southsider2k5

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 09:23 PM) Given the circumstances, overall, I'd say it looks like a decent bill. Could have been better, could still get worse if the Senate includes the AMT stuff they're talking about and that costs some of the spending package, but compared to dumping out more as tax cuts and getting a boost as weak or weaker than the one we got in the summer of last year, it's a decent move. That's just it. Most of this bill didn't come about because of the economic downturn. I posted that study 6 months ago or so that was talking about the over one trillion dollars in spending plans that Obama had already said he would do if he got into office. He just walked into a perfect excuse to push through a bunch of them, when in reality they won't do what he is saying they will do, and that is hurry up and save the economy now. He could have waited 6 months for the majority of this spending plan and it wouldn't have made much of a difference in an economic sense.

"I grew up on the street... oh, no, not the hood... Sesame."

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 03:04 PM) For the past 15 years you will find me serving Thanksgiving lunch and Christmas lunch for less fortunate people at a church by my home. I must admit I initially started doing it to get out of something, but it was a lot of fun. Its also nice helping people who are always last in line in life, and treating them with kindness and respect. They probably are the most grateful people in the world. If you dig hard enough, you will see I donated dozens of Bulls (when I used to get them) and White Sox tickets to less fortunate people. 48 hours of their time, probably more like 4 or 5 hours signing autographs, the other time they can go sit in their rooms is hardly asking for much considering what they get. As I've stated before, I'm not going to this event and wouldn't even if the entire roster was there, but they are employees of the White Sox. I would think, with all the riches that come with being just that, a weekend in January to make a couple thousand of their fans and customers happy would be the least you can do. As I've stated, there are plenty of legitimate excuses not to be there, but going to the SB isn't one in my mind, and I like AJP. I am glad to see it in your case. I would be willing to bet about 95% of the people complaining don't have anything near that amount of perspective. Like I said it is nice that they do it, but I also understand them having other things to do.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 05:09 PM) It'd be pretty convenient if the Israelis didn't kill several thousand Palestinians every couple of years, so we could actually have some serious dialogue with the Muslim world for a change instead of having to worry about the lowest common denominator getting in the way all the time. Another thing to consider, the moderate Muslims won't be taken seriously as long as Israel is front and center 24-7 and with every major Israeli operation that ends with no resolution, it gets more and more difficult for them to be heard. To be fair there is a large peace movement in Israel that get harder and harder to be heard when a large portion of their country lives in a constant state of terror from missiles that can fall from the sky at any second.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 06:50 PM) In that case, I await your elaboration. I pretty much gave it. The cost savings keeps companies from laying off. That isn't reflected in the multiplier numbers as it isn't considered a new outlay, dispite the fact that it does keep money flowing through the system.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 02:09 PM) Family obligations are one thing. I wouldn't expect Thome to try to have a relative's wedding date changed or for him to miss it, but the Super Bowl? They can fly in on Friday and leave Sunday afternoon. Its a 48 hour commitment. AJP could come in on Friday and leave Saturday evening and still be at the SB. Its pretty funny after games when a lot of these guys are out partying instead of going home to their families considering how important it is to be with them in January. They get plenty of time off. What if they all decided they have something better to do than go to Soxfest? If there are people willing to stand in line for 4 or 5 or even more hours to have you sign something, and personally I don't see the appeal, but to each his/her own, and I'm making enough money every year to live the rest of my life because of them, I think I could take 2 or 3 days in January and sign some things, perhaps watch the Super Bowl on TV. After all, I will have all the time and money I will ever need in a few years and can go to every SB until I die. Out of curiousity how often you do give a full three day weekend to those way less fortunate than you? Their station in life compared to ours, isn't much different than our station in life compared to someone who is say homeless, or even worse, compared to someone in a refugee camp or starving in a third world country. I just don't get the expectation that because we see pay to see them play a sport better than anyone else in the world, they somehow also owe us large chunks of their personal life and time. I don't expect anyone else successful to give up parts of their life to satisfy me, why should they?

