2012 Elections in the USA

The only pollster to get the 2004 and 2008 presidental results exactly right was Rasmussen. Only one other pollster got the 2008 results dead on. That was Pew. At this moment Pew has Romney ahead by 4 and Rasmussen has it more or less a dead heat.

If you don't think CNN cooks the books with their polls you should have seen the CNN post debate interview with 8 'undecided' voters. Undecided, my ass. Each of the 8 were selected to be stelth Obama supporters. Each had their canned lines why they as 'undecided voters' thought Obama had won the debate. The CNN commentor was so depressed over the debate that he finally told the 8 'undecided' Obama supporters to face facts. Obama was crushed in the debate and even he, the CNN Obama commentor, could not tolerate the canned nonsense of the 8 'undecided' Obama supporters.

[QUOTE=El Alamo;427410]Only one other pollster got the 2008 results dead on. That was Pew. At this moment Pew has Romney ahead by 4 and Rasmussen has it more or less a dead heat.[/QUOTE]Just a few hours ago, Pew released their latest poll showing Romney and Obama now in a dead heat amongst women voters.

New Pew Poll Shows Romney And Obama Pulling Even With Women Voters.

[url]http://www.inquisitr.com/357613/new-pew-poll-shows-romney-and-obama-pulling-even-with-women-voters/#MzGPzQMYpv8GmcQT.99[/url]

It's refreshing to learn that women voters might cast their vote based on something other than free birth control pills.

Thanks,

Jackson

[QUOTE=El Alamo; 427410]The only pollster to get the 2004 and 2008 presidental results exactly right was Rasmussen. Only one other pollster got the 2008 results dead on. That was Pew. At this moment Pew has Romney ahead by 4 and Rasmussen has it more or less a dead heat.

If you don't think CNN cooks the books with their polls you should have seen the CNN post debate interview with 8 'undecided' voters. Undecided, my ass. Each of the 8 were selected to be stelth Obama supporters. Each had their canned lines why they as 'undecided voters' thought Obama had won the debate. The CNN commentor was so depressed over the debate that he finally told the 8 'undecided' Obama supporters to face facts. Obama was crushed in the debate and even he, the CNN Obama commentor, could not tolerate the canned nonsense of the 8 'undecided' Obama supporters.[/QUOTE]FYI, Rassmussen USED TO BE a very accurate pollster. They no longer are. And in actual fact, in 2010, their mean result over SEVERAL DOZENS of congressional races (a quite meaningful sample, much more so than a single Presidential election in 2008) was 3.9% incorrectly skewed toward the Conservative / Republican end of the spectrum. There is a reason for this, and it is because they use a methodology that has become obsolete over time as cell phones have become pervasive. And that is, they ONLY survey a population that is selected via from people who have land line telephones. And in the past 5 years or so, a very substantial portion of the population, which happens to skew very young, very mobile, and leans strongly Liberal / Democratic, have ceased to use land line phones at all, and only use mobile phones as their only phone. This entire population is completely missed by Rassmussen's methodology, and they have not yet made any correction for this situation.

Here is an excellent analysis of this issue by Nate Silver of the New York Times:

[url]http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/[/url]

Very good WT69, now can you read the link and find the exceptions to Chapter 11 which I refer to as "Obama-ruptcy"? I'll give you a hint,"prepackage","government payments". They should have gone through Chapter 13 not 11 but why sweat it with the fix in from Obama. Also check out how much was left for the original equity holders.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427285]Getting into Harvard's MBA program is roughly 2-3 orders of magnitude lesser of an exclusive accomplishment than getting appointed President of Harvard Law Review. Even for someone who probably earned it like Mitt Romney (as opposed to legacy entrees like Dubya). I personally got into Harvard's MBA program, without a rich legacy entree that G. W. Bush had, although I personally chose to attend a more quantitatively rigorous program, one in which I doubt that Dubya could have handled the higher level math.[/QUOTE]I can't understand why anyone with a background in business would be a rabid supporter of Obama, except some special cases like the CEO's of alternative energy companies and Hollywood studios. So enlighten me, why are you? Is your experience in business or government? I'm not being flippant, I'm honestly curious. Maybe you'll teach me something.

This is great. Obama's response to a terrorist attack that killed our ambassador in Libya was to immediately go to a Las Vegas liquor soaked fundraiser event.

On the same theme, Obama might not take terrorist attacks seriously but Obama has enough time to reassure 'Big Bird' that the Obama administration will continue wasting taxpayer money to keep 'Big Bird' on the air. Nonchalantly oblivious to fact that that we have trillion dollar plus annual deficits.

