1984Echoes

Career (in the minors) 14.5 K's/ 9... yeesh.

Tar and damnation is Kyle Harrison ever nasty. 6 K's in 2 innings. Hope Scott Harris can find the likes of him in the 3rd round now for the Tigers instead of the Giants...

Well... I really hope the country votes like I'm going to vote... I don't give a shit if the Democratic nominee is gay, or a woman, or black, or green, or from Venus. I don't give a shit if the nominee is a California liberal, or a socialist, or progressive, or a centrist. I don't give a shit if the Democratic nominee is 90, or 19. I'm voting straight ticket Dem... in every election... until MAGA-hate-filled-fascism is eliminated out of the Republican Party. Which may never happen. Which means I may never vote Republican again... because I don't see that happening in my lifetime.

Dude... I immediately said "not personally". But... I get the joke... Who was doing that...? Was that 777?

I knew DD quite well (I mean... not personally) as I was in Ft. Lauderdale area during his time with the Marlins... and watched as he built a championship team from scratch, and then was forced to dismantle the team (by Huizenga) and traded his guys away for the next round of guys that helped build the next Marlins championship team. I also knew about his time with the White Sox and Expos (especially the Expos)... I let out a huge scream of approval upon the Tigers hiring him. I knew that... he would build championship level teams for the Tigers (shame we didn't get a title out of his time here...), would be a trading fiend (did not disappoint there, at all...), and would build a draft & develop organization that would be augmented with FA's to get those champ level teams. Wait... what? That last one... to my never-ending disappointment... he did not do. I know almost nothing about this new guy. But... I think you might be right. Proof will be that the org does get into the 21st century with analytics/ does draft and develop properly/ and also builds championship level teams. So... we'll see. It looks like he's the guy to do the 1st two items (modern analytics and a true D&D Org, and he may build a great team based on his personality); but winning will be the final proof and will establish his legacy with the Tigers...

I think Finland should make a move to take back the territory they lost; Georgia should send troops into the two breakaway territories and kick Russian soldiers out; Moldova (with Romanian help but... basically the Romanians) should kick Russian soldiers out of Transdniestra and Japan should take back their Northern Islands they lost to Russia (USSR) as a result of WWII. But that's just me...

A-Hah...! Right... that says the first 6 picks are lottery... I thought only the first 3 picks were...

How about Anti-Democracy Fascists?

Nothing left of this season except the Lottery to determine where we draft... Currently tied for 3rd worst record... We haven't moved much at all in the standings the past two months... up or down. In the 3rd spot worst we can select is 6th, in the 4th spot worst we can select is 7th... So we'll have a draft spot next year between 1 and 7th it looks like... Something for the new GM whomever he or she may be... to show what their draft philosophy is... I hope it's not a college RH'ed reliever with a 100+ MPH straight fastball and control problems....

Nothing left of this season except the Lottery to determine where we draft... And more uninspiring baseball games for those who are dedicated as such... Even the kids are finishing out a bit meh...

But before I go further... One thing: I don't want to disagree with you in one particular issue... because I DO agree with you that interest rates DO affect the economy, and companies... Just not in the way that you are representing...

This says exactly what I said.

That's still short term. That's right now. That says nothing about what that sentiment will be in 6 months.

I wouldn't take that as a slight on those two or anything negatively their way... I would just take it as Serretti acclimated himself really, really fast. Good for him. As long as Graham and Jung also make their jumps, even if it takes some extra time... good enough. It's the end result that counts, not the journey.

Maybe... I'm not sure how much they want to challenge him. But also... spots might be open in Toledo if Kreidler/ Clemens end up in Detroit as bench guys or whatever. But the key issue obviously will be whether developmentally he's ready for a AAA challenge. I would have no idea on that...

