bills_fan

Just do us a favor, if/when it pops, let us know if it was what you heard. I'd be curious if there really was an Oct suprise and the Times sat on it.

True, but I was comparing the Phils prospects to the Brewers/Cubs prospects. If I'm a seller, I'll take the best guys, no matter who is giving them. Interesting trade rumor involving the Phils and COL... Holliday/Fuentes to Phils? Personally, I think the Phils need to see if Myers can be a #2 in a playoff rotation. If not, they go get Burnett. If so, then maybe the above is revisited.

Care to enlighten?

I like rational skepticism. Now, teach her to view the opposing viewpoints in either side of the argument, analyze the rational arguments on both sides, noting open-ended issues (ie. big bang creationism and missing links in evolution) and decide for herself which viewpoint to support (or at least which to give greater merit to). At this point, given she is 6, I'd say (no LSI reference intended).

Foreclosed.

Think about this excerpt from one of your articles for just a second.... Perhaps I don't understand as much as I should, but how can FNM and FRE have liabilities that will "swamp their assets?" I understand that may be the case if 5-10% of the US population stop paying their mortgages, but thats not really going to happen. Right now you are talking a fractional rate of default, .1%. As long as the cash flows remain steady, we may just get out of this in one piece.

But those prospects would not even be ranked in some of the better systems. The 2B, sure, he's decent but blocked but Utley. Blanton is a definite upgrade over what was there. This Phils did not have a Matt LaPorta-type and I have 9/15 in my Harden breakdown pool. Burnett is interesting. He's a stuff guy, which excels in the playoffs. As the deadline gets closer and closer, I can see the Phils pulling the trigger on Burnett, as well. The Jays may end up dropping their price, I think all the Phils would have to do is offer better talent than Tor could get from the draft picks when Burnett walks. Move Myers to setup Lidge and you have a great playoff rotation of Hamels-Burnett-Blanton-Moyer, with Flash and Myers setting up Lidge. I like my chances there. Burnett would be motivated to score one more big contracta nd probably pitch lights out.

Sax

But Blanton is an upgrade over who the Phils had in there...Kendrick, Eaton or whoever.

Lets not push it. After last offseason, it couldn't get worse unless they moved the team. The Sabres still have too many RWs and are missing a second line C (Connolly will hurt his pu$$y in Game 8 and be out until Game 68). A good offseason would have been packaging a winger or two and draft picks to Florida to get Jokinen. I'm still holding out hope for Bouwmeester. Imagine him and Rivet each getting 20-25 minutes a game.

Not a bad trade for the Phils. Blanton keeps the ball down, which will help him in that park. He will benefit from an unfamiliar league. Once the league figures out to lay off his low junk, he could be in trouble, but not so bad in the short term. A playoff rotation of Hamels-Myers-Blanton-Moyer doesn't look so bad. The only true prospect Philly gave up was the 2B, who is good, but blocked by Utley. Now if they added Burnett as well, Myers could head back to the pen and setup for Lidge...then look out!

Then they didn't look hard enough. A poster in this thread gave you an example. And to anyone who says "that money must be made up from somewhere else," No, it doesn't. The estate tax is not a revenue-generator for the gov't. It generates something like .01 % of the budget, after factoring in the costs to administer it. It is purely a social function. All these billionaires getting behind it is bull, but useful because it tells us that it is probably necessary, but that the threshold should be set somewhere around $100 million or categories of assets should be treated differently, liquid vs. illiquid assets. Then, it serves its intended purpose while protecting small businesses/owners of farms etc.

Would love to see a picture of that, sounds pretty cool.

For a small business owner, adding in a house and other assets, it can add up quickly. If the intent was to avoid building aristocratic elites, then set it at an appropriate level, whereby family businesses are not ruined.

If you are not going into the city for La Nova, then go for Nino's. Its about 10 min from the stadium and outstanding.

How much were they?

Horsey is funny!

Only issue with that is if China and the Middle East do precipate a run on the dollar and meltdown the US financial system, then both also meltdown their own economies. China buys US debt, but we buy China's goods en masse. No US economy, no market for Chinese goods. Same with Middle Eastern oil. Too much interdependency there. Russia, different story, I think. I am not well versed in Russia's stake in US debt, other than as a store of value or to simply bruise the US when it is convenient for Russia. I also don't know how codependent the US and Russia are. Anyway, it would take a long time to recover from that meltdown, but we would recover. We would have to re-engineeer our own economy in the process, however.

Take the tax-free muni return and be happy?

Oh, I agree that its too soon to break them up right now, but as more of a longer term solution. I think the bolded part begins to come true come 4th quarter and into 2009.

I couldn't disagree with this more... Here's the opposing viewpoint from David John of the Heritage Foundation. I happen to agree with him. http://www.nypost.com/seven/07152008/posto...m_up_119904.htm I would go the other way....break em up. Too much concentrated risk...spread it out and diversify the risk.

Josh Hamilton is one of the best natural talents to play baseball that I have ever seen. Reily said tonight that the sound the ball makes off Hamilton's bat is the same as Bo Jackson. Michael Young of the Rangers (an all star himself), said that he had only played with one guy whose swing was as good as Hamilton's swing...Arod. This is guy is legit, in that park down in Texas, you could really be looking at a true triple crown candidate once he gets a little more experience (remember, this guys has only played 183 big league games, just over one full season).

Best argument I heard against drilling, was that when the Middle East and South America was all tapped out and irrelevant, then we would start to drill our own...being one of the few countries that had any left.

My pessimistic side (that is usually more realistic) tells me the Fed plans to hyperinflate us out of the housing crisis. Bernanke's helicopter drops of cash from his college professor days come home to roost. EDIT: This is the best site I have found for trying to recreate M3 data. Of course, they are missing the Eurodollars piece, which was historically a small component of M3. Now...who knows? Recreated M3

Have you tried speaking with the neigbor?