Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 06:28 PM) Based on the out pouring off support, Palin IS the candidate now. McCain is the side car. As a guy on TPM said, "when will Palin drop McCain from the ticket?" And I think if the Dems let that happen...if they let this election be about Palin rather than McCain, they're making a massive mistake. She has her negatives but he has bigger ones, and he gets 3 debates to threaten to declare war on stuff whereas she only gets 1.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 05:57 PM) This power should have never been held by one or two large groups. Banks should own their own loans, which would make them responsible for their legitimacy. By having a governmental agency to dump the bad loans on, we the people, have to pay for the people who have lived outside of their means. But haven't more than a few banks already been caught completely with their pants down by having taken up so many of these crappy loans that they wrote? Let's hypothetically imagine that the GSE's didn't exist. And that whole $5 trillion was held by the banking industry. The banking industry basically went crazy over the last decades, destroying regulation, using every accounting trick possible to force short term profits higher, etc. Wouldn't a lack of having these GSE's mean that we'd be facing the largest set of bank runs in history because no one would have the cash to pay for anything once the mortgage market turned?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 05:27 PM) Glen Greenwald? Come on, that's like saying response outsourced to Sean Hannity. Fine outsource something to Hannity and then I'll respond to the substantive points. Nothing you've said makes it clear why Brit Hume is ok and Olbermann isn't.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 03:29 PM) The same thing that makes you and me knowledgeable about politics, except nobody knows who we are. Well that, and they are also much more able to afford things like max political contributions and lobbyists of their own than most of us.

In response to some heavy naval movement by NATO in to the Black Sea, Russia is responding by sending some of its remaining naval pieces to the Americas, and they're working with another energy rich state that doesn't like us very much as well.

Posting some commentary to either rile up the other side or to at least solicit some responses:

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 7, 2008 -> 07:59 PM) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business...agewanted=print The money paragraphs: Response outsourced

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 11:12 AM) Last I saw somewhere around half of the country owns stock. There's a difference between owning stock and doing anything with it. I own a couple shares, but that's because my aunt gave them to me when I graduated. I haven't yet had the financial ability to actively do more than just owning those, and probably a majority of those shareholders are in a similar boat; they rely on someone else to make their decisions.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 10:57 AM) Not sure if you realize this, but, if you increase cap gains tax, it WILL effect basically everyone in the country. Just because you don't pay that tax bill, doesn't mean the bill won't be passed down to you indirectly. So let me give the standard reply. We cut the tax on capital gains significantly early in the Bush administration from a higher level during the Clinton years. I'm going to push you guys back on to this every time...either the capital gains tax simply isn't nearly important enough to overwhelm other effects on the economy at the levels under Clinton and Bush, or cutting the tax is a bad thing in general because the economy performed much worse after Bush's CG tax cut than beforehand. Every tax has some impact on economic growth. But pretending that there's not a corresponding benefit to things like a closer to balanced federal budget or additional spending programs is the issue that keeps being missed.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 09:54 AM) Obama's proposing a gasoline tax hike? If you run his carbon trading system the way he's proposed it, there would be a moderate increase in gas taxes (which could well be offset by decreasing the gasoline tax with some of the revenue). The McCain plan would have the same effect, raising gas prices, although the extra funds raised would go to energy companies instead.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 10:47 AM) I think Tampa Bay is the best team. If they're healthy I agree...on paper. But they have a lot of ? guys who have been banged up. Longoria, Crawford, and perhaps most importantly their bullpen. But that doesn't mean they will be able to hold on in a 7 game series against a veteran loaded team like Anaheim, or even Boston, or, let's hope, the better Sox. Sometimes playoff experience does matter (See: Detroit, 2006).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 10:34 AM) Nice. When Obama's cut gives you more, it tells you how much more in taxes you'd have to pay under McCain. When McCain would cut your taxes more, no mention of that at all! You're making that kind of money?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 10:28 AM) Its no big surprise really. These companies should have never been backed by the government in the first place. This should all be independant of the taxpayers, so that a bailout isn't really even an option. This kind of crap is exactly why places like automotive industry are lining up to be next in line for the next bailout. So...where exactly would the world's financial systems be if these companies owning 1/2 of the mortgages in the US were actually allowed to go belly up?

