Guy Berger

That's what peeves me off, then the bank turns around and pays you like 2% or less interest on your savings account. They're not running a charity... Guy

I always liked his playing with King Crimson. I think 7/4 meant "every band", not "any band". FWIW, though he probably wouldn't have fit in with Zep due to his busy style, he and Bonham did share a certain kind of groove. Yes's music became less interesting rhythmically after he left. Guy

I assume you mean sugar? Coke has very little sodium, and I'll speculate that this is true for most other sodas. Somebody mentioned drinking orange juice -- the stuff you buy at the store has a ton of sugar in it. I am guessing home-squeezed stuff is less problematic. Guy

Do we really need to insure our citizens against stupidity? Dealing with "reality", we will insure them if "Wall St" will be damaged. What a bag of crap. decent mandatory basic economics courses for high school students (and high school teachers) would be a good place to start. AMEN!!! The fact that a large segment has difficulty understanding basic money matters is not a matter of stupidity, it's just ignorance. Ignorance can be 'cured' through education. and it's a damn shame that we aren't teaching kids basic money skills, nutrition, etc. I hate to admit it, but these skills would be a lot more useful to most of the population than the quadratic equation or even Shakespeare. In truth, I'm not really arguing for 'instead of' but rather than 'in addition to', but as parents can't seem to educate their kids on these matters (mainly because they, themselves, never learned), it would really be a boon to our society for the schools to step in and take up the slack. I agree 100%. (Also with Quincy's comment that students need to have basic probability drilled into their heads.) That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the results of this report (I had very low expectations):

So the solution to the problem of fast & easy money in the past is to make money fast & easy again? Cramer just didn't want to see his investment bank buddies lose their bonuses. i agree completely, but cramer is at least acknowledging the scope of the problem. From what I've seen, Cramer was exaggerating the scope of the problem. Guy

One thing you might want to eat is unsalted nuts -- probably healthier than most other snacks. Guy

FWIW, when I was interviewing for jobs last fall, some employers DID ask for GRE scores. Guy

I'm guessing that in Rateyourmusic's methodology, that would count as a compilation. Guy

I don't think the Fed cares very much about the dollar, if you mean the exchange rate. (As long as there are no huge, sudden swings in its value.) The Fed DOES care quite a bit about inflation. FWIW, a depreciation of the dollar against other currencies would have mixed effects. Driving up the price of imports (foreign currencies becoming more expensive) would probably have some of the effects you suggest, but it would also hurt the pocketbooks of many Americans. Also, American industries that depend on foreign imports would probably see their costs go up. Guy

Amateurs definitely don't make money doing that, unless they are extremely lucky. Guy

Actually, Jazz at Massey Hall (1953) did make the list, but basically you're correct. A compilation of ignorance - at least IMO. It's a list of ALBUMS, so I don't understand the point of this objection. Guy

Do we really need to insure our citizens against stupidity? I said "ensure", not "insure" -- two totally different words. It's pretty clear that many people have trouble understanding financial contracts and that at least in some cases, homebuyers ended up being misled or poorly informed by lenders. I agree with you that once reasonable disclosure of risks has been made, our government shouldn't be in the business of protecting people from their own idiocy. Guy

Beyond ensuring that people who take out mortgages aren't bamboozled by the details of their loans, I'm not sure what can really be done. Guy

Bill Poole is the President of the St. Louis Fed and a notable inflation hawks. Guy

Just saw the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". A very, very well-executed tribute to the original series. Guy

Well, this guy is generally known as a lunatic but this was exceptional even by his standards. As far as I can tell, the current anxiety in credit markets (which he is blowing out of proportion) has not had much spillover into the real economy. Guy

Fuck... it's supposed to be in the neighborhood of 100 for most of this week. Fortunately I spend most of the day in air-conditioned spaces. I walk to work at 6:45 AM, so normally the walk isn't bad, but it could get nasty this week. SS1, how the hell do you survive summers in Arizona? Still, I'm glad that there isn't much of that nasty NE humidity down here. At least so far. Guy

Joe, I screwed up the boldface marker on my response to Bev (now fixed). Bruford is the one denying jazz's influence on prog rock, a stance with which Bev disagreed later in the thread. Guy

I don't buy Bruford's argument. Wakeman and Anderson were clearly pretty far removed from jazz (and African-American music in general), but you can clearly hear a jazz influence in Steve Howe's playing. What about that guitar solo in "Perpetual Change"? Do you not buy Bruford's argument, or Bev's argument? Bruford's. Guy

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think I'm somewhere between you and Chewy on this. Obviously these albums came from the same band, and after Close to the Edge they realized that there was an audience for this kind of format. But on these albums they are CREATING, not RE-creating. TFtO is a natural extension/expansions of the ideas of CttE; Relayer strikes me as exploring a bunch of new avenues not on the earlier albums. (I think that by the time of GFtO and "Awaken", you can argue that they were trying to re-create old glories.) FWIW, as someone who enjoys Yes quite a bit (biased toward the early 70s period), I find the extreme hostility and contempt they still seem to arouse in some quarters to be mystifying. I guess the original reaction is "understandable" in the context of the times, if quite silly in retrospect. But that someone would listen to Close to the Edge or The Yes Album, or even Tales from Topographic Oceans, and call it venomous epithets seems very alien to me. Guy

Mr. Dip, It could be just a difference of opinion but "To Be Over" (the last tune on Relayer) is absolutely amazing, IMHO. One of the best tunes they ever recorded. Guy

I don't buy Bruford's argument. Wakeman and Anderson were clearly pretty far removed from jazz (and African-American music in general), but you can clearly hear a jazz influence in Steve Howe's playing. What about that guitar solo in "Perpetual Change"? Guy

Happy birthday! Guy