NorthSideSox72

His numbers in AAA actually fell off a bit this year, though they were still good. I still think he could be a good 1B somewhere if given a shot, but he should have been given that shot a couple years ago. At some point, bashing AAA pitching for years in a row doesn't help anymore, probably starts to hurt. Someone will pick him up. I suppose with the lack of 1B depth in the minors, the Sox could pick him up and assign him to Charlotte as insurance for PK and Dunn. Hell he might be better than Dunn anyway if Dunn has another 2011. But more like he ends up elsewhere.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 04:36 PM) Sorry that wasn't clear, I meant privately. At least according to the Frontline episode I recently watched, the fact that traditional, conservative boring commercial banking was no longer legally divorced from riskier investment banking was (and is) a large part of the reason our financial sector got so screwed up. If the banks aren't split up that way, why would the regulatory bodies be? What's your opinion on the CFPB? The Consumer Protection thing? I am on the fence, and it depends a lot on how it is implemented. Plus, honestly, I can't recall right now a lot of the things it was legislated to do. I'd have to look it up and then give you an answer. The general idea of having a consumer advocate agency in government has appeal, but it has to be done right to be effective.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:32 PM) This GOP debate has been terrible. Any highlights or lowlights you would like to share? I wanted to watch but couldn't.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 04:36 PM) Actually, I think it's the opposite. I expect Dunn and Rios to perform closer to their potential next season, contingent that it's under new management for Rios. I don't expect them to be exactly what they once were, but more "acceptable" than good. I fully expect Peavy to be a waste of space yet again. Interesting. I guess on my mind, what Peavy went through was entirely expected, and what Dunn went through was not. Peavy was going to have an on and off year while recovering, this is a repeated pattern with pitchers after major surgery. They miss a year, then first year back they are not good, then 2nd year they get back closer to form. Dunn, really, no one has any idea what is going on with him or why, and so I have stronger doubts about him. Rios, it is all about effort level and attitude, and I don't know how readily that can change. Either way, I guess we agree that it isn't likely that all three will be this bad again.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 02:34 PM) Would someone mind terribly giving this thread some context Cubs have a mutual option with Aramis Ramirez for 2012, that would pay $16M if they both take it. Ramirez seems to be hinting he is going to hit the market, and not take the option. If he doesn't but Cubs do, they are entitled some sort of draft pick compensation from any team that signs him, if they don't re-sign him themselves (which they can do, I believe). Some fans would prefer Ramirez to Morel, thus, the discussion.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 04:25 PM) retail and institutional banking are no longer separate, right? I am not as familiar with the banking side, but I thought there were still seperate bodies involved there, even though they may all fall in the same cabinet department. That's better than SEC and CFTC, that are in Treasury and Agriculture respectively, and the exchange and CH bodies that are independent. And then there are state bodies in the area of market regulation as well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 04:09 PM) In reality, how many times is eyewitness testimony actually wrong? The odds have got to be minuscule in reality, otherwise the defense would have a very easy way out of it. I don't know that I would go as far as "miniscule", I am sure that it is wrong more than that. I've read some of the studies that SS is talking about indirectly or directly, and they show you how powerful emotions and built-in constructs in the psyche can be. I think prosecutors need to be very careful with such testimony. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 04:14 PM) PS please note my mea culpa a few posts back that I overstated my position! I did, thank you.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 01:55 PM) Read the rest, again, nothing I really disagree with in there. I'll admit that my understanding of things like high-frequency trading is based solely on Frontline specials, though. I do recall them interviewing one company who had been in the business for a while and never had one month where the profits weren't higher than the previous month. It seems absurd on its face and IIRC it now dominates the trade volume. "The markets" have just become algorithm outputs. