southsider2k5

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ May 20, 2008 -> 03:45 PM) According to MSNBC, Obama has picked up 10 of Edwards' 18 pledged delegates. TOTAL: Obama 1,916.5 to 1,724.5 They also project Obama will pick up 2 more of Edwards's IA delegates, but it is not official so it is not included in the count. Edit: Reddy, I am assuming your dad is the mentioned "David *****"? Update: Based on those numbers, if Obama gets 30% of the delegates in KY, he crosses the 50% barrier. No need for OR to even come in to "officially" declare victory under the current rules. I don't know that he would want his families name out there....

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 20, 2008 -> 03:08 PM) Yes, it does drive up the cost. If these speculators weren't turning profits, ie buying something like an oil contract for less then they sell it for, then they wouldn't be doing it. You don't have to take actual delivery on said contract to inflate its value, eventually whoever does take delivery paid the asking price on that contrat. Im not sure where you got that idea from, but it simply doesn't make sense to say speculators don't drive up prices. If thry aren't driving up prices, please tell me what they're doing? One way or another they affect to final outcome. I got that idea from microeconomics 101. You might be able to get a temporary pump from speculative buying, but then you get the same dump from speculative selling. It takes real demand to provide real price increases. That demand is coming from the US, China, and India. It doesn't take much demand to cause a price shock. The 1973 oil shock was caused by a 15% reduction in supply coming from the middle east which back then was about 35% of our total supply. The elasticity of energy is near zero. It takes barely any change in supply or demand to affect prices. Speculation has nothing to do with supply or demand. And finally just because speculators make a profit, doesn't mean that they create supply or demand. I don't think you understand the fundementally your theory doesn't work. For each crude oil contract that some buys, someone else has to sell them. If someone makes money, someone else loses money. In other words the total profits of the trading sector are a big fat zero, in fact they are a loss once things like exchange costs and the like are factored in. Now do you have any actual economic basis for any of your theories?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 20, 2008 -> 02:18 PM) Bush "Yes Man" John Bolton tends to agree with you saying that there's a 1% difference between McCain and Obama on diplomacy. Sure he argues that that 1% difference is critical but it's going to be difficult to convince the average voter that a 1% difference in policy is a huge deal. There is about a 1% difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama policy-wise, yet that is horrible enough that many of one's supporters have said they won't vote for the other. It seems to be a huge deal in the Democratic race.

Another horrible bill. I don't get how the oil companies amongst others make record profits and it is a huge epidemic of horror. The people who put food on the table of every single person in the country make record profits, and the congresses solution is to give them more money, and it is hardly news. Its depressing. Do we really wonder why we have a deficit? Its the sum of bills like this crap.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 20, 2008 -> 06:05 PM) Trying not to derail the thread but trying to open up discussion...do people think that George W. Bush will allow himself to be avoided and pushed aside? And similarly, do people think that circumstances will allow that to happen? To argue for those points, first, on the latter, the McCain camp has already realized it's going to have a major money disadvantage against Obama, and their plans slowly keep trickling out. One plan that has already come out is to use the RNC as a method of obtaining more funds from its biggest donors, since they can give more to the party committees than they can to a single candidate. And in the process, they're talking about using one of the Republicans best fundraising tools...George W. Bush. In 00, I don't recall Al Gore making heavy use of Bill Clinton as a fundraiser, am I wrong on that? Secondly, and this is more of a personal call...is it your guys' impression that George W. Bush is the kind of guy who will step aside gracefully? This is the Decider. This is the guy who couldn't come up with a single mistake he'd made while in office. This is the guy who "uses his veto so that he can stay relevant". I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again, but I really, really don't see George taking on just a minor role at the convention or in politics this fall. I get the feeling that the RNC may well find itself having no choice but to go all out for Mr. 25% this fall, because that's what they've been doing the last 8 years. Does someone get an opposite feeling? Kinda like the Clintons have gracefully stepped aside from all of this? I get the impression that Bush doesn't care about politics anymore. I think he is burnt out. Hence why he will say whatever the hell he wants to. Besides what major role has he taken on in the campaign so far? He made one appearence with McCain after the nomination was clinched to give an endorsement. That's been it. The biggest thing that worries me about John McCain is that he could lose to Barack Obama. That is my worst case scenario right now.

Another option if we get enough people interested... T-shirts for the event? http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/cws/ticket...roup_shirts.jsp

July 19th is definately the date. I need to call the ticket office today or tomorrow to get things set up.