Much to 'Big Birds' credit the response from 'Big Bird' was. 'Big Bird' to Obama. Shut the f* up and start taking your job seriously. Try attending more than one national security briefing in 3 years and think about creating jobs. I think 'Big Bird' has more on the ball than Obama and I am sure 'Big Bird' could have done a better than Obama during the first Romney / Obama debate. Whoops, I forgot, 'Bird bird' has already said that ' Big Bird' considers Obama to be a fake, fraud, phoney and huckster.

Or as Romney said "You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird, I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs."

I think Obama is revealing his true intellect which is somewhere between imbecile and moron and rapidly declining to idiot status

[QUOTE=Tiny12;427422]I can't understand why anyone with a background in business would be a rabid supporter of Obama, except some special cases like the CEO's of alternative energy companies and Hollywood studios. So enlighten me, why are you? Is your experience in business or government? I'm not being flippant, I'm honestly curious. Maybe you'll teach me something.[/QUOTE]My experience is as a director of marketing and business development for a couple of high tech companies, one of which I cashed out my stock options from, and retired circa 2005. I am also a graduate of the Economics Department and the MBA program at the highly conservative University of Chicago. I am a rare moderate to emerge from there, and while there, I studied under Gary Becker, George Stigler, Merton Miller, Eugene Fama, and several other notable folks. I am also somewhat of a student of Economic history over the past century.

First of all, I am NOT a rabid supporter of Obama. What I am is a person who is convinced that the laissez-faire, de-minimus regulatory policies, and the only recipe for growth being cutting taxes to the wealthy and to businesses that Mitt Romney espouses have been thoroughly discredited over the course of the past couple of decades, and if we were return to them, we will be well on the way to a trajectory toward becoming a failed state. I consider Romney and in particular, the agenda espoused by Paul Ryan, to be an unmitigated disaster for this nation if it were to take hold.

We only have two real choices in the present election. One of whom, Obama, I consider to be mediocre, but FAR less onerous than Romney / Ryan. Obama's POLICIES, BTW, I consider to be much more on the right track than Romney's. But I certainly will accept that Obama's personal execution of those policies, and his effectiveness in working with a hostile Congress to get things implemented, have been less than impressive. In this regard, he's no Bill Clinton. And would that we could actually vote for Clinton now, he'd DWARF both Romney and Obama as a positive choice to move this country forward.

That being said, IMHO, by far the biggest threat to the future prosperity of the American state is the ever-widening gulf of empowerment between the most affluent and the dwindling middle class. This trajectory was really started in earnest under Reagan, and only saw a brief respite during the Clinton years, before really kicking into gear during G. W. Bush's Presidency. The fact is, Obama has NOT been as ineffectual as the right wing claims. It was entirely unreasonable to assume that any sort of collapse of the magnitude that Obama inherited, could be recovered from in less than 6-7 years, and we are only half way into that time span. The ONLY recession that was EVER worse than the one Obama inherited was the Great Depression, and the Great Depression took 12 years and the buildup to WWII for that recovery to really take hold. It is unreasonable to assume that THIS recovery, from a downturn that was very nearly as bad, could be accomplished in less than half of that same timeframe. And during that time, what Obama HAS accomplished is the restoration of something on the order of 70% of the lost wealth of the last recession. And this restoration of lost wealth is the most important first step in the recovery process. The second most important step was to halt the job losses. Any serious analysis of the timing of the Obama stimulus package will demonstrate that the stimulus package beginning, and it's taking effect in earnest directly correlate with the inflection points of the unemployment curve. The main flaws of the stimulus package were that it was far too SMALL, given the magnitude of the problem it was intended to cure, and that it did not have a secondary phase that was almost entirely oriented toward beefing up the nation's infrastructure, rather than the significant portions of pork that the existing package doled out, which were so popular that even blowhards like Bobby Jindal found a means of accepting them even as he mocked the very program that was gilding his lilly. In particular, the infrastructure emphasis should have been oriented to enabling delivery of alternative energy sources rather than oil. In particular, enabling natural gas and later fuel cells, from being the replacement for petroleum-based fuels for our vehicles.

And finally, there is the age-old question, are you better off than you were 4 years ago? In my personal situation, the answer is unambiguously YES. 4 years ago, my personal wealth had been utterly gutted by the Bush financial collapse. Under Obama (with serious help from another student of economic history, Ben Bernanke) the lost value of my personal wealth has been roughly 80% restored.

