Can the PB community get the US election right?
October 15th, 2008
In recent weeks several members of the PB community have been keeping score-cards of the state polling and have been making projections of what is going to happen on November 4th in the 2008 Presidential election. So let’s widen this out.
The last time we ran an election prediction survey was on the Glasgow East by election and, unlike the so called panel “experts and insiders ” at Politics Home, we got the result spot on.
Lets try to do it again with the American election? Please do the “poll” below putting your best estimate of what you think will happen - not what you would like to happen.
Mike Smithson
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No - the stock answer to any pb.com question is surely wrong in this instance.
1st (?) and a newbie…
Damn and blast it. I still expect an October surprise in the US campaign - Karl Rove must be planning summat - and this may influence it, although Obama’s lead appears to be becoming pretty solid.
I want the US to finally get it right, by electing Obama.
It’s no time for a novice - but Obama to win handsomely.
[3] - Not only that, but I’m spooked by the Greg Palast report on Newsnight, and memories of 2000. Consequently I think the result will be a wee bit tighter than the ARSE ,and others, predict.
‘Salmond predicts Glenrothes win’
First Minister Alex Salmond has challenged Gordon Brown to a head-to-head debate in the run-up to the Glenrothes by-election. As he launched the SNP campaign for the seat, Mr Salmond predicted the nationalists would pull off a shock in the vacant Westminster seat next month.
Mr Salmond said: “I detect that the political earth is still shaking from Glasgow East and it’s going to be felt next here in Glenrothes.”
However, The BBC has learned that Gordon Brown has been told that Labour will win the Glenrothes by-election. The BBC understands that campaign strategists - who just three weeks ago were warning the prime minister that Labour would lose — have now told him that the tide has turned in the constituency…
… [Alex Salmond] welcomed Mr Brown’s plans to campaign in the constituency: “Battle will be joined and the issue will be toe-to-toe. I’ll be delighted to meet Gordon on the campaign trail - I would be delighted, incidentally, to debate with the prime minister.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7670670.stm
Oooohhhh….. this is gonna be fun…..
Worryingly the only thing now which can beat Barack Obama is a bullet fired by some crackpot fundamentalist right-winger who has been fired up by the dangerous and overtly racist attacks of Sarah Palin. SKY has been showing John McCain reacting to the white supremacists among his “constituency” who claim they are scared of an Obama victory. I wonder how that makes the good people of Illinois who elected him feel?
Anyway back to the UK and normal business seems to have resumed. Harperson completely humiliated by our Shadow Deputy PM and FS at PMQS and well done Vince Cable (the LibDems really scored an own goal not persuading him to stand instead of Clegg or Huhne)for landing a couple of well aimed punches as well. The silence of Labour backbenchers was deafening. I wonder if NP and SJ will come on later to give their birds eye impression?
Adam Boulton asks the Great Leader if unemployment will peak at 3 million by Christmas (surely a freudian slip)and how on earth does he expect the banks to return to 2007 lending levels. Saint Gordon of the Economic Miracle bodyswerved the former and answered the latter with a new set of tractor numbers.
FTSE down 245 so far this afternoon and talk of the banking bailout unravelling.
Brown claims working on lowering food and petrol prices but no sign of him cutting the tax. SO the fact unleaded now heading below £1 per litre probably means Darling is ready to sneak back in the 2p rise which he only deferred.
Even in the Time front pages, the contrast is startling. An up close and personal younger Obama smiling, as opposed to his more distant and older smirking opponent McCain.
“First Minister Alex Salmond has challenged Gordon Brown to a head-to-head debate in the run-up to the Glenrothes by-election.”
10 I think we can assume that the invitation will be declined.
Must admit,I was first tempted to vote in the 330-359 bracket,feeling a shade of nerves,but then recalled most state-by-state breakdowns yield a 360-389 ECV score for Obama,and voted accordingly.
On-topic,on the night,as Florida,Virginia,West Virginia and Ohio are (correct me if wrong) in the first two time zones to call-it may well be that Democratic supporters will be cheering and dancing quite early on.(I may well be bopping to Fleetwood Mac ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow’ on youtube whilst watching the Beeb coverage on my widescreen.GO-BAMA!!!
Must admit,I was first tempted to vote in the 330-359 bracket,feeling a shade of nerves,but then recalled most state-by-state breakdowns yield a 360-389 ECV score for Obama,and voted accordingly.
On-topic,on the night,as Florida,Virginia,West Virginia and Ohio are (correct me if wrong) in the first two time zones to call-it may well be that Democratic supporters will be cheering and dancing quite early on.(I may well be bopping to Fleetwood Mac ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow’ on youtube whilst watching the Beeb coverage on my widescreen.GO-BAMA!!!
3- October surprises, backroom plotters and other such bogeymen, indeed…
This election is over and Obama will win in the range of 300 to 360 electoral votes, which roughly corresponds to the six-point Obama win in the two-party vote that I have been predicting here on PB for several months. I would guess the most likely result is in the middle of that range, but I voted for 300 to 329 as slightly more likely than the higher option.
It is hilarious how Karl Rove has inspired the modern version of the early Cold War’s “Commies under the bed” mentality. He is seemingly everywhere doing everything to defeat the Democrats. They seem to be scared sh*tless of him. It’s all quite unnecessary, boys and girls… Obama wins.
Voted 270 - I think it’ll be close.
8: I haven’t commented on PMQs for ages - waste of time and we all claim our side won and deride any hint of doubt on the other side. But I draw Easterross’s attention to the comments of others that it was a bit flat.
11.Most definitely. Some wag could also point out that Alex Salmond is a Westminster MP, that does entitle him to pop down to PMQ’s occasionally, maybe he can ask him a direct question then?
‘Glenrothes byelection: Alex Salmond challenges Gordon Brown to debate’
“This is a winter byelection, and that will concentrate minds wonderfully in this campaign,” [Alex Salmond] said.
In a measure of the byelection’s significance to Brown… the party’s whips had been instructed to help every MP and peer join the campaign, either in person or by telephoning voters.
The first minister pledged to match the dozen visits he made during the three weeks of the Glasgow East byelection, urging voters to support the SNP.
The nationalists hope that Brown’s appearances in Glenrothes could backfire, since they anticipate he will only attend staged events with invited guests, to avoid unscripted meetings with voters…
A Labour spokesman said: “… Alex Salmond seems to be planning to spend more time in Glenrothes than actually running the country, like in Glasgow East, when he gave up running Scotland to run their byelection campaign.”
Salmond called on the government to suspend the 5% VAT paid on domestic energy this winter, at a cost of £1.5bn across the UK, increase winter fuel relief to pensioners by another £100 on top of the earlier £100 increase, to meet rising fuel costs, and cut VAT on all home energy efficiency measures to 5%.
… Labour sources insist their vote is solid, and growing, with Tory supporters switching to stop the SNP winning the seat.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/15/glenrothes-alexsalmond
15 NickP “Voted 270 - I think it’ll be close”
Any special reason, Nick, given that this is so far from what the polls are saying?
haEasteross - Clearly we watched adifferent PMQs Harriet was awful BUT no one challenged her. Whilst irrelevant, unless like me you have an Equitable pension, she seemed to imply Equitable Life was a bank. She didnt answer Vince’s (good) question about Job Centres - how will they cope? Or understand that our 10% interest rate cut was much less than our competitors. And as for Hague I didn’t see the point of his questions.
What was needed was some Tam Dayell short, direct, questions.
17. … Labour sources insist their vote is solid, and growing, with Tory supporters switching to stop the SNP winning the seat
Nurse - a needle and thread to stitch up my sides..
How many are needed for victory?
7
Labour - BBC
Brain - Mouth
‘Two years ago no-one wanted to know…now SNP conference is the biggest show in town’
The effect of being in government has turned the SNP conference from the largely social gathering of Nationalists that it used to be into a “must attend” event for anyone wanting to influence public policy in Scotland.
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Two-years-ago–noone.4591665.jp
Totally off subject, am I the only person who couldnt care less whether Madonna and Guy Ritchie divorce or not? I just hope they show more taste than the McCartnies had and keep the gory details out of the media. It seems obscene some parts of the media talking about a potential divorce centring over the split of 10 houses, assorted limos and 300 million pounds at a time 150,000 more poor sods are facing the dole because Brown spent 8 years overheating the economy.
Meanwhile a tribute to success of New Labour’s education policies, the average 14 year old girl thinks the best “career” is to become a WAG or star on something like “The X Factor”. Why on earth did some heroic women waste their time throwing themselves in front of horses at the Derby or such like to end up with such an unambitious lot as great granddaughters? Then again when looking at the Rt.Hon. Mrs Balls, the Rt. Hon. Mrs Dromy, the Rt.Hon Mrs Smith, the Rt.Hon. Ms Jowell, the Rt.Hon. Mrs Blears and their ilk, maybe becoming a WAG is a career to aspire towards!
7. However, The BBC has learned that Gordon Brown has been told that Labour will win the Glenrothes by-election. The BBC understands that campaign strategists - who just three weeks ago were warning the prime minister that Labour would lose — have now told him that the tide has turned in the constituency…
Interesting. What were “campaign strategists” telling Brown the result would be in Glasgow East?
Nick P’s still pining for the fact that Hil C, not coincidentally a supporter of ID cards, won’t be President — ever!
Easterross - “FTSE down 245 so far this afternoon”.
It has been mentioned several times - the direction of the stock market is important for savers and pension funds over the long term, but not the main concern at the moment.
It helps, of course, to have a gold plated pension guaranteed by the tax payer.
By the way, it’s down 298 points or 6.78% on Bloomberg as I post.
John McCain seems to be cratering. I’ve voted for the >390 option.
“….with Tory supporters switching to stop the SNP winning the seat.” I assumed this was joke but then realised there may only be 2 Tories in Glenrothes so suppose it is possible!
“Totally off subject, am I the only person who couldnt care less whether Madonna and Guy Ritchie divorce or not?”
No. Her songs haven’t been worth it for 15 years; his films, never.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bbc-bans-champers-961389.html
I was hopeful they were going to warn about drinking champagne when Obama wins - but it is just a wasting taxpayer money story
25. rullko - “What were “campaign strategists” telling Brown the result would be in Glasgow East?”
Me big boss. You me tell what I want hear. No tell me what want hear. Me thump you.
24, not just the specific example but general celebrity-obsessed culture really annoys me.
28 Possible-but only if poor old McCain (who I confess to feeling sorry for on grounds of being in the wrong place at the wrong time) lost Georgia,by then possibly Louisiana and/or Arkansas-surely Texas is just too huge a hope-it would be the GOP’s equivalent of Michael Portillo-Enfield Southgate 1997 (and I would have to be scraped off my lounge ceiling!
)
I’ve just had a thought - how about the introduction of a “divorce tax” to apply to all assets over £1 million - that way whenever these tedious celebrity divorces come around we at least get some cash in the coffers to spend on something worthwhile…!
“It has been mentioned several times - the direction of the stock market is important for savers and pension funds over the long term, but not the main concern at the moment.”
Tell that to Gabble!
A divorce tax - hasn’t that been privatised by the lawyers?
From previous thread…
B365 have put up EV betting markets for individual States. Some of the more obvious mistakes include:
Indiana 6/5
Nevada 4/9
N Carolina 4/5
Even Sidney would be shocked.
8-1st paragraph-Pathetic comment.
35 - “You’d better keep her, it would be cheaper than making whoopie.”
By the way, do people consider this PMQs (damned annoying not to have the leaders doing it) to be the beginning of an Opposition attack on the government after last weeks softly softly?
Lacked a bit of fireworks, but solid questions were asked, even if the answers often seemed to address unasked queries.
FTSE100 trying to break through 4000 by the end of the day? - 4060 now
27
Fine
No more FTSE posts from yours truly.