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 03:51 PM) Here's the scary thing. I disagree with you, somewhat strongly, on various issues for the first 2 sections, particularly involving the level of blame you dispense to wall street and the government in general. But as I read through your list of solutions...there's not a single one I thought was a bad idea. I might well argue that they're not up to the task of getting us out of this massive of a hole...but every single thing you wrote as something which needs to be done, the most partisan Democrat here thinks is a good idea. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 03:51 PM) I was at the Gym and going to 2 different talks! Thanks to you both for reading! Forgot to add one more very important thing to do in the markets... the dispersed regulatory authorities need to be consolidated. There should not be an SEC, a CFTC, exchange regulators, clearing house regulators, and so on... there should be one regulatory national body, in Treasury, to handle all financial markets. It can still be seperate from retail and institutional banking, but for the actual markets, it needs to be unified. This saves money, improves communication, makes it harder for instruments to slip between, etc.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 03:29 PM) That doesn't mean all eyewitness testimony is wrong, but that its so unreliable that it doesn't exactly present much evidence. Something like 70% of the convictions that the Innocence Project has helped to overturn were based on faulty eyewitness identification. You know better than to interperet the bolded in this way. The Innocence Project finds cases of specific doubt, a few out of millions, and zeroes in on those. So what that stat says is, at best, that of the cases where there IS something wrong, it is often with eyewitness testimony. It in no way at all says eyewitness testimony is unreliable, or 30% reliable, or anything of the sort.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 03:20 PM) I will dig up the several studies I've read on eye-witness testimony that indicates it is pretty much worthless. It isn't worthless, it ranges from worthless to critical, depending on the circumstances. I am sure that it is overused and abused at times, and I am equally sure that dismissing it entirely doesn't make sense.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 02:53 PM) This is a fundamental misunderstanding of our justice system. As a former prosecutor, I can say that: (1) In the vast majority of cases, all you have is eye witness testimony. A generation of CSIs and Law and Orders make people believe that, without DNA evidence, a case is bad. That is patently not true. (2) Can eye witness testimony be unreliable? Hell yes! But it is the job of the defense attorney to point out how unreliable the testimony is at the actual trial - the one you are guaranteed in front of a jury of your peers. But you also should recognize that eye witness testimony becomes less reliable the further removed you are from the actual event. Thus, putting the burden on the State to prove its case again, rather than the burden on Troy Davis to show new evidence that supports his innocence, puts an undue burden on the State. (3) I believe that Troy Davis' execution should have been stayed and he should be spending life in prison right now. But that's mostly because I think some people have a far too cavalier attitude toward the death penalty. *like*

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 11:17 AM) The Sox wont go after any big name free agents this year. They need to unload contracts rather than add. We need to remember we are stuck with Dunn, Rios and Peavy next year. (Thats $30 million of dead weight) I expect Quentin to be dealt along with one of Danks or Floyd (probably Danks) for a package of nice young players. I also expect Buerhle to be re-signed to a 2-3 year deal at a reasonable rate. I agree with your conclusions, but I am not yet set on the idea that all three of Peavy, Dunn and Rios will be dead weight. In fact in Peavy's case, I suspect he gets back to being a solid starter, though probably not his Cy-like former self. Dunn and Rios I am not sure on, but I'd highly doubt they both are this bad again.

I just posted what amounts to my manifest about the economy, and no one even responded. I guess I should know not to post a dissertation in here anyway. Not sure what came over me, that was meant to be a short post, and I just kept writing (waiting on a job running).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 01:41 PM) In New Hampshire that isn't a surprise at all. It is next door for Mitt, and a state with a big libertarian streak. The right wing of the party isn't going to do well there. No surprise he is winning, but I'd say it is a surprise he is winning by 27 points over anyone else, and 30+ points over anyone who might beat him to the nomination. Thats a huge lead considering he trails in national polls. Bachmann isn't going to win Iowa by that much if she wins at all.

Congrats Jeff!!! That's awesome. Your life has changed like no other event can change it. Enjoy it.

Actually surprising results from the latest poll in NH. Romney's lead is huge, and Perry all the way down to 4th. Huntsman with a sudden surge as well... Romney: 41% Paul: 14% Huntsman: 10% Perry: 8% Palin: 6% Bachmann: 5% Gingrich: 4% Interesting.