It's ludicrous for Romney to claim that he understands how to create jobs, and how taxes disincentivize otherwise optimal business decisions, because he personally has only created jobs in OTHER countries, by outsourcing those from the USA, and all he understands about taxes is how to maximize his avoidance of them. And finally, the SINGULAR impressive accomplishment on Romney's record as it would relate to being President, would be the implementation of a universal health-care system in Massachussetts. But Romney has bowed to the politically craven winds of the Republican party, and disavowed his own principles and run away from his own accomplishment as far and as fast as he can, when in fact, the ONLY thing that would recommend him as a potential President would be were he to implement a nearly identical universal health-care plan nation-wide. Which, BTW, is exactly what Obama actually did, and what Romney has made clear he would NOT do as President, and in fact, would dis-assemble it.

Member 2041, If you're open minded and run across a copy of the New Yorker, the October 1 edition, you should read the article on Romney. It might change your mind about how well equipped he is to lead the country. I don't understand your criticism of Reagan. He and Volcker pulled us out of a situation at least as difficult as the one we're in now. Middle class incomes grew significantly during the Reagan years. I would fault Reagan for not balancing the budget and Clinton for raising taxes on ordinary income (he wisely dropped the capital gains tax rate) , but otherwise believe both were good presidents. Obama's performance has been abysmal compared to them.

We need at least six to seven years for a recovery? This is the worst recession in the history of the United States except for the great depression? Those aren't reasonable claims. There have been numerous recessions in USA history far worse than the one we went through. As you point out Obama and the Democrat congress did not design a good stimulus program -- too much pork and too little infrastructure -- and that is one of the reasons for a slow recovery.

I believe the reverse of what you do about taxation, and suspect you base your analysis too much on a 20 or 30 year period of USA history. If income taxes went down during the Bush presidency (and arguably became more progressive too) , that doesn't mean lower taxes reduce middle class incomes. Many countries have wisely reduced marginal tax rates on businesses, because they believe lower rates create better economies. Globalization and technology are the chief culprits for the long term decline in middle class incomes. Solutions include better education and a better trained work force, along with tax and regulatory policies that promote growth.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;427432]We need at least six to seven years for a recovery? This is the worst recession in the history of the United States except for the great depression? Those aren't reasonable claims.[/QUOTE]Not in USA history, but certainly it is within the past century. And the fact is, we barely averted the 2nd great Depression. They are not only reasonable claims, they are facts.

And sorry, but the only way one can make a case that Mitt Romney would NOT be a disaster would be if you take the position that everything he said during the Republican primaries was a lie.

And it is also a fact that while Reagan did lead an economic recovery, his policies did begin the era of deregulation that has resulted in the diminution of the Middle class in the USA at the expense of the wealthy. Middle class income did rise under Reagan, but nowhere near as much on a percentage basis as that of the affluent. And even that only happened because of the severity of the downturn we had been in. The fact is, the scenario we have now where the Middle Class is being left behind while the affluent prosper has it's roots in the deregulatory regime begun by Reagan, and now aggressively promoted by Romney.

Obviously, you are entitled to your beliefs on tax policy, but your beliefs happen to be erroneous, and not backed up at all by the empirical data. And it is also true that the periods of substantial prosperity in this nation occurred under Reagan and Clinton, where the highest bracket for the affluent was FAR higher than it presently is, and the progressiveness of the tax code in terms of rates was significantly more than it presently is as well.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;427422]I can't understand why anyone with a background in business would be a rabid supporter of Obama, except some special cases like the CEO's of alternative energy companies and Hollywood studios. So enlighten me, why are you? Is your experience in business or government? I'm not being flippant, I'm honestly curious. Maybe you'll teach me something.[/QUOTE]Pick out Bloomberg Video on October 9, 2012. CEO of Evercore Partners, Robert Scholsstein gives an rational explaination for the state of affairs today. And if the GOP do not take any responsiblity for the gridlock, then just fold the tent.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427435]Obviously, you are entitled to your beliefs on tax policy, but your beliefs happen to be erroneous, and not backed up at all by the empirical data.[/QUOTE]That's not true. Your assumption that tax policy is the reason for stagnant or declining middle class incomes, if that's what you believe, is erroneous. Compare Hong Kong and Singapore to other Asian countries, or take a look at changes in tax rates and economic growth in Eastern Europe over time the way you've done in the USA and you'd decide that low stable income tax rates are good for everyone.

