Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 04:46 PM) Section 6 Part D as a blanket power of IL SC to determine the legal definition of any descriptive term in Section 6, as applied to any particular case. In other words, if IL SC feels that Gov is "disabled" as it pertains to execution of office, then they may go down the ladder in succession. But I think you are right, its a stretch. But what it does do is possibly neuter the Governor so that he can't really do that much to hurt the state while he's facing an additional court case challenging his power to do anything. That could buy time for the state legislature to start an impeachment procedure.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 03:24 PM) It really isn't feasible. These companies are losing 6 billion per month, they need to limit their costs or they get no assistance. It's that simple, the union merely needs to accept that they will be making as much as their counterparts in the United States and have similar benefits; or they can lose their job. It's up to them. Other auto companies will take over the market share and these manufacturers make cars in the US as well. Cars will be made here in the US, just not by the UAW. last year GM and Toyota sold an equal amount of cars, but Toyota made 12 billion and GM lost like 36 billion. This is the main problem here, a bailout without effective cost cutting initiatives is pointless. These jobs are going away without them, the bailout will encourage this type of reckless business model thus adding to a bad market economy. You're ignoring so many other variables there that I really don't have time or ability to point them out right now, but I just wanted to add this; if the type of car they sell is slightly different on average, or one type has to be discounted much more heavily (say, you have to slash the profit margin on an SUV because it's the only way you can move the products you're making) then it won't matter that they're making equal numbers of sales, the company with the more intelligent planning will win regardless.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 02:22 PM) Agreed. Only the Sox can have Minor League journeymen start a playoff game. Have you guys looked at the Twins roster the last few years? Nick Punto? Anyone? Anyone?

QUOTE (Markbilliards @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 03:04 PM) Did that cabera-cameron trade not happen? No, nothing official has come of it, it has been downgraded to "slightly above rumor" status.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 01:54 PM) but this auto bailout has an equally bad design. does it really fix the economy to spend money in inefficient ways which do not accomplish their intended goals? so we should follow up a poorly designed bank bailout with a poorly designed auto bailout? In terms of the bank bailout I'm not certain. But I think the reality is...with the size of even the largest auto bailout packages they were talking about, $35 billion or so, if we're talking about something in the neighborhood of 2-3 million jobs, then we're talking about $10,000 a job to delay having the impact of that bankruptcy hit at a time when everything else is going to hell. Even if all it does is delay the inevitable for these companies, then having the government spend $10,000 per person to keep a couple million people working for another 2 years is a reasonable move given the fact that the federal reserve has run out of stimulus ammunition already. That's probably cheaper per job than almost anything we're going to get out of the stimulus package that the New President will be signing.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 01:47 PM) but wait, i thought the bank bailout would fix the credit market and everyone would buy cars and houses? because, as we all know, bailouts are the only way to save the economy or any industry. Had it been designed and implemented better it might have helped, but there was no way it was going to stop the recession. The difference with these bailouts at this point is whether we're talking a recession or a depression.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 01:39 PM) Who are the #3 and #4 outfielders ahead of him? At present, Anderson and Owens technically should be. But we all know where Anderson will actually sit.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 01:42 PM) Interesting that you say that, but I don't think he will be the starting CF'er. I also don't think the Sox are seeing him as a starter, but I suppose anything can happen. If/when Owens gets hurt in ST, he will wind up being our everyday CF. We all know this, so we may as well just admit it.

