NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 02:32 PM) If you grow up poor in Venezuela with the opportunity to marry a major league shortstop, it's not much of choice. http://www.google.com.hk/imgres?imgurl=htt...EwAw&dur=11 They married during the middle of Ozzie's rookie season in 1983, I think. Ozzie was a rook in '85, not '83. But I do believe the AL ROY did play for the Sox in 1983.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 01:14 PM) Charlotte roster up, Olsen and Infante on the DL. Zaleski also DL'd.

B_Ham Roster Thoughts... Henry Mabee is now, apparently, Hank Mabee. Remenowsky is back in B-Ham? That surprises me. Their catchers are Espino and Sierra? Yikes. Also, thought Morrison might be in AAA, guess I was wrong there. They have him listed as a 2B. Charlotte Roster Thoughts there... Whisler is back? Also they have only 3 healthy OF's on the squad, but I guess Johnson and Kuhn can fill in as needed.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 01:12 PM) Smith is going to play everyday and he can only play 1B and 3B on defense. B'ham roster is up. No Silverio, Dubler on the DL. Unless he changes positions, no way Smith plays every day. He's not a prospect. He won't take playing time away from Gilmore, Silverio, Wilkins or even Loman.

Interesting to me that Shirek is the OD starter for Charlotte, but never made an appearance with the big club in Arizona. Also surprised he is starting at all, I really think he's better suited to relief work. QUOTE (JPN366 @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 01:14 PM) Charlotte roster up, Olsen and Infante on the DL. I wasn't aware Infante was hurt, anyone know the story there?

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 09:42 AM) Confirmed Bayne for the rotation. Confirmed Corey Smith is on the Barons roster with Seth Loman and Andy Wilkins. Wonder what this means for Jon Gilmore and Juan Silverio? Smith is filler, he's probably just a bench guy. Wilkins 1B, Loman DH, I'd guess. Gilmore at 3B, Silverio is hard to say, maybe OF, maybe SS or 2B. Are the rosters up yet?

QUOTE (BurlyMan56 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 08:13 PM) just moved down here from Chicago two weeks ago. Going to the saturday/sunday games...Hope Peavy and his teammates play like a bunch of dirt bags! lol wut?

Well that's just a pair of true professionals right there, Guillen and Cowley. Truly shining examples of their chosen professions.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 03:47 PM) Even if the general fund were positive, if we were paying off the national debt, the Social Security trust fund would still be purchasing treasury bonds any time it is a positive state, unless we got rid of the trust fund. If both funds are positive, the Trust Fund would still be stockpiling Treasuries...and the moneys the government gets for those treasuries would then go towards paying off other treasuries that aren't renewed. Effectively you're right that the government has been buoyed towards surpluses the last 30 years by the fact that the trust fund has been positive, and those surpluses have been the fuel for the upper class tax cuts...but there's no real obvious way to segregate these funds unless the Trust Fund doesn't exist. If excess funds come into OASDI to create a trust fund, they have to go somewhere, and Treasuries are the only logical candidate. I just want to say that this particular use of the term "trust fund" is akin to politicians wanting to take away some group's rights and calling it protecting "freedom". What you are describing is not a trust fund by any reasonable definition.

Well, I was wrong. Charlie is back to being a starter - in fact he is Charlotte's Opening Day starter. We'll see how he does in the rotation in AAA.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 03:28 PM) I don't think it works that way. The OASDI trust fund buys up what are (hopefully) risk-free US Treasury Bonds. That money then is transferred directly to the treasury. As long as there is a Social Security trust fund and the Trust Fund is invested in Treasuries (and God help us if they ever try to invest it somewhere else), that money is going to go into the general fund. The question then is not one of there being some level of "IOU's" that the Treasury has written the Trust Fund. If the trust fund exist, that money gets put into buying treasuries and thus is supplied to the general fund. Basically, all that matters is whether the general fund is running a deficit or not. If the general fund is balanced, then there's really no such thing as an "IOU to the Social Security program" or anything like that, because the balance there would include payments on the bonds owned by the OASDI program. The only way to have there be no "IOU's" is to have there be no trust fund. I may be misunderstanding this... but if the general fund is negative outbound, and therefore is using equivalent funds from the Treasury that would otherwise had been held in trust for Soc Sec, then it is still borrowing. In reality, the positions should be segregated, but they don't really do it that way.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 03:22 PM) That'd amount to a transfer from taxpayers to bondholders, wouldn't it? well its convoluted, but my impression is that it goes to the fed either way, or through it. If you use SS funds to flatten negative positions to the Fed, I think that is the same as going into the fund generally. I could be wrong though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) Huh? Do you mean you'd be interested in eliminating the entire trust fund? What? I am saying that the added revenue in the short run could be used to cover the IOU's for money that Congress has been borrowing for general spending. Did I miss something here?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 01:56 PM) If you were to make that happen...there would be no need for any other change to Social Security's funding. Ever. If you made that change now, the Trust Fund would decline a little for the next decade and that would be it, it would be solvent forever. And at that point, the trust fund ought to actually shrink quite a bit because there'd be no need to have such a large stockpile of bonds sitting in the hands of OASDI. Then do both, and use the extra funds in the short term to offset the stupid IOU's hanging out there. When those are wiped out, lower the overall rate to however low you can go and still maintain the future of the funds.

