Balta1701

Let's see...you want a media related rant? There are something like $25 billion in corporate tax cuts stuck in the stimulus bill to try to gain Republican/Business support. It goes to things like Casinos, oil companies, telecom companies, etc. Corporate tax cuts are some of the worst stimulus out there, because their multiplier effect on the economy is so low. Programs like health care, providing funds to states, rebuilding some of the decaying infrastructure in the national parks...those actually directly create jobs because you need to hire people to do them. They also have a vastly higher multiplier effect, because the people you hire are going to spend that money. So which things do we hear the most about? The effective ones, or the ineffective corporate tax cuts?

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 07:25 AM) that the big surge in government stimulus was between 1933-1936, after which, the President started listening to the Republicans and tried to balance out the federal budget. All 25 Repubs in the Senate in 1935-1937 or the 17 in the Senate from 1937-1939? Or maybe its the 103 Repubs in the House in 1935-1937 and the 89 in the House from 1937-1939. As Opposed to the 69 DEM Senators in 1935-1937 and 75 DEM Senators in 1937-1939. Or maybe its the 322 DEM reps in the house in 1935-1937 and the 333 DEM REPS in the HOUSE in 1937-1939. Who ever knew? Roosevelt was such a good listener, he was persuaded by two of the largest minorites in the history of Congress to balance the budget. Nice try. I'll sell that excuse though. Kind of the same excuse I would expect to follow for the Messiah. Please note; the large gap between federal spending and tax receipts through the end of 1936, and the rapid drop in government spending combined wiht increase in tax receipts after the 1936 election. Please also note the balanced budget that appears on there just before the 2nd contraction of the Depression era. The fact that you don't like data doesn't make it not exist.

QUOTE (103 mph screwball @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 09:19 AM) I wish the best for Josh. Could these articles be to increase his trade value? I think the only thing Josh can do to increase his trade value is to come in and actually play.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 09:12 AM) and why exactly did anyone here want him back? just bcuz of what he did for us in the past? or bcuz he can eat up innings? bcuz based on last year, i dunno... 196.7 ip, 237 hits...4.90 era.. Prior to signing Colon, I'd have taken that as insurance at the end of our order just because of the bloody innings. Compared to trusting 2 of Marquez/Poreda/Richard/Broadway/other to give us 350 innings, that would have been a reasonable move. Frankly though, given how many times we've heard about the salary constraints, the Colon deal is a better deal for the Sox, especially if his fastball has come back.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 08:49 AM) Guillen does not replace the catcher during a game though so they would need to add a third catcher. Wasn't Ty Wiggington a catcher at one time. They would need an emergency type guy that could finish a game, or lose the DH. We've pretty much gotten through the last 4 seasons without needing the emergency catcher outside of the September callup period.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 08:54 AM) What I never understand is why don't young players and coaches work year around? Why aren't Josh Fields and Joey Cora working somewhere daily to work on this stuff. Maybe it would be overkill........ For Fields, I can give you a very good answer; rehab. Knee surgery last October to hopefully correct the knee problems that dogged him all year last year.

For a different perspective on the timing of the stimulus arrival, here's last year's Nobel Prize winner for Economics.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 06:00 PM) All you have to do is see the results of their actions to understand they completely blew this too. Of course they did. Look who was running the place