You can correlate stock market performance with whether an NFC or AFC team won the superbowl. That doesn't mean there's cause and effect.

You may or may not have a point about regulation. If you're writing about requiring banks to loan money to people who can't afford to repay loans and allowing financial institutions to operate with very little equity compared to their assets, then you're right. But if you're writing about the EPA trying to put a stop to hydraulic fracturing or the IRS making people spend a month a year filling out forms, you're wrong.

Blackshirt, I haven't seen the video yet, but will try to. Gridlock is good. It keeps politicians from screwing the rest of us over even worse.

[QUOTE=Tiny12; 427441]That's not true. Your assumption that tax policy is the reason for rising gaps in income in the USA over the last 30 years is erroneous. Compare Hong Kong and Singapore to other Asian countries, or take a look at changes in tax rates and economic growth in Eastern Europe over time the way you've done in the USA and you'd decide that low stable income tax rates are good for everyone.

You can correlate stock market performance with whether an NFC or AFC team won the superbowl. That doesn't mean there's cause and effect.

You may or may not have a point about regulation. If you're thinking about requiring banks to loan money to people who can't afford to repay loans and allowing financial institutions to operate with very little equity compared to their assets, then you're right. But if you're thinking about the EPA trying to put a stop to hydraulic fracturing or the IRS making people spend a month a year filling out forms, you're wrong.

Blackshirt, I haven't seen the video yet, but will try to. Gridlock is good. It keeps politicians from screwing the rest of us over even worse.[/QUOTE]First of all, I did not say that the tax policy was responsible for the rising gaps in income over the past 30 years. What I said was, that that was predominantly due to the broad-scale deregulation of commerce that occurred during that timeframe, and which has enabled the wealthy to exploit the workers and outsource the higher value jobs from this country. The tax policy does, however help to maintain and exacerbate the WEALTH gap, if not the income gap.

Secondly, it's fascinating for me to see the sort of cognitive dissonance that is pervasive among many mindless Romney supporters out there. You asked a question, with the very ridiculous underlying assumption that there is no plausible basis for supporting Obama in this election if one is in favor of economic growth. You were given a straightforward answer to that question. But one that has it's underpinnings on an entirely different set of underlying assumptions than you seem to accept as gospel despite there not being any credible evidence. The claim that tax cuts for the wealthy has been the catalyst for economic growth in the USA simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Quite simply, I've done the diligence, as have quite a few other economists such as Paul Krugman, and the majority of your deeply held assumptions about what has caused, and what has impeded prosperity within the USA economy over the past 30+ years are simply not borne out in the actual empirical data. See the 2nd link, below for the gory details.

[url]http://www.ctmirror.org/story/17498/nonpartisan-congressional-study-tax-breaks-rich-dont-grow-jobs[/url]

[url]http://www.ctmirror.org/sites/default/files/documents/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf[/url]

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427443] What I said was, that that was predominantly due to the broad-scale deregulation of commerce that occurred during that timeframe, and which has enabled the wealthy to exploit the workers and outsource the higher value jobs from this country. The tax policy does, however help to maintain and exacerbate the WEALTH gap, if not the income gap.[/QUOTE]You've got it backwards by the way. Regulation causes jobs to leave the country. That and a screwed up corporate tax system, with high marginal rates and penalties for repatriating profits back to the USA, that would be used to invest and create jobs here.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;427446]You've got it backwards by the way. Regulation causes jobs to leave the country. That and a screwed up corporate tax system, with high marginal rates and penalties for repatriating profits back to the USA, that would be used to invest and create jobs here.[/QUOTE]Except that does NOT even begin to explain why the most prosperous periods in this nation's history were during times when the highest tax rates on the wealthy and on corporations were MUCH higher than they are now. What you believe will happen, has actually never happened in recorded history, despite having been well and truly tried.

I presented you with the analysis that has been done on this issue, and which conclusively rebuts your unsubstantiated belief system, which I see you did not bother to address. You might just as well base your positions on a belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Just because your mommy told you that these things exist when you were 3 years old did not actually make it so.

For the 5th time, look at the world, not just the USA. And look at other considerations, or variables or whatever you want to call them, besides just USA personal income taxes, USA income and USA GDP and you'll come to different conclusions. You're right about the income gap and taxes by the way. I actually edited my post before you posted my original quote. If you have a sharply progressive tax system, where you tax those at the top at 90%, you will decrease the gap. I'm out of here, this is a big time waster. You can have the last word if you so choose.