TPS

You're the guy who posted mid-season that you thought last year's draft class was a bust, which was also a lousy assessment.

In my post on the Bills being a turn around team, I said I thought Carrington would be starting by the bye week, so I'll go with him as having a breakout year on D. On O, no one seems too keen on the thought of Jones as the #2, so I'll take a flyer and say DJ. Fitz has touted him, and Fitz was touting some guy named Johnson at the start of last year... For ST, I posted earlier this evening that I thought Justin Rogers would take over as PR. He looked pretty good in the Detroit game.

I'm 50-50 on this one, and leaning toward the lifeguard's explanation, that it's a surfer dipping into the wave before it broke on him. It looks like his legs are scissor kicking as he punched through it. It would be odd for a shark to be at that point on a wave, going into it.

I half wondered if keeping Pianalto was a bit of a ruse? I know it's a stretch, but maybe they wanted Caussin to make it to the PS and kept Pia knowing he'd be the first release casualty. Or maybe it's just the wine...?

I was glad to see he made the 53. He was my "surprise" player out of this Bills' draft class. I think he was injured and missed some early preseason games, but when he got in, he looked good--both in coverage and on punt returns. I won't be surprised to see him become the #1 PR. It will be difficult for him to get playing time with the 4 CBs in front, but if injuries hit at that position, as they always do, then I think he will fill in just fine. Could be another 7th round gem...

I'm a little further out on that spectrum, a slightly more extreme left-libertarian. That's how I explain myself when people ask my political affiliation--no allegiance to a party; I have views that are consistent with left-liberal, and views that are consistent with libertarians.

Nice to see someone understands there is a difference between Keynes' economics and "Keynesian Economics," as it is practiced in most places. In actuality, Keynes' ideas on government spending are more complex. He suggests breaking the budget into two components, "government consumption" and a capital budget. He argued that the consumption budget should be in balance as much as possible, and the capital budget should be used to deficit spend during recessions--borrow and spend on building public infrastructure.

Here's the video from BB.com Spiller run You can see it's a great job by the O-line and WRs, and it helps that Spiller is fast.

Ok, the preseason is done, and I haven't seen much that changes my prediction. A healthy Merriman makes this D better than average. If Bell goes down, we know they would move Levitre and insert Rhinehart (sp). The O-line is still the main weakness, especially in pass pro. I think it will be masked somewhat by a better running game with a more stout middle of the line, extra protection from TE and RBs, and Fitz's decision-making. One obvious problem is Thiggy hasn't shown anything, but as he gets used to his recievers "maybe" that will change. I see a much more competitive team this year, and therefore the Bills are quite capable of turning it around. I still think the first Jets game is a key, as the Jets have man-handled the Bills in the trenches of late. If we can get that win at home, AND Merriman is still healthy, then we could surprise. But that's why they play the games... Go Bills!

Dave, I think he might have mis-read his own site. As I learned it, when you have nine numbers in front of a another number, that puts it into billions...

I agree Doc. I think it makes for good cover to say it was "the bean counters." Evans is a straight speed WR, which doesn't fit Gailey's mold. Also, I don't think Evans and Fitz ever really "clicked." While Evans will give you that homerun every so often, guys like Parrish, Roosevelt, Nelson, et al make drive-extending plays more often. How many times did Fitz look for Evans on 3rd down last year? As for Parrish, I think it was neck-and-neck with Johnson for leading receiver before he went down last year. Parrish languished under Jauron and Trent; he's a star with Gailey and Fitz. Good move to extend him.

I think we'll see a different offensive strategy EVERY week. Gailey has so many options that game plans can/will be dramatically different each week based on the weaknesses he sees in the opponent. There will not be a specific Bills' offense, just as there is no specific Bills' defensive front.

Keep up the good fight AW! It's always good to read a story that makes you realize sports are simply a pleasant (or un?)distraction in life.

You are giving we optimists a bad name...

That argument goes back to QE1, where the FED bought bad assets from the banks, and those reserves did just sit in banks. For QE2, the FED was buying long term treasuries in the open markets, and I was basically in agreement with Mag on the impact--dollar depreciation and commodity speculation. I posted this piece on PPP previously, but here it is again: My link INFLATION! (as measured by the CPI) doesn't become a real problem until money gets into the hands of more people who spend it on goods and services (demand side inflation). If the money that is being "created" is put into the hands of "investors," then we will only experience asset (including commodities now) inflation, unless they are so leery that they put their funds in money markets and treasuries...the liquidity trap... As for the timing...the FED will start to raise interest rates when (or IF) demand side inflation reappears.

That's my line... It's not that I don't put much emphasis on commodity inflation, rather I've been arguing that investment flows into commodities have been the main influence on increased commodity prices, not the global economy. Most commodity prices (outside of oil which can directly influence CPI) are included in the PPI, which will influence the CPI, based on the ability of producers to pass those higher costs along. As I've said all along, we will not experience any serious bout of inflation until the US (and other advanced economies) recover and unemployment approaches 6%.

Especially when we're talking beer...

Liquidity is a good thing, until there's too much... You really think that futures prices are less volatile now? I'm sure I can find a nice little paper that has done the sigma calculations...

Here's an interesting little exchange we had about this last year... My link

Obviously we all have biases. I think Mag and I actually agree on many things, but we view them from very different perspectives. He has always said that speculators are not problematic because they can only have short term influence. My argument is that they now dominate futures markets (which were designed to hedge commercial interests' risk), so their ability to influence prices is greater. They influence prices for longer periods, AND (the key) they have increased price volatility (though he has argued previously the markets were more volatile several years back). That creates greater uncertainty for producers. Should I continue to develop sources that need $120/bl to generate a sufficient return, or not? All commoditiy prices are more volatile now because of the increased investment flows. I don't argue against speculation, I argue, like Greenberg the former CFTC member, that speculator/investor flows should not dominate markets designed for hedging. But, hey, I don't understand how markets work...

Just saw the replay and noticed you too. I can see why Wood did the double take. You and Jasper would make one heck of an interior line!

A little over a week ago, Bernie Sanders released confidential CFTC data from the 2008 oil price run up, and that's the data that show investor/speculators controlled 80% of the oil futures contracts at the end of June that year. Of course, he's the bad guy for releasing the data...

This thread motivated me to get tickets to their September 15th show in Hamilton, Ont. Seats are off to the side of the stage, but Ed usually goes over and sings a song or two those seated in the crappy seats.

My link

And many were calling last year's draft class a bust. This year will go a long way to judging them more accurately.