southsider2k5

I have found that how a couple handles money is sympomatic of how they handle their other problems. If they can talk about the other stuff, they can talk about this. For us, it is just another one of the things to get taken care of.

So did Obama change his tune on this, or is Krugman just out in LF again? I thought he said $250,000 and below were safe from raises in taxes. Krugman quotes a figure of $182,400.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 09:44 PM) It amazes me that we always list these type of contracts for other teams ... then say quickly the Sox would never want the guy. Somebody pointed out a concern Garland was one of the worst pitchers in the league last year. Yet he's gonna get four years at 8 mill a year and we won't offer him anything? Why are these players good enough for other teams and not the Sox? (see posts on CC being fat and arm weary). You are comparing apples and oranges. When you are talking about spending 6-7-8 years on a pitcher and committing something like 150ish million dollars, your standards tend to be higher than we you are talking about a 3rd or 4th start at about 30ish million and half the years. Besides just because he doesn't fit the Sox profile doesn't mean he isn't perfect for another team looking for what Garland offers. You also have to factor in how the Sox have historically done business, and signing free agent pitchers to big deals isn't something the Sox have EVER done.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 10:21 AM) Martian Child got me close, the little kid in that movie is phenomenal. I watched a documentary on 9/11 on the history channel that got me pretty upset Was it the one that was taken from 6 different people's video cameras? That was incredibly powerful.

QUOTE (Soxy @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 09:12 AM) I don't read those threads. I read this one. And yeah, it's sexist. I don't like the woman. I think she's dangerous, unqualified, and, well, you all know. But I can't stand sexist jokes about her. There are plenty of other jokes to be made. Now if it was a sophisticated joke about the Republican party about how they nominated a totally unqualified candidate, and suddenly awoke to their "nakedness" in her nomination, then, yeah, I would laugh. Not to mention if someone else has made the same type of joke about Obama, except with race, you would have posted it for all as more proof of racism.

I'm glad I am not alone in finding Sarah Silverman 100% contrived and not funny.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 07:02 AM) I wondered if that was the case. How do we feel about that? In the grand scheme, its not a huge added cost. Then again, most of us don't get that privilege, even if we do travel all the time, so why should they? I don't particularly like it, but its not like I have much say.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 06:49 AM) Is Pelosi the "maverick" who is going to reform government and cut wasteful spending? No she was the one who was going to run the "cleanest" Congress in history and work in a "bipartisian" manner.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 12:59 PM) I can see the motivation for a mechanism for enforcing savings...but as long as Social Security exists, giving people encouragements for additional retirement savings while at the same time taking advantage of the equity premium you get in any timespan when there is not a Bush in the White House seems like an appropriate strategy. If you want to privatize Social Security as has been repeatedly proposed, then this would make more sense. What if we want to just get rid of the largest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 06:42 AM) As a little update to this... a report is out now that shows details of Palin's travel expenses. More specifically, this article looks at the money she charged the state for her children to travel with her. It appears that many times, they served no purpose, other than to be with their mother. In fact oddly, it looks like Palin would just bring her kids to events they weren't invite to. I am not bringing this up to say "She's EVIL!" or anything like that. In fact, I consider this somewhat of a grey area. I think its commendable for Palin to have her kids see those machinations, and to be near their parents. Its just a question of, should the state (the taxpayers) be covering that expense. Consider these questions... --If the Governor is travelling far and wide away from the family, should the state be paying for the kids to travel too? Even if they aren't part of the functions? --Should the kids ever, really, BE part of those functions? --Are the Palins actually "that family", the ones who bring a platoon of children to a wedding that is specifically a no-kids event? Again, this issue happened at the Congressional level with Nancy Pelosi flying her family in pretty regularly from California for no "official" reason. It wasn't even a gray area then. It was allowed.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 02:41 PM) Again you assume that the only solution to avoid another great depression was a bad bailout bill, which was rushed and short sighted. Grats on taking marketing 101, but I and these economists are not ignorant on these matters. The concerns listed were direct and accurate. No one cares about any cutesy bulls***, the suggestions for improvements were there; but they aren't going to put to together a 100 page proposal that will never get read or enacted. They wouldn't add a acceptable amount of pork ear marks for congressional approval. The purpose was to send out a compact letter of greviences and suggestions. If done correctly, the plan could have been more of a cash injection into the credit markets, not less. An alternative to merely dishing out 700 billion would be to address core issues with the banking system. Right now we get the worst of both worlds. A trillion dollars is quite a bit of money to dump into a failed system, and learnign from the past isn't happening. If the government is explicitly funding these banks, there needs to be much more oversight. Actions should have been taken not only to inject cash flow into the lending system but to ensure that this was done wisely. A more thought out, targeted use of the money would not have caused a great depression. There needs to be much more transparency in entities that are insured by the taxpayers and will get bailed out upon failure. Demands that banks give out risky loans needs to end. There needs to be higher levels of accountability upon disasters such as this, and there needs to be signifigant actions taken, besides merely bailing out corporations, to help ensure a solid future within the banking industry. They missed by far the most important aspect. Actually having banks around. Nothing they said actually solved the biggest immediate problem in the system which is a lack of liquidity. Everything they criticized was the things that actually put capital back into the system that had seized up and wasn't moving. All of the cutesy stuff about targeted injections doesn't work if the target is dead. Its like putting a tank full of gasoline in your car when you have no oil in it. The damn thing isn't going anywhere anyway. All of the stuff you are talking about is secondary to saving the whole system. Banks were already failing at an alarming rate. The longer you waited playing around with transparency and demands, the more capital that disappears out of the system forever. Ask Lehman Brothers and FreddieMac what the delays did for them. Besides the only way to really fix the system is to completely blow it up, and I didn't see that in there either. Get the feds out of the mortgage industry all together. They had no business being the implicit guarenteer of housing for the people who couldn't afford it. The government itself is the one who really pushed subprime lending into the mainstream. Big banking just picked it up and ran with it from there. Not a word in that document said anything about that. If they government wanted to really fix the system they would trustbust Freddie and Fannie into a million little pieces, so that if one had problems, the whole system wouldn't be taken down by it. It also wouldn't allow the other banks to be able to know that they could sell these s***ty loans back to the feds, and it would make them actually take some responsibility for their loans up front, instead of when it was too late. I didn't see anything about that either.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455061443852529.html

