Cup of Coffee: June 18, 2008
Posted by SBG on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I've often theorized that if you put a couple of guys around KG he'd get to the promised land.
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I only watched about 10 minutes of the game last night. AFI's 10 Top 10 was way more interesting. As were re-runs of Will & Grace.
I got pretty emotional at the end of the game. I am very glad that KG got his ring, like the boss said above, how many banners would be hanging from Target Center if the wizards at 600 - 1st Avenue knew how to surround K.G. with real players.
I've been saying for quite some time now that the player that KG most emulates is that old guy on his right.
KG's a better scorer (Russell was never better than the third highest scorer on his team), but he brings the all around game, including the great defense, rebounding, and focus on team. And now, he's got the ring. KG and Russell. Two of a kind.
I think my favorite part of the game was on back2back possessions in the 4th when Odom tried to take it to the hole against KG trying to get some easy points and KG was still playing at his "insanity" level despite having all ready wrapped up the game and swattted one of Odom's shots and the 2nd time blocked it and knocked him down in the process. Lamar was a little miffed but I loved KG was still playing the way he always does. TOP OF THE WORLD MA!!!!
I read an excellent 2-part article today by Ed Wallace, writing for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about the root causes for the dramatic inflation in oil prices. Supply and demand, you say? Not really, the supply of crude is just fine. Would it surprise anyone to learn that a Texas senator and congressman with ties to Enron, and a deregulation measure (with virtually no congressional support) snuck into an appropriations bill are involved? Fascinating and insightful, and highly recommended reading. But be warned, it may raise your blood pressure a few points.
Phil Gramm is John McCain's economic advisor.
Phil Gramm knows a lot of people with a lot of money.
thanks for the links
Dont you just love how powerful people that are not elected are writing laws that effect the world
You mean like judges??
Still burned about Marbury v. Madison?
More like Dick Cheney's Double Secret Energy Policy Task Force.
If you'd like to read more on the subject, Wallace has also written some stuff for BusinessWeek. You can also Google Ed Wallace and find a bunch more stuff he's written, as well as reactions to his articles.
Haven't read it yet, but does the article point to the fact that the number of oil refineries in the US has dropped by almost two-thirds since 1981 and that no new "grassroots" refinery has been built in the US in over 30 years?
Refining capacity HAS increased during that period through permitting changes and associated expansions at existing facilities: "over the past 10 years, domestic refining has increased by an average of 177,000 barrels per day of production each year or the equivalent of building one new, larger than average refinery each year."
between the early 1980s trough and 2001, domestic consumption of crude oil grew from ~15 million barrels per day to about 20 million bpd, or about 250,000 bpd each year. So, uh, yea, there has been a refining bottleneck.
all that is not to poo-poo the environmental concerns surrounding oil refining, or the dismal failure of the US economy to capture easily capturable energy efficiencies. For example, see here for info on return on investment in energy efficiency in the home. A McKinsey report claims that "Almost a quarter of possible [greenhouse gas] emission reductions would result from measures (such as better insulation in buildings) that carry no net life cycle cost—in effect, they come free of charge."
The point is that deregulation has created a situation where true supply and demand are no longer determining prices, the futures traders are by manipulating the market with no oversight. Actually, according to Wallace the oil companies have recently reduced gasoline output from refineries from 89% to 85% and are still growing on hand inventory and reserves because domestic demand has actually trended down over the past several years. There's not a real shortage of gasoline or oil, there's an artificial perception of shortage created by powerful, deep-pocketed investment partners in the futures markets (including Goldman Sachs, British Petroleum, etc.) that just want to dramatically raise prices. They now have the mechanism to do this by trading in unregulated and deregulated markets, thanks to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That legislation is also tied to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Were there an actual shortage of gasoline, you would see the symptoms of that with gas lines, stations actually running out of gas, rationing, lowering of the national speed limit, all those things that happened in the late 70's when OPEC tightened the spigot.
The point is that deregulation has created a situation where true supply and demand are no longer determining prices, the futures traders are by manipulating the market with no oversight.
eh, color me skeptical. It is pretty hard to manipulate market prices via futures market activities.
I don't see anything particularly nefarious about producers trying to time the market. Farmers do it all the time. Indeed, I have farmer relatives who have been quite active in such markets. But timing the market means you have to hold (or be willing to hold, or have access to) inventories, which is costly.
according to Wallace the oil companies have recently reduced gasoline output from refineries from 89% to 85% and are still growing on hand inventory and reserves
again, I'm skeptical about the interpretation. The numbers are correct (data is readily available from EIA; see, e.g., here and especially here and here for the most recent numbers). If you go back to 2007, you find this story from NPR arguing that there was a lack of available capacity in the refining industry (which fits with my comments above about how domestic consumption growth has significantly outstripped growth in refining capacity for the past 20 years).
We don't need a conspiracy theory to explain supply bottlenecks. Domestic refining capacity has not kept up with consumption. Further, there has been tremendous consolidation in the refining industry. I can certainly imagine market manipulation happening there. But I don't think it is necessary to get to where we are.
More likely, refiners are trying to time the market a bit by choosing when to do maintenance work at their facilities. If you have inventory capacity, you can do this sort of thing. But there would seem to be enough independent refiners to make collusion difficult (albeit not impossible).
It should also be pointed out that one of the reasons this manipulation is so easy is that the media will print what these guys say as fact without looking at any other sources.
