Balta1701

CSI: IU BBall.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 05:05 PM) 2) If you step back and think about it, the NCAA is so jacked up. As much as I love the fact that Samscum is getting what he deserved for being a douche-bag, the fact is he made some stupid phone calls. Obviously the being unethical and lying is horrible and he should be fired, but this all came about over some phone calls. Ok, fair enough. How long has the Reggie Bush thing been going on? They pushed Samscums sanctions in like 6 months. Reggie Bush got tons of cash, probably the biggest no-no possible, and still nothing on that. Am I the only one that see's a problem with that? FWIW, the Reggie Bush matter is in the legal system black hole right now, and it's actually producing some odd stuff, like Bush's chief accuser walking out of the courtroom yesterday because there was an armed man at the deposition from Bush's side.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 04:44 PM) Perjury for what? The only question I could see a problem with is if they asked if Tejada ever bought or sold steroids. I dont have a transcript of the proceeding so I cant really comment on the strength of the case. Actually, in the Rafael Palmeiro investigation, Tejada was deposed and was asked exactly that question...which is why he's possibly facing charges in the near future.

Btw, for those who say that Obama never talks about policy...he gave a long economic policy speech today.

The Senate today voted 51-45 in favor of a bill that would make the army field manual the standard for which all interrogations by any agency will follow. In other words, it makes the CIA follow the law everyone else has to follow and bans torture. John McCain, the steely eyed missile man, the lone anti-torture Republican...voted against the bill.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 02:29 PM) Some of the borrowers or financers are going to take a hit. If they know that they won't get bailed out by taxpayers, they are going to have to think twice about giving out loans to people who can't afford them. Well, that or they can lose a bunch of money and go out of business. Here's the problem with that. The financers no longer are the ones holding the loans. It's moved on to hedge funds, things run by the real big shots, like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citibank, the really big guys. Those are the companies that bought all of this worthless garbage, in some form or another, as investment vehicles. The argument that is going to be made is that the country can't afford to have those guys go under, and that's where the bailout talk will come in. Those are the guys currently left holding the bag, and they're the ones with the lobbying power to make a bailout happen.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 02:05 PM) I think having a reasonable look at changing the loan process in the country could be useful, but those bad loans are done and the parties involved need to deal with them. I think a big part of the problem here, and the issue that is getting ignored at the lender level is that some time in the recent past, the checks and balances in the system broke down. Normally, if this person walked in to buy an expensive car, house, whatever, the dealer would benefit the most if they could sell them the highest priced vehicle right away to earn their commission, regardless of whether or not they could actually afford it. The more sales, the more money they make. But, there is supposed to be 1 more step, there's supposed to be a finance person at the bank who doesn't make his money based on the number of loans he writes, he makes his money by making sure bad loans don't go through. So, if this person walks in to buy a BMW, the dealer's job is to say "Here's the keys" but it's the next person above him who's supposed to say "Wait a second, can you verify your income, can I see a pay stub, or a bank statement". The problem is, this system broke down. Suddenly, in the past few years, the lenders discovered that they could take these loans and sell them off to other people as "structured investment vehicles", "asset backed securites" and whatever other alphabet soup they could come up with. So all sorts of hedge funds, totally divorced from the loan process, wound up buying this stuff for the full value of the loan, and suddenly the guy who's job it used to be to make sure loans were quality discovered he could make more money by writing whatever loans he wanted also, just like the car dealer, as long as he sold those loans off to the next person in the line who has no idea what he's actually buying. That's why I keep coming back to the lender/bank level in this, because that's a key element in this whole credit mess. If I'm running the ol Bailey building and loan, it's part of my job to make sure that the loans I write are going to get paid off, because otherwise my business goes under. But once I can sell off all these loans to some investor somewhere who bundles it and sells it off again, then I can make money by writing loans that will never in a million years be paid off. That's the breakdown that happened the last 5 years, and that's where we need something done to fix the system.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 01:33 PM) Then she better ask someone what they think if she doesn't know. Young and old, there's plenty of people to help. If you make the decision, you screwed up and will have to pay the consequences. That's ok... it's all ok, because that way, I can pay for everyone's mistakes because my government will take care of EVERYONE except me, because I won't sit around and wait for them to take care of me. A legit question in reply. If, at the higher up step there was a requirement that the lender do something to verify this person's income before making this loan beyond just accepting the person at their word, this loan (and an awful lot of the mortgage problem) would never have happened. