Balta1701

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 08:43 AM) Fixed/ OK, the pressure's on you now. So if I got the joke but don't want to spoil it, what 17th century monk should I explain it to?

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 08:37 AM) Revenues have increased dramatically since the tax cuts were enacted. States are seeing a likewise increase in revenues flowing into their treasuries. It must be because the DEMS voted against the tax cuts. Dude, there are a ton of reasons why revenues have increased, and it's not just the tax cuts. First and foremost, the population of the U.S. has significantly increased since the first tax cuts (The working population grows by like 100,000-150,000 a month in this country on average). You increase the tax base by 5 million people, you're going to increase revenues. Furthermore, yes revenues have increased, but at the same time, government expenditures have increased (as has the size of government). The more money government spends by hiring people/letting out contracts/pumping money into the economy, the more the government is going to get back in total revenues. This is Keynesian economics in a nutshell I believe...the government runs a deficit, and it causes economic activity to increase for a time because extra cash is being pumped into the economy. The risk with that sort of economic plan is not the short term, it's the long term - i.e. the Great Society & Vietnam war spending packages were directly linked to the stagflationary economy of the 70's. You cannot just say "Oh revenues have increased, the tax cuts did their job" totally in a vacuum. If you were to do that, I could simply respond by saying "Yes, revenues have increased, but they have increased significantly less than the magnitude of the initial tax cuts, so we must be on the left hand side of the "Laffer curve"." No matter how much either side wants to narrow down the current economy to a slogan or a simple proof, it will not work. There are way too many variables at any given time - this doesn't even consider the dramatic rise in consumer debt encouraged by the fed, or the housing boom, or the refinancing boom, all of which may have dramatically increased revenues by creating jobs but all of which may significantly weaken as interest rates continue to rise (in part because of the massive tax cut related deficits)

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 08:36 AM) I heard the Creationist Science Fair begins every year at nightfall in the evening preceding October 23rd. . . [/erudite joke grenade for PA or Soxy]

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 08:23 AM) That's an improved lineup with their fantastic pitching, they scare me more then the Indians. That's an improved lineup...IF people like Hunter, Mauer, and White can stay healthy and if Morneau can produce. In baseball, the more "IF"s you have, the less likely they all are to come true. They're counting on an awful lot of things to go right, which I guess is what you have to do when you're a small market team.

Morneau and Mauer are still going to be the keys to that lineup. If they perform, they're a threat.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 06:02 PM) Why sign a roid monkey? Well, he should still only be facing a 10 game suspension, so it doesn't hurt them as much. And at least he's been seemingly a lot more forward about it than anyone else...said yesterday that he was struggling as a yankee, so he went a head and took them and was tested the next day, calls it a mistake, may very well be lying but at least seems on the surface to be more honest than Palmeiro.

Does anyone think that Milwaukee might also be a potential candidate? I know it wouldn't have that nice SoCal location we keep talking about but they do need pitching help next year, they have a fairly deep minor league, we have a good recent trade relationship with them, and they may very well want to risk making a push next year. Just another name to toss out. Btw, good to see that this thread's length has surpassed the previous thread's already.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 01:37 AM) This year's draft class is meant to be pretty weak. Here are the top 5 at the moment; 1 - Rudy Gay - SF - Conn 2 - Adam Morrison - SG - Gonzaga 3 - LaMarcus Aldridge - PF - Texas 4 - Andrea Bargani - PF - Italy 5 - Rajon Rondo - PG - Kentucky Has there been a draft class that hasn't been described as "Weak" since the turn of the century other than the one with Lebron, Melo, Wade, & Kirk?

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 07:46 AM) I agree 100%. i just wish this all would have come about around 6 years ago. If they want to build a domed stadium, then soldier field is such a waist! THey should have built "McDome" but we need to play in Bear weather!!! Technically I think you mean Soldier Field is a "Waste", not the thing around your hips. I dunno about building a domed football stadium in Chicago, seeing teams come in there and put up with the weather is always one of the more fun aspects of December/January. If you wanted a team in a domed stadium, maybe it should be a 2nd team, the Bears should just be outside. It just works.

Hmph, it appears you're right, and the LA Times I finished reading 30 minutes ago was out of date already. Damn print media!