What a great story. Congrats to the kid.

Turkey Run is a great place for camping and hiking, as is Indiana Dunes.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 20, 2008 -> 02:29 PM) I admit don't know that much about economics. I can understand simple things, like "the gas tax holiday won't work" or "India and China are getting industrialized and they are pushing worldwide demand up" or "printing more currency weakens the dollar." After that I'm kind of a n00b. Futures aren't like stock. Unless you take delivery you don't have a perpetual ownership of said commodity. If I buy a crude oil contract, I buy it for future delivery. Currently July delivery is the front month and the price you see reported on the news. If you go buy July Crude Oil today, you have until June 20th to sell that contract, otherwise you will take delivery of 1000 barrels of light sweet crude in July. So if you buy one, you have to eventually sell one. Net economic effect is zero by speculators. You might get a temporary rise, but then you should get the same drop later on. The only way to get the prices to go up is real demand that requires supply.

BTW in the theme of the thread, make mass transit costs a tax credit, and quit giving tax deductions for people to claim parking that isn't a legitimate car pool.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 20, 2008 -> 02:20 PM) Is it fair to say that people buying oil futures right now are helping drive the cost up more than it's headed on its own? Unless they are all taking delivery of those futures contracts. No. Every speculator has to eventually sell, or they have to figure out what to do with 1000 barrels of oil. Net effect is zero. That "speculators drive the market up" isn't true, no matter how many pundits repeat it.

Keep the GOP and Dem only threads, and also have a general election thread for bipartisian bickering. I still think it is nice to have somewhere to have a discussion without being stalked perpetually. It keeps things more civil I believe.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 20, 2008 -> 01:24 PM) As lostfan mentioned a few posts earlier, Obama has not stated he would talk to Hamas. It was McCain, in 2006, that implied that we should talk to Hamas. He just has his surrogates do it privately... very Clintonesque.

ALL HAIL THE ALL MIGHTY KALAPSE!

Alexei! We can't risk the jinx!

Freaking nazi admins on Soxtalk!

If I would have told you that a Sabathia/Contreras match up would have featured one guy with a 5.5 era, and the other with 3.3, no one would have been surprised until they found out who was sporting each one... That said, I think Sabathia mops the floor with us tonight. He has been out of his mind lately.

QUOTE (jeffthedude @ May 19, 2008 -> 08:15 PM) Back to this topic, Dotel and Linebrink have been way overused through the last couple series, while Logan and Thornton it seems have barely seen the field at all. Regardless of matchups, why couldn't Ozzie use Logan yesterday instead of trotting Dotel's tired ass out there again? Logan has had two short appearances since the start of the Angels series. They came in the first game of each series and he only threw like 10 pitches in each of them. Even after Dotel melted down he could have still gone with Boone over Masset. As good as Nick was, I don't actually think Ozzie *wanted* to put Masset in the game's highest-leverage situation. Am I missing something? I truely believe Ozzie has wanted to test out Massett, or he wouldn't have done so. It is an Ozzie trademark to try his relievers in different roles to see how they preform. He is not afraid to take a guy succeeding say in middle relief, and throw him out there to set up if needed. He wants to see what his kids are made of. These are the kind of things that are valuable lessons when things get really important down the road.

Me and Mike Downey! http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...04639.columnist

for the him and the family. More tragedy is not wished on any of them.

Happy Birthday boys

I think the general election thread would be the place to have the partisian bickering...

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 20, 2008 -> 10:37 AM) Speculators do nothing but drive up the costs of resources in certain situations, these costs rarely, if ever, benefit the food companies or farmers. Take the prices of rice right now, speculator driven, alongside oil, gold, etc. Before these drastic price increases I didn't see farmers, food companies, or jewelery companies going out of business... So I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you here. Speculation is good to a degree, but this is and has gone way WAY beyond the degree of sanity. So perhaps I should rephrase. Kill all the vultures in the commodities market who are ultimately preying upon the poor, because there is no excuse for these prices anymore. The supply/demand curve is being completely ignored in these prices. It just makes no sense at all, this is market gambling at it's WORST. Oh, and I can't wait for this bubble to burst. I love laughing at newb speculators who sunk their 50k (or whatever small savings they have) into these ventures and wind up losing it all to the billionaires that didn't want them there. With all due respect. No. Not even close. I don't know who is your economics professor, but he is wrong.

Sign #1 crude oil isn't going to $150 soon... I bought 150 calls. We'll be back to $100 in no time