Balta1701

And away from that issue and on to the more humorous side...Here's a signature worthy quote from Senator McCain today.

The President of Georgia is clearly listening to the statements coming from Senator McCain and is asking the Senator to live up to his statements publically. Thoughts?

The Washington Post today spends a fair amount of time looking at Randy Scheunemann and how he's been using his lobbyist contract with Georgia to make his firm money while working for the McCain Campaign.

It's Bill Kristol and Fox News so take it with some sodium chloride, but I'll start a thread for this endorsement because if I put it in the catch all thread someone would just start a thread on it anyway.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 13, 2008 -> 11:14 AM) Why don't we all just become socialist or even better, communist forms of government, and all become robots, no freedoms, etc. Yes, Balta, this is another one of those Kaperbole ™ posts that are over the top, but at the same time, isn't defending freedom of choices rather then government autocracy worth anything? Of course it is....but we've heard the argument again and again that the U.S. can't be the world's policeman. We've gotten ourselves stuck in 2 wars already, we've blown a couple trillion dollars in wealth on them...how many nations do we have to use our army to protect their fragile democracies, and how do we choose which ones are the important ones?

If you're looking for a cheeseburger, screw the rest of them, do the drive to New Buffalo MI and go to Redamak's. Done Fatburger, In & Out, Carls Jr., etc. Haven't yet hit the place that is anywhere close to them.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 09:55 PM) If the US was smart, they would be fast tracking NATO membership for Ukraine about right now. I'll ask the same question...why is some event in the Ukraine or some restive minority along the Ukraine/Russian border worth a full scale war between the U.S. and the Russians? We've seen political instability in that country as recently as 3 years ago, in no small part driven by Russia and a large minority of the people in that country that are pro-Russian. Before bringing that nation in to NATO I want to know why they're worth having me fighting and dying for them.

QUOTE (Fotop @ Aug 13, 2008 -> 08:11 AM) Understood it's at historical lows, and given this is long term play that makes sense. Seems like a bit of a change of investment though. Hasn't the Middle East/Asia been mostly investing in US financials (Merrill, Citi, etc)? Theme parks is quite the different game, no? An interesting reference point seems like the early 90's/late 80's to me. Around that time IIRC, Japanese companies flush with cash came in to the U.S. and started making all sorts of wierd purchases of companies. Buying up things like random buildings, companies that they'd have no idea how to run (I think a couple of major movie studios and Rockefeller center were sold in this fashion). A lot of those places wound up losing money on the deals and selling out after a few years. There's still some sort of aura around owning an important piece of the American market right now.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Aug 13, 2008 -> 07:55 AM) That makes the deal a little more interesting now. I actually wonder if Cinci has soured enough on Homer Bailey now that the Sox could come in for an offer for him? Last week I was wondering if we might have been able to interest them in a Contreras/Bailey swap to add a veteran with playoff experience to their starting rotation. But now...argh.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 11:47 AM) Have you noticed the demand numbers coming out of China and India? Their economic reports lately? The dollar? The price per barrel of oil? I've been saying for a year all of what's happening now would happen, and I think it's no accident. As I've said before, I'd be a rich man right now if I had some money because I knew the markets would be doing EXACTLY what they are doing at EXACTLY this point in time. It may not stick in the long run, but the timing of all of this is interesting. I didn't type it, but honestly, this is sort of exactly what I was expecting to see now. We've had a couple weeks of dropping oil prices, pushing gas back under $4 and taking "Rising gas prices" out of the #1 story slot on the evening news...and suddenly we're once again seeing bigger draw-downs in inventory than we expect. The speculators pushed it too high, now they pushed it too low, and demand is going to pull inventories back down until it rises again. I'm really starting to think that for the next few years, your average price increase for oil is going to be determined by "What it takes to make people constantly hurt". Because the second it starts feeling like relief, inventories are going to start going down and the price is going to shoot back up.

ARGH.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 04:46 PM) With Wakefield out and Buchholtz sucking, the Red Sox had a massive hole at the back of their rotation. Now they have Byrd to go with Beckett, Daiuske, and Lester. They have a much better shot of winning the division or keeping us out of the Wild Card now. A better shot yes...but you basically said in your first post that the wild card and the East were now decided. I don't think Byrd makes THAT big of a difference that a run by the Sox or Twins or both can't make both races interesting.

109 pitches for Javy, do we risk bringing in the bullpen?

Good lord, inning 8 and we're below 90 posts in the game thread? we must be winning.

For some comparison statistics...from the OECD:

QUOTE (KipWellsFan @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 03:22 PM) Lets not kid ourselves, NATO member or not, we would not risk nuclear war to save Gori. And if that's the case, then the proposed NATO expansion is a mistake. If Article 5 means nothing then NATO means nothing.

Hit the bloody ball nick!