QUOTE (Texsox @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 09:52 AM) The payoff for the people and by extension, the government, is private home ownership, aka "The American Dream™". In other words...because of the fact that these were GSE's and there was always an implicit guarantee by the government, it really has been another large taxpayer provided advantage to homeowners, as it's knocked down mortgage rates by a non-trivial amount since they were set up.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 10:04 AM) And there was more, about how Gibson got the interview because he did not question McCain about Palin's family. He thought it was innappropriate. Well, that's all in the framing Charlie boy, because the important part about those questions was everyone wanting to know IF HE KNEW about them when vetting, when and why. So he's going to do a kid gloves interview with Sarah Palin. WE ARE TRULY THANKFUL GIBSON! THIS WILL DEFINITELY MAKE US MORE INFORMED VOTERS!! Well, this part I don't really have a problem with, I really don't know if I want the press questioning people about that family beyond a certain level unless there's something really wierd in there (I'd tolerate, for example, questions about the Alaska independence party and her husband's participation in it).

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 09:49 AM) the stipulations in that interview are embarrassing. Do tell?

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 09:42 AM) If that's the case, why were they allowed to float stock out on the open market? Because it made a lot of money for some very wealthy people who have good lobbyists. That was the real fun of those "companies", there was always this implicit guarantee that they'd never be allowed to fail. Thus, their management could afford to do just about anything, take much bigger risks with their investments than a company normally would, and they'd still not lose everything on the deal if it went belly up. So they were able to rake in the dough as the mortgage market went up, and now they can still walk away without drowning in debt.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 09:47 AM) KEEP. THE. MEDIA. AWAY. FROM. HER. they are sooooo MEAN Actually, she's finally going to sit down for an interview this week. With ABC's Charlie Gibson...the Flag Pin debate moderator.

I'd just like to add...sometimes, we ought to be thankful that we have a massive, unwieldy, multi-trillion dollar government and occasionally regulatory apparatus available in this country. Because, although the lack of government regulation was a key part in helping us get in to this mess, if we didn't have the thing that so many people want to drown in New Orleans...the financial system of this country would probably have been destroyed over the last 12 months.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 06:03 AM) I do think its a good idea to try to put them pretty far offshore, when practical. Out of view. But that shouldn't stop it from happening. I don't recall the exact situation for Teddy, but, if he just outright went against it without trying to work out a compromise, then that's just stupid. They were far enough offshore that the eye would see them as about a centimeter tall speck on the horizon. But because it was off of some of the richest shoreline in the country, shoreline that just happened to have Kennedy land on it, the guys in Mass were able to come up with enough money and enough faux-reasons to stop them. (Classic example, they argued that there was lubricating oil required for those turbines which could spill. That is 100% true. However, there's already a platform near those areas that is taking in oil and gas shipped from overseas, which has already had spills much larger than could happen if every single turbine happened to spill).

Come on, kick it to Hester!

QUOTE (WilliamTell @ Sep 6, 2008 -> 06:39 PM) Worst of all we have Owens batting next inning and it looks like MacDougall is pitching too. Actually, if they've really rebuild MMac's delivery, I kind of like seeing him here with a little pressure but still the bottom of their order.

"Suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked"

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 6, 2008 -> 06:34 PM) PR or no PR, Thome just blew this inning. Still only 1 out with one of our hottest hitters up. Thome is 2/17 in September.

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Sep 6, 2008 -> 06:33 PM) Put in a PR to steal second? Why? That runner doesn't matter at all and all they'd do is walk Thome and pitch to Konerko