42, you must be confused. Following the Supreme Leader’s intervention the stock market can only move upwards. Downward movement is impossible. The data feeds must have been intercepted by Eurasian spies, just like the unemployment and inflation figures.
30 - You’re so wrong about Madonna. Confessions on a Dancefloor is her best album.
Whether we agree with Salmond or not, you have to hand it to him, he is the consummate politician. The challenge to Brown will be aired every time he appears on screen and even if it doesn’t harm Brown in Glenrothes or Kirkcaldy, it will add to the “frit” reputation he has gained over many years across the UK.
A stupid remark by Labour claiming Tory defectors. Most Scots Tories want Labour to get as many bloody noses as possible to weaken them across Scotland including the areas where the Tories may be the main beneficiaries.
Equally stupid remark suggesting Salmond should be running the country instead of campaigning in Glenrothes. Should Brown not have gone off to meet other EU leaders or to attend international bunfights? Of course not. That’s what the Civil Service is there for, to run the country. I’m quite sure Sir John Elvidge can run SCotland perfectly competently with or without the First Mininster sitting behind his own desk or in the debating chamber at Holyrood.
Back to US2008, will we be getting an Election Night results programme from SKY does anyone know? I assume the BBC will show something but it will probably be of the same recent cringeworthy standard
I voted 330-359 because I think the most likely outcome is that things will stay broadly as they are now but with a small swing back in a couple of the more conservative states that Obama is currently edging in the polls.
But I think there are two other, if less likely, scenarios:
1 Something happens which raises security back up the agenda, which would probably favour McCain.
2 McCain continues to do so badly that the GOP basically gives up and the momentum, particualrly in terms of turnout, swings even furthr towards Obama. (We are already seeing many signs of splits within GOP and some very heavy early voting in Obama leaning areas)
Obama would have to do a lot worse than current polls for me to lose out on the betting now.
I’ve got some money on him winning outright with the stake covered, some on him winning several states, most of which are now in the strong Obama category, and some money on various electoral college numbers. If he wins more EC seats than my ranges then I will have won big on the states, and if I lose a couple of the states I will win big on the EC numbers.
17. What a laugh they are hoping that the 5 Conservatives changing their vote to labour will make a difference.
Glenrothes arb opportunity still there: “Best price percentage: 94.9%, bookies only: 99.5%”
No-one want free beer-money today? Shadsy is buying the rounds.
48 Well if it’s close it might. Never say never remember Winchester. Every vote counts.
49, for a betting n00blet, could you explain what the percentages mean? I know the arbitrage business means you can bet both ways and finish ahead. I read it in Mike’s book.
41. Yes, I think they’ve decided to build up the attacks slowly. Hague builded on Cameron’s tactic of making constructive suggestions/reminders to start to highlight shortcomings in the govt’s plans which is a nice segue into a full-on attack which will be (they hope) timed to a change in the ‘public’ (ie media) mood.
Little table here I’ve been using, of Obama’s chances/odds. Obvious caveats about Intrade, lack of liquidity etc. Value is based on nothing more complicated than a crude average of intrade and 538 - it’s only meant to highlight possible opportunities rather than be definitive
State RCP 538 Intrade Odds (at book) Value
Montana -9.2 21% 29 4.00 ladbrokes 1.000
W Virginia -1.5 46% 36 2.50 ladbrokes 1.025
New Mex 7.3 97% 83 1.14 paddy 1.026
New Hamp 10.4 94% 79 1.22 ladbrokes 1.055
Penn 13.4 98% 88 1.14 paddy 1.060
Indiana -3.8 61% 47 2.00 paddy 1.080
Missouri 2.2 71% 61 1.66 stanjames 1.096
N Car 1.2 65% 57 1.80 b365 1.098
Ohio 3.4 80% 75 1.44 stanjames 1.116
Colorado 5.2 94% 89 1.25 stanjames 1.144
Florida 4.8 87% 72 1.44 stanjames 1.145
Nevada 3.0 82% 77 1.44 stanjames 1.145
Georgia -6.8 15% 36 4.50 b365 1.148
N Dakota ??? 29% 30 4.00 b365 1.180
Virginia 6.5 93% 77 1.40 boyles 1.190
Louisiana -15.4 10% 17 11.00 paddy 1.485
Gone to check what Hague asked at PMQs - worse than I thought. He wants it easier for companies to become insolvent -so stuffing their creditors -and making even more insolvent. He didn’t seem to want banks to continue to lending to small business and was tryng to get the annuity laws changed, but this is yesterdays problem - as interest rates and dividends will be zero soon, pensioners should be taking their annuities as soon as possible.
The Tories really are letting Brown walk all over them.
Nothing positive
36 - BannedHorse : “It has been mentioned several times - the direction of the stock market is important for savers and pension funds over the long term, but not the main concern at the moment.”
Tell that to Gabble!”
Gabble’s been told - by one of his bosses - but when did gabble ever listen?
41.Agree with you about the change in direction, also shows up the weakness of Brown’s stand in on these occasions.
Is this irony or sycophancy? It’s hard to tell.
these nutters at McCain/Palin rallies shouting Arab might consider what skin colour their saviour Jesus Christ had and his close proximity to the geographical definition of the Arabian peninsula. Certainly a lot closer than Kenya or southern Sudan.
James Zogby (brother of pollster John) wrote: Enough is enough! From the beginning of this campaign there have been those who have used ‘Muslim’ and ‘Arab’ in an effort to smear Barack Obama. This exploitation of bigotry and the stoking of racist fires to forward an agenda is reprehensible.
54, if Labour had solved the annuities problem it wouldn’t need highlighting today. And the stock market is not on a relentlessly upward trend, apparently.
You’ve built a straw man for your argument against lending. The Tories (and others) are against 2007 lending levels which is entirely sensible.
Glasgow’s newest MP, John Mason, made his maiden Commons speech with a warning to the Prime Minister he had to help “hard-pressed” households.
Mr Mason claimed SNP pressure during the by-election forced the UK Government’s U-turn on the 2p rise in fuel duty.
Another SNP victory in next month’s Glenrothes by-election, he said, would force more action over rising household bills.
With the SNP ahead in the opinion polls, Mr Mason added: “The swing that elected me to what was Labour’s third safest seat shows Labour’s days of taking Scotland for granted are over… For too long, Unionist parties have sought to instil fear in the people of Scotland if they dared even to think of independence, but these scare tactics work for only so long because people eventually see through them.”
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2460564.0.citys_new_mp_warns_premier.php
58, he’s white, obviously. Wasn’t there a big fuss over the black Jesus in Like A Prayer’s video?
54.Really, oddly enough I think that a lot of older people watch PMQ’s, they might not see it as yesterdays problem!
56 I think it’s sycophancy, but I am still note 100% sure. Doing and saying nothing=another strategic masterstroke by the self-styled prime minister in waiting. Genius stuff.
39 David Lawrence not at all when I think of some of the totally disgraceful chants I have heard from GOP supporters at Sarah Palin’s last televised rally and the one at which John McCain was booed for daring to contradict people and say Obama is a decent man and they should not be scared of him.
Equally having watched Republican voters being interviewed in some of the hickey states caiming they could never vote for a muslim because of course Obama is a muslim or others saying you cannot be American and a muslim or describing a member of the US senate as an enemy of the people, I am not surprised the US Secret Service have taken seriously allegations of assassination plots.
I watched another set of interviews where some of those interviewed included France, Germany and Spain among the members of the Axis of Evil and one chap when asked which country America should attack answered Spain because he had heard they have been having some trouble with them recently. I know millions of people in this country watch Coronation St and Eastenders but I would hope that they might know the difference between NATO Allies and countries whom we consider “dangerous”.
I’m going to go with 315 - 329.
Glenrothes by-election - best prices
Bookmakers:
SNP 1/2 (Sporting Bet)
Lab 9/4 (Ladbrokes)
Con 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes and Sporting Bet)
LD 100/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes and Sporting Bet)
Betfair:
SNP 1.61
Lab 2.7
Any other party 50
63.You will have to debate this by yourself, I have not got a scooby what your on about.
I think the problem for PMQ’s for the next few weeks is that while the air of uncertainty remains and the lack of playing the blame game continues. No-one really knows which decisions are the wrong ones yet and which ones are going to have a more positive effect.
67, sound like Harman talking about interest rates.
I wonder if we will get the election right. Be nice if we did. Will we be having this for Glenrothes too?
“these nutters at McCain/Palin rallies shouting Arab might consider what skin colour their saviour Jesus Christ had”
You mean Jesus wasn’t an Aryan Anglophone?!?!?!?!
67 Exactly. Keep singing your hymns of praise.
Christina - If they don’t buy an annuity now their returns will drop sharply over the next few months.
My point is nothing Hague raised is going to make any difference to the economy - If they really do have one why don’t the Tories unveil “Their Plan”.
60. Mason can enjoy his year and a half in Parliament. He really came across as an odious little man when he walked into the counting hall with his arms aloft.
54 How did Japanese annuity providers cope with zero interest rates (are there any annuity providers in Japan?).
Not sure Jesus would get into some US golf clubs!
72, scrapping ID cards and the Big Brother database would save £32bn. That’s a decent start.
21 - 270 for McCain, 269 (probably) for Obama. A 269-269 draw leads to a fiendishly complex Congress vote by state delegation but most experts say Obama would most probably win that.
FTSE -333 / DOW -410
Does this mean the November snap election election is off again?
51. basically with prices as they are if you place £200 on SNP and £100 on Labour at the respective bookmakers , the worst you can do is get your £300 returned if SNP win and £325 if Labour win. So basically you cannot lose, either break even or win £25.
SNP 1/2 (Sporting Bet)
Lab 9/4 (Ladbrokes)
75 - Jesus was notoriously bad at golf though, so fair enough.
73. Typical Labour supporter, a poor loser.
79, yeah, I get that, I was wondering about what the percentages mean.
Quite right, nothing to do with his religion!
“If they don’t buy an annuity now their returns will drop sharply over the next few months.”
Icarus, are you really predicting a continuing drop in the FTSE well into 2009?
81. I’m not being a poor loser, at the time I was glad the SNP won, I thought Labour needed a kick up the backside.
I just thought it was a horrible show of triumphalism, and he must have been panicking an awful lot when it went to a recount.
73. “He really came across as an odious little man when he walked into the counting hall with his arms aloft.”
But he’d just found out he’d won the election. What should he have done? Entered the hall weeping in shame, with his head covered by a blanket?
64. There are plenty of people in the UK who would struggle to even tell you what NATO was, let alone know who all its members are. There are a fair few who would see France and Germany as Britain’s enemies rather than allies, too.
Perhaps understandably in the former case, at least…:)
“He really came across as an odious little man when he walked into the counting hall with his arms aloft.”
But he’d just found out he’d won the election. What should he have done? Entered the hall weeping in shame, with his head covered by a blanket?
(I’m sorry - I mis-spelt my e-mail address yet again, so this might appear twice.)
87. He didn’t know he’d won, at the time the count was still going on!!
86
And Belgium
72 - Annuities probably will get more expensive in the next few months and years (though I think you are mistaken in the reasons that you have given). The Conservatives have in the past toyed with a policy of not requiring pensioners to buy out with an annuity at all. I read what the Conservatives are currently floating as a precursor to introducing that (which would be a sensible policy, as it happens, if appropriate safeguards were put in place).
New Insider Advantage polls for :
West Virginia
McCain 49% .. Obama 47%
Nevada
McCain 46% .. Obama 49%
North Carolina
McCain 46% .. Obama 48%
Florida
McCain 44% .. Obama 48%
88. Of course he knew he’d won. He perhaps was unsure of the margin of victory, but the count was well enough advanced that there was no doubt about the winner.
84. current levels in the FTSE are predicated on some fairly optimistic future earnings estimates, i would say. when we start getting profit warnings etc. there will be real pressure on.