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 06:19 PM) As long as Israel is a strong U.S. ally, the Arab world will never take us seriously as a potential friend. I think the counter-point to that is Egypt.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 06:04 PM) Re: your last point, I think that's not too bad of thinking. I don't think the Fed is totally out of ammo yet, because I think there's some other things that they can do. I hope they don't have to go much further then they have, but I get the nasty feeling that they will... the part that hasn't even been TOUCHED yet is the personal credit slide (forget the housing slide - personal credit makes the housing market look like a pimple on an elephant's ass - and that's the next major meltdown.) When that hits, look the f*** out because there's not a hell of a lot that will survive. And one way to prevent that...of course...is an appropriately arranged and very, very large fiscal stimulus policy from the federal government, which pushes people back in to work and cuts off the cycle of job losses leading to credit collapses.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 06:09 PM) Because Isreal doesn't care about anyone or anything except staying right where it is. So then I ask again...why exactly should we be supporting it if that support gives us zero influence over their behaviour?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 05:58 PM) The only thing that really stops Israel from really fighting with their neighbors is relations with the US. If they felt that the US had abandoned them, I have 100% belief that they will pull out all of the stops next time they are attacked. There would be no reason for them to take all of the extra measures to stop civilian casualties. So basically you're saying that Israel is more suicidal than Iran under Ahmadinejad ever could possibly be considered to be? Basically you're saying that if the U.S. pulled back its support, Israel would decide that the appropriate response would be to take the rest of the middle east with it. Why in the world would we want to support people who are blackmailing us with their own suicide?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 05:55 PM) Here is a crazy idea then... don't call it a stimulus package when the majority of it has nothing to do with stimulating the economy on the short term. Its a bait and switch. We have Obama on TV telling us that this has to be passed NOW because the economy depends on it, yet the majority of it won't hit the economy for over a year, when the economy will be correcting itself already according to most estimates. Realize that the velocity of money dictates that even if you put a trillion dollars into the pockets of American's tomorrow, that the real effects aren't felt statistically by the economy for AT LEAST 6 months, and probably more like year depending mostly on the savings rates of those who receive these funds. The whole idea of a stimulus package it to get money into the economy as soon as possible, which isn't economically possible in a vast majority spending bill. If the money isn't even scheduled to be spent until 2010, 11, 12, and even 13 in some cases that isn't going to help us at all before 2011. We are essentially punting on the economy for two entire years now. Don't lie to the American people and tell them that this is a stimulus plan, it is a spending plan, plain and simple. Basic macroeconomics bears this out factually. Barack Obama is contradicting himself every time he goes on TV and talks about this as being important to stimulate the economy as soon as possible. The problem with your whole line of thinking though is that it assumes that the recession is going to end on its own rather than move in to a spiral. So far, we are in the liquidity trap spiral stage. Right now, if every single person makes the rational spending decision for his or her family, and every state makes the rational decision to cut back on spending, and every business seeing its sales drop cuts back on spending, and the federal government also cuts back on its spending, then there will be absolutely no reason for the recession to end. As people, businesses, and governments spend less, that provides incentive to continue cutting back, which provides even more incentive to spend less. In a typical environment, the federal reserve can cut interest rates enough to make it a rational choice for people to resume spending because they can once again turn a profit by doing so if money is cheap enough. But given that interest rates are essentially sitting at zero, all of that ability to make it a rational choice for someone to spend more has gone away. If you don't do this, then there is no reason for those estimates of when you're pulling out of the recession to be right, because there will be no reason to pull out of it. Right now, everyone making the rational economic decision winds this country up in a depression. The only one left who can spend money irrationally is the federal government.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 04:50 PM) So much for this needing to be done immediately. You pretty much just proved that point. Not to mention how much of that money isn't going for actual stimulus, but just pork barrel spending and rewards for loyal constituents, such as contriceptives and money for the NEA. Do you actually realize what kind of limb you're going out on here? The CBO report on the actual package essentially undercuts every single element you're trying to go after. Also, after some slight checking...that 64% number is not the end of 2010, it's September 30th of 2010. By the end of 2010, it's actually up to 79% of the package, $477 billion. The remainder consists of a few tax credits, which btw I'd be more than happy to get rid of in favor of additional infrastructure spending, and more long-term projects, like upgrades to highways and the electrical grid which simply take longer to complete than 2 years. And also, the CBO assumes that the package is passed in the middle of this year, which at this point seems too cautious, given that it's likely to be done in Feb. But even with that, I'm going to fire back at you the...well, the CBO analysis. On the contraceptive plan...that is actually a good plan, and it's the sort of plan that saves money in the medium term by you know, having people have fewer unplanned pregnancies. But that's being pulled after the usual pattern of Republicans complaining and having the bill made worse because of it so that they can say that government doesn't work.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 04:54 PM) There is a real tight rope here, and Obama could very well push the Israelis into a real nasty corner judging by his early actions. He has already taken a much harder stance against Israel over their latest battles with Gaza. Also with him going first onto Arab TV, it could very easily turn into a message in the pro-war sections of Israel that the US is abandoning them, and they will have to take matters into their own hands. What exactly can they do if we stop shipping them large pools of currency which they use to buy U.S. made bombs?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 04:56 PM) Another solid job of the federal government completely screwing the pooch on something they should have never really been involved in... So who exactly should be deciding how the airwaves are divided up? I can't imagine anything closer to a definition of interstate commerce than that.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 02:36 PM) Stimulus or Pork 10 reason to whack the Obama Stimulus Package Not going to deal with all 10...but there's a few really, really blatant ones in there. What's being left out there is the path that unemployment actually took. They give you the numbers for where government spending starts and finishes...they give you the number that unemployment finishes at...but they don't tell you where unemployment starts at. They leave out that unemployment started at what, 25%? And then declined at 1.5% a year to get to 14.6% within 7 years? A 1.5% drop in unemployment per year is pretty darn good in most times. And in particular, it's worth noting that the big surge in government stimulus was between 1933-1936, after which, the President started listening to the Republicans and tried to balance out the federal budget. The actual unemployment rate declined from 24.9 to 14.3% between 1933-1937, and actually jumped back to 19% when the budget was moved closer to being in balance. In other words, the New Deal stimulus programs, which happened before we even had Keynes's manuscripts, dropped the unemployment rate by about 3% a year until they were scaled back. That is really awful data manipulation. One more I totally agree with this and I think most economists in the world probably would in some fashion also agree that the main monetary instrument to deal with short-term economic problems should be the Federal reserve, and that the government should work on the longer term issues. The problem is...in this case, the fed is already out of ammo. The fed dropped interest rates to nearly zero in December. It has run out of ammunition. Failing to understand why that makes this recession different and why this puts us on the border of a true deflationary spiral is a huge mistake.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 01:22 PM) But now, it's all different. The Democrats have to save us all. Actually, it could well be different this time. A fiscal stimulus in a typical recession, one that is expected to be short and in which the federal reserve has sufficient ammunition left in its clip would follow that definition exactly. One could in fact argue that by continuing the fiscal stimulus in the form of deficits after the 2002 recession, the exact negative result he predicted was created. A true liquidity trap recession on the other hand, where one reaches the point that there is nothing left that the federal reserve can do with monetary policy and where one is expecting the recession's length to be measured in years rather than months is truly a different beast and must be understood that way.

