Texsox

Build a budget on $10 per hour jobs. $20,000 per year. $1,666 per month gross. Knock off a couple hundred for taxes, social security, etc and you are looking at $1,400. Can you survive? You see some people with smartphones, but they are probably living at home with someone who is paying their rent, etc. Are those jobs really as good as the factory jobs of 115 years ago?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 02:37 PM) Hawk is gonna sell Abreu so hard. I tell ya, Stony, this kid has chance to be a MONSTER. The sound it makes off this kid's bat... I say the best three right-handed hitters we've seen over the last twenty years are TheBigHurtFrankThomas, Manny Ramirez, and Miguel Cabrera -- this guy has a chance to be as good as ALL OF EM. Dead on.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 01:25 PM) Do people really think this move is gonna help sell tickets? Your average fan will probably have never even heard of Abreu. Yes. It keeps the Sox in the news. It is a signal the team isn't accepting 2013 and will make bold moves. What was the marketing going to be without a major signing? "These Kids Can Play"? You can only do so much around Sale. The fact that the average fan hasn't heard of Abreu is actually a positive. What the average fan will know about Abreu is what the team tells the average fan. He is THE GREATEST SLUGGER In CUBA!! The NEXT CABRERA!! BONDS!! Buy tickets now before they are all sold out. Season ticket holders have a glimmer of hope and perhaps the cancellation rate lowers a notch or two. Or they could market buying tickets to see Konerko, Dunn, Beckham, Ramirez, Phegley,

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 01:43 PM) The hole in your logic is that Sam Walton has created millions and millions of more jobs than Carnegie, Rockefeller, Rothschild, or anyone else of that era. Actually. that may add to my point. Walton has added millions of low paying jobs that families cannot live on while driving local companies out of business. Finally, to achieve "always low prices" they are sourcing more and more products overseas. Walton's success was not a win-win for himself and the US.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 12:19 PM) ...and speaking on this thread, this is actually a very interesting subject. I know quite a few people that view me as rich, and I'm really not, but it would be impossible to convince them of that. In comparison, it may appear that way, but a lot of the reality behind it is overlooked. First, my wife is a stay at home mom, we have two kids, etc. Outside of my mortgage, I have no debt. Now, an interesting thing about Facebook, Twitter, and other such social media is it allows us to do is silently observe people. It doesn't take long for me to realize why I'm viewed as rich because I always seem to have money, while they view themselves as poor. All one needs to do is look at their timeline to see where they spend all their money ... which is eating out seemingly EVERY DAY. The last place I ate out at was Buffalo Wild Wings...29$. Meanwhile, I see picture after picture of these "poor" people at Blackhawks games, Bears games, restaurants, etc... Yes, I'm rich then. Because I don't spend more than I make. The worst part ... when your success is attributed to luck. Yes, my company pays me what they pay me because I'm lucky. That's what it is. Guilty as charged. In my twenties and thierties I was making very nice money and spending even more. If I received a $10,000 raise, I would spend $15,000. Stupid. Now I earn, and spend way less, but have more money

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) When did this actually happen? 2005, the Orioles' offer was about $4,000,000 higher than the Sox offer.

This was the selling tickets, get the fans excited move that they needed. Even better that it will fill the entire off season.

Not much to report, two dead, two injured. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/21/justice/neva....html?hpt=hp_t2

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2013 -> 03:30 PM) Now that is just funny. I'll agree with you. We decided that with the relection and eventual Sainthood of Reagan. His two greatest contributions to the GOP was the Teflon™ he wore with the press, which led to the "liberal press out to get us strategy" (it makes all GOP teflon™ ) and allowing the Dems to spend all they wanted as long as the GOP could spend all they wanted and kept taxes low. The GOP and DEMS won as long as voters continued to demand that the government borrows money and gives us stuff.