87. The man was just happy , they knew by that time they had won , hence the reason that at the same time Curran was at back of the room with a face like a soor ploom.
Well if banks wont renew facilities at reasonable rates, dividends will drop to save cash (as at the banks themselves - see Barclays) and the market will continue to fall - not sure it will get to 2000 though!
Annuity rates more based on interest rates and there is not necessarily a clear link between medium or long rates and short term rates but if/when short term rates drop to 2% would expect some tightening of 10 year rates.
80 I didn’t know Jesus played golf, all those never ending bunkers! I thought he wind surfed on the Sea of Galilee
I think this headline from the German Berliner Zeitung sums up the financial crisis nicely:
“Das globale Bankensystem wankt”
Afternoon all
I’m in the “330-359″ camp. The Democrat lead in a number of srates that went GOP last ime looks solid enough to me. Obama looks relaxed and confident and while McCain will doubtless have a better debate tonight, I don’t think it will change the underlying trend.
Fox News are now of course shamelessly cheerleading for McCain and Palin. The latter is treated as a defenceless little fawn being picked on by those “nasty liberals”. Her every word and nuance is almost idolised by Fox and I suspect she may be being “prepared” as the 2012 GOP candidate with McCain to be the scapegoat for defeat.
I’m absolutely convinced Palin was the first person who said “yes” to being McCain’s running mate after a number of others said no and we may find this out once the election is over.
My main interest today has been the news from the LGA that a dozen or more Councils are in trouble with money frozen in Iceland with three in particular trouble. A number of Councils also have substantial deposits in German banks like Hypo.
The problem is the frozen money would be the staff wages for some Councils so an immediate solution is required although having read what some people on here think I suspect someone will suggest that public sector workers shouldn’t be paid at all
A further thought is that while inflation might be 5.2% or higher now it is forecast to be much less when Councils set their 2009-10 Budgets. I suspect many Councils will be looking at 5% increases but with inflation crashing that won’t look too clever.
Regarding the no dividends from banks - is it not true that preference shareholders (i.e. HMG) are on 12% pa ?
On thread for once - my choice was based on current polls because I always feel that about three weeks before an election the fundamental choice has been made. During the campaign/final weeks there are surges and falls but these don’t really show a change in peoples minds.
Looking at the Canadian Elections: the Pollster closest to the result on final day was forecasting 36 Con: 28 Lib: 9 Bloc: 18 NDP:8 Grn in the last poll (28th August) before election was called and 38:24:9:21:7 in the one immediately after it was called. The result was 38:26:10:18:7.
In 2005 YouGov poll on 17th April - around three weeks before was C32:L36:L23 - quite close to result. There was a bit of play around these figures before the election campaign officially started and afterwards during campaign .
Its not something I’ve checked in detail and polling methods and weighting have changed too much but has always seemed to me people decide quite soon after the campaign starts in UK type elections and a month to 3 weeks before in US ones. The October surprise stuff seems very marginal - which might matter in a tight race but otherwise doesn’t really change peoples minds.
Latest Hotline/Diageo tracker :
McCain 41% .. Obama 49%
Note - Yesterday M-42/O-48
http://www.nationaljournal.com/hotline/dailytracker/
Glenrothes - Betfair
£25 available to lay Any Other Party - 999/1
97. lol. VG.
I like these apocalyptic reports of market crashes. They add to the gaiety of the PB nation. And they must annoy Gabble, which is entirely a good thing.
Right now, the Dax is threatening to plummet faster than the FTSE. Exciting!
Latest Battleground tracker :
McCain 43% .. Obama 51%
Note - Yesterday - M-40/O-53
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/BG_101508_2-way-ballot-trender.pdf
102. You’d get a better return with National Savings for no risk
88. So you reckon he entered the hall in such a victorious manner when he still reckoned he might lose? You must think he’s a real risk-taker!
I for one will be delighted if George Osborne decides to get rid of compulsory annuities. They are a disgraceful method of shafting lots of pensioners. Especially give that if a pensioner dies shortly after purchasing the annuity, in most if not all cases, on his/her death, the balance of the fund is retained by the insurance company with little or no compensation being paid to the pensioner’s estate.
SeanT - 103 - “the Dax is threatening to plummet faster than the FTSE”
Nope, the Brits thrashed the Huns again -7.08% to -6.49%.
Don’t mention the score.
77. Just one faithless elector (either Dem or Rep) combined with one faithless (or abstaining) Democratic Congressman could block Obama in the event of a tie…
Flashback [97] - Post of the week!. Really made me laugh out loud. ::):
There won’t be a tie.
Was supposed to be a smiley - used to be able to do them -will have to ask Jack again.
91- “West Virginia: McCain 49% Obama 47%”
Jesus Christ. Every week there seems to be another state than turns from Safe GOP to suddently becoming a battleground state! What next, Texas?!!!!
And as for my prediction, I’m with Nick P, the race will tighten and *if* Obama wins it will be by a narrow margin.
New Datamar poll for Florida :
McCain 42% .. Obama 47%
Numbers via Pollster.com
64-Easterross- Point taken but I still think you are overeacting.But that said how about some of those disgusting remarks directed at Palin (incl.your goodself).She has been demonised like no other person I can remember in all my 62 years.Hardly reported the other day (apart from ABC) was the incident at a Palin rally when 4 people (incl 1 woman) had T-shirts emblazed with the comment:”Palin is a C**T”just about the worse remark you say about a woman.The Democrats are no better than the Reps.in fact they are worse in my opinion as incidents like these often go unreported in the American liberal press.
108. My BBC market-ticker says that both the FTSE and the Dax are down by exactly… -7.08%.
Spooky! Both are being out-slumped by the CAC which is now posting an impressively calamitous drop of -7.18%, while the Dow has only managed a frankly feeble “crashette” of -3.76%.
Those Americans, all gong and no dinner.
1 person in Uk becomes bankrupt in the Uk every 5 minutes, 104 properties are repo’d every day and average non-mortgage debt is £9k (!)
http://blog.onestopview.com/?p=56#more-56
1 person in Uk becomes b*nkrupt in the Uk every 5 minutes, 104 properties are repo’d every day and average non-m**tgage debt is £9k (!)
http://blog.onestopview.com/?p=56#more-56
113 Simon
When he takes the lead in Utah, you’ll know he’s safe.
107 - Annuities can actually represent a very sensible insurance policy for a pensioner, particularly one who is healthy at the point of purchase. If the pensioner dies shortly after purchasing it, he or she may have got bad value, but it doesn’t really matter (and will partly go towards making other people’s annuities cheaper). The only people who lose out are the next of kin.
However, if the pensioner doesn’t buy an annuity and lives a longer life than had been expected, he or she may very well run out of resources and end up in penury at precisely the stage in their life that they have least mental and physical resource to do anything about it. Annuities are insurance policies, and should be thought of in those terms.
I voted in the 330-359 range - I was thinking about the next bracket but chickened out - regard Palin - she has led her stormtroopers to make some of the most offensive comments regarding Barrack at her rallies and winking at them to say it is o.k. - threats of Kill Him, Muslim, Terrorist, etc. She has links to some extreme organizations and is the worst pick McCain could have got - I don’t like the t-shirts they wore but she started the fight and people in glass houses should not throw stones.
Obama IS a dual citizen, according to wife…
http://www.americasright.com/
could be a game changer, if McCain uses it tonight…
“My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father.”
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/breaking-michelle-obama-confirms-barack-is-indonesian/#comment-16783
I went for 360-389 because the polls currently suggest something in the 357 to 375 region, depending on who you believe. (Jack W, no less, is projecting 375). What’s more, Obama seems to be consolidating his position, and his lead seems to be improving. At the same time, McCain appears to be floundering, and Palin seems to be enthusing people whose votes McCain doesn’t need, whilst putting off people whose votes he does need.
Obviously something might disrupt all this, but these are the ‘known knowns’, as far as I can see. (However, I don’t claim to be an expert).
“T-shirts emblazed with the comment:”Palin is a C**T”just about the worse remark you say about a woman.”
I don’t know — I think “Women shouldn’t be allowed an abortion even if they’ve been raped by their own father” is worse.
70. BannedHorse - “You mean Jesus wasn’t an Aryan Anglophone?!?!?!?!”
The consensus seems to be that Jesus was not actually an Englishman, but an Aramaic-speaking Jew. He probably had O Grade Latin too. But English - the language or the nationality - did not exist during his lifetime, or for several centuries thereafter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language
Easterross -the point about annuities, particularly in a mutual society is that they are a bet on your life - the longer living benefiting from the death of the ones who drop off the perch early.
As joint life annuities are available and annuities with a guaranteed minimum payout, I don’t see this as a problem - unless you have a specially tailored shroud with pockets.
123. Hahahaha
okay you lot I’m off to make cawliflour and cheese sauce so catch you all later. By the way I quite like John Mason. I think he is just the sort of decent ordinary chap the average voter of Glasgow East can respect as MP and feel he will do his best for them.
It would have been amusing if he went on to lose having punched the air on arrival but then I knew he had won. Definitely got some of the genes of Agnes Nuttar working inside me!!
125 - There might be a point for Governments requiring pension pots to be used to buy a minimum level of annuity provision. There is absolutely no point in requiring those who have more funds available than required to meet that minimum to buy an annuity.
I still cant get over Sarah Palins response when asked what newspapers and magazines she read while in Alaksa to keep up to date with what was going on in the world. (Incase you don’t already know, it was “All of them”).
Apparently Dick Cheney has an irregular heartbeat. Perhaps they’ve finally confirmed he hasn’t got one?
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/15/cheney.hospital/index.html
Don’t believe everything you read in Wikipedia! Jesus was surely a n***** hating ,gun loving, all American patriot!
121 Rod, the source looks, how shall I put it, not entirely authoritative?
129 How many newspapers are there in Alaska?
121: needs a bit more than some unknown blog claim for that
115…she really is a very stupid woman.
132- When she was asked again on Fox News a few days later she simply said a couple of newspapers (cant remember what they were) and the Economist. Now why would she be able to answer the (very simple) question a few days later on Fox, but struggle on CBS?
On CBS, she couldnt even *NAME* a newspaper or magazine. And lets not forget her being unable to name a controversial supreme court decision, and believe me, for Republicans, there are plenty. This isnt some bizzare media trap to make her look stupid, these are basic questions. She knows loads about Alaksa and Energy. I’m sure she knows hardly anything else.
Just noticed that the Sporting Index spread on Labour seats has dropped from 241-247 earlier today, down to 238-244. Perhaps the ‘Smithson media- narrative bounce’ is now falling back.
New Pew Research Center national poll :
McCain 42% .. Obama 49%
http://people-press.org/report/458/economic-crisis
Well I went for 300-329 because I rather think he will romp it but not by a landslide…a few weeks ago I would have gone one lower with him just pipping McCain but how things change in politics hey…
94. MalcolmG - “… at the same time Curran was at back of the room with a face like a soor ploom.”
I thought she always looked like that? The “bulldog-chewing-a-wasp” look, so often worn by a certain type of Labourite.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/PrescottBLOG.jpg
136. I said unemployment would do the trick
and there’s more to come….
124 Stuart,
English, the language of the Angels, was kept from mankind until a people arose who God felt were suitable for such a gift.
As such of course Jesus spoke and understood English (theologically as God he is covered by the “I Am” statement, and thus speaks and understands the tongues of all mankind from beginning to end of history). He might find difficulty though with the Doric, expecting an Hellenic patois.
72.”Christina - If they don’t buy an annuity now their returns will drop sharply over the next few months.”
And that helps them how? Are they basically screwed what ever happens now, like the rest of the private pensions have been under Gordon’s stewardship? What is the government’s position on helping out hard pressed private pension schemes, they have been very quiet on this for the last 10 years.
My point is nothing Hague raised is going to make any difference to the economy - If they really do have one why don’t the Tories unveil “Their Plan”.