I have little problem with this. It's now down to him and Owens for the starting CF job.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 01:26 PM) The true house of cards is the continued threats of doom and gloom if companies do not get endless bailouts. If they need to file for bankrupcy thats what they need to do. GM is burning 2 billion a month, there is no way we should be handing them billions and billions until they decide the market is good enough to restructure. When the market does pick up they will not restructure because 'it's all good now'. But when the market hits a bump again they will crash and burn once again because they have absolutely no durability. I believe I could have heard the exact same phrase after the failure of Bearstearns. We followed that advice when we let LEH fall without a bailout. That simply destroyed the entire financial system. We can debate another time whether it's a good idea to allow these companies to become to big to actually shut their doors. The reality is, they're too big to let them shut their doors, especially at this particular time in the economy.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 12:08 PM) you don't even buy american cars but want us all to bailout these companies? if these companies are not competitive they need to fail. thats how things will adjust themselves correctly. merely tossing money into a failed system over and over does nothing. The problem with that logic is the house of cards. Many/most of the foreign auto companies that have factories here and abroad that make parts use similar suppliers down the chain. If you cut 50% of their orders by killing off the American auto companies, those companies go under as well. And then that even takes a shot at the foreign company. And then on top of that, you're doing it at the worst possible time for the economy as a whole. If all you did was delay their bankruptcy by 2 years, and let them fall apart in 2010, then you might avoid digging the gigantic hole in the economy by spreading the pain out over time.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 09:35 AM) I'm not going to argue the point about perceived quality, because I agree with that 100%. I still don't see any explanation for 1.6B not being a competitive advantage. Ok, here's another way to look at it. Say GM et al. raised their prices right now by an amount equal to the additional amount you say they pay out to their employees per vehicle. That would then have allowed them to spend all that money hiring engineers that you say Honda and Toyota are spending. If they have a $3000+ price advantage per vehicle right now, they'd still have a $2200 price advantage over the competition, and they'd have all the engineers they want to make their products better. The fact is, that's not what they chose to do. They chose to race to the bottom in quality and intelligence and planning for the future.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 09:27 AM) Explain to me how an $800/ vehicle (and at roughly 2M/ year for Ford alone, that's 1.6B a year) isn't a significant competitive advantage, and please justify $80k a year + incredible benefits for unskilled labor. Because $800 a year when your vehicles are already priced $3000 or so less than a comparable foreign car (according to the data I posted 2 days ago that no one has yet refuted) isn't going to make a large difference. It wouldn't be trivial, but if people are already buying the more expensive vehicle for other reasons, then cutting your price a few additional hundred dollars isn't the answer. When I bought my Civic, I knew I could get a better deal on a small car from GM or Ford. But I wasn't even going to consider a GM vehicle after the piece of CR/AP that I had in high school and after how I was treated by that dealership. Ford I might have been more open to, but I quickly narrowed my list to just the Toyota and the Honda versions, and started shopping.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 09:25 AM) That's my quarterback! SOB!! Took a total of 2.5 seasons for him to truly become unhappy there and decide it was time to rip apart the offense. Longer than expected I'd say.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 09:12 AM) It's a matter of economics. Their jobs don't really warrant that level of pay, and as we're seeing, it isn't sustainable (many unions are pricing themselves out of work because of their pay scales). Even with their cars priced at lower levels, they were still losing market share every quarter. They could price them lower or pump more money into R&D, but instead they have to pay unskilled labor incredibly high wages. When the people assembling the product make more than the engineers behind the product, something's gotta give. The remarkable thing is though...somehow it certainly seems to me like all 3 of them have had plenty to spend on R&D. They've just a lot of times chosen to spend that money building cars that weren't sustainable through an oil price shock, and the current crisis relates to them getting ripped apart by that. Ford, for example, has supposedly done an awful lot of good in terms of improving the quality of its vehicles. There's no one out there saying that these companies weren't introducing enough new cars or anything like that, they just totally failed to anticipate the way the market was going to move. And they tried spending a ton on lobbyists to convince the people over their heads that it wasn't going to move, that they were greening with the fake green fuel E-85 & crap like that, when they really weren't. Hell, GM's vice chairman still thinks that the future of his company is in the SUV as far as I can tell. Perhaps the weirdest thing about that claim is that somehow, GM's R&D department has finally come up with a car that I would consider jumping at in a couple years once the initial price comes down; the volt.

QUOTE (G&T @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 07:30 AM) Boras sent out a press release saying that Joe is about to start skill activities. He'll probably hold a workout at some point. After last season, I doubt any team will offer Joe a major league deal. Someone will offer him an invitation to camp.

Caught a free screening of the Day the Earth Stood Still last night. Thoughts in black.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 08:18 AM) I don't see how he can get in trouble for defending his property from vandalism. It might depend on the definition of "Struggled" with the one, and the exact location of the people relative to his property as well.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 07:22 AM) Back in the early eighties when I was taking a political science class in Illinois, the prevailing wisdom was that a Dem needed a huge turnout in Chicago with 80-90% of the votes, 50-50 in the collar counties, then hold on for dear life downstate as the farm folk kicked their ass. I wonder how much that has changed? State and local elections can be totally different beasts from national elections as well. They really do turn a lot of times on local issues.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 12, 2008 -> 05:04 AM) Can't it be both? Why should someone make $40-hr/$80k-yr plus overtime (plus another $35/hr or so in benefits) to screw on a car mirror? Why is it a bad thing for people to earn a decent wage? Especially if the product they make is already priced at a lower price than similar levels of competition?

So...TO is unhappy with his quarterback. Did Mark Prior go on the DL yesterday?

QUOTE (Chet Lemon @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 12:37 PM) Unsurprisingly, no member of the U.S. House from Michigan voted against the bailout. Just out of curiosity, why is it treated like a bad thing for those folks to act in favor of their constituents, when many of the Republicans who voted against the bailout plan and who will probably kill it in the Senate represent states that have major plants run by the other companies? Mitch McConnel's state I believe has a major Toyota plant IIIRC, for example.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 11:27 AM) looks like this corrupt UAW bailout is going to fall through. Well, I guess we'll get to see if the depression predictions were right then.

My question to Keanu Reeves is presented within the first paragraph of a New York Times story.

QUOTE (Markbilliards @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 11:07 AM) 2) The Yankees did not offer arbitration to Abreu, correct? Correct. You do not lose a draft pick if you sign him.