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think that would seem to be a small expense in terms of time/money for the lenders writing these loans. So can you give me a reason why that would be a bad idea? Yes, personal responsibility is a great thing...but if it's so easy to game the system...if all you have to do is lie in one line on a form and the odds are no one finds out unless the credit market blows up, and by that time you've either walked away with your sales commission or you've split for Mexico with the car, why not take what seems to me to be the easiest step to prevent this problem and require some sort of actual verification of the quality of the loan?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 01:01 PM) If the student agreed that they had a level of income that they did not, they are committing a crime. If the fraud was being committed soley by the dealership, then they should be the only ones being charged. My question would be, what exactly is a college student who has no income doing trying to get approved for a BMW? Doesn't that by itself deserve some level of being responsible for your own actions? Certainly does. Here's one way to look at this. I'll let each of you respond. There are 3 people here. 1 is the dealer who wrote the fraudulent loan. 1 is the person who tried to purchase a vehicle they could not afford (assume for a moment that she did not lie about her income and that was changed without her knowledge). Another is the person at the lending company who accepts the loan without bothering to verify income levels because they make big profits by selling off worthless loans to other banks. Please rank these 3 in terms of which ones you'd blame the most. Here's mine: 1. The dealer, who wrote a fraudulent loan 2. The lender, who doesn't bother verifying income 3. The person who is stupid. If, however, the buyer lied about her income directly, without any influence by the dealer, in that case I'd jump her from 3 to 1.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 12:54 PM) No. The dealer didn't trick her or lie to her. She knew what the payment terms were when she signed the lease. The dealer lied to the bank, not her, to get her the lease. So why does the dealer have no responsibility to make sure that the loans he's sending to the bank aren't pieces of garbage? I've sold stuff on credit before when I was selling vacuums, and I'll tell you up front that I always took efforts to try to qualify people before even writing up a contract. If a person was unemployed or had a recent bankruptcy, even if they wanted the thing, I didn't waste my time on it. For an even more expensive piece of equipment, like a BMW, the person actually dealing with the consumer should have some responsibility. At least I felt that way when I was selling those.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 12:44 PM) Tex, you have to see the difference between your furnace breaking and someone on a small fixed income with little savings leasing a $100,000 ultra-luxury sports car. She wasn't bilked out of this. She went into the BMW dealership herself and decided to lease a car that costs more than three times her annual income. If a college student walked in to a BMW dealership, declared no provable income, and the dealer leased him a car anyway, who is responsible there? Why is there no responsibility on the lender to verify these things? Yes, she was clearly wrong. But If I walked in to a BMW dealership 8 years ago and tried to lease a car, I'd have been laughed out of the place. Why isn't it the job of someone above them to actually verify income levels before giving out a loan? This exact same thing was done all the time in the mortgage business, people would just ask a person for a number, and sometimes even suggest an income level in order to give them a loan. Should that be ok?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 12:34 PM) Screw personal responsibility! It's the government here to save the day! Screw corporate responsibility! If they lie to people or commit fraud, it's the people's fault for not uncovering it! Seriously, do statements like that actually do anything or illustrate any important point? If we're going to actually debate this issue, here's the question I think is worth answering Re: the government; how much responsibility do they have to make it where a mess like this can't happen? Not as a matter of personal responsibility...but as a matter of avoiding screwing over the 90% of us who do things right. Here's my point. If 10% of Americans are complete fools and take out mortgages they can't afford and finance $100,000 on $30,000 cars like we've seen the past 5 years...when the system hits a bump in the road, like it has now...it's not just those 10% who suffer. 10% of Americans lose their house, but then the construction industry collapses, unemployment goes through the roof, the banking system teeters on the edge of collapse, etc. Simply sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "People should know better!" ignores the fact that there are always going to be a group of people who never know better, who lie, who are stupid, etc. I would argue that the fact that this mess hurts everyone is exactly the reason why we need stronger regulation of these lending markets and more transparency in how they're being treated as investments. Would you disagree?

