southsider2k5

Well the lack of power makes a lot more sense now, as does the lack of mobility and explosiveness. If the guy had a bum left knee he wasn't getting the initial explotion towards the ball in his swing. That alone is worth a lot of distance in a guy whose swing starts heavily in his legs.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 18, 2008 -> 06:00 AM) All I can say is there sure are a lot of hypocrites here. I'll just leave it at that. No joke. I really can't believe the two faces being shown in here.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 06:47 PM) oh brother. Can I start a thread about Racist Hate Mongering Republicans? This is stupid even by my standards. Um, you have pretty much been doing that for weeks now. Its called the Democratic thread. I'll be honest when I say that I feel that this thread exists pretty much because of those kind of posts. It's a lashing back at all of the ridiculous anti-McCain and GOP stuff that has been going up non-stop. I really am shocked that you of all people would be speaking out against it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 01:40 PM) There are already people who have a negative tax rate in this country because things like the earned income credit, which payout even if you have a zero tax liability. If people are already paying low, zero, or negative taxes and Obama said he is cutting taxes for 95% of Americans, all of whom are under the $250k mark, it means that there will be more people who are making money off of the income tax structure, at least that what Obama is promising. I had a hard time finding links, but here is a story that has the effective tax rates located in it from a couple of years back. http://www.poorandstupid.com/2004_08_15_ch...267440494775082

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) Well it really depends on how you view socialism and capitalism, and the problem is that they often intertwine into definitions that really make no sense. I discussed this with SS2k5, and because there is no actual statement on this from Obama its hard to tell whether or not some one can get a credit that exceeds their tax liability. My belief is that it will not and at most the credits will merely zero out taxes. IE if I have tax liabilities of 3k and credits of 5k, even though the govt theoretically owes $2k they just consider it as no taxes owed and you get no money. I really am not sure how it works, so these are assumptions on my part. I also think the way he phrases it like "making work pay" which means the only people getting credits are the people who are actually working and thus paying some income tax. http://www.barackobama.com/taxes/ As you can see the examples only point out people making above 35k, so they all would be paying taxes. Whether or not people paying no taxes will receive these credits is something that no one has really expounded on. I dont believe it will be the case, but I have no certainty on the subject. Not really, Socialism would be more along the lines of because the oil companies are making so much money the US decides to take over the oil companies to therefore make the profits for themselves, and then spreads those profits to the American people. Because there is no "collective ownership" it does not really pass the test of socialism. There are already people who have a negative tax rate in this country because things like the earned income credit, which payout even if you have a zero tax liability. If people are already paying low, zero, or negative taxes and Obama said he is cutting taxes for 95% of Americans, all of whom are under the $250k mark, it means that there will be more people who are making money off of the income tax structure, at least that what Obama is promising.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 01:19 PM) I just checked and if I put 1000 bucks into a CD for 12 months with my bank (USAA, seriously they are awesome) the rate is 3.90%. I might do that with some of the excess GI bill money I have since my classes are less than what the payouts from the VA are. Just for fun we should all bookmark this post and come back to it in a year. $1000 at 3.9% will get you $1039 in a year. It will be interesting to see what the Dow or the SP does and see which one wins. As I post the Dow is at 8900 and the SP is 947.50. Bets on which one ends up with a higher rate of return in a year?

QUOTE (The Critic @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 11:09 AM) That's a different argument. Those are specific situations, not an across the board age-based ban. I would argue that a 21-year-old would look silly wearing a jersey to talk to a lawyer. And I will MOST DEFINITELY wear a jersey and shorts when I take my grandkids to the zoo. Book that. I'll be 35 in another 8 weeks. I still sport my hockey jersey's and my Sox ones too. Heck I still bring my mitt to games if I am going to be the firing range. I guess I am just a big kid still.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 12:05 PM) I'm about to receive some money from a will any day now (about $2K, so not a lot) and I plan on putting it all directly into stocks. I'm going to follow some advice I found online about a 6 month plan over 10 stocks and change every 6. I figured since i've never really had the money, its kind of like getting into the market for free. Hopefully, like Buffet is hinting at, I can catch some of these stocks on their low end just before they start to rise. He is right though that in the long run the stocks will go up. So with the market down right now it does make sense to jump in. But then again, I'm just a couple years out of college with very little market history or experience so what do i know If you want to mimic the stock market buy the ETFs on the diamonds or the QQQQ's. With limited knowledge the indexes are the safest thing out there until you start to learn what you want to trade specifically. If you want more info, drop me a PM or email.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 09:58 AM) I wish I had 1/100th of the investment knowledge that Buffet has. I try to follow his advice often, and got myself back into the market with my "side money" on Monday. It's not a lot right now (only $1k), but its something. My parents got themselves out of the market about 9 months ago. Not terrible timing considering where we've gone over that period, but now the problem is convincing people like to reinvest now. Well you just got a great piece of historical advice!

