caulfield12

Greg, running a real estate company that specializes in branding doesn't mean you're an economic expert. There are many Chinese students here at my school who have a better basic understanding than he does. There are also MANY billionaires who would have been better suited to manage the economy (thinking someone like Warren Buffett), but they've never been interested in running for office. It's difficult to find someone with a worse, more abrasive personality. He can't be edited in real life like on his t.v. show, where Mark Burnett controlled his image so carefully. Turning the economy around completely just isn't possible...because that would mean GDP growth of 4-5%, and that's not realistic without huge reforms targeting job training/retraining, our entire public educational system from K-12 (as well as making 2 years of community college free if you maintain a 3.0 or 3.5 GPA)...reallocating money away from defense spending and towards a much more effective infrastructure bill than Obama got through. As Balta has mentioned a number of times, the interest rates will be going up by at least 3/4's of a point to head off potential inflationary pressures, and that's going to work as yet another brake on the economy (which already has slowed down from the 3's to the 2.8 range the last report). Bigger than that, it would require Trump being MORE open to the best international STEM workers coming to the US to supplement the gaps in our current labor force. It would also require negotiating more favorable bilateral trade deals with the rest of the world...the problem is that we haven't been able to do that with ONE SINGLE COUNTRY in over a year with the likes of Cohn, Navarro, Ross and Lighthizer studying this problem and making recommendations. "Donald Trump has no regard for rules, he has thumbed his nose at rules his entire life," said David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has known Trump for 30 years and has a new book out on Trump's presidency coming on Tuesday. "He is a dictator in waiting, he talks as a dictator and he will do whatever he wants," said Johnston, whose book "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America" concludes that Trump is unique in being the only US president not to pursue policies in the national interest. "The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop," Johnston writes. If that is true, the political system itself is facing an unprecedented challenge. Indeed, the President's recent assault on the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department, interference being run by Capitol Hill Republicans on the Russia probe, combined with attacks on Mueller by pro-Trump media outlets raise profound questions about the system of checks and balances. http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/politics/don...ency/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/14/politics/jef...rump/index.html Speaking of being a joke around the world, Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona is going to give a speech WED comparing Trump to Josef Stalin...meanwhile, the Friday government shutdown ticking clock is starting to loom. McCain has also spoken out against Trump about his "s***hole/house" comments, along with Susan Collins of ME. According to an excerpt of the speech, Flake will criticize the President for calling the news media the "enemy of the people," calling it "an assault as unprecedented as it is unwarranted." "Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own President uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies," reads the excerpt. "It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase 'enemy of the people,' that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of 'annihilating such individuals' who disagreed with the supreme leader." Flake's prepared speech goes on to say the President's actions should be "a great source of shame" for the Senate and the members of the Republican Party. "The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy," Flake's remarks say. "When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him 'fake news,' it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press." Former Republican Senator from Nebraska and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel comes out forcefully against Trump http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/14/politics/chu...rump/index.html

I'm not sure how much he deserves credit for Luis Robert, at least any more than KW, Hahn or Renteria...the main point was simply our willingness to spend a huge amount of money there. On the other side of the coin, our Dominican connections and reputation were completely devastated by the Wilder affair, and the South American bonus babies in Brazil...so that particular country was always going to be the biggest challenge to get back up and running effectively. The biggest area of disappointment is probably Venezuela, but many organizations have pulled out of that country, compared to their presence a decade ago. It's also, notably, a country that the Astros dominated for many years with their camps/academies/winter programs.

Greg, that's the whole point of this administration...that Trump takes pride in being able to shoot someone (likely to not be a white person) in broad daylight in downtown Manhattan and have absolutely nothing happen to him. 35% of the country won't believe ANYTHING that the Democrats or mainstream media presents, no matter what. Well, maybe not ALL of that 35%, but a good percentage of it right now. The other group of Trump voters simply don't care, as long as their taxes are lower and their 401 k's/investments are up, and that the Supreme Court is controlled by conservatives. (Well, I suppose they would care if they were vacationing in Hawaii and were wiped out by an incoming ballistic missile.)

All the ticket brokers holding huge blocks of NFC Championship and Super Bowl tickets just breathed an enormous sigh of relief right there. One clunker, the rest of the games were really entertaining this weekend.