QUOTE (Texsox @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 01:29 PM) When your electricity goes off, do you think they attached a limiting device on your meter? I doubt I would have checked. It seems, at a minimum, they should have to contact him and show him how to reset the device. The pictures of his home show snow piled up, I'm not certain he would have been able to reach the device. It seems it happened in New Zealand, only worse, For $168 and it stopped a person's oxygen device http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article....jectid=10443049 I don't know how they do it there, but Kanakee Valley Power in Indiana has these devices. When they place one onto someone system, they place a large bright orange sticker on their door that has a full explanation of what happened, and how the device works.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 12:50 PM) Agreed. But now think about negotiating when you know the President may be pressured to veto the stuffing? The other thing that gets weird is sometimes the stuffing is a better expense than what is in the bill already. Where this gets ugly. "Will your President support this item or will it get veto'd?" "We have the White House on board" "OK, bring it for a vote" "this will never pass again" I don't care about the political points. I care about carving out the billions of dollars in extras that get used to grease the system. Ideally I would like to see it removed as a means of "compromise" and instead would have congress actually voting on the merits of a bill, instead of what bribes they received.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 12:43 PM) That would cause a seismic shift in Washington, and one I'd like to see. The grease is what gets both sides to agree, but what costs us in additional programs. It never is your program or mine. It always becomes let's do both! And bill the grand kids. Image the negotiations when one side knows the President could veto the very concession that was made to get bipartisan cooperation. If it really was that important to both sides, they could easily override the veto. Most of the time those "cooperations" mean stuffing some extras into a bill to bribe the other side to agree to it. That is what I want to end.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 11:36 AM) Let's see...you want a media related rant? There are something like $25 billion in corporate tax cuts stuck in the stimulus bill to try to gain Republican/Business support. It goes to things like Casinos, oil companies, telecom companies, etc. Corporate tax cuts are some of the worst stimulus out there, because their multiplier effect on the economy is so low. Programs like health care, providing funds to states, rebuilding some of the decaying infrastructure in the national parks...those actually directly create jobs because you need to hire people to do them. They also have a vastly higher multiplier effect, because the people you hire are going to spend that money. So which things do we hear the most about? The effective ones, or the ineffective corporate tax cuts? Sure. And what they don't tell you is that all of those jobs those corporate tax cuts save have an additional full multiplier effect, most likely of a maximum nature because of the higher spending rates of lower level employees at these type of places. You already used the stoping the spiral story, this is the most effective way to do that... keeping people employed.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 12:35 PM) That's been a big mantra I put on this board before. Truth in Legislation act. A bill should be self-explanatory. Transportation bills shouldn't include money for museums. And this stiumuls package should be at least segregated by area - energy, transportation, tax breaks, etc. I wouldn't mind that, but I would much rather see a line item veto if given the choice.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 11:46 AM) The fact that the public wasn't demanding it doesn't mean it wasn't the right decision if it frees up a chunk of the spectrum for other uses. The public just expects that everything (Cell phones, radios, TV's, Wifi, etc.) is going to work, it doesn't care how that happens. In this case, that requires some change on the part of the public, and that's not going to happen unless it's done forcibly. Which is exactly what I have a problem with. The ONLY reason this is happening is profit. People shouldn't be forced to change their behaviors for no other reason than profit. To me, this is the broadcasting equivilant of emminent domain based on blight. Someone else has come along and decided they can make a better use of your property, and it going to take it from you to do it. If people feel like they really have to have this, the private sector will figure out a way to get it done.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 11:44 AM) I think there's another possibility to consider here. Fitz may well have actually blown his case in order to make it so that the governor couldn't sell that Senate Seat. Having him actually sell the seat would have set him up incredibly well for prosecution, but until the money is exchanged, the governor's hair can argue that he was just being taken out of context, which is what he's saying now. If you're in Fitz's chair...ask yourself this question. You have to weigh; either a successful prosecution and a corruptly purchased senate seat, or an unsuccessful prosecution but an exposed and handicapped governor who's unable to sell the seat and who is removed from that position by impeachment hearings. If that was the case, I can see why he'd choose the latter option, even if it hurts his case in the long run. From what I understood at the time, it was the Tribune that was going to blow his case by going forward with an expose on this.

"Read the bill" is right. It pains me to see this turning into an excuse to feed at the trough.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 10:51 AM) I think that was done for two reasons. One, as someone said earlier, you can't have the perception that it is "nothing", they need to show a bit of the case, since the suspect is so high profile. Two, and I think this is the key - they were aware that Blago's crimes were directly part of his governorship, and they wanted to do what they could to politically incapacitate him in a hurry. They wanted the impeachment, and to render him useless, so that he couldn't do more damage. So, they released enough to make that happen, while they shore up the rest of the criminal case. I think with what was released before, no one had the perseption that this was for no reason. Releasing sketchy parts of this, doesn't help them out at all. It actually strengthens Rod's defense that it was personal. It would be really easy to argue that he was just doing state business, which sometimes involves some arm twisting. There was nothing on there that spelled out anything illegal. They had better not screw this up, that would be the worse possible thing.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 10:07 AM) No way the Feds showed the heart of their hand in those tapes. They've got a lot more, I have no doubt. Which makes me wonder why you would release the other stuff than. All it does is potentially put doubt into the minds of people who could end up on his jury.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 08:28 AM) Guys say exaggerated stuff all the time. How many asses have we threatened to kick or f***, without really meaning it? I'm not coming to his defense, but I agree with you, some of the tapes I heard and transcripts I read seem as much b.s. as reality and not exactly a knock out punch to an elected official. Personally I believe the guy is guilty, I would just hope that they have more corroborating evidence, or even some more direct and damning tapes, because what I heard actually plays into Rod's defense.

lack of patience seeing humor at times when humor isn't really appropriate my love of debating wanting to be involved in too many things at once easily annoyed

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QUOTE (JorgeFabregas @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 08:19 AM) Right. Public airwaves and if it was handled strictly by the market the conversion would be a willy-nilly patchwork. Or would just never happen at all. Sounds like exactly how it is being handled by the government...