Concentrated corporate and international media ownership in the U.S. (I'm looking at you, Rupert) is a huge part of the problem, because it allows a few powerful players to manipulate the media and control the flow of information (and disinformation). That's one reason the MSM is so down on blogging and other forms of citizen jouralism, because it can't be controlled by the puppetmasters.
Looks like plans to take light rail this Saturday to see Light Rail pitch have been foiled by Blackburn's soreness. Sigh.
Jason Duchscherer is not destined to play for Hank Steinbrenner.
For those who don't know, you can see me try to form paragraphs over at Coffeyville Whirlwind for the next week and a half.
ACLs are overrated.
Omigod, Tiger Woods is not human. I wonder if Rick Reilly is going to file that "I Think We Should All Cheer For Phil" column next to his "Kobe's Not Only Better Than MJ, He's a Great Human Being, Too" column that he wrote a couple of weeks before Kobe's uh, run-in, in Colorado.
I wonder if Bill Simmons still thinks Doc Rivers should be fired?
from his column today:
There was also this:
Much like John Elway after the '97 Super Bowl, any lingering questions about Garnett's ability to raise his game in big moments vanished into thin air for good Tuesday night. They will never be asked again.
Unless your name is Dan Barriero.
I love the guys who scream from the mountaintops that so-and-so should be fired, is incompetent, a boob, whatever, and then proceed to bury their mea culpa twelve paragraphs deep.
The same goes for chowderheads who write that this defeat calls in to question Bryant's legacy. It's all so fucking asinine.
It was great to see Garnett win a championship, though. I'd love to see the Celts win back-to-back. It will be interesting to see if they can can get one more long-road trip in with that old car.
It's hard to say how Kobe will be remembered, but one thing's for sure:
24 << 23.
Yes. But Kobe's still only 29. Assuming (big assumptions, sure) that (a) Bynum comes back and continues on his improvement path and (b) they find a way to re-sign or replace Odom, the Lackers are going to be the team to beat next year. And the next.
I think Odom is still under contract. That guy's as soft as a marshmallow.
Kobe's turns 30 in August, so he's probably got a few good years left in him, but he's also logged a ton of NBA minutes already (31,500+). In three years, he'll have played nearly as many minutes as Michael Jordan. His window isn't as wide open as it was. Plus, just how good is Bynum? We'll find out. The talk after the series was about how his supporting cast isn't that good.
Plus, the Cs pretty much laid out the blueprint for stopping Kobe. I'm not so sure that the Lakers will come out of the West next year.
I think Odom is still under contract.
one more year according to hoopshype. I guess I misread the column headings.
Odom may be soft, but he's versatile and talented. He's a very nice, complementary player who does a lot of things and seems to have matured a lot (as a player) over the past couple years.
and he won't look soft with Bynum backing him up in the lane. Same with Gasol, who is a cream puff defensively.
Joe Poz had some things to say about Kobe on his blog today. Suffice it to say, he feels any comparison of Kobe to MJ is asinine.
Kobe backers don't seem to understand that it's not about scoring 81 points against the Raptors. It's not even about the rings (Jordan 6, Kobe 3, but Kobe 0 as the main guy). It's about Jordan never, ever giving less than his best.
Kobe shot the Lakers out of a championship series in 2004 when he had three other HOFers on his team.
Kobe ran off the best center of his era. With Shaq, the Lakers could have easily won another title. Easily.
Kobe refused to shoot in the fourth quarter of a game 7 against the Suns, seemingly to make a point.
Kobe was dominated by Paul Pierce in this year's finals.
MJ has no stain like that on his resume.
is that the same Elvin Hayes who averaged 21.8/13.3/2.0 and 49.1 pct FG in the playoffs in 1978, when the Bullets beat the Sonics?
Hayes fouled out of game 7 with only 12 points. But I didn't see Simmons mention that Seattle's Dennis Johnson shot 0-14 from the field in that game as Seattle lost.
for the series, Hayes went for 20.7/11.9/1.4 and 2 blocks/g on 48 pct FG shooting
Well, Simmons is full of shit, too. He wrote on May 30th that no one was beating the Lakers this year.
Pffft.
Maybe I've been drinking the KG Kool-Aid for too long, but I was pretty sure that the Cs would win The Finals. I was also convinced that the NBA title could be won with KG anchoring the team (and I've believed that for about a decade). He's the consummate team player and the Cs were a team more than anything. Yep, Pierce had some great games (and some stinkers), but it was the Celtics team that won this thing. Just like you would expect from a KG team.
Barreiro is killing me with his backhanded compliments of KG. He says KG did exactly what he was asked to do in Boston, but he didn't do everything he was asked to do in Minnesota (IE win with garbage teammates)
Quit listening to that dumbass. Your life will be better for it.
Seems to me that KG was asked to be the marquee franchise player in Minnesota, to put lots of butts in the seats, and to be the primary marketing driver. He did all those things. It's the idiots in the front office (McHale et. al.) who have not done what they were asked to do, which is build a team around KG that could contend in the regular season and advance in the playoffs. Barreiro is an ass clown, and for the sake of your blood pressure you shouldn't take him seriously.
All you have to do is look at KG's numbers. The guy did EVERYTHING he could. He's won a championship every season of his career that he's not been shackled by Taylor and his band of merry idiots.
right on Twayn
Gubmint hijinks: DOER gets FIERed.
have you ever heard of a Stawberry Moon?
I had not until the other day when I came across that note