Greg, put it this way. Trump has lied literally 2000 times since taking office. If Durbin could be proven wrong, he has a LOT more to lose. Imagine the headlines from conservative media for weeks and weeks. Limbaugh would spend on a month on the left’s efforts to discredit the president and prevent America from being great again. Keep in mind, Cotton and Perdue represent Arkansas and Georgia, as well. They, and, Trump has made patently clear...can lie with zero consequences from their base. I’m not sure Durbin could survive such a firestorm, if there were tapes, as Trump’s always asserting he should have. Surely, there are copious notes somewhere.

Perdue and Bolton couldn’t recall last week. Now for the Sunday morning political shows, one of their memories is miraculously clearer? And Durbin/Lindsey Graham are clearly wrong? Graham didnt deny anything. Trump himself hasn’t walked back the characterization about Africa, only the Haiti stuff. Durbin, btw, said Trump’s s***house/hole comment was made repeatedly.

Apparently you must be a Democrat if you take a liberal arts class. Ugh. Republicans are either doctors, engineers, lawyers and MBA grads. Let’s not forget that the majority of immigrant groups majoring in STEM subjects are definitely not GOP voters...nevertheless, all Millennials majoring in humanities are unemployed/don’t pay taxes, live in their mom’s basement and voted for Sanders. I guess the corollary is that all white/male non-college graduates voted for Trump, but are never duped or uninformed. The wonders of groupthink. College graduates (especially women) are brainwashed by liberal professors. Everyone else by Facebook, Russian bots, FOX News and Breitbart. Since the majority of SoxTalk has at least a BA/BS, and are disproportionately white and male, compared to the general US population, shouldn’t they be voting or identifying with the GOP following that line of logic? Perhaps the solution is to invite some Ricketts-worshipping Cubs’ board posters to the Filibuster to make for livelier debates? No stereotypes there at all, right?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2018 -> 01:24 PM) And it is much harder when you aren't signing anyone from the top of classes, but more like in the 25-30 range on most years. How many of the prior year guys in Adolfo’s spot/ranking have made it to AA/AAA or the major leagues?

Nestor Molina...haha. It is strange that we have Moncada, Jimenez, Robert and Lopez (four Top 50 guys)...along with Abreu, but 90% of that can be attributed to KW, Hahn and Renteria. Unless Paddy was somehow involved in the Avi Garcia deal? Yolmer? Scouting Leury Garcia? Minaya? Omar Narvaez? Who was the one who scouted Quintana with the Yankees again?

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/eliza-dushku-a...-203358674.html Eliza Dushku accuses True Lies stunt coordinator of sexual assault when she was 12....

This was announced September 25th, at least 3 months before anyone had certainty about the GOP tax cuts. IKEA, Costco, Whole Foods (Amazon), GAP...have all taken the same steps to increase wages. Conservative companies can retroactively turn around and curry favor by crediting the administration...but the facts on the ground don’t support that particular conclusion. In a tight labor market, in certain industries, wage hikes were bound to occur eventually. There’s been pressure in that direction for the last 2-3 years. Thousands of Target employees are about to get a raise. The big-box retailer said Monday it will start raising its minimum wage next month from $10 an hour and will eventually reach $11 for all its U.S. stores. The pay raise will outpace Wal-Mart's recent increase in its minimum wage. The two retailers have been engaged in a quiet wage war for years. Target raised its hourly minimum pay rate in April 2015 to $9, up from the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour at the time. That move came in response to an announcement by Wal-Mart in February, where Wal-Mart promised to lift its base pay to $10 an hour by 2016. While Wal-Mart has touted past pay increases, using earnings conference calls to circulate the news, Target has moved more stealthily, only saying earlier this year that it would be investing billions of dollars back into the company. When asked on a call with media about Target's decision to make Monday's news considerably more public, CEO Brian Cornell said he wants to be "very definitive" and "very declarative" about Target's commitment to, and investment in, its employees. "Target has always offered market-competitive wages to our team members," Cornell said in a statement. "With this latest commitment, we'll be providing even more meaningful pay, as well as the tools, training, and support ... that set Target apart." Target also reiterated its sales and earnings outlook for the third quarter and full year. That means the increased salary expenses aren't expected to affect the retailer's bottom line, since Target baked the wage hike into its $7 billion investment plan. "This is our continued focus of investing in the Target team," said Cornell. Target said the wage increases will begin in October and will apply to the 100,000 temporary workers that the retailer plans to hire ahead of the holidays. Only two states in the U.S. — Massachusetts and Washington — currently have a minimum wage of $11 per hour. All others fall below that threshold, but many states already have plans in place to further hike pay in the coming years. Target also committed to boosting its minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/target-to-r...nimum-wage.html