H. Christ that's a horrible deal for Dallas.

QUOTE(lvjeremylv @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 09:52 AM) I can see a player using it for a short time, getting a desired result, and then quitting. The payday for having a career year is millions of dollars, which would be very tempting for an underachieving player nearing the end of his playing days. One final payday is alluring. Did anyone on that 05 team actually get a big payday out of that season? The only one I can think of is Konerko. Politte, Hermanson were still under contract for 06, Cotts was still pre-arb, Jenks was a rookie, Vizcaino didn't have a career year, Marte was bad, etc. Contreras got an extension, Garland got a new contract but he was still pre-FA.

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 09:50 AM) That next lady wasnt so nice. I almost feel sorry for him. Even though it appears he is lying its gotta suck to go through all of this just to keep your name cleared. You know his reputation must mean everything to him for him to risk perjury where if he had used it and admitted it he wouldnt be in any legal trouble. If he didn't want to risk his reputation...he could simply have kept the needles out of his ass.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 09:31 AM) Lower the business tax rates and you will attract a boatload of business to this country, and you will find multi-nationals re-patriating earnings from overseas. Haven't we done that enough the last 8 years?

QUOTE(iamshack @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 09:05 AM) There is no way to avoid the sacrifices that must be made. Talk all you want about what the average consumer wants- but we've been playing that game for far too long- that's what gets us into these messes. It's time for Americans to start making sacrifices like the rest of the world. You could say the same thing about the whole mortgage market mess. Yes, it's as much the fault of the people who took out those loans as anyone. But the fact is, having a trillion or so dollars vanish because people did stupid things might be the logical thing to do to punish the people who did the stupid things and the banks that took out those stupid loans, but but if you try to pretend that it won't be a disaster for the rest of us as well, then you're just kidding yourself. Which is why the mortgage mess is a challenge to deal with.

QUOTE(AngelasDaddy0427 @ Feb 12, 2008 -> 08:10 PM) Hillary on CNN just said that she'll raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour... Lord no wonder the uneducated flock to her. What a pipe dream. That would cripple the economy and she knows it (unless of course she's a stupid as the people she counts on voting for her.) You know if y'all would just allow us to index the minimum wage to inflation so that it goes up by the inflation rate, you'd never have to hear about this being a political issue again, and I wouldn't have to note that the minimum wage was far higher in total value when you consider inflation when it was first introduced than where it is now (i.e. it didn't cripple the economy then).

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 09:13 AM) I think so, too... but it depends on just how much momentum Obama has. He's not going to endorse a loser. At this point, I'd be very surprised to see more than a few token endorsements from old friends/people in Texas or Ohio coming for Clinton. I think that a lot of people are seeing that she's on the ropes, and they don't want to be caught if she does go down. There might be a few more people who gamble on Obama being the nominee right now and actually come forwards, trying to get on his good side by being in there before the last big tide comes in if he does finish her off. No one with any eye towards their personal future would endorse Hillary right now.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 04:02 AM) You'd need to deal one of Hinrich and Duhon most likely though (does Duhon have an ending deal, because then it could work). If the Bulls had lost confidence in JamesOn Curry after his latest runin with the law, dealing for a backup PG like Lowry might work. It's worth noting though that he's making only $1 million this season, so his cap hit isn't big and if you wanted to try doing Duhon straight up for him, you couldn't, the Grizz would have to include more money.

This would bother me a lot more had the press been a lot harder on Mr. Bush the last 8 years, especially in press conferences/the rare interview on anything other than Fox.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Feb 12, 2008 -> 06:51 PM) I think it's over. Obama is going to beat Hillary, and probably win the White House. I don't think he is going to run a horrible campaign like Gore or Kerry. GW Bush pretty much handed the Dems this thing with the huge deficits he ran up and the Iraq war. I hope you're right (there's that word again) but I've seen Hillary written off before and she isn't out yet. Not by a long shot. Her last true "Firewall" states were New Hampshire and Nevada, the last 2 she really needed to dominate other than the Super Tuesday ones, and she won both of those. Her next firewall is Texas and Ohio. If she wins both of those then it's on to Pennsylvania.

Hell, why not, I can spare $5.01.

Survey USA polls Ohio...Clinton 56, Obama 39.

QUOTE(EvilJester99 @ Feb 12, 2008 -> 12:32 PM) So when are these checks suppose to be coming? May through July or so. They'll start printing in May & they should take about 2 months to finish.