Or let me use another example, Steve Jobs 100 years ago, the jobs he created would have been solely in the US and benefitting US workers and the local areas they lived and worked. Now he created jobs in the US, but many more in other countries. yes, he was a job creator, but not nearly the extent that Carnegie was. And that isn't a complaint against Jobs, just the reality of today's world.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) So you eliminate loopholes that allow people to pay much lower than they should. Many people on both sides of the aisle wold go for that. But there is no reason anyone should ever have to pay more than half what they make to the government, no matter how much they make. By loopholes, do you mean deductiions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States In my lifetime the top bracket has gone from mid 70% range to sub 40%. The results have been wealth has moved from the middle class to the rich.

Tumblr sold for 1.2 Billion had about 20,000 employees. A billion dollar plus business in 1913 would have needed 5x that. We are reaping the promise of technology. Employees are much more efficient today that even a generation ago. Just think about all the secretaries and book keepers that have been eliminated.

I’ve been thinking about our economy especially about the rich, those people who have amassed the most wealth. When Andrew Carnegie was building his fortune, his companies employed hundreds of thousands of employees. To become wealthier, the technology of the day required that he hire more and more people. Compare that to current companies that have similar value, they employ tens of thousands of employees. We’ve moved from an economic system that required a huge output of labor and many employees to a system where you can become incredibly wealthy with a great idea and few employees. Yet, we keep cutting the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans because they are “the job creators”. In fact it seems that the path to incredible wealth is actually to use less employees, or at the minimum cheaper employees. It seems like we should have been increasing tax rates on the wealthy instead of decreasing. The rates should have been low a hundred years ago and have been rising while cutting rates on the working class.

So this country can not be successful based on the tax revenue that is collected. The only way to remain at this level is to borrow every year?

QUOTE (Lillian @ Oct 20, 2013 -> 11:55 AM) Abreu was the best hitter in Cuba At what level do you place Cuba ball? MLB? AAA+? AAA? AA? A? That will determine how confident someone should be about the likelihood of his success.

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Oct 20, 2013 -> 12:06 PM) Bonerko replica jersey at the ballpark as an active sox player: $139. As an ex-sox player(ie on another team): $59.99 That's a lotta coin jerry loses if Bonerko leaves. If he retires, they can sell them at 89.99. Konerko is the #1 sox jersey/shirsey i see at games. Hell, pretty much anywhere in Chicago. I don't believe the $10,000 that the team may lose in jersey revenue is weighing too heavily on the team, especially after they make 5x that with the new sales.

Is it too late to guess?

I just do not see Konerko back. Despite the hometown discount he gave the team way back when, there is no hometown favorite roster spot available. Sentimentally I would rather see Dunn moved, but that is not realistic and not the soundest baseball move.

Yes you should be skeptical. He hasn't hit MLB pitching, hasn't subjected himself to the grind of a MLB season. There are enough question marks to be skeptical. The team's track record with FAs probably should not be one of them. As noted there are several signing, from bargain basement scrap heap finds, to mid level starters, to big money marquee names. I'm cautiously optimistic at this very expensive rookie prospect.

How much of the money that we pay in interest actually makes us secure? Feeds the poor? Fixes infrastructure? Sends a kid to college? Now imagine what we could do if we could use that for the above projects instead of paying interest. The interest payments mean a project that may have cost a million, costs many times more. Why do we pay taxes? Why not cut taxes for everyone and just borrow more if debt isn't an issue?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 19, 2013 -> 06:40 AM) We don't need to balance the budget, especially when we still have unemployment over 7%. Our debt is now over 100% of our GNP. How long are we going to continue borrowing to basically give it to Americans to maintain our lifestyles?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 03:21 PM) That.Is.Awesome. Did this really happen? 100% true.

We do need to talk about it. So I do reject they "we never talked about it before so we shouldn't talk about it now" argument. I would prefer a discussions about the debt and balancing the budget over the hysterics and grandstanding about the debt ceiling.

Just a couple questions I have. What do you call someone who has never played MLB? Rookie? Prospect? What will it take for him to adjust to the league? He's already ready! A spring training to adjust? A month of the regular season? Once around the league? A season? Are expectations too high? Is ROTY the minimum to meet expectations? I'm excited that the horizon the team is looking at to return to contention is 0-6 years. This sends a strong message.