Rock Raines is right. It’s easier to fix the holes in the system instead of ditching it completely, trying to overreach with Medicare for all or just completely surrendering to insurance companies, hospital risk calculators and the pharmaceutical industry. Odds are the country will be so frustrated in the next few years that it will be one of the top 2-3 campaign issues again in 2020. This time, hopefully we’ll have people in place more interested in finding solutions than padding their own investment portfolio and riding on a private jet (Dr. Tom Price). Kennedy from LA is the Republican with the highest expertise, willingness to experiment and the most consistent ability to at least try to work across partisan lines. After Trump Tax Break Pfizer Ends Funding For Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Research And Gives Billions to Investors https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tax-break-...-130002411.html I’m happy for my Pfizer stock, but this isn’t a good result for the country overall...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 13, 2018 -> 07:50 PM) This is something the White Sox are going to have to figure out at some point - what do you do when frontline talent is 2 years from free agency and not behaving like a star? Hold onto them and hope they become a frontline player and you're 1 year from free agency or take the best deal you can? Heck, that's the same scenario we have right now with Garcia. And Abreu, in a way. We used to argue it was much better to have the surplus in pitching depth, and deal from that. Now, it’s not so clear because of the uncertainty over Rodon, and his likely being our version of a Gerrit Cole situation a couple of years down the line due to Boras. On the plus side, Delmonico, Burger, Rutherford and Collins all could potentially fill the shoes at RF/DH/1B. But we still need Robert, Moncada and Jimenez to be studs.

Wonder what fans in Arlington and Seattle are thinking with this news...? They’re both in no man’s land. Angels probably need to shoot for WC against AL East.

Foles getting some revenge for playoff lost four years ago when leading at same point in 4th. Philly has definitely had some tough luck in the postseason...maybe not quite as cursed as the Chiefs, but I’m sure 95% of their fans thought the Falcons would score there to break hearts again.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 13, 2018 -> 06:41 PM) The last paragraph is what is baffling to me. Pitching is proving expensive for a team like the pirates. But why target Moran? I would rather have the verlander trade honestly. Much rather Perez than Musgrove. Because David Freese or Sean Rodriguez have limited upside at this point in their careers...and Moran will be cheap.

The situation with Kang really messed them up. Then not being able to decide on McCutcheon and having one of their star outfielders suspended. For their long term, the Pirates are betting on Musgrove being cheaper and better for 5-6 years and Moran being a 2-3 WAR contributor at 3B.

The irony here is that Amazon is the big villain now. Because of Bezos and WaPo, etc. But Wal-Mart and Costco and Sam’s Club wiped out how many jobs all across rural America....mostly family-owned/small businesses that used to be the backbone of a small community? Amazon is simply the digital version, the next evolution of Wal-Mart. Btw, did Republicans, who received millions of dollars in donations from the Walton Family (Clinton’s got money, too)...target Wal-Mart? Consumers aren’t always better off with the cheapest products...because you’re not accounting for quality and the job losses in domestic industries to get to that lowest possible cost. Of course, the other side of the coin is blue collar labor rates are still flat in the US, with one of the biggest factors being the evisceration of labor unions.

http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/220837...ony-open-hawaii PGA Sony Open thrown into chaos...