Continuing on the path towards 2012...I give you...SarahPAC.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 12:33 PM) As much as I really didn't like Pods, Owens won't match Pods bad 2004. First off, he may be entering the period where he gets nagging leg injuries. He hits with no power. He will never steal 70 bases. He's below average in CF and his numbers in 2007 are based on a .340 BA in September of that year, and even then hit .267 with a .324 OBP. Juan Uribe hit .309 that same month with a .358 OBP and an .884 OBP. If he gets to the nagging leg injury point then I'll totally agree with you. I can't speak to that. But I think he'll certainly better Pods's 2004 batting number except for the HR category if you give him the whole season and he does stay healthy. On the latter part, no idea.

QUOTE (R.J. @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 12:52 PM) Adam Dunn at $5 million will be a steal for someone. Especially when you consider that he wasn't offered arbitration, so you get him at that salary and you can offer him arbitration next year and wind up with 2 fancy draft picks.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 11:52 AM) A real leadoff hitter is a guy like Roberts, or not that I'm advocating it, a guy like Pods when he was in Milwaukee. Someone who has spent time leading off in the major leagues and has been successful. He goes about it by either paying them some money if a free agent or trading players, supposedly he is now loaded with talent both major league and minor league according to this board. Not some guy like Swisher or Cabrera or Erstad. Guys who either have never led off, or really aren't equipped to do so, or are way past the time they would have be effective in that role. Not a guy like Getz. Jerry Owens is a fake leadoff man, and unfortunately it looks like I will be shocked and he will be leading off opening day. I hope Hudson is still being considered. In 2004, the year before we traded for him, his 2nd full big league season, Scott Podsednik hit .244 with a .313 OBP. He had great steal #'s, stole 70, but only had an OPS+ of 75. If he's not injured, Jerry Owens ought to be able to put up equal (SB) or better (OBP, BA) numbers in most categories other than the couple HR's Podsednik hit that year. Pods had a great 2003 but as a "Proven leadoff hitter" or whatever we're looking for, he was brutal in 2004.

Author John Updike has passed away of lung cancer.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 10:49 AM) ^^^^^^^ Speed is overrated, in some ways. It's nice to have alongside OBP, but unless you have a surefire stolen baser at the top of the lineup healthy, but it's debatable as to how often you should attempt the steals because of the out risk. If the Sox could just lay down bunts and move runners along instead of hitting into DPs almost every other inning, that would go a long way too. In front of Q, Thome, and presumably Dye and Konerko and Fields (that's what, 150+ home runs out of those 5 potentially?) I have actually very little urge to see anyone giving up an out deliberately with the bunt. We've seen what that does before...you get your leadoff man on, then the #2 guy bunts him to 2nd, they walk the 3rd place hitter and it sets up the potential to end the inning on a DP if you get the ground ball.

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 10:03 AM) I'd rather have the OBP than the speed, if forced to choose. That OBP will give the sluggers more opportunities to hit with runners on base. While the 3 singles to score a guy is frustrating, the middle of the order hits plenty of doubles and HRs. I just want more guys on base when that happens. Ideally, I'd love to add a high average guy to the lineup and some speed also, but I would take OBP and/or average before speed. A guy with a .400 OBP at the top of the Sox's lineup with limited speed would be far more useful than a guy with a .350 OBP and good speed. That was, I think, part of the idea with Swisher last year, unfortunately his suckitude overwhelmed that best laid plan, so we got stuck with Cabrera and his .334 OBP in that slot. I'd love to add a .400 OBP guy to the top of that order, but unless that is Getz/Lillibridge (both of whom have put up decent OBP's in full seasons in the minors, .382 for Getz and about .418 for Lillibridge, both of them a couple years back in the minors) we're just not going to find that person.