Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 12:44 PM) Chrysler isn't a bank. Its hard to compare a company that doesn't have the extra set of GOVERNMENT requirements that a bank does. Not to mention is yet another set of GOVERNMENT requirements that is causing the GOVERNMENT program to potentially fall apart. As for the last sentence, that tells me that it is probably more profitable to not have to deal with the federal governments interference in GS, than to deal with them. Quite frankly, that's the way it should be. There should be no profit in taking a gigantic loan from the federal government to cover a decade of disastrous decision making on the part of your company.

QUOTE (Gregory Pratt @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 11:11 AM) Shame on Fitzgerald for not thinking about football and instead just rushing into the endzone watching himself instead of thinking to stop and down the ball as close to the goalline as possible without crossing. Quite frankly that might have been the smartest play in NFL history if he'd stopped at the 1.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 11:08 AM) Choosing 401 over pension isn't screwing anyone, its a better system for everyone involved. If the equity premium exists, and the 401k's are managed in a fair method such that it's not just a method of sucking out fees and giving them to investment banks (and hence, this sort of information is available), I'll agree.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 10:07 AM) Who were the unamerican idiots who voted against? And I am not being sarcastic here - I really find it distinctly unamerican for people to vote directly against a measure to give fair hearing to US citizens in a grievance against the government. Don't forget, this is also a handout to an interest group; trial lawyers, who now get to litigate an extra 750,000 cases or so for the people wrongfully on that list. Here's the roll call vote for you. (Westmoreland is the guy who got 2/10 of the ten commandments down on the Colbert Report)

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 10:39 AM) sick of people acting like bipartisanship means complete capitulation from the party in power and then the minority party still doesn't vote for it. You think Washington is bad, you really ought to check out the state with the worst credit rating in the country.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 10:03 AM) Most "onions" probably don't have much knowledge about these things, and they tend to focus on salary, health care, and the dinosaur known as pension plans. Also, most people aren't part of "onions". Instead of bullying businesses, which is unfortunately what unions often do in the modern context, I'd rather see the government incent businesses in positive ways to foster this. IMO, being able to lobby for a better quality 401k plan for a company's employees is exactly the sort of thing a union ought to be able to do in the modern environment now that most companies have moved away from the defined benefit plans to the defined contribution plans to screw their employees save money. If companies are adapting, why shouldn't the Unions? And hopefully the unions won't have to worry about debating health care with businesses for too much longer. And the fact that most people aren't part of unions is of course a great argument for expanding them. EFCA anyone?

Yesterday, the House passed, with a whopping 3 dissenting votes, a bill that will compel the DHS to establish an office who's job it will be to actually go through the terrorist watch list and deal with claims of people who say that they should not be on the list, and requires the DHS to provide a procedure for people to legally challenge their placement on that list if they're detained or denied access to airplanes without cause. Still has to go through the Senate, and I think Joe Lieberman chairs the committee it has to go through, so nothing is certain yet, but it's a much needed step. Seriously, was that so hard?

it's not fully online unless you have a WSJ subscription, but there's a fascinating summary of Bernake's dealings with Merril Lynch and BofA last fall in there today. Here's a summary.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 09:42 AM) Similar to health care, 401k participation sorely lacks real choice. Most companies that offer them, offer one fund company. You can choose from many different funds of course, which also has a major effect on your outcome. And the match level is really just part of compensation (though many people fail to take it into account, good or bad). But the expense ratios at fund houses are rising quickly, even as brokerage costs to them are decreasing. And consumers lack real choice. This website is a good start - the more information the better. But even better, would be to find some way where you could have companies work not with individual fund firms, but with some sort of pool, and their employees could choose which fund house to go with. The differential cost if this sort of thing should be very small, so, it should be realistic. Companies could even choose to just do it on their own, by offering more than one choice. This could be incented in some way, perhaps via business tax breaks to offset any additional costs of adding more fund house choices. Or, perhaps employees of companies could band together to form some sort of group that gave them bargaining power to push for a better plan if they had easy access to the details of their plans and felt they were being ripped off. We could call these groups "onions" or something close to that.

This seems like a very cool and useful weapon in fighting back in Wall Street's war on America.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 09:29 AM) The term "overpaid" could mean many different things. I'm curious what they mean in this case. Here was a straight up comparison between the Paulson purchases and purchases made by Warren Buffet from a month ago.