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 13, 2018 -> 04:49 PM) Right now that Walmart has the ability to make money they need to fire more employees as a result. It can’t be that they’re following the rest of the industry is getting swallowed by Amazon and the e-commerce market. I’m sure once the BOD heard they were keeping a greater percentage of their profits they thought, “Great now we can fire more people to upset people who have never worked in the real world.” I worked at a restaurant when Obamacare went into effect. They cut two salaried managers and made three assistant managers. This was so they would spend less on benefits. Clearly these payouts and layoffs are a result of Obamacare, that is one thing we can both agree upon. This healthcare legislation dramitcially hurt those lives and it’s 100% the fault of the left’s health care legislation. Or....Costco is kicking our butts, and we need to be more competitive...and changing the structure of a misaligned strategic business model won’t be solved simply by injecting extra capital or bonuses. Or...ObamaCare gives us a nice coincidental political cover to go ahead and get rid of some workers. It’s always better to blame someone or something else. And can we really argue that the difference in your restaurant example overrides the benefits to 13 million people? Do you know anyone who didn’t have health care or couldn’t afford it previously who is alive today? ObamaCare is slowing costs in many markets. Study after study has also shown that health care costs on those with insurance increase when those without it continue to utilize emergency room services...or that CHIP actually pays for itself over time by preventing adverse long-term health consequences by providing proactive/preventive care in the earlier stages of life. Finally, it was Romney’s health care plan, just more conservative than the Massachusetts version.

James Franco https://www.yahoo.com/gma/women-allege-jame...elebrities.html Wonder if he still gets an Oscar nod for The Disaster Artist?

"Many incredibly bad lower-level appointments have flown under the public’s radar. We only get a sense of how bad things are from the occasional story that breaks through, like that of Trump’s nominee to head the Indian Health Service, who appears to have lied about his credentials. (A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services says a tornado destroyed his employment records.)” Even worse, the more qualified members of Trump's team are exiting in droves: "There has been a huge exodus of experienced personnel at the State Department; perhaps even more alarming, there is reportedly a similar exodus at the National Security Agency." Checks and balances appear to be fleeing the scene, too. The GOP may have cared during Watergate, Krugman writes, "but these days they clearly see their job as being one of protecting the V.S.G.’s [Very Stable Genius] privileges, of letting him do whatever he wants." Republican leadership is only too happy to do Trump's bidding. "Until now," Krugman recalls, "it wasn’t entirely clear whether pro-cover-up members of Congress, like Devin Nunes, who has been harassing the Justice Department as it attempts to investigate Russian election interference, were freelancing. But Paul Ryan, the House speaker, has now fully taken Nunes’s side, in effect going all in on obstruction." Even worse, "two Republican senators made the first known congressional referral for criminal charges related to Russian intervention — not against those who may have worked with a hostile foreign power, but against the former British spy who prepared a dossier about possible Trump-Russia collusion." The people who should be protecting Americans from the president's worst impulses are only encouraging them. Krugman leaves us on a bitter note: "We spent more than two centuries building a great nation, and even a very stable genius probably needs a couple of years to complete its ruin." https://www.salon.com/2018/01/13/we-are-los...-house_partner/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cnn-guest-called...-232017263.html Let’s try this one. America, whether we like it or not will be majority minority by 2065...including 24% Hispanic and 14% Asian. In the eyes of the Trump administration, Asians are the only “good” immigrants (ignoring NYC poverty statistics). In the minds of conservatives, Asians are taking away jobs from Americans in IT, VR, AR, AI and coding. The counterargument, Asians are filling a huge void that US students can’t...and are willing to work twice as hard for 20-30% lower wages. Asians also feel discriminated (and unprotected) against in America. For example, the pending lawsuit against Harvard, where Asians basically have to score 30-40 points higher on the SAT to be treated as equal to white applicants. If America is the land of opportunity still, we can’t block immigration from groups that will demonstrably improve our country economically...or should we be investing all our efforts into improving the K-12 education system, community colleges, universal free education or at least heavily subsidized by the government? Let’s keep in mind, many Asian international students are subsidizing lower tuition costs for all Americans and keeping a number of universities from becoming insolvent. They’re driving competition, innovation and productivity by their presence. Otoh, many of those same students are going to return to China, Singapore or India and make our global competitors even stronger if we don’t provide them enough incentive to stay and contribute. Is it fair to distinguish now between immigrants from different regions of the world when we never did so before...especially when you think about all the European immigration from 1870-1920? Weren’t Poles, Czechs, Italians and Irish the s***holes of the past?

Trae Young...making a case against Bagley for best player. KU barely survived KState at home. WV looks really good. Would still go with Chris Beard for Coach of the Year. Finally, Michigan and OSU both playing perhaps better than expected, especially the Buckeyes.