http://www.conservatismtoday.com/my_weblog...ime-blowup.html

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 10:48 AM) (Edit) SS2k5, My post on socialism was to show why govt control of things does not always mean better, and that in most cases it actually creates situations that are worse. I used the Recorder of Deeds example to show how a govt can create a monopoly on a service that people need and then use that monopoly to make money for other services that are inefficient. Thus the fear of more socialist society is that eventually the govt creates different types of monopolies and just uses them to finance the entire govt increasing the cost to the consumer and at the same time doing nothing to increase the service being given to the consumer. I understand now. I wasn't following you. It almost sounded like you were arguing, but then agreeing in your explanation.

I also would like to highlight that contract that Hafner signed. Wow. There is the danger of signing a pretty young player to a long term deal. Especially if you have a guy with an injury history like TCQ, you really have to be careful.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 07:05 AM) You should've finished reading his post because everything what you just said is exactly what he said : For the record I applied for a passport a few weeks ago, it took me maybe like 6 days to get it and my birth certificate came back a couple of days later. I expected it to take weeks. That's kinda what I was getting at. Everything he described was our government, so I am not sure the distinction he was trying draw between that and socialism.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 08:23 PM) Whats wrong with socialism is govt corruption and the fact that govt control leads to bureaucracy which leads to inefficiency. If you have to get anything done in Chicago you understand what a nightmare it is to have to work with Cook County or the City. You can call them and no one ever responds, you can get transferred to no where, you can fill out form after form and get nothing accomplished. Since there is no real "bottom line" there is no way to judge what costs should be. For example lets look at the Cook County Recorder. Right now it costs about $50 to record a deed (thats 3 pages for the most part). Its not because it costs that much to scan the document and store it, its because part of that money goes to fund other things because some services run by the govt have very little cost. For example you can get all the permits on a building for something ridiculous like 10 cents a page even though thats much more labor intensive and takes longer. Why? Because there is nothing to control what costs are, there is no competition on building permit searches or on recording deeds. You have to go there, so if they say it costs 50 dollars you pay 50, if they say 100 you pay 100, since the govt controls it and there is no competition there is no way to structure the pricing system and eventually the consumer gets hammered. Capitalism generally provides for the lowest prices, the problem is systems where you cant allow a truly free market for one reason or another. In those situations some times the govt has to guide the market but I think it should be like Obama's idea where govt insurance is just an alternative to regular medical insurance (thus in theory should actually increase competition and decrease costs). At least thats my theory on it. (Edit) And I dont watch CNN, if I wanted to know that Eurasia has always been Oceana's enemy I could just write the news myself. You lost me in the very first sentence. I really don't know of many people who feel that our government isn't rife with ineffeciencies and many feel plenty corrupt. Ask someone who has tried to get a passport, social security, had a tax audit, applied for citizenship, etc, how well our government works.

This is your chance. This is the guy who knew the crash was coming after the internet bubble and made a bunch of money during the 2001-2002 when the markets fell apart.

QUOTE (Mr. Showtime @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 05:37 PM) I'm sure it's an ambassador or senior vice president in charge of Denis Savard operations. Which again tells me a complete change of Regime is going on behind the scenes. Tallon is either going to be fired soon, or he has already been effectively nuetered.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 05:47 PM) I didn't say i had a problem with im not voting. And he WILl be allowed to vote, using the provisional ballots like every one else in his situation. But why trying to kill the messenger? It doesn't change what Obama said. I don't care if it was Ann f-ing Coulter that asked the question, it still doesn't change his answer. Its ironic that only the message mattered when people where questioning Al Gore... Now the message doesn't matter and we are back on the messenger. Ah, yeah, I can feel the change all right...

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 01:50 PM) He's 15 and AMAZING. Search Celtic Thunder and Puppy Love on YouTube. You are soooo lucky you already gave up that man card!

CJ's questions have been sent to him, still a chance to get your questions in for Sergio!

All right, the questions have been sent to CJ, I will post the interview when we hear back. Thanks to all, and don't forget to contribute questions for some of our Sergio Miranda interview! As a special teaser, we are trying to set up more of these interviews with some of the guys. Stay tuned!