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:00 AM) And what is one of the biggest b****es about this administration? That they don't compromise and try to do everything their way. Now they compromise and people complain. When a Republican flip-flops, it's a compromise. When a Democrat compromises, it's a flip-flop.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 07:33 AM) Same reason we didn't let CNOC buy one of our oil companies... It was just a front for the Chinese government involvement. You know, I'm not sure that's totally true...yes there were political reasons involved, but it's not that we wouldn't let them, it's that enough of our politicians raised a stink over the offer for Unocal that CNOOC decided to drop their bid. We don't know if it would have passed legal or political tests had it really gone forward.

Are you sure about that 2k5? The impression I get from reading things is that the troop levels were boosted solely do provide the extra security forces needed to clamp down during the election, and the numbers are merely falling back to right where they were a few months ago (and to right where they fell after the election before that).

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:21 PM) No, it's not that kind of an issue... but running around calling for "impeachment" makes it sound that way. The Democrat's problem on this issue is that the President is being TOO OPEN about it. And that's just plain weird. I need to get out of here... you do raise some good points with this post. There's more to this yet to come, because they are "beaming" about this program. It's going to have to come out that we stopped something 100% dead in its tracks for this to have that much justification. Well, they have claimed that it helped stop a "plot" to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge using blowtorches. (I'm going to wager 3 to 1 that the guy who was plotting that was referring to it as Project Vulcan and always uses air quotes when saying the word laser)

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:18 PM) So now it's Walmart's job to give everyone health insurance. And furthermore, it's the socioeconomic class that tends to work in a retail environment... so that's walmart's fault too. Yet, they took some sort of corrective action it sounds like... Well, since employer-provided health coverage has bee the mainstay of the U.S. health insurance system for decades, you'd certainly hope that it should be Walmart's job to give their employees health insurance. Otherwise, they would just be either getting healht coverage from the government and the taxpayers or sitting at home suffering and sometimes nearly dying because they can't afford to see a doctor (much like a member of my own family).

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:12 PM) For my part, I do think there is a serious issue here. But, I can't figure out why they are so open about it. My best guess remains that they're attempting to set a precedent about how widely the President's authority can be applied in this case. Think about this...there is nothing at all in the Afghan war resolution which specifically authorizes the President to do these wiretaps...nothing by name at least. Here are the words they've tried to use to justify that program: If the President can find a legal way to apply that statute to this matter, and have either Congress or a court of law agree with him, then there's basically no limit as to the President's power in any matter which could be remotely tied to the war on terror. If you're like Dick Cheney and actually believe that the President is unrestrained during wartime by the U.S. laws, then that's an incredibly useful and powerful precedent to set. The only other thing I can come up with as a possible explanation given that it really does seem to be a blatant violation of the law is that the Republicans are hoping they can use it against the Democrats in 2006 the same way they used the DHS in 2002 - to try to portray the Democrats as weak on the war, when that's hardly the issue at hand at all.

QUOTE(Mercy! @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:09 PM) For you and everyone who really believes this - how wide an intellectual net are you casting on this subject? Many conservative civil libertarians are appalled. Here's one place you might start, that bastion of Communism, the Wall Street Journal: Wiretap Furor Widens Republican Divide Hey, according to that study which found Drudge to be a centrist, the Wall Street Journal is the most left wing national paper in the U.S. Oh heck, just saw these, have to use one for the heck of it.

QUOTE(Mercy! @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 03:56 PM) But if they're in kid's toys, how expensive could they be? Or maybe I just didn't read the article closely enough. Well, let's put it this way, compared with the price of normal iron magnets, they're much more expensive. They're relatively cheap if you want to spend a couple bucks on a fridge magnet, but most people get theirs basically for free when someone hands them out or attached to the back of something. So if you wanted one, there's nothing stopping you from going to Google & buying one.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 03:38 PM) Why don't the Orioles make sense? The Orioles said they would probably move Javy Lopez to first base with the addition of Ramon Hernandez. C Ramon Hernandez 1B Javy Lopez DH Frank Thomas Ok, I can't say I ever saw those reports, the only ones I saw had them using Lopez/Hernandez to DH and Catch.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 01:19 PM) Anti-Christmas votes Last week, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to protect the symbols and traditions of Christmas. The vote was 401-22 in favor of the resolution (5 voted "present"); below are the representatives that voted "nay." We will not rest until every year families gather to spend December 25th together at Osama's homo-abortion-pot-and-commie-jizzporium!!(Credit - The Daily Show)