Here we go again, you seem to be under the mistaken idea that the Tories are going to turn up at the next GE with a blank page on economic policy, just keep thinking that. And do you think that the Conservatives would have got the Shadow Foreign Secretary to unveil the plan at PMQ’s against Harriet Harman? I doubt that it would have registered anymore with the media this week than it would have done with Harriet.
141. “English, the language of the Angels, was kept from mankind until a people arose who God felt were suitable for such a gift.”
Has He never been to Birmingham?
98.”My main interest today has been the news from the LGA that a dozen or more Councils are in trouble with money frozen in Iceland with three in particular trouble. A number of Councils also have substantial deposits in German banks like Hypo.”
Stodge, I think that you are correct to focus on this news today, as some of us pointed out last week this is going to be a big problem and a very hot political potato when the dust of the Banking bail out calms down in the media. I seriously believe that its another 10p tax fiasco in the making if handled badly now.
143 They speak English in Birmingham? Who knew….
Glenrothes: Labour shortened to 2/1 with Ladbrokes (also available with Paddy Power).
Mike: 3 weeks out is a bit much to test PB predictive power. I suggest you consider repeating this exercise a week before or even closer to the election.
Yes Christina very wise. Most “Plans” (sorry reports by policy forums set up by the Conservative party that are not actually Conservative party policy) seem to unravel fairly quickly when they are launched.
I would suggest announcing your policies on the day before the election - before there is time for any awkward questions.
Glenrothes arb: “Best price percentage: 97.5%, bookies only: 102.0%”
Hmmmm…. Labour are out to 9/4 again. Second thoughts Shadsy?
Glenrothes arb: “Best price percentage: 94.9%, bookies only: 99.5%”
148.Icarus, you seem to have the Conservatives mixed up with the government today. Their policies usually unravel when they attempt to implement them.
151. Stuart , could you explain the percentages above and how they relate to the odds
147 see my post 100 on my view that three weeks is actually a good time.
FTSE 4079.59 down -314.62 -7.16%
Dax- 4861.63 down -337.56 -6.49%
Cac- 3381.07 down -247.45 -6.82%
An injury time mini-slump leaves the FTSE a comfortable loser.
Reply to Red Meteor several threads back about Glenrothes: I’ve collated the polling district results for each Scottish seat at the 2007 Holyrood elections (the p.d. results are available somewhere online) and then assigned the p.d. results to the Westminster seats. Whilst these probably won’t be 100% accurate the chances are that they will be pretty close (it’s sometimes possible, for instance, to work out what seat or ward an individual p.d. belongs to from the code assigned to it by the relevant local authority).
Anyway, the result of the Glenrothes seat based on 2007 constituency voting is as follows:
SNP 11,667 (43.2)
Lab 11,387 (42.2)
LD 2,025 (7.5)
Con 1,914 (7.1)
SNP maj 280 (1.0)
So you were right: the SNP can win Glenrothes simply by marking time from 2007.
Christina: From the first three stories on the Guardian web site
1) “A summit of world leaders - possibly to include the new president-elect of the United States - will take place by the end of the year, Gordon Brown announced this afternoon as he unveiled new British proposals to avoid another collapse of the financial system.”
2) “An army of loft insulators and draught-proofers is to be released on to the streets of Britain as Gordon Brown combines his fight against climate change with the need to provide jobs in an economic downturn.
In an echo of the New Deal, launched by the US president Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the prime minister said that a new employment scheme would train thousands of loft insulators.”
3) “A petrol price war ensued today as two major supermarkets announced they were cutting the price of unleaded to less than £1 a litre.”
or from the Telegraph
“The whole landscape has changed. The Tory party needs a new plan, and fast.
In his own speech at the conference, and in various utterances in the media, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has looked painfully out of his depth.
This is now felt by a worrying proportion of his fellow MPs. Since his party could be in office in 18 months’ time, if not before, it is as well he has been tested by this crisis and found wanting.”
146. Stuart Dickson. When you factor in the Betfair 5% commission on winnings, the arb you refer to is effectively restricted to the bookies prices.
Currently you could have £308 at 9/4 Labour and £667 at 1/2 SNP for a guaranteed return of a £1000 on an outlay of £975. 2.5% return on your money. Worth having if you happen to have a spare thousand or two I supposes and if you can get the bets on but not as lucrative as you imply.
157 - Anyone who quotes Simon Heffer as some kind of oracle, especially without attribution, reveals themself as a great big booby.
157 So GB is:
Going to have a meeting.
Employ loft insulators - we can export insulation and HIP providers.
Watch the oil market operate as expected.
What a plan. I feel our economy is on the up all already.
Apologies if this has been posted before, but Gordo must be getting pretty desperate to want to join the euro having seriously oppsed it.. What on earth happened to the 5 tests?
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/10/brown-begged-to.html
156 - Plus tactical Tory votes for the SNP
158 Quite, StJohn, but of course if you took the 100/30 Corals so generously offered a while back….
153. Malcolm G. If you look at my example at 158.
Labour 9/4 = 30.77% chance
SNP 1/2 = 66.67% chance
Total of the two = 97.44% chance.
Anything less than 100% implies value. You have to assume that the Tories and LDs chances are zero here for this to follow.
162. Plus Lib Dems are unlikely to hold up their vote
127. If all Mason needs to do to win re-election is be a better MP than his predecessor, he’s going to have a pretty easy time of it. Just setting up a constituency office would already put him over the mark!
157
Icarus, The Telegraph is no longer a Conservative newspaper. Rosa Prince thought Harman did well at PMQ’s……!!!!! When you get that kind of tripe posted on the Telegraph blog, its a clear indication of the way the paper is leaning.
True story
Iwas working on a rig (the Roger Mowell) in Tunisia with a bunch of expats including a very red neck toolpusher who was new on the rig.
One evening at tea, we were all sat in the galley eating when a local Tunisian rousty came in to get a work permit signed. He asked the toolpusher in very broken English/arabic to sign the permit and the toolpusher’s reply was as follows (word for word quote as I remember it):
“God dammit boy, can’t you speak English? Jesus spoke English, the Bible was written in English, why can’t you speak English?”
Sometimes the scary people are the ones who look most like you.
162. No, no, the Tories are going to vote tactically for Labour. Didn’t you get the memo?
Thanks Stuart
163. Yes Peter. I had a bit of a tilt at that price. Not sure when or whether to back the SNP? They are certainly on the drift.
157 - ‘An army of loft insulators and draught-proofers is to be released on to the streets’
Great, every scallywag will sign up to the training course, pass whatever feeble tests they’re required to take and gain easy access to everyones homes for a bit of light fingered theft. No doubt they’ll all have legal rights of entry to every home. It’s going to be easy pickings in every confused OAP’s home across the country. Nice one Gordon.
148 Yes what happened to all those green Conservative policies, like extra charges on flights, has that been quietly jettisoned, as it is now seen as from a differing era.
Surely we need to get back to the nasty image,like the conservative albion on here today saying he disagreed with unemployment benefit.
A benefit your entitled to if you have paid enough stamp duty.
That is the attitude a lot of people believe, still lurks behind the man with a smiling face,as he straddles his arse, on his bike to ride to parliament for another photo oppurtunity.
Icarus, 157, Point 2. Didn’t Brown say something like:
“Many of the least well insulated houses in Britain are occupied by older people. No pensioner should be in a position where for reasons of finance they cannot adequately insulate their homes.
Today with our new programme of training and jobs for young people we are able to expand the national programme of home insulation. Contractors within the home energy efficiency scheme, and voluntary organisations will be encouraged to take on young people to insulate the homes of pensioners.
This will give jobs and new skills to our young people, help and protection to the elderly, and it will improve our environment.”?
Yes, he did - in paragraphs 167-171 of his 1997 Budget Speech.
161- From the article: “the U.K. will consider adopting the euro once the credit crisis abates.”
Asuming it abates before the next election, and Brown really does want the UK to join the Euro now, I cant see it being an election winner! (Although if you wanted to take the UK into the Euro, now is probably going to be the best time to join with the least opposition).
175, people would go completely ballistic if they tried it without a referendum, and they’d never win one. Surrendering our monetary policy to a bunch of European bureaucrats is a bloody outrageous idea.
174 “Yes, he did - in paragraphs 167-171 of his 1997 Budget Speech.”
Well it worked then. For a decade everyone thought he was a great Chancellor, precisely because he kept coming with this sort of tosh. So you can hardly blame him for trying it on again.
The question is - how soon before the media realise that they’ve been tricked again, as they were when he first became PM?
175 - I know that these things don’t count for much, but we were promised a referendum on entry into the Euro. And how would they get round the Maastricht criteria?
Interstingly, 538.com’s simulations predict that, although the average for obama’s electoral vote tally is 361.4, the five most likely outcomes are 375, 380, 383, 338 & 381. Worth knowing if you are playing on the various electoral college vote markets.
We are 2/1 labour for glenrothes at ladbrokes. We decided we’d had enough at 9/4 earlier this afternoon. No changes since then, Stuart.
161 Ben Brogan’s headline doesn’t match the story.
Junker is saying that Gordon Brown had to beg before he was allowed to address the EU summit - rather different from the spin that as the Great Saviour he was invited the address the eager audience. Junker thinks this apparently so humiliated Brown that he’ll push to join the Euro so he can attend all the meetings - Gordon humbled? the man who hated the EU Finance meetings he could attend and always flew in for the least possible time suddenly desperate to have them regularly.
Junker doesn’t realise he was a prop for a Brown PR moment - if next week Gordon has to denounce EU intransigence for electoral reasons he will.
Whilst joining the Euro would be a good idea -lower interest rates all round - Gordon just was asking to get in the meeting with the other EU countries who happen to be in the Euro.
It’s this sort of thing which makes the good ole US tradition of assassination more than a concern (youtube video in link).
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/a-report-from-e.html
“”I’m afraid if he wins, the black [sic] will take over. He’s not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?”
“When you got a Negro running for president, you need a first stringer. He’s definitely a second stringer.”
“He seems like a sheep - or a wolf in sheep’s clothing to be honest with you. And I believe Palin - she’s filled with the Holy Spirit, and I believe she’s gonna bring honesty and integrity to the White House.”
“He’s related to a known terrorist, for one.”
“He is friends with a terrorist of this country!”
“He must support terrorists! You know, uh, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. And that to me is Obama.”
“Just the whole, Muslim thing, and everything, and everybody’s still kinda - a lot of people have forgotten about 9/11, but… I dunno, it’s just kinda… a little unnerving.”
“Obama and his wife, I’m concerned that they could be anti-white. That he might hide that.”"
There really are no sufficient words for when you attempt to analyse these sort of people….
On the main subject, I tend to think less than 330 but not by that much.
Early days perhaps, but after 306 votes there’s an almost perfect symmetrical bar chart has been established by PBers as regards Obama’s ECVs at 329 votes, slightly behind the spread-betting prices and way behind the pollsters’ expectations.
171 Fwiw StJohn, I’ve hedged. Can’t trust the Scots.
182- What’s the point? Al Jazeera managed to find a few folks in the countryside who don’t like Obama for some unreasonable and/or inaccurate reasons. Jumping from that to scaremongering about assassination is hysteria of the first order.
187- sorry, that’s for 184.
New ORC/CNN/Time polls for :
Colorado
McCain 47% .. Obama 51%
Florida
McCain 46% .. Obama 51%
Georgia
McCain 53% .. Obama 45%
Missouri
McCain 49% .. Obama 48%
Virginia
McCain 43% .. Obama 53%
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/15/cnn-poll-obama-making-gains-in-red-states/
185 - Important, though, to bear in mind Shadsy’s point at 181 that this is a lumpy market. These votes come in chunks - in some cases, large chunks.