Did anyone else listen to the tapes last night and wonder if that was the best of the evidence they had? You really had to read into his statements to get out what the government is saying. I am sure there is more, but what was released yesterday was pretty weak on its own merits.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 08:02 PM) The problem with your whole line of thinking though is that it assumes that the recession is going to end on its own rather than move in to a spiral. So far, we are in the liquidity trap spiral stage. Right now, if every single person makes the rational spending decision for his or her family, and every state makes the rational decision to cut back on spending, and every business seeing its sales drop cuts back on spending, and the federal government also cuts back on its spending, then there will be absolutely no reason for the recession to end. As people, businesses, and governments spend less, that provides incentive to continue cutting back, which provides even more incentive to spend less. In a typical environment, the federal reserve can cut interest rates enough to make it a rational choice for people to resume spending because they can once again turn a profit by doing so if money is cheap enough. But given that interest rates are essentially sitting at zero, all of that ability to make it a rational choice for someone to spend more has gone away. If you don't do this, then there is no reason for those estimates of when you're pulling out of the recession to be right, because there will be no reason to pull out of it. Right now, everyone making the rational economic decision winds this country up in a depression. The only one left who can spend money irrationally is the federal government. The problem with your assumption is that they are locking into 5 years worth of a spending plan when they don't know that they might need this money sooner, not at all, or again later. No one know what is going to happen, I think that much is clear, and I would imagine we actually agree on that point. We are also both saying that something needs to be done, and it needs to be done quickly to be effective. A 5 year spending plan is the least effective way of stopping things from spiraling out of control. If things recover on their own, which most economists seem to think growth will return in the 18-24 month window, the last 4 years of spending will be literally wasted in an era of record deficits. If we stay in a death spiral, the assumption that the government is going to spend less is laughable, especially in a situation where we are getting close to a re-election in time frame. There are a million case studies on how the Great Depression was screwed up, and the lack of money is the system is always the biggest thing. There is zero chance of that actually happening in reality. We will just spend more, deficits be damned. The final scenario is that they pass this plan, and they end up needing the money sooner than 2010-2013 because something else goes wrong. At that point the choices are spend more on top of the spending, and risk an inflationary cycle when the money all pushes through the system, or do nothing and suffer until the spending actually works through the system. The most effective things for immediate relief are pointed temporary tax relief, along with pointed single occurance government spending that works immediately. Highway projects in 2013 don't do that. Both of these things don't lock the government into a long term plan that depends on everything going exactly like they planned, in an event no one can agree on the end game in. This is the same federal government that by and large got us into this mess in a very bipartisian manner, and they are supposed to now be experts in an area, where even the experts aren't sure about? Um, no thanks. Its the baseball equivilant of giving a guy a one year contract, versus locking into an eight year deal for a pitcher that expires when the pitcher is 40. It gives the US the flexibility it needs to adjust on the fly instead of using up much of their ammunition. I also love that you are trying to explain to me how a recession ends. I have had gradute level classes on this, and studied all of the historical US recessions, depressions, and panics. I think I know how this works

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 08:04 PM) Re: your last point, I think that's not too bad of thinking. I don't think the Fed is totally out of ammo yet, because I think there's some other things that they can do. I hope they don't have to go much further then they have, but I get the nasty feeling that they will... the part that hasn't even been TOUCHED yet is the personal credit slide (forget the housing slide - personal credit makes the housing market look like a pimple on an elephant's ass - and that's the next major meltdown.) When that hits, look the f*** out because there's not a hell of a lot that will survive. The interesting thing they have never touched that would end the "crisis" in a heartbeat is the reserve requirements.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 08:06 PM) So basically you're saying that Israel is more suicidal than Iran under Ahmadinejad ever could possibly be considered to be? Basically you're saying that if the U.S. pulled back its support, Israel would decide that the appropriate response would be to take the rest of the middle east with it. Why in the world would we want to support people who are blackmailing us with their own suicide? Look at their history and ask me that again. This Israel is as tame as they have ever been, and that is from constant backroom pressure from the US. Remove that and there is no check against their reply to aggressions against them. Look no further than how they fought Lebanon and Gaza this last time, and compare it to the anything goes mode like they had in 1973 or 1967. Its not hard to imagine them fighting harder without an ally versus less.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 27, 2009 -> 07:27 PM) So who exactly should be deciding how the airwaves are divided up? I can't imagine anything closer to a definition of interstate commerce than that. All you have to do is see the results of their actions to understand they completely blew this too.