Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

[don]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

What we are seeing is the Politics of Distraction in full drag. People will be curious/enraged with an African-American presidente. That's the goal, me buckos. Obama is the Jimmy Carter of '08, McCain the Bob Dole who ran against an unbeatable Clinton. Dole took a bullet for the Party, so is McCain, not in anyway ruling out their burning desire to sit in Macy's window as the newest Santa. Much like Carter, Obama will be swept away as an incompetent within 2 years. By then, the Central Banks and Wall Street will have enjoyed 24 months of domestic obfuscation on the Grandest Heist of all time.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I won't point any fingers expect to say that the idea this is a conspiracy is absurd.

Bush did what he believed to be right. History will either prove him to be the ultimate idiot or a principled risk taker. Sometimes I swear I think both on the same day.

If you really want to exercise your tin foil, feel free to follow the news on bear sterns. That's interesting stuff.

However, as for politics, people only call it a conspiracy because it helps them feel better about not understanding it.

Do people in politics lie and manipulate? Of course. Everyone does in every single social situation of their lives. Partly it's because we want to control, but also because we simply don't know the real truth and it's easier to pretend we do.

Does anyone in politics conspire? Rarely. The few times they do, they're taking huge huge chances, and it frequently blows up in their faces .. even more so these a days.

Hell, people are getting screwed over / prosecuted simply because they aren't telling the truth *well enough*, nevermind lying.

But the idea that someone controls what's going on.. hah hah. Are those black helicopters I see? whirr whirr whirr...

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Though, I have to say, I do sympathize a little with those who call out zionism. I have to say, if you look at the history of israel, it's not pretty.

[Jay]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

This is anecdotal so please take it for what it is worth, but it was interesting to me so here it is:

A well connected close family member of mine in his 80's who was the VP of a large blue chip American company and who has certain conservative old school views, is convinced that Obama is going to win, and he is voting for him. He usually votes Democratic, but this surprised me because I wasn't sure someone of his generation would vote for a black man when it came down to it.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I won't point any fingers expect to say that the idea this is a conspiracy is absurd.

Bush did what he believed to be right. History will either prove him to be the ultimate idiot or a principled risk taker. Sometimes I swear I think both on the same day.

If you really want to exercise your tin foil, feel free to follow the news on bear sterns. That's interesting stuff.

However, as for politics, people only call it a conspiracy because it helps them feel better about not understanding it.

Do people in politics lie and manipulate? Of course. Everyone does in every single social situation of their lives. Partly it's because we want to control, but also because we simply don't know the real truth and it's easier to pretend we do.

Does anyone in politics conspire? Rarely. The few times they do, they're taking huge huge chances, and it frequently blows up in their faces .. even more so these a days.

Hell, people are getting screwed over / prosecuted simply because they aren't telling the truth *well enough*, nevermind lying.

But the idea that someone controls what's going on.. hah hah. Are those black helicopters I see? whirr whirr whirr...

I don't, so speak for yourself, Canucko.

[FRED]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I don't, so speak for yourself, Canucko.

We don't do conspiracy theories over here at iTulip but acknowledge there is plenty of lying going on. Two recent articles from the MSM: note that saying that the government is lying about inflation or reacting too slowly to it is no longer tin foil hat.

Lies, Damned Lies and Inflation Statistics
August 4, 2008 (Newsweek)

Developing countries like China are infamous for fudging economic stats, but in reality, lying about inflation is as American as baseball.

Academic economists have long grumbled about the unreliability of official inflation data, but the belief that things are worse than governments are willing to admit is trickling down from the ivory tower. Even Charles Bean, the new deputy governor of the Bank of England, has publicly criticized central bankers' use of "core inflation" data, which disregards food and energy prices, in setting policy. When "non-core" items like gas and cereal rise so much that consumers have little cash to spend on anything but those essentials, it's hard to ignore.

The temptation to fudge numbers is one that bureaucrats worldwide find hard to resist. In Argentina, where government reassurances about single-digit inflation have long seemed unconnected to consumer reality, revamping the government statistics office became an issue in the last national election. In China, where data based on the prices for state-provided goods and services are increasingly irrelevant in a privatizing economy, the stats are so out of whack that Goldman Sachs has resorted to a movie-review-style system to rank the quality of official data on a scale from one to five. But the habit of playing fast and loose with numbers isn't native to the developing countries where high inflation reigns. Indeed, the popular "core inflation" method for measuring changes in consumer prices is actually as all-American as Enron's accounting practices.