QUOTE(Mercy! @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 03:28 PM) Thank you for the info. So why don't some manufacturers make fridge magnets out of this material? I hate those cheesy tiny iron ones that always fall off 'cause they're so weak? I don't even need a word to answer that one: $$$$. These things are very expensive compared to your normal "Refrigerator" magnet materials. You don't just find large bodies of Neodymium lying around in too many places like you do with iron ore, and there's a fair amount of processing involved to get things into the right oxidation state and magnetized.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 03:23 PM) A's Angels Orioles With the A's acquiring Bradley, I can't see them having need for Frank unless someone gets hurt. If you count Swisher, they have 4 outfielders and Johnson as a 1b man. Swisher can also play 1b, which basically means that they'll probably be moving Johnson, who's bat they're still very high on, to DH most of the time. I just don't see them having room for Frank, even for limited at bats, unless they move someone out of there, which I don't see Beane doing. The Angels do make a fair amount of sense, but personally if I were their GM I'd have given Piazza's agent a call a few times, just because I know that my catching situation right now was a disaster and he'd be a serviceable backup to go along with DHing. But of course, right now the Angels don't seem like they want to do anything major until they know for a fact that they won't be getting Ramirez. The Orioles make very little sense either, since they just signed a 2nd catcher in Ramon Hernandez. They also have Javy Lopez, and you really don't want to put either of those guys sitting on the bench unless they're not healthy enough to play (entirely possible, but you won't know until the season really gets going). They really don't have an obvious room for a DH who would like a couple hundred at bats.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 03:13 PM) You dont do a lot of research to back up what you say do you? There isin't an economist out there who isin't saying the Bush tax cuts had a big hand in the economic growth we're experiencing now. I'll take their word over yours. Actually, while our other commenter didn't really back the point up well at all, I'd say that there's a fairly solid argument which could be made to say that the current economic growth is due more to the fact that the government is running massive deficits due to those tax cuts (a-la Keynesian economics) than it is just the fact that the tax cuts are happening. When the government dumps horrendous amounts of new money into the market, if inflation does not take off, you're almost guaranteed to generate growth. The problem is its almost impossible to sustain it through time, as the deficits will accumulate, forcing increases in the amount that people will need to be taxed and pushing the economy back into recession. Furthermore, you could also note that there has been a huge lift for this economy from the housing sector over the last few years, a situation spurred on by the low interest rate environment which really became possible when the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress managed to balance the budget. There are a lot of variables at play here. Yes, the Bush tax cuts were "important", but it's also important to ask how exactly they fit into the puzzle. Were they important because they stimulated the housing market, or was that solely due to the interest rate situation? Would they have had the same impact had they been associated with across the board spending reductions to keep the budget from being driven badly out of balance? What will be the future impact of the dramatic increases in the debt/deficit that we've seen during the Bush years, and it's associated inflationary pressures and increases in interest payments? My answer to all of those: I don't have a clue. I think it's beyond the scope of anything I do to evaluate or unravel the various forcings in this situation (which is why I'm not getting a Ph.D. in economics...but if you want to talk about rocks, let's bring it). But I think you can't just go and say that every economist would say that the Bush Tax cuts were "important" without analyzing the full set of impacts, and even keeping an eye to the future.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 12:57 PM) The Score here in Chicago is saying that the Twins' pursuit of Frank Thomas is now over with the addition of Rondell White. The Twins will use White primarily as their DH and maybe start him every so often in the outfield. Ok, so that leaves me with this question...how many teams are there remaining who might actually be interested in Frank? Oakland and Minny were the 2 obvious teams who needed a DH to produce runs. They've filled that role...now who's left? Ditto Piazza, who's still out there. I'm just wondering what might happen if May rolls around, Frank is healthy enough to throw together a few pinch hits, and we decide we could use a right handed bat off the bench (a guy can always hope can't he?)

QUOTE(Adam G @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 02:45 PM) Take the average of the past ten years, perhaps? Again, I'd say that's still a terrible idea, because even the #'s over the last 10 years have been totally screwed up because of: 1. The dramatic drop in revenues coming down from the strike 2. The dramatic inflation of salaries and revenues to the point where no one knows where they will settle. 3. Expansion into new markets, some of which have worked well and some of which have not.