breast cancer now? Sorry, you didn't tell us you had acne beforehand, we can't pay for it). The reason I'm a supporter of a public plan is that it does a couple things. First; it provides an option in a highly concentrated market. Second, evidence says it is likely to have very low overhead costs compared to private insurance and thus can help hold down costs, and third, it provides an easy mechanism to prevent those type of abuses from developing. But overall, the goal is; to end the majority of those abuses, to control costs, and to find a way to insure the chunk of the country that isn't insured right now, which is also key to controlling costs.

The High-Frequency trading deal of Goldman I brought up a week or two ago has continued percolating and the SEC has launched an investigation. I'm going to throw in one bit of commentary in reply to the folks who defended the practice last time.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 08:08 PM) the birth certificate 'scandal' is nothign compared to the '9/11 was an inside job' mania; the macarena of conspiracy theories. biggest ever.The man on the grassy knoll is so pissed that you're not giving him credit that he's going back and polishing up his old rifle. I believe it's stored at area 51.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 07:48 PM) If all three were on the market (including Fields), Josh would bring the most back in return, by far. Really? Fields is already in the Anderson "He's about to be dumped for nothing or released" boat. Why would anyone give anything in return for him?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 07:47 PM) And yet he still has the second-highest OPS on the team, second only to JD by 1 point (.884)... And on August 1 of last year, his OPS was .883.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 05:38 PM) Orly Taitz is a psycho, that interview was painful to watch but I fought off the urge to close it halfway through. I honestly wonder what she has to do to get disbarred? Pull the wrong tooth.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 05:57 PM) I was actually just out in the yard a few minutes ago thinking about this. We don't have any bats*** crazy posters here besides kapkomet and that's just an act. How do we go about finding a bona fide birther to make fun of? We've had a few legit 9/11 conspiracy posters come through over the years and many of you folks missed my legendary intelligent design debates with Juggernaut when he was here.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 05:21 PM) His new deal calls for him to receive $12 million annually. Chicago agreed to a limited no-trade clause that states he can't be dealt to six specified teams without his permission. I'm pretty sure Boston and NY are 2 of those teams.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 05:03 PM) I'm going to start a "Should We Trade A. J.?" thread, and then not offer an idea for a replacement. Tyler Flowers.

QUOTE (SockMe @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 03:57 PM) I like the 2nd deal Keeping Hudson, the way he's pitching, that's a score.

QUOTE (SockMe @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 03:53 PM) WOW really? Im glad that we got to keep Hudson, Flowers, Beckham, YEA KENNY We're 80% certain the original deal was Hudson, Broadway, Richard, Poreda.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 03:05 PM) However, the argument is that the Padres would have given up Peavy for maybe even Richard and Russell or Poreda and Russell...as Towers was under orders from the ownership group to clear the contract, plus Peavy was hurt and there were no other suitors, so the argument goes why would KW offer the SAME package when he could have lowered it (and maybe it was changed from Hudson to A. Carter instead) and still made Towers happy just to get out from under the financial burden for the Moores' divorce situation. Whatever they say...I think I'm fairly convinced that the deal that they accepted was different than the deal they offered last time.

Put it another way Kap. The White House last week tried a different marketing tactic; saying that there were specific things that insurance companies were doing that they wanted to do away with. Which of these would you like to say is a bad idea:

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 10:35 AM) Bulls***. And they are going to be forced to throw their hands up when employers won't offer "private" insurance anymore. In that case...the private companies take the money they were paying for insurance, pay it as a tax, and the people go in to the healthcare exchange where they are able to choose between private plans and the public plan, either way subsidized equally by the government.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 10:34 AM) The house bill is pretty clear on these points. No, it's not immediate, but it aboslutely has that effect. They can't flip a light switch, they know that, but they certainly will make sure it happens in the next 1-4 years by the language of the bill. You're playing naive because it makes the cause sound better, and it's a flat out lie. The only way that is true is if the insurance companies are unable to compete with the government plan, and there's no reason to think that they can't. It works just fine in other countries. The best system in the world is probably still France, and it is a hybrid system.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 3, 2009 -> 10:30 AM) Well, then, it's radical. Because points one and three is what is going to happen under these bills, and yes, I will jump off the deep end because this is the worst possible outcome we can do in this country regarding health care. Really? You're reading totally different bills than I am. It sure seems like they've gone out of their way to write these bills so that points 1 and 3 can't possibly happen without additional reform. The only way it does happen is if the public system works so well that everyone throws up their hands and says "I want in!" Which of course would be a disaster, because then people would be getting good medical coverage.