Aggie87

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Barak!

The 180g vinyl reissues of Sun Ra's "Atlantis" and "Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow"

Sounds like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale! PS - Corkestra AND Bjorkestra in one night?

bump... From Musictap: "The Monterey Jazz Festival Records are serially releasing classic and historic live Monterey performances. They have listed Art Blakey and The Giants of Jazz (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1972); Jimmy Witherspoon w/ Robben Ford (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1972) including a bonus track: "When I Been Drinkin'"; Tito Puente and his Orchestra (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1977); Shirley Horn (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1994); Cal Tjader (The Best of Monterey Jazz Festival performances - 1958-1980); and Dave Brubeck (50 Years of Brubeck Monterey Jazz Festival performances - 1958-2007). These discs are pegged for availability on August 5."

Happy Birthday!!! WD40 times 5:

I'm not sure I get where you're coming from. Chacon was a starter, and didn't pitch real well. They moved him to the bullpen as a result, which upset him. He wouldn't warm up when called upon, and then threw when he wasn't supposed to (or something like that). Cecil Cooper (his coach) tried to talk to him, to no avail. He got called into the office, and refused to go. So the GM comes down to the player's cafeteria to ask him to come to the office and he refuses. The GM directed him to go to the office (in either a calm voice or yelling, depending on who you believe), and Chacon assaulted him. A couple days later the Astros release him and he clears waivers (meaning nobody wants to touch him with a 10 ft pole), and now the Player's Union is filing a grievance that he was wrongfully terminated. What part of that makes GM Wade an idiot? He did the right thing.

I think you have the names backwards. Chacon is the player, Wade is the GM who fired him. Chacon assaulted Wade before he was released. Here's Wade's version of what happened: Chacon sounded disgruntled, but never should have resorted to physically assaulting Wade. He deserved to be released after that. I don't think he or the Player's Union have a leg to stand on in this particular case with their grievance.

That makes no sense. You don't think they already use some of their profit and reinvest it in their business? HELLO! That's going on already. Everybody in this thread gets that - not sure who you're referring to. The difference is the demand for gasoline hasn't gone down as prices have gone up, as they would for corn flakes and nice shoes. Can you show me where it says that in their business plan? Or a contract they signed with the U.S. government? Where it's their DUTY? Even if they did everything within their power to "help out the country in times of crises" right now (by eliminating all profit from their business), your California gas price would only go down from $4.56 to $4.20. So the major problem of high gasoline price still exists, and now you've created companies that can't sustain their business or attract shareholders any longer, ultimately putting people out of jobs while still paying high prices at the pumps. ...

Agg's fault! Sorry, back at it then!

though if that means I get to see more Candice Parker on my local Fox Sports channel, that wouldn't be a bad deal.

also in 08: Charles Lloyd - Rabo de Nube Bjornstad/Rydal - Live from Leipzig Wacilewski Trio - January Bennie Maupin - Jewel in the Lotus reissue Though I'm assuming this award is for 2007...

Which is controlled by the cost of a barrel of crude oil coming into this country moreso than anything else. NOT oil companies profit margins. Your whole argument about profits has been irrelevant. edit - cost per gallon of gas here was $3.94 this morning. Up from $3.89 the past few days. Your prices for EVERYTHING are higher in California. edit 2 - that 10 cents per gallon doesn't add up to THAT much. If you fill up weekly with 15 gallons of gas, that's $1.50. Multiplied by 52 weeks, that's $78. PER YEAR. Bank on that.

Oil companies are one instance right now. They're simply passing on their increased cost of raw material to you the consumer, while maintaining their same profit margin - not increasing it. GM or Ford can't do this because people would simply not buy new cars, but hang on to their old ones for alot longer. The demand would go down. The oil industry is different because the demand doesn't go down. They CAN pass along their increased cost (due to the increased cost of their raw material) of doing business to us and we pay it. They don't HAVE to lay off anyone or decrease their profit margin from 8.5% to 6% or something (note - a reduction from 8.5% to 6% profit on a 4.00 gallon of gas would only decrease the pump price by 10 cents, so you're still payin the exorbitant price as I mentioned earlier, regardless of profit margin). You're so far off base here it's silly. Take away ALL of their profit and you still pay $3.66 instead of $4.00. WITH NO PROFIT TO THE COMPANIES. Their profit is clearly not the biggest chunk of what you pay at the pump.

Speaking of pushing, how about Astros pitcher Sean Chacon throwing GM Ed Wade to the floor and threatening him? He was kicked off the team, though the Player's Union is filing a grievance for being improperly terminated. Here's a description from the Astro's website:

Your chart shows that prices for gasoline have gone up. Alert the press! The demand for gasoline hasn't gone down enough to hurt the oil companies. They keep producing gas because the demand is there. So they don't have to lay off people like GM or Ford.

If you can figure out the back door deals going on, more power to you. Aim your anger there, and at OPEC & speculators. It does *NOT* stand to reason that as the cost of doing business goes up, profits shrink, in this case. Manufacturers regularly pass along price increases to consumers. Are you saying by the same token that if the cost of steel goes up, the price of cars and buildings should remain constant??

Look at the chart again, Goodspeak. If you ELIMINATE the concept of profit altogether from the picture ( ), you would remove 8.5% of the cost of a gallon of gas. For a gallon that costs you $4.00, this would eliminate 34 cents from your cost at the pump. Your price is now "only" $3.66. You're still paying an exorbitant price, and yet NO company in the United States would be willing to produce that gallon of gas for you, since they can't make a penny and keep their business going.

Disagree. Show me how that's a fact. I think you mean shrink instead of sprink (?). If the cost of business goes up (i.e. the cost of a barrel of crude goes quadruples), the oil companies are simply passing those costs along to consumers. They're keeping the same profit margin. I agree the system is being manipulated. But it always has been.

I understand your simple arithmetic. I'm asking you as a business, are oil companies not entitled to make an 8.5% profit? You seem to be saying no. I say yes. It's not an unrealistic percentage for any business. Their desire to make a profit isn't driving the prices up (as I keep stating and you keep refuting, their profit margin has remained the same), it's the price of crude that's driving the gas prices up.

Some good recommendations (and warm remembrances) from Ron Thorne and others in this Jim Pepper thread.