18: No firm reasons. I hope Obama will win big and sweep in a filibuster-proof Democrat majority, but I’m suspicious of the way the commentators all say it’s as good as over, yet the actual gap wavers up and down and sometimes dips below 5%: are all these new registrees really going to vote? But perhaps I’m just trying to set up a pleasant surprise.
I’ll be spending a few days in sun-kissed Glenrothes from the 27th, by the way. My help worked so well in Glasgow, after all.
FWIW, I can confirm that the Labour campaign is hopeful - yes, they were in Glasgow too (and Mike has reproved me for reporting that and influencing punters to bet the wrong way), but we didn’t actually lose by a large margin so they weren’t that far out, huge though the swing was. It’s far too early to judge properly, though - when a by-election bandwagon gets going, it’s usually only really visible in the final week.
185- Also, note that pollsters, properly speaking, don’t EXPECT anything; they merely report stated voting intention as it stands during a particular period.
Thought Harman was rubbish today , just read from a script.
Hague is too good for her and knows it.
Like a a good golfer playing a friend and just holding back,to try to make it intresting.
And on that point I wish Seve Ballesteros well, hope he pulls through.
Such an inspitational man in leading the Europeans to believe they good beat the best of american the players.
159.Oh dear, that is the problem with short term tactics, you have to rely on bigging up today’s headlines before they become tomorrows chip papers.
182. Exactly. Brogan’s just causing trouble.
Personally, I would like to think Gordon was now trying to force us into the euro - without a referendum - as that’s the one thing guaranteed to lose him all meaningful newspaper support (the Mail, Murdoch) etc, totally destroy his recently regained repuation for political nous, alienate much of the electorate, and thereby lose the election by a landslide.
Unfortunately, however, it’s a non-story.
This is some euro-pedo - i.e. Juncker - trying to cover up his embarrassment that the eurozone had to invite in a non-member - the UK - to help sort out the mess. Brown is neither stupid enough nor audacious enough to try and sneak through euro membership now.
163.Gordon begged to join the Euro?
187 - And the post I had ready about someone using the fact that it is from Al Jazeera to try and negate it now doesn’t even need to be posted.
All it takes is one person who feels vindicated by what they belive is a general feeling, look at John Wilkes Booth, look at Leon Cszolgosz, look at Giuseppe Zangara. Look, indeed, at the time before Rabin’s assassination.
Certain media outlets are so hysterical in their opposition that it is entirely credible that someone would take matters into their own hands.
166. Apparently he already has, in what was the LD’s by election HQ!
198- There are thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of folks who fit this description regarding anti-Bush sentiment. Why have you not been warning us of a possible impending assassination of President Bush?
182.Should have read Ted’s post @182 before posting.
170 - yes, it’s that kind of lumpen xenophobia which gives patriotism a bad name. I remember once seeing a young Spanish-looking woman in a taxi queue elbowed aside by two burly salesmen types, one saying to the other (who to be fair looked a bit dubious), “It’s all right, whose f***ing country is it anyway?” I was too slow to do what I should have - tell the taxi driver I’d report him if he took the queue-jumping fare.
Hey guys, any idea if we’ll be seeing a marginals poll tonight?
202 I quite agree with you Nick, but surely, in the spirit of these times, you could at least have suggested they looked like bankers *hiss*
Sometimes the best way to see the flaws in an image is to examine its opposite…
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, following the debate,including a three month-old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his college
graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis
of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
What if Obama was the one who was known to publicly display a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer
distribution?
You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected a
reality, if the tables were turned, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative haracteristics in another when there is a color difference.
And, think of this - the candidates’ educational backgrounds:
Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin: Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism
Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.
You make the call.
Latest Gallup trackers :
Registered Voters
McCain 43% .. Obama 50%
Likely Voters
McCain 46% .. Obama 49%
Likely Voters Plus
McCain 44% .. Obama 52%
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111172/Gallup-Daily-Before-Final-Debate-Obama-Leads.aspx
198 Ukpaul,I truly hope not.
But as you say its always a possibility.
The pope and Ronald Regan were lucky to survive, any major figure even our queen are in that position, and that is without a hysterical media.
205- If that’s the case, let’s hope Obama doesn’t succumb to ukpaul’s worst fears, since Biden only managed to get through a mediocre law school with mediocre grades by cheating.
202. A critique of patriotism from the man who was a communist AFTER the Stalinist Terror and DURING the Cold War.
Ugh.
205. I don’t see the point of any of this. Unless you are claiming that Cameron and Osborne are best qualified to run the UK due to their outstanding education at the world’s best schools and universities?
200 - He’s been in great danger too, I thought that would have been obvious. He’ll be a prime target for the rest of his life but people don’t assassinate ex Presidents, at least not yet.
In any case, the prime moment for assassination is around a war or the early part of an administration, as with Lincoln, Garfield, FDR, Nixon and Reagan (JFK and McKinley are exceptions).
Ben Brogan notes that Bloomberg are running a story that our world leading PM, far from co-ordinating the European response to the credit crisis, had to beg to be allowed in the room with the other European leaders, and has indicated that the UK will join the euro once the crisis has abated.
Luxembourg Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told German newspaper Rheinischer Merkur the U.K. will consider adopting the euro once the credit crisis abates. “The British prime minister had to beg to be let into the room in which the euro group was meeting,” Juncker told the newspaper in an interview published today. “I’m sure that when the storm is over, the British will think about whether they shouldn’t become an equal in all decision-making bodies.“
http://www.safehaven.com/article-11565.htm
O/T - Elliott wave theory predicting that if things get really really bad then the Dow might bottom around 3k. FWIW I’m looking for a final bottom around 4k ie just over 70% decline from the 14k peak on the Dow - implies FTSE around the 2k mark, ie back to where it was around 1991.
What a surprise that the wonderful Gabble isn’t anywhere to be seen on this thread. Gabble, did I see the FTSE drop over 7% today?
Just reading Ian McWhirter’s latest offering in the Guardian, I am not so sure?
Glenrothes will be a hell of a fight
“Fresh from his triumphs in the international financial markets Gordon “super” Brown has wasted no time in using the financial crisis to attack his old enemy, the SNP. There had been a kind of party political truce in Scotland since the banks started imploding last month, but the prime minister has chosen to break it by accusing the SNP of endangering the Scottish economy with its policy of independence. Scotland, without the security of the union, would have been unable to rescue its banks, he says. The Scottish opposition parties have said that under Alex Salmond, Scotland would be left alone and isolated, like Iceland – bankrupt and impoverished.”
But hey, if Scotland had left that smaller Union and joined the bigger Union of the EU life could have been different???
“Moreover, small countries within the EU, such as Ireland and Denmark, have been in a position to guarantee 100% of bank deposits because of their membership of the eurozone. The UK was unable to do this because it has an independent currency and because the liabilities of the British banks, running to some £4,000bn, would simply have been too great to underwrite without risking a run on sterling. The SNP wants Scotland to be independent within the EU – unlike Iceland, which has its own independent currency, the krone. Iceland is a very special case since it was hugely dependent on its highly entrepreneurial banking culture while being very much alone politically and economically.”
Look, am I missing something here, but doesn’t McWhirter’s view fall down on the fact that being in the EU with euro is no more putting an Independent Scotland in control of its own monetary policy than it is now?
210.
Unfortunately neither GO nor DC were outstanding scholars: they performed in much the same way as you might have done if you had been factory-farmed through the system. The universities concerned are somewhat over-rated, even by my good lady who has bits of paper issued from one of them, recognises this on one of her better days! The point of all that stuff (of which education is but a part) is that Obama/Biden would have been ripped to pieces by the media if their CVs were anything like McCain/Palins - and would be running in the 20 per cent level of polling subsequent to that. The only factor which means this hasn’t happened to McCain and co so far is a combination of racism and the hate-filled extremists of the ‘religious right’(sic)
212 - quality!!!! And no prizes for guessing that this will be the 1st headline on the 10pm news, and newsnight for that matter - not.
So Nick P your government just can’t help itself from out-Stasi-ing the Stasi can it? Not content with knowing our movements it now wants to know who we speak to and get emails from. I know you’ll tell me that there will be stringent safeguards, but when it comes down to it, like the ID card database, we’ll find out then thousands or tens of thousands of people will have access to my data.
It stinks and even if Gordon Brown promised a formula to end world poverty tomorrow I would never vote for such a disgusting government.
214.Missed out the last bit of the first cut and paste which is relevant to my point.
“But is it true that an independent Scotland would not have been able to arrange a rescue of its stricken banks? Well, given the huge sums involved – £500bn – it might seem a tall order. The Scottish budget is only £33bn – not enough to secure even the equity stakes in the two big Scottish banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS.”
212 - also, well done Bloomberg. Anyone else really like Cris Valerio on there? - she is gorgeous!
219 yes! I am a major Cris fan - always a pleasure to pop down to the floor at the stock exchange and get Cris’ view on the day, hehe
DOW -470
Suggest further carnage on tomorrows FTSE
Autumn Election anyone?
116 - lets see now - four anonymous women wear T-shirts describing Palin as a ‘C**t’ - Palin accuses Obama of ‘palling around with terrorists’. I know which I think is the more serious.
Palin is being called out as not being up to the job because she has made it obvious to anyone who sees or hears her that that is the case.
McCain is rightly being pulled down by her because of his flawed judgment in choosing her and allowing his once ’straight-talking’ campaign to descend to the gutter.
Wonder if the bbc will be able to find any crazy-euro-lefties to call Brown a hero tonight. Maybe the penny will have dropped that the banking system is in deep trouble still, the economy is in deep trouble, and the voters dough ‘has been done’ - all courtesy of our great leader!
116 David Lawrence, I think Palin is dangerous but my criticism has been levelled at what she thinks, believes in and has said in the campaign. I have never suggested she is a bad wife or mother.
If Democratic supporters were sporting T shirts with the “c” word emblazoned on them then such cretons deserve exactly the same disdain and disapproval directed towards them.
211-The Secret Service is great, but of course not infallible. I wouldn’t spend too many sleepless nights worrying about Obama being assassinated, if I were you.
Skybet now laying odds for Glenrothes. SNP 4/7 Labour 5/4.
215 - I’m afraid that statement (at least about David Cameron) is simply wrong. His tutor at Oxford, Vernon Bogdanor, has described him as “one of the ablest” students he has taught.
“He was such an able student,” says Bogdanor, who is professor of government at Oxford University and vice-principal of Brasenose College, wistfully. “He got alphas in his finals in philosophy politics and economics and a distinction in his prelims.”
158 Aiden, if you are reading this post, could you please refer us to the website where you sourced the individual ward results.
Congratulations on a truly informative piece of obviously hard work.
215- I’m glad you seem to believe, based on your last post, that the attributes of a distinguished formal education are often not what they might appear to be. In fact, our most educated president, it can be argued, was Woodrow Wilson, who is the only president to have earned a Ph.D. His disastrous decision to first lead the country into World War I contrary to his explicit re-election promise and then leave Europe in the lurch during the peace negotiations did much to create the conditions that led to World War II. On the other hand, George Washington’s formal education ended around age 15 while Abraham Lincoln received about 18 months of formal education during his life. All of this is to say that fancy formal educations are nice, but judgment cannot be taught and degrees are often quite misleading as far as what they can tell you about the individual.
205 = tedious effort at playing the race card
Just revised my methodology on the DaveAnalyses snapshot of the current polls. The number of states that are close but tend to Obama have pulled his score down a little (though below a key benchmark as far as betters are concerned). As things stand, I have:
Obama - 349
McCain - 189
This isn’t a prediction as such but a guess as to where things are now.
229. It was Congress that left Europe in the lurch, not Wilson. It can be argued that he signed a treaty that he knew would be rejected (as Clinton did with Kyoto) but I don’t believe that.
David - am I right in thinking that’s some kind of average of possible scenarios (i.e. your figure of 349 can’t be broken down into a set of specific states)?