What is the story with this Erik Morrison guy? He's been playing a lot in ST games lately for the Sox. 46th round pick of Texas in 2008, had very nice years up through 2009, was disappointing in 2010 at AA, then played in only 2 games in 2011. Was he injured? And when did the Sox even pick him up? He doesn't look like he'd be minor league FA eligible yet, so I assume he was released? Seems a little intriguing to me. Anyone know anything?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 12:49 PM) Really though, this is actually currently the case. The problem is that we're projecting so far out, 25+ years, that near-impossible economic trends wind up mattering. The Trust Fund as it currently sits, by covering through about 2040 (I'd expect its position to improve slightly with economic recovery), basically does exactly what you ask it to do, covers the foreseeable problem of the baby boom retirement. Increasing the trust fund size now would actually be a hamper on the rest of the economy, and I think it's the wrong way to respond to the next foreseeable contingency. The next foreseeable contingency is not caused by demographics, its caused by a quirk of the program; that the benefits rise at a rate faster than inflation. Thus, if you take the projection far enough out, Social Security benefits as a share of the economy wind up growing with time. If inflation + Productivity growth winds up winning, you have no problem...and that basically happens if you have the same productivity growth as the U.S. has seen for the last 50 years. If you project lower productivity growth, then you have a problem, but the right answer is to slightly slow the growth rate of the program there, IMO. That does bring up another issue - I do believe the benefits should only increase at the rate of inflation.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 12:40 PM) I actually really dislike the "disallow further borrowing from Social Security", because what that effectively does is it puts the government into a position where one portion of it is running a permanent surplus. I get the motivation, because every time there's a Social Security surplus the immediate response has been to use it to slash upper-tier tax rates, but that strikes me as treating a symptom rather than curing the problem. The problem is that anything and everything is an excuse to slash top tier tax rates. If you bothered to read my post, you'd see I was actually calling for the opposite - keeping tax rates low for lower incomes, raising them for upper incomes, and lowering them for business on the hiring side. Also, the entire idea of Social Security is a trust fund for the American people. You WANT a surplus in there, enough so to cover forseeable contingencies.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 12:17 PM) No one needs to touch Social Security, at least for a while, and it doesn't impact the deficit. I am tired of seeing this. For one thing, it isn't true - we are borrowing from those funds all the time, which is basically a hidden debt. Also, this idea that we don't need to address it right now, is the same as people saying we don't need to address the deficit or debt at all right now. It is deciding to live in ignorance of the path you are on, hoping to deal with it later, when it will be much more difficult and expensive to deal with. Real simple fix for Soc Sec: disallow any further borrowing from Soc Sec for any reason, keep the current lowered payroll tax rate, lower it to that rate for businesses too, and remove the cap. I've seen this type of scenario laid out with all the math - it gets rid of virtually any risk of future shortfalls. And makes the tax less regressive.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 11:58 AM) Obamacare at least attempts to do something about Medicare/caid. The DoD has recommended a budget that Paul Ryan, Mr. Very Serious Deficit Hawk, claimed was just the Generals lying. Paul Ryan's budget gives ample increases to Defense while Obama's does not (and especially true for the Progressive Caucus budget, for that matter). There's still not any real equivalency on those issues. I said nothing of equivalency in terms of failing to compromise. On the contrary, the parties are alike specifically for what they ignore, or only do very little to address. PPACA doesn't do much to curb Medicare spending, as I understood it. No one wants to touch Soc Sec, and in fact they keep borrowing from it. And the military budget is still way to large, not because I think the generals are lying, but because they are forced to budget for a force capable of acting in ways I don't believe they should be acting.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 4, 2012 -> 11:15 AM) (long, but worth copying in toto) In response to yet another debt-obsession question: He makes some good points there, and I agree with a lot of it. But some of it, he is also choosing to paint a skewed picture. He says the problem isn't out of control discretionary spending - and he's right about that... he says that the problem is revenue that has decreased by 15 to 16%. Well, really, what both he AND the GOP are in denial about is that the real and problematic cost growth is in three specific areas: Social Security, Medicare/caid, and Defense. BOTH parties are ignoring that. That said, his overall point that the GOP is clearly being less willing to compromise, that their crusade against discretionary spending is missing the larger point, and that some revenue increases will be necessary to get us back to neutral, are all right on the money.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Apr 3, 2012 -> 03:29 PM) I could see the AAA rotation being Leesman, Veal, Axelrod, Doyle & Olsen. Just occurred to me, there is another name that may be in the Charlotte rotation this year - Charlie Shirek. My personal view is that he's better off in the 'pen in Charlotte, as his numbers as a reliever have been much better than as a starter (plus his smallish build, mostly two-pitch repertoire and velocity also point to this). We'll see, when the Charlotte and B-Ham rosters are announced.

Linza's name does not appear on the Kannapolis roster, at least not yet, so he's probably headed for Great Falls (Rk) for 2012. Given his success in Bristol (and his late-season appearance in Charlotte), I was expecting he'd be making the jump to A-ball, but apparently not yet. As promotions occur out of Kanny, I wouldn't be surprised to see him added.

Is it just me, or is the minor league season starting earlier, relative to the major league season, than usual? I seem to recall last year it was like 1.5 weeks after major league Opening Day that the full season minor league squads started up. This year, they are starting at basically the same time.

W-S and B-Ham are the two squads with starting rotations I will be excited to see. I think all five of these pitchers are intriguing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 2, 2012 -> 07:54 PM) We call this "climate change". This is 2 days in a row of hail now. Turns out today were doing flash floods, like 3 inches of rain in an hour in a slow moving cell. Looks like DFW getting the hammer now, Arlington area specifically, also eastern suburbs of DFW area.