Bullet Point

*i never understood the 'keep him at one level for the year' preference. the point is to keep a guy challenged and improving. that can be done in any number of ways, it seems to me -- some guys may need a whole year at a level to consolidate and work on things, others not. This is particularly true with a pitcher, in my opinion. Their development is so fragile that I'd just as soon treat them with kid gloves in terms of pitch counts, etc (which the Dodgers do), but also push them upwards as quickly as possible. Why waste their bullets -- see if a guy can handle AA, then AAA and, then, if ready, the pros (per Joba Chamberlain, for example).

*recently read a survey of economists: 1 out of the entire sample (I want to say it was 100 economists, but can't remember) thought we'd be in a recession next year. 0 thought we'd be in a recession in 2 years. I know it's fashionable to say the sky is falling on no evidence whatsoever, but there's no reason to think we're in a recession or soon will be except for willful 'the glass is empty' thinking. Sorry.

I think Double A was a bit of a reach for Kershaw at this point, but not excessively. His stuff is so good across the board that when he's on, he can handle almost any level of competition. On the other hand, he does need to get more consistent from inning to inning, and I don't think jumping him out of A ball is a good way to let him work on that. If Kershaw's going to be battling himself half the time out there, I sure as hell don't want him doing it against advanced batters who are more capable of jumping on his mistakes. That's no way to help a kid develop a solid pitching approach.

I do think promotion to the Florida State League would've been fine. It's a slight step up and probably wasn't going to be much more of a challenge for Kershaw than the Midwest League, but at least it would've been a more gradual exposure to more advanced batters.

I agree with both points presented.

1.  Kershaw probably was not ready for such a big leap.  I would have much less of an issue with a promotion to A+ ball.  AA is a bit of a stretch for someone that still has some large problems with his BB rate.
2.  This downturn in our economy has been coming for quite a while.  The Fed has focused its efforts on inflation, and the housing slowdown has had a much larger affect on the overall economy than most first thought.  

into the gulf, expect the oil people to get rich as hell again like they did in 2005.

Guess it depends on how you consider a recession being "recognized", and what definition you use for recession. Some use a decline in GDP for two consecutive quarters, so we won't get there in the next three months. I'm curious how those numbers are calculated, if there could be any "cooking" of the books to insure the GDP keeps going up. As far as I can tell the last time the GDP went down even one quarter was 1990 (http://www.neatideas.com/data/data/GDP.htm), so not even 9/11 or the tech bubble caused a dip for one quarter, let alone two consecutive.

Using a looser definition for recession, I do think we'll get there, though Bush will surely deny it til he's out of office. But I think it will be early next year before we really hit the bottom.

Just happened to read a couple of articles on the sub-prime mess, and it just looks bad.

from: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/WhyYouCantTrustYourLender.aspx

and

from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20216643/page/3/

i agree with the aggressive promotion. i'll cite gary huckabay, who originally said "there's no such thing as a pitching prospect."

Now, I'm no expert, but I do transcribe and edit company financial quarterly conference calls for a living, and I can tell you, that out of the 10-15 calls per day that I do -- about one company a day actually has good news to report.

Bunches of companies are doing nothing but talking about how bad this subprime stuff is -- even companies that have little to nothing to do with the housing market.

Other companies are talking about how commodity prices have skyrocketed (anybody notice the price of cheese or milk or soda at the grocery store lately?)

And the biggest point is many companies believe people are spending less as a whole because they think the economy is going into the toilet (thus creating a self-fufilling prophecy.)  Notice Wall-Mart results yesterday??

Like, I said, I'm no expert, but everything I'm hearing from these CEOs and CFOs of U.S. companies is not good.

As for Kerhshaw -- I remain bullish!

I disagree on the economy point.  The market is in a state of flux, and the housing market is getting worse, but the trade deficit is closing, and consumer spending is still strong, so it will probably be a while longer before we are in a hard recession.

Did Mike Harkey predict a recession?

..always a courageous one (unless it's 1930), but probably about 40-60 or as high as 50-50 right now, which is pretty high IMO, 'til you actually hit the point of no return.

I think the economy will -- just barely -- muddle through, but I expect a lot of punk GDP numbers for the next few quarters, though no negative ones.

We'll see.

I'm no economist, but I feel we've been in a recession for a few years now.  Decreased job opportunities, a weak dollar, etc.  The government preached "consumerism as the new patriotism" to give a false sense of security by lowering taxes and interest rates.  Sorry, we can't spend our way out of a recession; sooner or later the debtors come calling.  The housing boom felt good, but it was always a house of cards.  

I don't have a problem with it.  With only a couple of weeks left in the season, the Dodgers are probably trying to figure out whether they should move him up to A+ or AA for next season.  If he can hold his own at AA over the last couple of weeks of the season, they can start him there next season.  If not, they'll just put him in A+ to start 2008.