QUOTE (WCSox @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 01:40 PM) My guess is that he did, but Shapiro probably asked for more from Kenny than he did from Epstein. The Sox pretty much need to win the division now, because it looks like either the Sawks or Rays will get the WC. And a team trading for Paul Byrd is the thing that makes you say that?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 10:47 AM) Have you noticed the demand numbers coming out of China and India? Their economic reports lately? The dollar? The price per barrel of oil? I've been saying for a year all of what's happening now would happen, and I think it's no accident. As I've said before, I'd be a rich man right now if I had some money because I knew the markets would be doing EXACTLY what they are doing at EXACTLY this point in time. It may not stick in the long run, but the timing of all of this is interesting. I finally found someone nice enough to put it in graphical form yesterday...heres' the oil price graph over the last few years. In terms of total dollars, the oil price correction we're seeing right now is the biggest...but in terms of percentage drop, it's somewhere right in the middle (the price is down another $5 or so from the point this graph was made, so the %age drop is around 18% now I think).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 09:09 AM) What about the line of thought that goes "companies don't really pay any taxes, they just collect them from their customers and pass them on to Uncle Sam"? Let's hypothesize that I own a couple million dollars in stock for a company that pays a large dividend, like GE, or Exxon. Let's say I'm pulling in enough in dividends to make oh, $40,000 or so per year. Let's also assume that the company is one of those companies paying virtually nothing in income taxes or getting even a few billion in subsidies from the government. I sit back and pay 5% taxes on those dividends. The company pays no tax on their earnings. The people purchasing those products have to pay taxes on the products they purchase, but they also have to pay taxes on their income. Compare that to a person with a normal job, working 40+ hours a week. They're paying what rate on taxes? 15-30% give or take their exact income. So my question is, if a company is paying virtually nothing on taxes, why should the person owning stock in that company also be paying 5% taxes on their dividend income? This is just another example of how, under the banner of "Tax cuts stimulate the economy always and pay for themselves always" the wealthiest of the wealthy, the investor class, who are able to afford their own lobbyists, have structured the tax code to the disadvantage of people who are actually working. Enough things are deductible that it allows companies to maximize their income over a quarter and pay that out to its shareholders, keeping the stock price high and keeping the people who own a lot of stocks raking in the money. But, the more average person, the person who can't afford his or her own private lobbyist, gets forced to pay a much higher rate of taxation because he or she can't pay someone to write the loopholes in to the laws. Give you another example. Hedge fund managers, some of the guys who helped build this disastrous mortgage bubble, get taxed at a dramatically lower rate than you or I on the income they earn just because there's a loophole built in to the tax scheme for them. And every time there's an effort to close it, there's an uproar in Congress about how we can't afford to increase taxes when either the economy is growing or when the economy isn't growing (take your pick).

QUOTE (WCSox @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 08:51 AM) I wouldn't trade Poreda for Millwood. But I might package him with Fields and an a couple of A-ballers for somebody like Halladay. Poreda straight-up for Burnett might not be a bad deal, although he's been unusually mediocre this year. I can't imagine Halladay would clear waivers or get anywhere close to us. Hell, I'd claim him if I were the Pirates. Burnett has a reasonable shot of at least being able to move to some team that might want him, but I wouldn't move Poreda for him, not when he can opt out of his contract at the end of the year. Poreda for 1.5 months of Burnett is a horrendous deal.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Aug 12, 2008 -> 08:18 AM) We can encourage companies to do the right thing with deductions (if you are for them) loopholes (if you are against). For example by investing in alternative energy sources an incentive to the company to save on taxes is good for the US. Receiving a tax incentive to build a factory in a certain area or perhaps a baseball stadium can be good for us as well. Another way, is venue shopping. Showing a greater profit in a foreign country. Here is an example for those unfamiliar. Company A owns a factory in Mexico. The Mexico manufacturing company builds a product with their cost of $2.00 and sells the finished goods to the US distribution company. The US arm in turn sells 1,000,000 units to WalMart at $3.00. Here is were the game is played. They could transfer the item at $2 and show no profit in Mexico. They could transfer it at $3 and show no profit in the US. Both processes catch the ire of the respective governments. Using this to avoid paying US taxes is bad for us. So as always there is no clear cut answer. Overall, their employees generally pay taxes, receive wages, and contribute in that way. I've read some well opinioned articles that business should never pay any sort of tax. Here's a counter-point though. In 2003, a major point was made over double-taxation of business earnings. Specifically...the businesses had to pay taxes on the profits they made, and then they had to pay taxes on the money again depending on how it was spent. The phrase "Double-taxation" was a rallying cry of the 2003 deficit increasing bundle that we passed, which reduced the income tax rate on corporate dividends paid out to the same rate that is currently paid on capital gains. If 2/3 of companies in the country are paying no taxes on their revenue thanks to various accounting measures, and the tax rate on dividends is 5%, then this is a gargantuan handout to the largest investors who hold stock in companies that pay large dividends. In most years, they earn a big chunk of money, pay little to no taxes or if they're a lucky ducky company who has good lobbyists the government pays them a few hundred million dollars, they then pass those profits out through dividends, and the only point at which the money is taxed is a 5% tax on the dividends, whereas if you're an employee working 80 hours a week for that company you're paying 15, 20, 25% or something like that.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 11, 2008 -> 08:19 PM) i don't think we are in a position to do anything with the military. we are already in 2 wars in the middle east. this is what the generals were telling GW when they say the military is 'stretched thin'. I agree with you on that. But here's the problem...if you're saying Georgia should be defended as a member of NATO even though it hasn't fully reached membership status, what other options do we have? Basically, your argument is that NATO is useless if it doesn't defend Georgia. It's not defending Georgia now. So what is NATO's use?

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 11, 2008 -> 06:19 PM) Germany and France aren't getting invaded. Really, if we don't defend Georgia in some way with NATO might as well be blown up as it is meaningless. Georgia was an ally who already was living up to their end of the bargain by helping with military actions. They already had signed treaties with NATO. They were going to be a member, Russia just invaded them before it was technically complete. So...are you saying we should be using military force against Russia right now, yes or no?

QUOTE (Karko's Throat Skin @ Aug 11, 2008 -> 05:52 PM) 1-0 Sox....with the way Danks is pitching, it might be enough Only if he can go 8.