What a stupid move. Why the hell would you fire a coach four games into a season that way overachieved last year? If he was on thin ice, he should have been fired in the offseason so that a coach could have time to teach his systems to the players over the course of a training camp. Now they have to learn a whole new system 4 games in? Dumb.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 09:38 AM) Well I guess as the say in Missouri, show me. Show me how Obama's plan is going to be fundamentally different. Im pretty sure you are talking about the whole idea of tax credits and how people who pay no taxes could theoretically get credits and therefore be paid by the govt. The problem is that I have never actually seen the policy so I dont really know the truthiness of those statements. I myself believe that it is most likely an exaggeration and the policy will allow credits up until the tax payer reaches 0, thus you could have taxes reduced to 0 by the credits, but could not actually get paid by the govt. I looked at the Obama website to try and find the answers but all I could find was: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/ But once again Im not sure how this differs from any of the other tax credits or tax loopholes that currently are available to the public. As I already posted, under the current tax code the bottom 50% pay 3% of taxes. Even if Obama's taxes were to make the bottom 50% pay 0 in taxes that would equal a 3% decrease in tax revenues. Im not exactly seeing the fundamental difference here, its not like under McCains plan the bottom 50% pay 50% or even 25%, they will pay roughly 3%. Again you are stuck on the very bottom of taxpayers. I am looking at the 2nd and 3rd quintiles here. This is where the biggest changes are supposed to be. Including the bottom quintile in your number skews them because they already are paying a negative tax rate. The reason you can find exact answers for Obama's tax policy is because they don't exist. We are going to battle with what he has said in speeches and the like. He has yet to outline exactly what the percentages will be and exactly where the cutoffs will fall. I guess I am taking Obama at his word, so that is probably my first mistake. There is always the pretty obvious change that he pulls a Bill Clinton and goes back on his middle class taxcut promises.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 09:17 AM) The system of the progressive tax does not change that it remains a progressive tax. And here is my question, how is Obama's plan any different than whats currently going on? http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxand...taxburden06.htm So its actually much worse than the 50% paying for the other 50%. Its more like the top 5% pay for over 60% of America, and under Obama's plan that will most likely increase to something like the top 5% pay for the top 70%. Once again, not really such a drastic change that you can label Obama as a Socialist while at the same time having a straight face and not calling Bush or McCain one. But then again I dont call any of them Socialists for their tax policies, their ideas start to blend with Socialism on a variety of other issues, but taxes is one where every politician has pretty much the same beliefs. So its fine to call them all Socialists, it just makes no sense to only call Obama one. Again the change comes in the middle when half of the country is not paying taxes. At least on the Bush side of thing he has attempted to flatten out the rates at the top, so it is hard to accuse him of being for this kind of thing.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 08:54 AM) /sigh I swear I already posted that Progressive Tax is not Socialism. Is anyone even going to read that post about how McCain uses the exact same Progressive Tax in his tax ideas? So either both Obama and McCain are Socialists (which would be using the term wrong) or neither are (which would be using the term correctly.) I have yet to see Obama nor McCain differentiate themselves on this issue. Both McCain and Obama will have the highest tax rate at the highest income ie PROGRESSIVE TAX. Neither McCain nor Obama are going to get up there and argue for a FLAT or FAIR Tax. This is not pure Socialism, Socialism would be more along the lines of Universal Health Care and Bank bailouts, in which the Govt owns the means of production or owns the services. The problem is most American's dont even understand Communism, Socialism, or Capitalism. And the reason why no one cares is because both McCain and Obama have socialist ideas. The most Socialist of them all is the Govt changing the principal on loans (a McCain idea) as that would be directly having the govt own property and change the value of property with out the market having any say as to the value and directly interfering with capitalism. Another socialist idea is to prevent immigration (more Republican than Democrat) as workers are nothing more than the supply of a good, so when the govt interferes with supply it creates artificial demand (ie American workers are paid more than they would on the open market) this artificial demand creates artificial costs and therefore raises the wage of the worker. Thus why does it matter if Obama is called a socialist when McCain is also a socialist? Not to mention Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, advocated progressive tax because most economists understand that a flat tax may not even be possible. Here is an excerpt from Wealth of Nations, Chapter II: http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b5-c2-article-1-ss3.htm But what would Adam Smith know about capitalism, he must have been a socialist too? Nice change of pace, but it isn't the tax itself that draws these charges. It is the fact that under his plan almost half of the country would pay taxes to the other half. THAT is what draws these charges. You can have both a progressive tax system AND one that includes the second quintile of taxpayers paying SOMETHING.

I don't think this one has been done before, but it might be fun... What nicknames do you have, or did you used to have, and what are the stories behind them? I'll even start up... all through HS and college I was known as Crash. Most people had no idea why... When I was a Jr in HS, I got a job at a local country club through my best friend at the time. I worked in the pro shop. One of the duty's we had was to clean the golf carts and take them back to the bin to plug them in to re-charge. The path was a backwards C shaped path around the proshop and garage to the back entrance where the carts sat when they weren't being used. My first day on the job when my buddy was showing me how to clean them and where to take them, he has me hop on another cart to follow him back to put them away. I slam on the go peddle and slide out of the curve and smack right into the Pro's conversion van, with him and his assistant watching me. Instead of firing me or yelling, he just calmly looks at my buddy and tells him. "Let's teach Crash here how to properly drive a cart."