Lots of beeps but fairly SFW. .cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url('http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png') !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;} The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Stephen Verbally Thrashes Steve Martin Colbert Report Full Episodes Paul McCartney Appearance Funny Political Videos More Funny Videos

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 08:29 AM) Im just saying, alot of folks on here are assuming he was senile or couldnt function, but i havent seen anything mentioned of that sort, so I am wondering what kept him from paying his bill? That's basically what I've been asking all along.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 08:18 AM) The bottom line is that it takes $10 billion out of circulation, without even factoring in the multiplier. If this starts to happen in scale, this is exactly what caused the depresssion to go from a panic, to a depression. This would be the end of lending. The only companies that would comply would be the ones who would go under without the extra funds, and those groups won't be able to lend regardless because the funds are what is going to keep their capital ratios in check. Then does that not give the TARP program an additional $8 billion or so (assuming a couple billion loss because of how crappy of a deal Paulson negotiated for the taxpayers) which can then be moved to a bank that actually is in trouble and actually does need the additional capital? If this particular firm isn't practically bankrupt, then they shouldn't have been forced to accept the TARP funds anyway.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 08:15 AM) Wouldn't Paul Lo Duca be a pretty good compliment to Pyrzinski. I realize he's a former roider whose past his prime, but he stastically hits lefties well (despite a not so good season last year). Over the past three years he's hitting lefties to a .323 clip with an 800+ OPS. I realize those numbers are inflated due to him being a lesser player in 08 and probably again in 09 but he might not be a bad option (and should come relatively cheap). I dunno, LoDuca isn't just a former roider, he's not a guy like Brian Roberts who maybe did it for a short time (even I don't want Roberts in part for that reason), LoDuca was one of the ringleaders/distributors/heavy, heavy users. Not only is he past his prime and such, but there's every reason to think that what he was last year could be his peak, because presumably he's way off of the hard stuff. I can't imagine him being a good fit for really any team in the clubhouse, he's among the worst on the Mitchell list, probably helped get plenty of others including Gagne on the stuff, and there's no reason to expect him to improve from last year's #s.

Cliff Floyd signs a 1 year deal with the Padres.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Feb 5, 2009 -> 06:43 AM) I think Williams will bounce back next season if he's 100% healthy. I just don't think TO and Garrett can co-exist in the locker room. One needs to go. I don't know about your first statement...unless he's also the clear #1 guy. Williams strikes me as a guy who quits very, very easily if he's not getting the ball in his hands.

Larry Johnson asks out of K.C., suggest the Cowboys, Houston, places on the east coast as options. Tony Gonzalez's agent says he may want out also, depending on what they do with their coaching staff.

NSFW. O'Reilly Vs. Bale.

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 4, 2009 -> 04:10 PM) I'd sign Juan Cruz for our bullpen in a second. He's worth our #1 pick?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Feb 4, 2009 -> 03:48 PM) good point, and i know they have some of those in the pipeline. What about a show that goes behind the scenes of the game - the logistics of a road trip; what happens when a player is traded and all his belongings are still in another city; a show that follows a team on a road trip, that sort of thing. What about a program where you have an ex-major leaguer sitting down with another to discuss strategy, key moments in a game, using actual footage? On the first one of those, it probably depends more on whether or not I actually like the player/team that's being followed. If it was done about the Sox, I'd probably wind up watching it, but I'd be helped because I have some idea of the personality of those guys already and so I'd actually care what was happening to them a lot more. If you did that about the Yankees, I'd just be blah about it. If you did it about a team that actually had an interesting story (i.e. the Rays last year) that might work also, depends on the choice of teams a lot. Option 2, it depends on how its done. On a lot of shows like BBTN or even the Hot Stove show on MLBTV, they do those slow-motion re-enactments with guys on miniature diamonds, etc. Honestly, I've occasionally learned something from those, but I've always found them a bit campy since the guys are never really going at full speed because they're on there in suits and out of shape. If you were just watching those sorts of things, it would get a poor reaction from me. On the other hand, if you actually had let's just say Trevor Hoffman on there and he went through 5 minutes of how he throws his changeup, like acutally how he grips it, the arm motion, things he always remembers, that might be kinda cool. One thing that might work really well would be to have actual hitting/pitching coaches on there breaking down technique.

Link

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Feb 4, 2009 -> 03:29 PM) Question for you fans of MLB network - what kind of programming would you like to see, other than the obvious gameday/studio updates? Classic games. Can be somewhat edited for time if you want. But if I'm sitting around on a Sunday now that football's over and the only thing on is the Spurs playing whoever, and Don Larsen's perfect game is on, or one of Willy Mays's better games is on, or just about anything like that, there's a reasonable chance I'm tuning in to the baseball game. They've got to have like 60 years of footage right now right? How many great games are there per season?

The House has officially passed a delay in the DTV transition to June 12, the President is expected to sign the final version

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 4, 2009 -> 01:27 PM) No it wouldn't. Quit drinking the kool-aid, please. LOL, I submit to your detailed logic.