In the early 1970s, the United States found itself vexed by a newly powerful cartel of foreign oil producers, a 300 percent rise in crude prices and a new and unpleasant realization that Americans were no longer the sole masters of their own economic house. Rather than reining in its own politically driven monetary policies to slow the surge in consumer prices accompanying the oil shock, the Nixon-era Federal Reserve hit on the novel strategy of trying to cover it up instead. The traditional "headline" inflation rate, measuring the rise or fall of an average of all prices for a broad basket of goods and services, was nudged aside in favor of an index that stripped out the supposedly more volatile categories of food (subject to price spikes due to weather or plague) and energy (subject to price spikes due to unfriendly foreigners). Consumers may still have felt pain at the gas station and grocery store, but the government would no longer officially confirm their discomfort.

Manipulated numbers notwithstanding, high inflation would outlast the Nixon years, and by the end of the 1970s, futzing with the figures that measure it had become common. Prices of everything from used cars to children's clothing were given the heave in order to make the numbers look better. As control of the White House shifted from Republicans to Democrats and back, both parties needed to avoid giving the impression that inflation was actually worse than it had been when the other guys were in power.

By the mid-1990s, while stodgier central bankers in Europe and Britain still clung to old-fashioned headline inflation to guide policy, the United States was rolling out "hedonic adjustments" that used technological breakthroughs to justify adjusting inflation estimates downward, even when advances like faster computer processors didn't touch most people's lives, let alone boost their spending power. And just in case technology didn't bring prices down fast enough, the United States enthusiastically embraced "substitution effects," opting to measure hamburger prices instead of steak if steak prices rose unpalatably. Even a boom in house prices could be negated simply by choosing to count slow-rising apartment rents instead of soaring home values.

So what to do if governments can't be trusted to get the data right? Try doing it yourself. To this end, the United Kingdom's national statistics office offers a personal inflation calculator on its Web site that lets consumers create their own index based on personal observations. As Groucho Marx might have said, "Who are you going to believe—the Fed or your own eyes?"

The second article is a letter from ex FOMC member Edwin M. Truman stating that the government's tardy response to inflation is disingenuous.

Learn the right inflation lessons from the 1970s
August 1, 2008 (Financial Times)

From Mr Edwin M. Truman:

Sir, Mark Gertler (“America must not act rashly over inflation”, July 29) correctly reminds the Federal Reserve not to overreact to rising headline inflation in the US as necessarily presaging a return to the 1970s. However, as someone who lived through that period on the staff of the Federal Open Markets Committee, I believe it is important to learn the right lessons and not to underreact either.

First, Prof Gertler knows but did not state that inflation expectations are endogenous. As long as market participants believe that the Fed will do the right thing, inflation expectations will remain well anchored, as they appear to be at present. However, they remained anchored well into the late 1970s, as demonstrated by a negative inflation premium in 10-year interest rates. It was replaced by a substantial positive inflation premium that persisted into the late 1980s.

Second, contrary to Prof Gertler's argument, in the 1970s core inflation (excluding food and energy) did not initially rise. For six quarters from mid-1972 to late 1973 core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation remained firmly below 4 per cent as headline PCE inflation rose to 6 per cent and beyond. The Fed ignored this signal, and the result was a sorry history.

Third, the argument at the time was that inflation was caused by rising energy and later food prices that the Fed could not influence. That argument was wrong then and is wrong now. Inflation is not caused by rising prices; it is caused by demand outstripping supply. US and global monetary policy have a good deal to do with creating the conditions under which that occurs, whether in oil markets, commodity markets more generally, or in other markets for goods and services.

Edwin M. Truman,
Senior Fellow,
Peterson Institute for International Economics,
Washington, DC 20036, US

Who could have known?

[don]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

"Bush did what he believed to be right. History will either prove him to be the ultimate idiot or a principled risk taker."