Call me an optimist, but there is this one shiny thing I keep thinking about with this recession. Take a look at some of the factors that caused it, in no particular order... --Housing market crash... equity bubble developed, for multiple reasons, pick your poison - too many risky loans, unfounded valuations, government policy pushing the envelope too far, rise in speculative market action, etc. Loss of equity and bad/risky loans causes cascade effect that kills the market in pretty much every way. Now have 3+ years of falling prices, only recent uptick in home sales levels but still very weak, housing contracting jobs lost in a big way, and a still-large but now healthily-moving foreclosure and empty home backlog. --Swaps and the Toxic Unwind... the swaps market was allowed to fester virtually unregulated and without reasonable and enforced accounting standards, which eventually resulted in a catastrophic domino effect in the markets that took down Lehman and a bunch of others, and caused a general nightmare in that area. New rules went into place, clearing houses are popping up, and more rules are pending to keep OTC derivatives under control, but there is still a lot of vague, pending stuff hanging out there. --The decade of government overspending for no reason... From 2001-2009, the federal government took a surplus, and despite no particularly huge economic downturn to address, went on an absurd spending binge, mostly on wars and tax cuts primarily for the rich, creating massive deficits and additions to the debt. So when the economy really did tank and the government needed bandwidth to work with, none was there, and when ObamaCo added $1T in only partially effective stimulus and the wars continued, things got worse. Now we have the tea party saying cut everything, the Dems saying we need a giant stimulus, and moderates fed up in general with the now absurdly adverserial situation in Congress. --Various improper trading events... the bad mix of proprietary and retail trading caused a multitide of snake oil sales and the invitable collapses afterwards, further adding to market problems. Some of these events were per se illegal to begin with, but poor regulation and compliance allowed them... others were finding cracks in the armor and exploiting them. New rules are pending, and again, vague. --High Frequency Trading comes into vogue... HFT isn't evil per se, but it's emergence in larger scale has undoubtedly caused problems in the markets. Volatility spikes are far more dramatic caused fear runs, mistakes made by systems cause other issues, and the connection of market movement to fundamentals has been seriously compromised. Some new rules in this areas are already in effect, others to come. But this disconnect with fundamental trading has caused the markets to no longer act as economic indicators in the same way, and have contributed in part fo the vanishing of wealth. --European debt crisis... Various Euro countries are struck by a still-evolving wave of government financial distress, particularly in some of the already-weak economies of Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain. We've all seen what problems this causes, and Europe is in some trouble. --US debt rating and health debacles... As the swaps and mortgage markets raced out of control, the analysis of and grading of debt became a near-joke. Securitized debt was sold off haphazardly and with no real expectation of true valuation, mortgage debt was treated as something it wasn't, etc. This caused a huge wave of problems in the debt markets that not only caused market chaos and an array of lawsuits and bankruptcies, but also major issues at ratings agencies. --Internet proliferation of real time media... Panic and fear cause much bigger changes in consumer sentiment than positive things. And the internet in all it's glory now allows for, and in fact via the MSM often encourages, off-the-cuff reactions to events that lead to panic and irrational decision-making. I realize some people will not agree that this was a major player, but I think that consumer sentiment and spending are an awfully important piece of the economy, and they are undoubtedly effected by the encouragement of short term views. --Absurd rising of health care costs... the cost of health care has gone up in the past decade at a rate far outstripping other markets. Lots of reasons for it, but ultimately, it is not sustainable, and it is gouging a lot of people. Those are just some of the big factors in what caused the downfall. So why do I have some optimism, you ask? Well I have very little in the short term, but long term, I have a lot, because we've effectively pulled back the curtain on some pretty big elephants in the room. Many of these have been developing for a long time, make no mistake - Obama didn't do all this Bush didn't do all this Clinton didn't do all this, etc. They were there but the general public was blissfully ignorant. No more. So we're addressing things, if not in an ideal way. To wit... --The housing market has been bouncing around something like a bottom for months or a year now, with prices declining but much less sharply, existing home sales increasing as prices drop, foreclosures coming off the books faster, and new homes still staying very low. Combined with rock bottom mortgage rates, the setup is ripe now for a healthy, if long term, recovery (unlike the fake recovery caused by the tax breaks in 2009 and 2010). --One way or another, the swaps market as it exists today in a pure one-to-one format uncleared, will become an exception to the rule. In order to use them safely and efficiently, the rules are going to make it pretty much guaranteed that the majority of that market will use the ICE and/or CME clearing houses, and some of the attached matching engines. This significantly mitigates the risks that were present before. Also, new accounting rules will be part of the still-pending rule sets being solidified by the reg agencies. --Government spending is certainly being looked at, deeply. Now, IMO some of the extremities in this discussion are outright insane, but the fact that we are having the discussion and doing things about it, to me signals a good thing - that the American public is starting to become aware of the picture. And though some argue that some of