I'm not sure I would characterize Lincoln's (or, more properly, the Radical Republicans') economic policies as "mercantilistic", however. The war year tariff and monetary policies were about paying for the war, for the most part.

I'd say the Republican protectionist tariff policies, particularly of the post-bellum era, had much more in common with import-substitution industrialization. Which puts them on common ground with Hamilton's Report on Manufactures approach.

that is not to deny the easy move from ISI to more expressly redistributive trade policies.

the passages about Hamilton and the Gold Standard in the Wikipedia article on mercantilism amused me. Hamilton's genius was in establishing the good credit of the United States in international financial markets by (1) assuming the states' war debts for the national government; (2) establishing a sinking fund to pay off those debts (and, in fact, retiring the debts early); (3) establishing a tariff regime to provide the revenue to fund the sinking fund (and the rest of the national government); (4) establishment of a National Bank, which played a tremendous role in the development of a national capital market.

The king, of course.

Kyle - Are you a "Wisdom of Crowds" guy?

They have some good breakfast fare and the pork sandwiches we all love.

my buddy La musique de l'homme and I have been scheming for years to acquire one of those boxes.

still, NBB is killin' me too.

*ignore the drool*

er, Oliva sumpin-sumpin'

The pig has been marinated/cooked for a long time, and is ready on the weekend/Sat AM. You go up to the window and ask for lechon (or pernil) and some plantain, root vegs, and a Medalla.

The guy walks over to the spit and hefts his machete, cutting off the lechon, and forks it onto your plate. What could be better?

(thanx fer askin')

(And he shall be Livan,
And he shall be a good man...)

When Garza is outperforming Livan and Bartlett is outperforming our non-Morneau infielders, the shimmy will make us forget the bad things.

Maybe he's way overdue to crash hard, but perhaps he has more "smoke and mirrors" at his disposal than others? It seems like you're leaning toward the former, and the Twins are taking a chance on the latter, at least as a factor slowing his demise. I don't think it's an unreasonable risk at this point, given the payroll situation and the massive inexperience among our starting staff. Whichever way he goes, I think it should be more interesting than watching Ortiz & Ponson, both of whom pretty much performed exactly as they could have been expected to perform. The expectations for Livan are still all over the map.

Livan is perilously close to being so bad that his badness will keep him from pitching very many innings. Add concerns about performance to concerns about past worklands to concerns about age and I don't think you get a very large chance that he even gives you quantity.

I feel like this is the same thing I went through with Ortiz last year. Ortiz did one thing well--his walk rate was okay. But everything else pretty much sucked, he was a flyball pitcher coming from the NL to the AL, and guess what? He wasn't able to pitch well enough to stay in the rotation. With better luck, sure, he could've gotten by on smoke and mirrors for a little bit longer, but I can hope that anyone will improve. I can say, sure Jeff Weaver had some problems last year, but if this, that, and the other thing happen, I'm sure he can solve our innings problem.

Arguably, we're getting a pitcher in Livan Hernandez who is even worse than what we got last year with Ramon Ortiz (or Ponson for that matter.) This doesn't exactly motivate me to shell out more money for mlb.tv this year.

Sorry, I meant "better and/or cheaper." I'm sure there are pitchers even cheaper than Maroth (present company included!), but I'd hate to see how poorly they'd perform.

I'm not going to bother bending over backwards to congratulate Uncle Bill on his brilliant plan.

Maybe I missed something, but who's doing this?

Until then, we might as well hope for the Twins to trade Nick Punto for something valuable.

Nick Punto isn't nearly as likely to be a Type B free agent with enough playing time. Even if Livan is scuffling at the deadline, the possibility of a sandwich pick could be enough to draw some trade interest. Again, this isn't remotely meant to justify the deal, but it is a reasonable potential benefit.

It's also predicated on Livan pitching well enough to maintain his class B status, which is certainly not a guarantee if he is continues to decline while he has to start facing David Ortiz instead of Al Leiter.

Of course, this is all predicated on the follow-up transactions occurring.

I think we knew this off-season was coming. The Twins could not hand Santana $152 million and Hunter $90 million. That would have been craziness, especially the latter. The 2008 team will be a lot different. Better? Probably not, but different.

[Insert joke about Livan's weight and "sandwich pick" here]

With our luck, put some mayo on the pick and eat it.

The Royals got Maroth at the outrageous cost of an NRI. I'd say that's cheaper.

1 year $5 million is a fair contract for him, and one which the 2008 Twins can easily afford.

Hence a lateral move. The Twins aren't going to get better by handing out fair contracts to over-the-hill pitchers with ERA's that aren't supported by their peripherals. Like I said, this isn't going to cripple the organization, but at best Livan goes out to pitch once every five days and I know which games to skip. I'm not going to bother bending over backwards to congratulate Uncle Bill on his brilliant plan.

Plus, in August 2006 he brought back Matt Chico plus another minor-leaguer in a trade, and he wasn't even pitching well at the time (although he was still under contract through 2007).

If the Twins were acquiring Matt Chico, maybe I'd be enthused (though his 5.75 xFIP last year suggests a fair bit of regression in his future.) If the Twins are able to sign a replacement level player and flip him for something more than replacement level, then the subsequent trade would be a good move. Until then, we might as well hope for the Twins to trade Nick Punto for something valuable.

Now with Livan on hand, I just can't wait for Jose Morales to make the roster out of spring training. Two security blankets at once! Think how warm we will be!