233 - that was for 231 David Herdson
232- But Wilson failed however you slice it. Congress was in Democratic hands during his presidency so he had nobody but himself to blame for his failure of leadership, both at home and abroad.
Oh, and in the interests of political balance, Gordon Brown is also obviously academically outstanding.
Busy days:
1. Obama looks nailed on. Sporting suspended their markets moments before I went back for some more EC seats… Will be interesting to see how they re-open again after the debate - I suspect the value will be gone.
2. Glenrothes getting closer. I think Labour will win and am happy with my current lay of the SNP at 1.6-ish. (Will back them if they ever drift to 2.6 - which they could the way things are going).
3. Cons shortening again on the commons spread markets. I found Mike’s analysis a bit odd and never saw any value in getting out of positions or backing Labour. There was a little bit of money to be made by exploiting the recent swings, but constant short-term trading on these markets - where the spread is six seats - is hard work and difficult. The question for me is how many seats will the Cons get and I’m predicting between 350 and 380. So trading on credit and holding for the long term is fine with me!
143. Ted - “[Jesus] might find difficulty though with the Doric, expecting an Hellenic patois.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_dialect_(Scotland)
225 - Don’t worry, I’m not.
I say Obama 338, McCain 200 and have bet accordingly.
233 - Richard. Yes, the totals are made up of the full EV counts from states where one candidate is ahead by more than 6% and proportions allocated below that level. I feel it gives a better feel as to the likely outcome than a straight allocation one way or the other no matter how close it is if (as is in fact the case) one candidate has a disproportionate number of narrow leads. Statistically, it’s unlikely that he would win all of them, though obviously (as long as the polling is accurate), he would win most.
From a betting point of view, it’s more important to me to have an idea of what’s the 50/50 position (even if technically impossible or at least highly unlikely), so that I can get a feel for where the value is, than to try to get the single most likely result in EVs. Put another way, I’m aiming for the median result.
240. Sounds about right. Could be somewhat higher, but can’t see how it can be lower unless there’s a real game-changer tonight or very soon
James Kirkup has a thought on Gordon “On your Bike” Brown’s idea of an “army” of loft insulators.
According to James there are already 5000 loft insulators in Britain who do about 1million homes a year. So the army to do 2million a year as proposed would be pretty small and then only for 3 years so they are then back on the scrapheap, conveniently after an election. However the total of new jobs might at most be about 3-4 days worth of those currently becoming unemployed. Better than nothing but a drop in the ocean.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3203419/Gordon-Brown-says-unemployed-should-lag-roofs.html
Voted 330 - 359.
Normally predict these questions by Mike right.
158. Excellent work Aidan! Big thank you.
That exercise was actually done by the Scotsman (?) several weeks ago: they came up with almost exactly the same result as you: the SNP a squidgin, based on the May 2007 vote, but on the Westminster boundaries.
245. typo - the SNP a squidgin ahead
“The only factor which means this hasn’t happened to McCain and co so far is a combination of racism and the hate-filled extremists of the ‘religious right’(sic)”
A very weak argument IMHO. It’s hardly as if McCain and Palin have somehow been given a free pass by the media.
160. Thanks stjohn. I did say it was “beer money”, not a whacking great fortune.
Seems strange to hear McNumpty on Channel 4 News talking about something other than ID cards. He is still talking utter tosh of course but his scarlett face seems to bring some gravitas (or is it just gravy) to his bearing!
Has Brown really said Britain is going to join the euro? Where on earth has that come from?
Will he do something deveous like try to turn the next election into a referendu, on us joining the euro in an attempt to split the Tories on the issue?
241 Thanks, David. It makes sense as a way of encapsulating the betting value in a single number.
Assuming the polls are a good predictor, of course…
250. No he didn’t. If you read the Brogan piece it seems like a bit of mischief making.
235. Even Wilson’s strongest supporters can’t really deny that he acted in an manner that didn’t leave much room for those with differing opinions, both in his handling of the Versailles negotiations and subsequent ratification process. Still, even if the buck stops in the White House, Congress can’t escape their share of the blame - after all, they agreed to go to war in the first place and probably could have done more to restrain Wilson after November 1918. Nor for that matter do Lloyd-George and Clemenceau come out of the episode smelling of roses, though they were probably less personally responsible - they were both being forced by domestic opinion. The whole 1914-20 period is probably the greatest unforced human-inspired tragedy inflicted on the world since the Mongol conquests.
250. Does anyone else get the impression that what actually happened was that Brown saw all the Eurozone members going off for a private meeting and was actually pleading with them to be allowed in? After all, according to the BBC he is the one who single handedly saved capitalism and the cosmos!
250 - To be fair he hasn’t.
Juncker said that “Brown had to beg to join the meeting with Euro ministers”. He then extrapolated that he would decide that he would want to avoid such a scenario in future by joining the Euro.
241 I’ve done my own ‘totes’ of ECVs by going to oddschecker,and ‘manually’ adding up the states that would go GOP or Dem-also vote 538,which I found brilliant,quotes the percentage chance for each candidate.(Funnily enough,the other day,Indiana was 50-50 by edged to Obama ;I assumed the 50s were rounded and >1% seperated the two!
Is anyone else surprised that more than 50% of PBers are giving Obama fewer than 330 ECVs, when both 538.com and Real Clear Politics, on both sides of the political divide as it were, are currently scoring it with him achieving >360 ECVs?
Do we collectively know or sense something they don’t?
Yes, I know biggies like Ohio or Florida could seriously upset the Obama applecart, but more likely, right now, there appear to be several States which are becoming realistic targets for him.
Possibly Mike should re-run this vote a couple of days before the election.
254. Yes, it doesn’t really fit with his new-found image!
There are some very desperate people who are scraping the barrel trying to find ways that would eliminate Obama. Shows the depth of hatred out there for the prospect of America’s first black president.
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/
It had crossed my mind that Brown has been Chicken today!
This is because he arrived early at the european meeting - I am of the opinion the advance warning of the dreadful unemployment figures forced Gordon into a no show! He does not want a drubbing at PMQ’s and more negative media than he has too. Mandy & Ali probably advised this strategy!
Mind you Brown still managed to balls up an interview by saying the unemployed could insulate roofs! 
More to the point Brown being the fellow he is leaves a woman to face the music in the commons over the governments economic failure - HH was taken apart by William Hague. Going on Brown’s unforced error today on the unemployed insulating lofts I think Labour want to worry about snap GE’s! Brown will manage to get the worst possible result he can for Labour!
256. Yes. I’d have expected 330-359 to way out in front. It would be interest to ask those voting for the lower options what they think is likely to to it back to McCain? Events or a bias in the polling being uncovered on Nov 4th?
214. Yes you are, even if Scotland was in the Euro it would still have full control over all other policy , at the moment it controls nothing and Westminster make all the decisions based on UK interests and not Scotland’s.
259, Harman did badly, but I’m very surprised she didn’t refer to Hague and Barclays. Seems an easy and obvious attack line.
256 PfP - Yes, it is surprising. A cautious lot, these punters.
256- The question isn’t ‘what are to polls saying today,’ but rather ‘what will happen on election day?’ The expectation is likely that the numbers will close up a little by election day, which is the norm.
Latest ARSE (BUTT)/Daily FAB tracker :
McCain 43.1% .. Obama 50.6%
Note - Yesterday M-42.5/50.8
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262. Obviously Brown being the man he is dropped it on her lap late in the day!
Hague and Barclays would have been a poor thing for HH to say as IIRC Hague paid for himself! Indeed the Lloyds TSB lifetime mortgage that the young Mrs Brown (Tax avoidance) has on Gordon’s old flat might come into play?
Ooh, Cherie Lunghi has now closed right up in the Strictly winner market on Betfair. Equal with Stevens and Chambers, Healey still odds on to win. Bleakley and Snowdon (12.5 and 18 respectively) seem to be possible value. If you think anyone else can win the lowest odds for others is Foster at 55.
Hague paid for his hotel Barclays paid for everything else. Cost to Barclays £500,000
254: ‘Does anyone else get the impression that what actually happened was that Brown saw all the Eurozone members going off for a private meeting and was actually pleading with them to be allowed in?’
Yes, clearly Brown grovelled to be allowed to sit with the big boys, probably even offering to scrap the pound if they agreed to hype his contribution. Seems a shame that nearly a millennium of British sovereignty should be sacrificed on the alter of one man’s vanity!
258. What rot! Berg, the guy who is sueing him, is a Democrat of liberal Jewish extraction, and a fully-paid up member of the NAACP…
As I said previously, America has never had a Prez who..
i) had an alien father
ii) was brought up under a military dictatorship
iii) probably had dual citizenship at some point
His colour is irrelevant. McCain also has arguable bars to his eligibility, and has had lawsuits filed against him, although Obama’s background is far more dubious, imho…
259 Martin are you in support of your fellow conservative albion.
In his view of no unemployment benefit.
I think it shows a nasty side, which i believe most conservative voters would not support.
258. He is no more black then he is white. Maybe americas first half caste president??
Look I am no supporter of Labour, and Harriet is fairly useless, but Hague didn’t land a glove on her!
268. For the whole thing not for Hague - anyway it is a non story IIRC Barclays has not succombed to nationaisation. Where as the Labour party have massively increased hospitality spending during their period of office at the expense of the tax payer!
The LD’s also have problems with business due to Michael Brown.
Ah, diddums
“”I am very angry at the House of Lords,” the prime minister said at the EU summit in Brussels. “They should not have rejected the proposals we had for pre-charge detention, which in very special circumstances would go up to 42 days. They defied the will of the House of Commons which was expressed in favour of those.”
“The prime minister could have attempted to force through the proposal using the Parliament Act. But whips said they could not guarantee the votes in the Commons that would have been needed to challenge the Lords”
256 - I am. Especially when the trends of the polls are firmly in Barack Obama’s favour.
173. stjohn - “Not sure when or whether to back the SNP? They are certainly on the drift.”
Ask Mike to post another Labour-boosting post. Then buy SNP!
273 - Regardless of Hague, if she responded to Cable by saying “she doesn’t understand how interest rates work”, then she shouldn’t be let anywhere near the despatch box again.
261.So in effect, not truly able to be independent, just happy to cling to a bigger set of petticoats in case things get tough?
271. People are entitled to their views! It is not one i subscribe to!
The point is Brown for all his hollow rhetoric has for political purposes wrapped himself and his party in the credit crisis - when asked to deliver simple substance on his comments he fails! Same old failure - Same old Brown!
Obama is a black Northern liberal. The GOP machine may have financial trouble and a dodgy ticket but they do know how to stop Democtatic votes being cast and counted. Put these things together and I wouldn’t bank on an Obama landslide. I’d say rather that it’s still likely that McCain will take Florida, Ohio and Missouri. So, Obama will win, but not by much.
If Obama were to get 350+ EVs that would be such a remarkable feat that I’d bank on the Dems winning the next two presidential elections.
The point is Brown was Chicken today!
If he really wanted to lead in the credit crisis he would have attended the Commmons instead of trying to grandstand at some international meeting that he had no natural entitlement to attend. Brown never changes, he is concerned with only his own job not that of others! Brown attended some statement yesterday by the home Sec. IIRC, why did he not face questioning today? Why was he chicken? Was it because it did not suit his party political agenda?
270. Just wondering… if it should turn out that BO is an ineligible candidate and has been lying all along, just how are his supporters going to place the blame on McCain/Palin? Obviously it’s their fault - they and their supporters are to blame for everything nasty said about The Man, but I’m intrigued as to exactly what reasoning will be employed.
One in every 36 Northern Rock customers has had their homes take from them. This compares to a national average of one in every 250 customers having their homes taken from them, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
Campaigners said that this was proof that Northern Rock was being a “ruthless and aggressive” and that it was an ominous sign that the Treasury would crack down on late-paying mortgage customers now that it had stakes in nearly half the entire country’s mortgages.