the short term efforts, either stimulus or cutting, will harm the recovery, in the long term there is a lot to gain in getting things under control. --New rules to avoid improper trading are coming into play, slowly. Look at the UBS situation - that was against multiple rules internal and regulatory, but happened anyway, which is scary... but the fact that it was against the rules helped keep it from getting to be bigger, and even more importantly, the loss isn't taken by the market here - it is taken by UBS. Why is this important? Because it provides an object lesson to the banks about risk, and what will inevitably follow is these large IB's changing the way they audit and monitor activity. This is a good thing, in the long run. --HFT is going to come under new scrutiny. Rules allowing special access to trade data are changing and restricting, rules about dark pools will take away many of the anonymous cloaks, and new rules on trade and order box stuffing will cause penalties. All this won't prevent HFT, but what it will do is focus it in a way that makes it less of an unchecked nightmare for the long term investors. --Europe, well, not so sure what will happen there. This is one I am not terribly optimistic about, other than the fact that it has shown the EU some of the dangers they failed to consider before, and I am quite sure they will make changes as a result to prevent this in the future. Short term aspects are still scary though. --US debt ratings agencies lost a lot of client confidence pretty quickly, and for their own survival, they will get their s*** together. They have to to survive. People will be much more cautious trading securitized debt, due to the fears associated with recent events. This should give the whole market a calmer approach. --Real time news of everything is still awfully scary. But I hear more and more, people getting a better understanding of what all the information means, and I believe that society in this country, in its own fitful and partial way, will eventually see enough B.S. that some people will start making themselves more informed. Information is power, the recent age is one where too many just read the first page. Time to read a few chapters in, and I think that starts to happen. Call me crazy. --Health care costs won't keep going up this much more than inflation, because there is still enough free market that it will come into check. This will happen regardless of government action. The massive Health Care bill had some good things in it too, but also some bad things. Watch for more legislation and rules changes in the coming decade, to get it better as we get a handle on it, though just like the CongressCare bill, it will be some steps forward and some back. The catch here though, is the baby boomer wave beginning to hit. This will make things difficult. So even though all these huge problems came to a head in 2007-2009, they are all being improved, if not in an ideal way. By hitting these major problems that have been persisting for decades, we are finally fixing the problem that need to be fixed. Long term, this is good, even if there are going to be multiple years of pain in the short term. Finally to end my longest post ever in here, this is a list of my biggest fears right now, and some of the things I think we can do to remedy things... --Europe is a scary thing to me, not just the problems the individual countries are facing, but the way the countries are interacting. I don't honestly have much of an idea of the outcome, but it will probably get a lot worse before it gets better. --The health care stuff will, IMO, get better, but will it get better fast enough to deal with the baby boomer wave? --I think the single biggest problem in Congress and DC isn't the gutter politics going on... it is about money. It is about the rich helping the rich, and the recent SCOTUS decision and lack of real campaign finance reform make things worse. The wolf is in the hen house - people with money get elected, so why would they change anything? I am not sure how this situation is resolved, unless the people who vote start paying more attention and getting more involved. Some Solutions... --The banks are talking about absurdly low mortgage and business loan rates, and yet, lending is just too constrained. We went from an environment where someone with weak credit who makes 30k a year could buy a 500k house with zero down, to an environment where anyone without platinum credit and high income can't get a mortgage even with 10 or 20% down. Reality needs to be between. Banks are hoarding cash and not lending. Congress and Obama can absolutely do things to help this situation: they can stop paying interest on bank reserves, they provide limited debt guarantees for the tweener credit folks (not bad credit, but good credit just not spectacular, like small businesses), and they can set a boundary around what new rules will be enacted short term and get them solidifed in a hurry. --Campaign finance absolutely needs addressing, and the idea that a corporation is a person is an absurd idea that should scare everyone who isn't a CEO. People need to know this, see it, and act on it. This has to be a rally cry. --The US will simply not be able to compete globally on a level like they did in the 90's, unless they get OUT FRONT on technology. In order to do that, Congress needs to not only focus what funding they can on seeding these areas, but also need to set up the rules around loans, import/export, and patents in a way that encourages it. This is key. --Congress must not give up on health care reform. HCA was a first volley, now we need to fix and improve upon it, and keep going. I've posted before what my plan would be for this. --Education up through high school needs to not be the enemy - they need to be supported and nurtured. The more educated our citizenry, the better we can compete in business, and the better decisions we make politicaly. And college costs are getting absurd - the state universities have unique opportunities here to use lower tuitions to compete with similar institutions. Not sure how to get that ball rolling, but it can be done. --Deficits absolutely need to be addressed, but I agree with SS2K5 that now is not the time to be cutting spending. Work instead to better focus what we're spending it on. --Finally, for the love of God, get us off oil as soon as possible. There are so many positive effects from this - long term cheaper energy, better health for ourselves and the environment, national security enhancements, new industries and jobs. Get it done. If you actually read my entire post, I applaud you. This is where we need to go, and this is also why I think we're going to be in good shape in five years, give or take three. But it's going to hurt like hell for a while.