He's losing Central Asia because of this. And he/ Russia will become known as China's Bitch because of this. China will suck Russia dry... and take every advantage of Russia's newfound weakness in every way possible. Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Khyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan) are all looking directly to China now... and repudiating (quietly, not loudly) Russia. There was an agreement to build the China One Road railway through Central Asian countries and bypass the Russian railway link. Turkey is pushing hard to join China's economic organization in order to lessen dependence on Russia (currently heavily dependent on Russian oil/ gas/ tourism/ etc. in their economy). Russia is not a pariah just yet... but so many countries are making these types of moves, right now, and it's not just the EU/ US/ Japan/ etc... Russia will end up becoming a backwater, glorified North Korea - unless they drastically change directions, like, right now - with... lots and lots of nukes. And... not much else.

Well, like I said... I'm not looking at the overall rate, which includes multiple factors (and that chart shows GDP growth running mostly at 1.5% until this last week..? Or is that weekly "projections"; not Actual GDP Rate?) Anyways, like I said... We may hit a temp recession. A slowdown based on what the Fed has been doing... But the underlying factors in the US Economy will make that a short-term scenario and not a deep recession that lasts years. The demand is still there. Supply issues will be fixed. (IMO). There are other growth/ investment/ US Government investment in infrastructure/ etc... That are going to kick the economy back into gear. Now, this is just my opinion and I'm not a financial expert... But I am going to guess that come next spring - April-ish, when construction picks up again significantly because of the warmer weather - that if we are in a recession... it ends quickly as the US Economy takes off again. But that's just me... my guess. The immediate outlook, per your chart... could be a recession coming up the next 6 months or 2 quarters...

They are going to use fixed rate loans for their Cap-Ex purchases not variable rate loans so... Screwball is not correct... a 1% rise in interest rates will NOT drop $222 mill extra interest expense/ loss to the bottom line. HOWEVER... And to your point G2... FedEx is a terrible recessionary company. They are a cyclical company directly affected by recessions, which means THAT is how they are affected by interest rates. Fed increases their rate by ALOT (doesn't have to be in one shot, can be over a longer period, a year for example, but a steady increase in rates that... ) creates a business/ economy slowdown. Economy goes into a recession = less shipping = huge drop in FedEx revenues = a bunch off 777's are now parked = NOW they are up shit's creek if they are over-leveraged. But it's the drop in revenues, not an increase in interest rates (not directly anyways) that impacts their EBITDA/ bottom line.

In other words... In Putin's Dystopian Fascist (Russians-Only) World: Genocide is termed "Acts of Compassion". The correct wording is: Russian Genocidal Nazi scum... ... need to be quarantined within the boundaries of Russia and never allowed to ever set a step outside of their borders. No Russian troops or Wagner mercenaries allowed outside Russian borders because they are simply... just... murderers and rapists. They are NOT professional soldiers. I don't hate Russian people (surrounded by lots of Ukrainians and Russians...); but my revulsion for... anyone who supports Putin and his war, the way that Russian soldiers act in any war theater, this xenophobic and hateful attitude/ mentality of theirs, Putin and all of his sycophantic supporters including legislators, oligarchs, FSB agency, and all the mealy mouthpieces in their media screaming to wipe Ukraine out... is off the charts.

Energy may especially be ROI driven... But a lot of manufacturing can exist only with Capex so the driver is not ROI but either must-purchase to sustain (modernization) or must-purchase if looking to expand operations (there could be ROI in there or delays based on interest rate environment but... they're looking long-term growth of revenues and don't look to alternative investments outside of their manufacturing expertise...).

Next test for Flores/ Olson/ Serretti/ Meadows/ Dingler/ and maybe a couple others will be AAA next year...