If you actually believe George Bush directed, or was capable of directing American domestic and foreign policy over the last 7+ years, more power to you and your bubble.

[BrianL]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Obama sounds nice but ultimately has no defense to the accusation that he doesn't understand and won't protect the baby boomers' interests.

Realistically though, who can deliver on this sort of promise? We all know the gov already over promised between social security and medicare; there is no way they'll be able to fund everything.

That said, if the argument is about perception, you could be very right. Given the voting demographics, this could be a big win for McCain depending on how much he is willing to stretch the truth/run up debt.

[metalman]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Realistically though, who can deliver on this sort of promise? We all know the gov already over promised between social security and medicare; there is no way they'll be able to fund everything.

That said, if the argument is about perception, you could be very right. Given the voting demographics, this could be a big win for McCain depending on how much he is willing to stretch the truth/run up debt.

shitstorm will cover several admins. republicans dump mess on obama ala mess dropped on clinton by bush one. but much bigger mess, tho. if obama fails them reps again in 2012.

republican party gotta be throwing everything at it now to use up bullets to crush the next admin. why else run a geezer like mccain? he's supposed to lose.

[KGW]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Realistically though, who can deliver on this sort of promise? We all know the gov already over promised between social security and medicare; there is no way they'll be able to fund everything.

The budget of the Pentagon could cover most everything, and still provide for the common DEFENSE. Of course, by the time that type of sense appears in the United States, pigs may well be flying about

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Does anyone in politics conspire?

Did you follow closely the Republican primaries while still an actual contest?

Call this opinion what you will, but it seemed to me that Fred Thompson's role was to serve as McCain's surrogate attack dog.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

We don't do conspiracy theories over here at iTulip but acknowledge there is plenty of lying going on.

It is a thin line. For instance, I might opine that there is a conspiracy to cover up what really happened behind the 'anthrax attacks', especially in light of this report that was published by New Scientist Magazine: Anthrax attack bug "identical" to army strain "The DNA sequence of the anthrax sent through the US mail in 2001 has been revealed and confirms suspicions that the bacteria originally came from a US military laboratory" and Itulip would officially say what, that the the FedGov lied about Hatfill and now the lone dead guy being responsible for everything, what is the difference? Or have I not gone far enough with this example (i.e. and directly implicated the FedGov in carrying out the anthrax mailings) for there to be a difference?

[Judas]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

However, as for politics, people only call it a conspiracy because it helps them feel better about not understanding it.

Do people in politics lie and manipulate? Of course.

People call it them conspiracies because they are usually conspiracies. When political groups "lie and manipulate" it is a conspiracy- multiple individuals are coordinating deceptive/secret information and actions toward some goal. For example (as per FRED's post) when the government releases BS inflation numbers it isn't an "oops" or some "bad apple", it's groups of people willfully torturing numbers for political purposes.

Politics is primarily multiple, overlapping, competing conspiracies.

Of course many folks believe that political parties, government bureacracies, etc. are just universally and horrifically stupid. Don't contribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity and all that jazz.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

McBush will continue to lie;
The conservative 501's will create more outrageous lies;
The news media will repeat the lies;
The 60% of the people who believe off shore drilling will solve our energy problems will buy the lies;
McBush wins, We Are Toast!

[mikedev10]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

i was amazed mccain pulled it out from where he started. i expected romney to win the nom. NH seemed to be the major turning point for mccain, they love him there. i was hoping that libertarian leaning NH would be the turning point for my boy ron paul. RP actually did extremely well in NH exit polls - but they thought mccain was more electable. i expect obama to have little trouble defeating mccain.

fwiw i'm 29 and the only time i've ever voted was in the last primary. i never paid much attention to economics or politics before that. my dad voted for mccain but i got the rest of my family to vote for RP. i donated a little over $1000 to him and if he's feeling good in 4 years i will be doing much more. odds of this place being a mess are still pretty good. just hope he's not feeling too old then. he would not start out as the unknown he was this time.

mccain has been noted as having trouble reaching the youth. i think i last read their solution was to try and update his myspace page. i still think it is hilarious that so much of RP popularity was attributed to things like having a myspace. within the RP community it is fairly well known that obama supporters were the easiest to convert - especially young ones when you started challenging them on economic issues.