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 08:55 AM) This stat is simply off by a factor of 5. I could swear I read an article just yesterday, that I now cannot find, I think on CNNFN, saying the total debt for Italy was about 1.3T Euro, and their economy was worth about 18% of that amount. And now, Google and CNN can't find it. I'm not going insane, I swear.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 08:41 AM) The problem is that the expectations have largely been wrong. We haven't been anywhere near projections, so they just keep getting lowered. I think the reality of what is going on is much worse than we see because of the inherent biases built into most of these numbers. Can you imagine what it takes for China to cut their official numbers? If the numbers in Europe are finally showing negative, it means they are in recession. The slashes in our growth tell me we are either in a now growth scenario, or are even negative at this point. I am less concerned about a US double dip, than I am about multiple more years of stagnation and small growth. I think we ended up hitting so many landmines in 2008-2010, in so many sectors, that it is awfully hard to clear from all of that. And with the fact that our debt load is scary, and the tea partiers want to massively cut government NOW, we are in an even worse position to get out of it. But that is not the same as a second recession. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 08:44 AM) I'd like to point out for the record that many places in Europe that are now trouble spots, including Spain, Italy, and Ireland, had budgets that were close to in balance or even budget surpluses at their national levels before 2008. So..."Spending money like idiots" simply can't be the problem...because people who came into this being supposedly good stewards are in just as much trouble as people who werent'. They just had large bank-supported housing bubbles. When those collapsed, growth potential collapsed. Now this is just cherry picking at its finest. Italy, for example, has a debt load roughly 600% of its GDP. Here in the US we are freaking out about approaching 100%. Those countries in Europe were indeed spending like idiots for a great period of time, and now they have even less room - far, far less room - to maneuver than the US does.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 08:00 AM) This isn't just one day. Growth rates have been slipping, and being cut for more than a quarter now. We are starting to see the world economies, even mighty China slip back. When you are getting not just slow downs, but actual contractions in manufacturing, it is because the economies are by all likelihood already in contraction. The numbers will eventually bear this out. I understand all that, and Europe does scare me a bit. China scares me less, they could slow down a tick and it won't much matter for the US because of the direction of demand. May even help in a way. But what I have seen is that the original estimates for the US economy had predicted that 2nd half 2011 and going into 2012 was when they thought the recovery would really get going. Now, they think it is a year later. So the estimates between are showing growth, but much less of it, in the short run. Just for the record though, I am not saying a double dip can't or won't happen. I am saying it is a % game, and I don't see that risk over 50% yet. Probably not 20% yet even.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 07:04 AM) Growth rates were slashed around the world, Europe's manufacturing contracted, and now a slow down in China manufacturing have markets all over the world getting hammered 2-3% overnight. The dollar is up handle, while energies are down 3-4%. Let the double-dipping begin. LOL, come on Mike, you see one day like this as any indicator of any long term anything? You know better than that. The other day when we saw big jumps in stocks, big jumps in home sales, and a slight surprise better UE filings report, that didn't mean RECOVERY!!!! either. I'm not convinced of a double-dip just yet. Wouldn't dismiss it either though.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 09:34 PM) well which is it? build more 'shovel ready' roads with stimulus money or not? you guys are all over the place. I'd say we are pretty consistent. I have said all along, whatever money we are spending, the balance needs to tip away from roads and more to rail and energy infrastructure, IMO.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 04:04 PM) Not sure if I should point out the sarcasm... I was well aware he was being sarcastic. Thought that was clear.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:40 PM) We don't need government-subsidized alternative energy and transport. That's communism, we already have cars and roads and gasoline. Well we don't NEED it, no. But there is simply no way around that in the long run, the nation will be more successful in concert with how quickly it can get off oil. I guess some Republicans want to go back to being cavemen, since we don't NEED most things we have nowadays. It isn't that I don't get the desire to cut spending, as eventually that has to happen (though maybe right now isn't a great time). It is that there are some places where the money will do a hell of a lot more for our future than other areas.

Well this quickly devolved into amazing silliness. Of course governments survive (modern ones) off taxes, and of course more of that money comes from the wealthy than not in this country. Of course a guy who builds a company from the ground up made themselves rich. And of course he can't do that without government help. As with any chicken and egg argument, there is no correct answer, as it has to work both ways. She made a poor choice of words. But her underlying point is spot-on.