Sleep well.
284 If your objective is a client state then what better way to achieve it.
283. It’s a moot point because he’s not ineligible. The idea that he is is only entertained by hard right loons.
272. You clearly aren’t aware of America’s racial history.
284.
Isnt it the way that NR are offering quite stinging deals to people coming off the promotional mortgages, in the hope that the customer will offload their dodgy mortgage *cough* i mean shop around for a better deal from another company.
After pulling out of Michigan last week it appears that McCain is also cutting Wisconsin adrift :
http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=138987
Latest lie being put around is a fake Michelle Obama interview, I doubt that anyone with a brain would be taken in by it but here it is, just for a laugh.
“Yesterday in an unplanned and unscripted phone call between the African Press International (API) and Michele Obama, she completely unloaded on these guys and all but admits Obama is not American and she does admit he will push the Muslim faith on America. She then goes on to call all whites in America racists and the API should ignore the link between Odinga and Obama, and how Odinga held Corzi against his will to keep him from exposing Obama’s background.”
Desperate really - only for nutters.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/obama-campaign.html
286. “hard-right loons”, like the liberal Jewish, Democrat NAACP member Philip J. Berg….
286. You mean you hope and pray that he’s not ineligible.
As I understand it, such questions have been around for some time and could easily be scotched by the production of a few pieces of official paperwork. Indeed, if challenged, isn’t it up to the candidate to prove their bona fides. So why hasn’t BO?
283. Obviously you’ve never studied a humanities subject at a British University. When the law goes against you it is phallo-logo-centric, and patriarchal oppression. They’ll be fine.
289 Further …. and it would appear Maine too :
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CAMPAIGN_ADS?SITE=NCWIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
292 - He has, another lie.
One problem now being highlighted of the stock market going down is the pensions deficit for companies. Royal Mail may well have been exposed to a further 2.1 bn of deficit since March.
Meanwhile, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), which compensates members of underfunded pension schemes when their sponsors go bankrupt, said earlier this week that schemes eligible for its help posted a £20bn increase in their total deficit last month. It rose to £113.5bn, up from £91.6bn at the end of August. End of Octobers deficits might be interesting.
If there is no significant likelihood of the stock market rising many trustees of funds will be going to the companies asking for significant amounts of money. The impact of this just when we are going into recession is not likely to be good.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/3204737/Stockmarket-turmoil-hits-Royal-Mail.html
296 - The risk of this can be overstated. If employers aren’t able to pay more, the Pensions Regulator can approve less demanding contribution arrangements.
But no, not good for tax receipts, and even employer contributions that may be affordable can have a substantial opportunity cost in other parts of the business.
295. References please.
Factcheck on the above.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
290. I love the idea of Obama pushing Islam on the nation. How? Compulsory Islamic prayers at school? Forcing everyone to wear one of those silly hats? Do they imagine the ATF scouring rural areas for those who won’t kneel to Mecca?
298 - Come on, nobody seriously believes what you said. You have to ask for proof? Anyway, I posted it as you were posting.
256. I’m not surprised by the numbers Peter. I think most people expect the race to tighten (historically this has generally been the case). The 538 & RCP figures reflect the polls at the moment.
I wonder if, after Brown’s laughable comments about loft insulators today, any Labour supporters have realised that they’ve been wrongly sucked in in exactly the same way they were last summer? They must realise that someone who is capable of saying such ridiculous things is never going to get anything other than a temporary boost in the polls before resuming the downward spiral.
Typical Rightist desperation — if you can’t win the election, steal it or have the winner declared invalid.
Has anyone except Brogan picked up on the Bloomberg or Euro story?
303. It is obvious that Brown was Chicken for PMQ’s today and his gaffe in Brussels was simply dreadful.
Brown is useless and needs removing from office - anybody can look good spouting civil service lines on economic intervention when the opposition has suspended political hostilities.
It is amusing that Brown through wanting to extend the non-political period has axed it himself through incomptence!
It just seems to be the same old failure - with the same old Brown!
287. We are not american, and he is not black. It is quite clear. We do not follow the ‘one drop of blood nonesense’ and neither do they anymore.
He may have an african father, and an american mother, but he is as ‘african american’ as i am.
304- Typical leftist hysteria… neither will happen.
I’ve gone for 300-329. I really don’t know enough about the system to make a very educated guess, so I’m just going with what people on here seem to think.
O/T - When is Brown going to change the BofE’s remit regards interest rates. Everyone seems to be calling for a rate cut, but under Brown all the MPC can consider is inflation. Interest rates are lower just about everywhere else and if we don’t do something about them, we’re facing an even bigger slump. We have the biggest budget deficit, the highest levels of personal debt and the biggest bank bail out (as a % of GDP ) going. I just can’t buy intothis Brown revival talk. He’ll be heading down again within the month.
307. I didn’t know you were from the states!
I will say that:
1. Obama will win.
2. It won’t be down to a knife-edge.
3. It won’t be a landslide (which I would define as 350 EC votes or more).
I actually went for 270-299, still an Obama victory given the national polls but i am suspicious of some of the closer state polls and the likely race factor!
299. All very well, but how official is this Factcheck crew? Not very, is my guess, otherwise why the continuing stream of allegations and pending court hearings? If there’s no hint of fire beneath the smoke, why haven’t said courts dismissed these appeals instanter?
As I’ve stated on here before, I couldn’t give a toss who wins the US election, though I am moderately interested in the mechanics of it. And as a disinterested party I have no compunction (nor axe to grind) in asking questions that some may consider unwelcome.
306: ‘…his gaffe in Brussels was simply dreadful…’
Imagine if the Mighty Thatch had said she was going to put the unemployed to use by turning them into unpaid loft laggers. Labour and the unions would have been rioting on the streets and we’d still be hearing about it from the likes of Roger to this day. Yes, we all had a good laugh when a few simple souls abroad lauded Brown as savour of the world, but, joking aside, the man’s a danger!
304. Wasn’t that how Obama won his election to State Congress - get the opposition disqualified?
Police officers will be paid an extra 2.65 per cent this year, 2.6 per cent in 2009 and 2.55 per cent in 2010. This means by the end of the decade a police constable will be able to earn up to £36,500, 50 per cent more than in 1997.
Inflation under this government (based on September figures, 1997 to date) is currently 42.08%. Given RPI 3% in September of each of 2009 and 2010, inflation in 2010 will be at 50.73%.
Police officers suffer pay cuts under Labour. Fact.
314. Well I know where i would put the lagging - although I would be worried Brown would enjoy that!
316. If that’s for a PC rather than a sergeant, I’d say it’s more than enough. Soldiers get something ridiculous like 14k.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4948472.ece
Times on the unemployed. Brown’s millions.
The Times are not going to back him.
They are going to help ask the questions IMHO.
Okay, simple bit of digging. The guy writing this is Sammy Korir (in the style of a scam email but let that pass).
He is based in Norway, as strangely is the African Press International. There is a UK telephone number there too.
http://africanpress.wordpress.com/
Here’s a translation from the Norwegian of an article in the Dagbladet (maybe Richard Tyndall could check to see the accuracy?) which claims -
“A charlatan: Sammy Korir is the same as the man who Supreme Court - based on current hyesterettsjustitiarius Brenda Blethyn as one of the judges - in a judgment in 1992 described as a “charlatan” and “unqualified and unreliable””
“Korir has in recent years - from 1996 - led the organization’s Rainbow Foundation which has been paid out large amounts from the state to AIDS-prevention efforts among African youth in Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsoe. Last year, the Rainbow Foundation was paid 408.000 kroner in state funds. According to NRK ustlandssendingen they do not have any evidence that the events of the Rainbow Foundation have been held as scheduled.
Sammy Korir, as that organization’s president, has taken out most of the state funds to pay and - according to NRK - spent the rest of the funds in visiting restaurants.”
That took a minute’s googling.
And people actually *believe* this stuff? No investigative journalists able to use a simple search engine?!?
313- Factcheck is a group of journalists with the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Here are some of the lies about Palin that they’ve also debunked:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming_palin.html
318. Do we not live in a market economy? Should the wage not reflect the demand for the position and the necessary calibre of candidates?
313 - If you question the acknowledgedly independent Factcheck, an organisation that is quoted in ads by both campaigns then there really is no point carrying on the exchange.
322. I don’t really understand your point.
It seems you would have to get to the rank of Captain to earn 36k in the army.
http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0104.html
307. Well ‘African American’ is a silly term in any case given that the vast majority of those so described have nothing whatever to do with Africa.
315.
318 Its a disgrace. They get paid a pittance for their service.
Unfortunately involvement with the armed forces is now limited to so few families that the ordinary folks switch off from what they do and how much they get paid for doing it.
My entire future depends on this election. If Obama wins I get married in America. If he loses my life goes into freefall.
“Brenda Blethyn ”
Whoops, damn babelfish. Here’s another translation
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2008/06/02/536925.html
“Sammy Korir is identical to the man that the Supreme Court - with the current Supreme Court Justice Tore Schei as one of the judges - in a verdict in 1992 described as a “charlatan” and “qualified unreliable.”
God knows how Tore Schei becomes Brenda Blethyn!
322 Nobody said that when nurses and other public sector workers were ‘undervalued’.
326. It is a disgrace, and I don’t think it can get a lot worse. Things will have to change soon otherwise we won’t have an army.
296 - surprised it has taken as long as now for these private sector final salary scheme deficits to rear their heads once again. Yet another in the long litany of Gordon assisted deficits.
330. Hasn’t the army always been badly paid though? It used to be a lot more dangerous as well.
I would find it incomprehensible if any candidate for high office in the USA does not have to establish his or her eligibility for such office before being allowed to stand.
In any event it can only be a matter of time before the US supreme court decides that it is unconstitutional to bar anyone holding US citizenship from standing for the Oval office because he or she was not born in that country.
I would love to see Obama offer McCain some appointment like UN Ambassador after the election and it will be interesting to see what role Lieberman is given with him being a Democrat (within or out with the official party ticket) and a supporter of McCain. I think and hope most of the outside world would think more highly of a new US Administration if it seeks to embrace the sensible wings of both parties to some extent to the exclusion of the nutters, left and right. I also hope Clinton gets a good job simply because although I would never want to see a PResident Hilary, she is a very clever woman with a large “constituency” and a sensible new president seeking to rebuild the nation’s reputation and institutions having watched them being trashed for 8 years by Dubya, should seek to bring in all the talents.
Could we see Colin Powell come out and endorse Obama after tonight’s debate, especially if the polls show the GOP heading for a serious defeat. After all he owes the GOP no favours. He was one of the most sensible and respected members of Dubya’s first administration.
It’s not that difficult to believe
320 I have personally met and talked with Sammy Korir and can confirm he is a 100 percent fraud.
335 - Thanks Jan, he sounds like a total shyster.
Come on national and international press, we’ve just got the story for you (fee to be negotiated).
333. Colin Powell come out and endorse Obama after tonight’s debate.
That would be interesting, personally - I always thought Powell was the most likely Black first President! But I guess the mantle has shifted to Obama. My view has shifted from being pro-mcCain to mild Obama support: Though when I see McCain on the telly I have sympathy - I feel his party on balance need a heavy defeat and McCain is too old really!
332. Maybe so. But the world has changed and we have a professional army now. You need to treat people decently to keep them. The disparity between armed forces salaries and other public sector workers is shameful. It’s the whole package which has been allowed to slip, housing in particular is dire. No-one is expecting the army to compete with Barclay Capital’s salaries, but if you look at the research pay and conditions are causing a lot of people to leave.
http://www.uknda.org/armed_forces_face_mass_walk_out_over_poor_funding_report_warns_/n-153.html
334. Why stop there? Why not manufacture fake growth statistics, fake employment statistics, fake price statistics as well? The Soviets used to, and I’m sure the BBC would faithfully report them.