Obviously they are raising rates to fight off inflation... and they were probably too slow to start on that due to the huge uncertainty coming out of the pandemic. I don't know if we'll get a soft landing... can we avoid a recession while the Fed is trying to kill off inflation? That's the $64,000 question right now. They've jumped interest rates a few times already and will again this month... and yet Employment/ Inflation/ and consumer demand are still going strong. The rest of the world has slowed down enough that maybe the supply chain issues fix themselves (I believe they already have for the most part) but Russia's war on Ukraine is also F'ing everything up because that is causing worldwide food shortages/ fertilizer shortages/ energy shortages etc... all inflationary and counter-acting what the Fed is trying to do. But I think the U.S. will be sharply less impacted than anywhere else in the world... except maybe China also won't be affected too badly... they have a lot of insulation against these factors... So maybe we will get a somewhat soft landing with only a few markets impacted (housing, stock markets, food prices) whilst others aren't impacted all that much. We'll see... This is a really unique environment for us so... we'll see. But also... whatever impact we do get with these rising interest rates... I believe will only be temporary. We still have too many growth factors counter-acting inflation/ rising rates that says we're not going to get much recession, even if we do get some... and interest rates (Fed Rate) should stabilize around the 4% mark... I believe that was the Fed's target... Plan accordingly I guess...

If you want to use EBITDA you would use it exactly thus; As a way to determine how much debt load a company should carry. I haven't worked in a capital-intensive company in forever... so I don't remember the exact calc's... but you wouldn't use a 1-to-1 ratio (EBITDA = to exactly the amount of interest a company would pay monthly.. because a firm would be over-exposed to interest rates.. as you've pointed out. And here, Taxes and Depreciation (non-cash, money's already been spent on the capital assets) are meaningless so EBITDA is a perfect unit of measure...). Instead, the ratio would be 3-1 or 4-1 or 5-1 or something like that. A 2-5% rise in interest rates would not affect a High-EBITDA company as they aren't going to expose themselves to interest rate risk like that. Here is where rising interest rates hurt the corporate world: A) Growth companies. They're losing money, and need debt/ stock proceeds to fund their growth while they are building their business/ losing cash incessantly since they're trying to obtain that growth. Interest rate jumps = harder to service the debt when they are cash negative and bank funding dries up. Market will go down and growth companies' stock prices get hammered which means going to the capital markets can dry up on that basis. For growth companies, and can be a downward spiral to oblivion. It's one reason that growth stocks get absolutely hammered in a rising interest rate environment. B) A strong cash (EBITDA) company can still get hammered if they are highly leveraged. If Revenues/ EBITDA drop due to a recession/ slow-down, etc... Now they're can get trapped between a Rock (dropping EBITDA) and a hard place (rising interest rates/ debt service). But... that also only affects NEW debt or variable interest debt. Companies mostly sign onto fixed rate debt since they like static forecasted cash flows (stability). They may have variable rates on any lines of credit they have but for Cap-Ex purchases those should be fixed rate debt. That shields a company from rising interest rate environments. For the most part. But it may also affect their ability to take on new debt based on some of the factors I listed above... C) A rising interest rate/ recessionary environment may, or may not slow down capital expenditures, further slowing down an economy. Usually this is a function of current debt load. Highly leveraged companies will put off Cap-Ex because it's not a good environment to add debt. A low-or-zero-leveraged company, with a huge cash flow... might not care about the rising interest rates/ recessionary environment and go ahead with Cap-Ex purchases anyways because they don't care about interest rates. As to your statement that interest rate matters... I would rather say that it... depends. Upon the factors I outlined above. And that it's not really EBITDA that is impacted/ or impacts decisions from rising interest rates, but other factors. I wouldn't use EBITDA except to determine whether I want to add/ not add debt. I wouldn't use it to rate the affect Interest Rates are having on a company... Just my 2 cents.

EBITDA = Earnings BEFORE Interest Taxes and Amortization (depreciation). Notice how Interest is EXCLUDED in EBITDA? However... EBITDA is basically Cash Flows from Income Statement (excludes Balance Sheet movement) which states how much cash a company is making to service debt (interest) and taxes. Depreciation (amortization) is non-cash so it's excluded. You are in the ballpark but your technical details are a little off.

No it isn't. Debt Load is Balance Sheet. Not Profit & Loss. Wanna explain how the fuck you're getting debt load into EBITDA?