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 03:17 PM) Are people really saying that Paulson shouldn't have been SecTreas because he was in banking? That's a little ridiculous. I pointed out a few days ago, his resume wasn't ideal for a number of reasons. But his experience at GS wasn't one of them. Really more the opposite, actually. Too much corporate influence supposedly.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 03:08 PM) Why on earth would you put someone in a position like that who doesn't have knowledge of how the banking industry operates? The funny thing is that I believe they should have tons of banking experience, and I think Dimon will do a great job. There was a whole lot of people who thought that because Paulsen came from a bank, he shouldn't be in the government, just a few short weeks ago, I am sure they will all of the sudden change their minds though.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 02:51 PM) FWIW, NRO is reporting from a variety of sources that Jamie Dimon has agreed in principle to be Obama's Treasury Secretary. So much for getting away from big bankings influence...

QUOTE (shipps @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 12:46 PM) Id buy a monkey costume. Be sure to walk on your knees to bring home the realism!

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 01:48 PM) Well just because some one is in congress doesnt mean they understand whats going on. Im suspicious of this idea because it just doesnt seem to make sense at all, so in that regard I really have a hard time believing that its up for serious consideration. Yes, but they have the power to try to make it law. THAT is what is scary.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 12:49 PM) I agree but if it garners enough support there must be an overriding ideology by the Dems that it would be benefical to pass this through. The fear of Dems controlling policy making ability and even having ideas like this scares the s*** out of me. I know the popular thing is to accuse the GOP of using the tactics of fear in their campaigning, but all I have seen from the Democrats in this election is using the fear of business and class warfare. The fact that ANYONE in Congress thinks this is a good idea is scary.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 12:39 PM) This isn't Obama's plan and I really, really doubt he'd support something this dumb. There would still be 401(k)'s, there just wouldn't be any tax breaks on them, either going in or coming out. So it'd just be a glorified savings account. This isn't just coming out of no where. The fact that it is being floated right now is what is interesting.

In all seriousness, if they did that, we'd see the Dow Jones go to 5000. The amount of money that would stop going into the stock market would just be massive. The irony is the Dems would be destroying the retirements of the middle class. Instead of getting a 10% annual return like stocks have since 1925 on average. They would get a negative return on their tax dollars as the government wasted it before giving it back to them in 40 years. I can't even begin to explain how stupid this idea is.

Just f***ing brilliant.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 09:52 AM) Since no green, I'm sure you will source this S**tty post. And if not, keep it in the Dem thread. Don't worry, it is more of that change you are about to see...

The Sox organizational goal is to win the World Series every year. Every move they make revolves around that final goal. If that means not making another team better by trading within the division, they won't. If it means they think they can make their team "more" better as compared to the other team they are trading with in the division, they will do it.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Oct 20, 2008 -> 03:13 PM) No, she's older than 25 and doesn't want to look stupid. NOW [/thread] Nicely played my good man

How many other Chuck fans are there out there? The show has really grown on me. I love the side characters, especially the guys from the Buy More.