gehringer_2

So we did a week in Alaska all the way out to Denali last year and everyone is looking for moose. "They're bound to be there", "We always see them over here".....No moose. We are on the road back to Anchorage on the tour bus and are basically all the way back into the suburbs, and Momma and 2 calves are sauntering across the road....🤷‍♀️ But if you are a fan of Moose, just go to Isle Royale. We've had several close encounters with Moose in the evenings just on the path from the docks to the bathrooms at Windago.

I've posted here before that the idea that SS is a pension plan you pay into and get your own money back is a fallacy, yet even given that I've said that, I'm not sure I like means testing for the benefit. It may be a fiction, but I think it's a socially useful fiction that if you put some money in, you get some money out - no matter who you are or how rich you get. High income people are still paying income tax so the Treasury does gets a big chunk or maybe all of the value of the SSI payments to the rich back - it just doesn't go to the SSA's ledger, but in the end that's just book keeping. I'd much rather see the contribution cap lifted. That never made that much sense to me in the 1st place.

You have to wonder if Hinch and Harris have already started thinking about what the lines are for pulling the plug. Of course such a decision never happens in a vacuum; someone else - Kreisler, Leonard, McKinstry - whoever, has to show they are likely put up better numbers than whatever Javy is doing.

If you want to talk about 'arrogance' at UM, this is the kind of place where it's probably most a factor. They feel anyone should want to come here so they shouldn't have to do a lot of spade work to prep the ground for a hire. All regular order: Put out the listing, hire the search firm and wait for an XS of top names to just roll in. And TBF, at the time there was conventional wisdom that Howard was very much in demand and that prying him away from the NBA was a bit of big deal.

Lange works an inning - didn't walk anyone. Baby steps.

It was always one possible outcome but since no-one knew the virus would attenuate by itself, there was no point talking about it. But it's always been true that a vaccine is only one way to reach herd immunity, the other is that everyone just catches the mild version!

Mize throwing hard. 96-97. I don't think he has thrown that hard consistently since early in '21

Tigers finally with an RBI hit. O has been in the tank yesterday and today up until then.

80% of US households have income less than $150K so given the proportion of 2 income households, maybe 10% or less of individual wage earners hit the cap? It's not a big chuck of $ to raise the cap, more if you eliminate it completely - which would be fine with me. Maybe you give high wage earners some break on AMT for putting more into their FICA. Anyway - lots of potential solutions. Nothing like the difficulty of fixing medical costs in the US.

Manning with 3 solid against a few real hitters.

Per gameday it was low enough but in the middle. Dangerous place to be against a hitter who can adjust to make that golf style swing. I think for most hitters if you throw them high you can get away with leaving it in the middle, but if you pitch down you better keep it out of the middle.

Right. In short, Social Security is a political problem, not an economic one.

Manning with 2K's and HR in the 1st.

As does Soto..😪

Medicare is the more serious problem, but the solution to that is a more general re-alignment of medicine in the US for all. SSI is not as bad. Relative small changes drive big differences in the out years. Some means testing, add a single year to eligibility, increase the payroll tax a single point - despite the way things get talked the solutions for SSI are hardly end of the world fixes, it's just very hard in the present inter party politics for anyone to touch any important issue because the old system of the two parties giving each other cover when that kind of fix was made is dead. And to TBH, the SSI issue is somewhat transitory. Once the boomers start dying off in numbers the system will begin to right itself based on a less skewed population distribution and more stable long term population numbers.

Which is why she won't do it. She may talk about how terrible Trump is as long as she's selling herself as the alternative, but I'm on the side that doubts she will actually do anything to prevent him getting elected if he wins the nomination - i.e. go third party.

LOL - The Candidate keeling over would create existential panic in either party this cycle. 😱

I think Manuel has made it pretty clear no moves will be made in season, at least unless something completely blows up ( murder, mayhem, etc). And Bacon is right. All firing Howard now does is satisfy some fans' sense of retribution, but that's not in any way productive. OTOH, in any normal time, I would be surprised to see Howard extended, but things are so crazy right now. Maybe the people on the inside - Ono/Manuel - see some kind of major re-alignment coming down the pike in the next year or so, in which case maybe you don't want to make a new hire until the dust settles. I'd actually find it hard to believe if there were not a lot of informal networking and quiet discussions going on between groups of University Presidents and ADs about what kind of future they want to drive toward. That's all pure speculation of course but just mention it as the kind of thing that may be driving top level decision making that we don't get much insight into.

But I have the math on my side.

I don't remember if it was Campbell or Holmes that made the statement that they have a strong predisposition towards re-signing their own players that they have gotten to know rather than take chances on FA's who are locker room unknowns. Now like every other statement, I'm sure there is some wiggle room. You can do some research, you may have ex-teammates you trust that vouch for a guy's personality/work ethic etc. Bottom line though is that they want to know guys in depth before they spend their money on them.

with all due respect, the system doesn't care about that. What you really are saying is that you'd rather see Trump win than vote for Biden. That's the bottom line practical fact. It is what it is. Like I said, the process doesn't care a whit about what principle you believe you bring to the decision all it cares about are the vote totals. Voting is not a symbolic gesture, it's a practical action.

and this is the key and why all the polling in recent cycles is just so much guess work. 17 million more Dems came out in 2020 compared to 2012. It's almost pointless to bother asking the poll question once you pick the Dem/Rep sample ratio, you've already picked your answer because no-one's mind is changing. It's all about and only about the turnout.

This is the exactly the kind of thing that if those people were fully functioning humans, should drive them to vote Dem in the fall. But will it?

The marker would be to see couple of elected official change parties. Instead of fighting back they are just resigning. The gap is too wide now, this aint Don Riegle's party politics.

For Biden to lose you have to posit that upwards 5-10 million Biden voters who were anti-Trump enough to come out in 2020 don't care enough to vote this time, despite Trump post 1/6/2021 having shown himself a much bigger threat than anyone imagined even on Nov 2, 2020, plus Dobbs in the meanwhile, plus 8 yrs of population roll-over toward Millennials/GenZ. Pretty hard to square all that with what the polls say.