339 - Would that be the build up to the big one? Fake election results!
Very entertaining:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_martin/blog/2008/10/15/this_scandalous_failure_on_bank_regulation_was_all_so_very_gordon_brown
332.”330. Hasn’t the army always been badly paid though? It used to be a lot more dangerous as well.”
I can’t believe that you seriously think that its less dangerous to be in the armed forces now, that’s pretty incredible. Didn’t you notice the list of names of the dead read out by Brown over the summer recess from Parliament.
FTSE UP 3.44% so far this week.
327 Johnboy, perhaps you should hedge with a few quid on McCain!
343 - pity it is down 7% today
343: FTSE down 22% this month, and down 40% in a year.
339 I would argue he has done that already and continues to for example in terms of growth Buy to let property price appreciation was included in the Growth figures for years(I wonder if it still is) The CPI is effectively a fake measure of inflation for people in their everyday lives, not weighting correctly so that increases/decreases in food were outweighed by cheap electronics from China, and of course it didn’t include house price inflation.
307. No, but Barack Obama is. And America doesn’t need to follow the one-drop rule for someone that looks like him to be classed as black. A guy with similar features and the same shade of skin would be called black by the vast majority of the country, and Obama would have been called it when he grew up. After the history of discrimination in a country which treated someone with one black parent as black, when an African American finally becomes President, its a bit rich for white people to turn around and say “well, he’s not really black”.
Dear All,
I called a bookie to place a £100 bet and they limited to £5 (not the first time I have been limited by this bookie (and others)! I then went to a shop of this bookie and had £100 (at the same price). Have I done anything unethical? Or is it up to bookies to control liabilities in all ‘channels’? I would be good to get a response from Shadsy (if you get me meaning)
Chris Trinder
http://kickingbets.blogspot.com
The UK’s leading Sports Betting Blog
343. And?
I put down 360-390 as I think he’ll win Kerry plus the three Southwestern states in play, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Virginia and two of North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri.
350 And?
…the banking stocks seem to be bucking the trend and are relatively stable.
The Brown Plan - it is working.
Regarding the debt rule in the Spectator, isn’t that something like inflation figures or not looking at polls? By insisting on something which is obvious and doesn’t tally with reality, he’ll just end up providing ammunition for the opposition, surely?
Next PMQs (if Brown turns up) I hope Cameron hammers him.
Fraser Nelson on the latest rumour Brown’s new plan to bring down the debt.
“I am hearing that Brown is to make up his own debt measurement, after losing a battle to have Northern Rock struck from the official national debt. It will be used in the pre budget report, exclude Northern Rock, and would show the figure Harman gave in PMQs today, national debt falling from 43 percent to 37 percent. It sounds implausible; it is one thing to fiddle your own golden rule, another to produce a fake national debt series so you can get around an ONS ruling. So I am treating this rumour with suspicion. I mean, he couldn’t. Could he?”
Should I confiscate the kids Monopoly money just in case?
Which bank stocks are relatively stable?
348. Personally I can’t regard Obama as black because to me it is a scientific definition. In America it is obviously more of a cultural thing, not least promoted by the majority white population.
Half-casts may not technically be ‘black’ but they still face broadly the same difficulties and symbolically, having a half-cast President, will have a similar effect.
The information on early votes in Georgia on Politico yesterday was very interesting. It looks positive for Obama, so if he is doing well there then a huge margin could be on. However American pollsters always seem to have over hyped him so I think it will be closer than it looks at the minute, 300-330 for me.
349 - not at all, the shops are the place to get on if you’ve been restricted. Eventually they will tighten their procedures there as well, but it’s much harder to manage, and the reporting breakdown (i.e. identifying where they are losing money) isn’t usually as good.
Some professional arbers can visit 25 shops in an afternoon to get on football coupon prices at say £100 per shop.
What’s caused the Dow to drop 733 today?
329. Yes they did. It was pretty obvious that the rate for nurses was to low, as the recruitment levels where low, attracting low quality candidates, and many more experieinced nurses leaving the profession all together.
Now that wages are higher, demand is high in recruitment and retention, with less reliance on cheap immigrant nurses.
352 - I’m sure everyone welcomes that. Won’t help him politically though.
356. As far as I’m aware there isn’t a scientific definition for being “black”. There’s a gradual clinal variation as you move from sub-Saharan Africa, up through the Nile valley, around the Eastern Mediterranean coast and up through the Balkans to Northern Europe. Race does not exist at the biological level for humans as it does in other animals. It is mainly a social term, based around much vaguer, and much more minor, biological differences.
you obviously dont hold any shares gabble otherwise you wouldnt be so chipper about the stock market. what a joker you are. many shares are down 60% + on the year. its a complete disaster for those about to retire, partic when they had as they thought sensibly invested in blue chip shares as part of a balanced pension plan.
356. But he is not ‘african american’, he is not black, there is no legacy of slavery in his family, there is no legacy of maltreatment, no legacy or culture of disenfrachisment.
352. The plan is working? Exactly what timescale do you work by? A day? Two days, a week?
Can you tell me what you believe is the timescale to judge success by?
356. And incidentally, you might wish to avoid using the term “half-caste”, as it suggests one side of someone’s descent is of a different “caste” (status) to the other.
362. Yes, but it is no more correct to call him black, then it is to call him white.
My children will be half black and half white, and they will be brought up to know what both parts they are made of, and not to cast one away because it is ‘useful’ to do so.
360.The recruitment rates for nurses are connected to a much longer term problem, it goes back many years to the change in the training system. It was a totally predictable problem that really has nothing to do with nurses pay.
366.
How about Mullato?
Gabble is just what they call “an internet troll” , isnt he?
358. Jaysus for usually less than 10% a throw too. Suppose there are worse ways to earn a crust.
359
US retail sales down 1% month over month. The first fall for 17 years.
Consumer spending makes up 70% of the US economy.
Dow to 6,000
344- stickers- there are a fair few of us into the neck on Obama. At least it is not with McCain
341 - there’s a good point contained within that article. That is that not just has the FSA been a pretty ineffective regulator - but also it is a very difficult job for a regulator to do.
As we have seen banking is almost uniquely, more than any industry, reliant almost completely on confidence. How does a public regulator, employing thousands of employees, go about raising concerns about individual banks without causing a serious crisis of confidence and making the thing worse?
374 - The FSA is serially inept anyway, anyone who deals with it on a regular basis knows that a large percentage of the staff have not a single clue!
352
Gabble.
I defy you to post on here about stock prices for a week. They are in the middle of a crash.
You make yourself seem more of a muppet than ever, as this is the biggest stockmarket crash since 1929.
Quite an achievement:look what happened to the Labour Government of the time. They were out of power for 13 years.
We are watching history being enacted. It is unlilely any one alive now will see a rerun of this. And you post about bank stability.
On this basis, every UK insurance company is going to be insolvent and every pension fund holding shares.
Note: every.
LOL
Is Anne Robinson going to have to put on a Scottish accent or something?
Socrates - fair point. Perhaps I should have used the word logical rather than scientific. I realise that in the US that pretty much anyone with black ancestors is considered ‘black’ whatever the other mixture of ethnicities in them may be. Tiger Woods is an obvious example.
I’ll try to avoid half-caste from now on.
366. In what way is Africa the same “status” as Europe, America, Russia, China or any place else that are advanced societies?
373. Tell me about it! I’m already counting my chickens on Obama but am now hedging slightly by laying >350 Democrat electoral college votes. The dream scenario is an Obama victory with between 270 and 350 EVs.
369. I’ve not known it to be offensive, but then I don’t really know the term. I think its becoming a bit archaic.
374 Yes I agree - I thought it made some very good points. As GB prances round the world at the moment it strikes me that a careful considered approach to reviewing financial services regulation is needed rather a mad rush to grand stand and score political points.
As to the issue of the rescue plan I’m am sure there is still a long way to go before confidence is properly restored and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still some pretty serious hiccups still to come.
It seems very unwise to be claiming that the package is such a success so early on.
The FTSE is over 1500 points down from the point I sold my investment units last December! I used them to buy my house in spai to which I intend to retire. PS I bought the house to live in and enjoy - not worried about its value as an investment - que sra sera!
The stock market is just a joke. Why should it go down to 2000 any more than it should go down to 1000? Or 3000?
One day it goes up 8% as “confidence returns”. The next it goes down 8% on “recession fears”. And then back again. And again. It’s like there’s two separate sets of traders on alternate days.
382
Watch the insurance companies next. I expect some household names may have serious problems…
I know I’m in a minority but I’ve gone for 390+ EVs for Obama. I think there is a seismic shift, a tectonic earthquake in attitudes to the old economic model of trickle down - plus a rapidly growing comfort with Obama the man, - plus early returns showing a landslide to Obama. All in all, it feels more like May 1997 than May 1997 did. A sunny morning on November 5th? I’m trying to be rational here and not let my emotions rule. Otherwise I would vote for 538.
348- I agree, there’s little doubt that Obama is considered to be “black” within either white circles or black circles in the U.S. The black community, whether speaking of slave-descended or non-slave-descended individuals, embraces him without reservation as one of their own. Whites similarly see him as black. And finally, Obama clearly sees himself as black and identifies predominantly with his “blackness” considering how he has lived his life (e.g., the church he chose, the political constituency in which he chose to plant his roots, the woman he married, etc.). I think we can all safely say Obama is “black” and even “African American.”
384 - It isn’t a case of ought it is a case of judging what news is likely to do to sentiment. Traders will make a call on the basis of a piece of news as to it’s effect on the market place, they will then shift the balance of their portfolios accordingly.
363 - if they’re really near retirement then hopefully they’ve been nearly 100% invested in government bonds / near cash instruments, and as a result should be relatively ok. Those around 5-10 years away, still mainly in equities are going to be the really unfortunate ones most likely. Corporate bonds ditto.
Just knew Gabble couldn’t resist a positive stock market comment!
386- Obama will win. I don’t know why your emotions require a victory with any particular number of electoral votes.
371: when I was doing my postgrad, a couple of mature students I knew made ends meet sharbing (shop-arbing). It’s actually moderately profitable - we’re talking 500ish/week, and since it’s gambling that’s tax free.
Monster pita to do though, it would drive me nuts. It’s basically a full time job keeping track of all the shops, and you need a really good understanding of countless markets, how the odds develop and move in different situations. Frankly, with proper risk management, anyone with that range of knowledge should be able to make a lot more with straightforward kelly staking.
380: yes, I’ll be doing something similar around nov 1st, either or the McCain+handicap market or the EV range you suggest. Going to be extremely long odds by then, hopefully
386. I almost chose that option - I was weighing up whether Georgia would swing or not, but I don’t think the turnout operation can quite overcome the eight point gap.
384. Unfortunately for most of us it is not a joke:
1. It reflects sentiment about the propects for the economy here and abroad.
2. The great bulk of the money invested daily is by Pension funds and the like upon which the average Joe’s pension depends.
3. The only large groups who are largey immune to its effects are those working in the public sector and benefit claimants - & even these groups can suffer if the crash goes on long enough.
3. This is where Gordon’s stewardship has brought us.
79. We weren’t talking about societies. We were talking about genetics.
#354 You’d better believe it. The ONS has 2 time series one including NRK and the other excluding NRK for net debt - Brown probably had a hissy fit and insisted they maintain the 2.
There’s some more stuff to go on there now like the Bradford and Bingley liabilities, and it’s the political reason behind the madness that is the HBoS/LLoyds deal.
393 - A joke doesn’t have to be funny.
“1. It reflects sentiment about the prospects for the economy here and abroad.”
Precisely. “Sentiment” doesn’t last much longer than the length of a liquid lunch these days.
387. Is it his internal racism which makes him reject his whiteness?
New Statesman has a piece about Britain joining the euro:
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/10/brown-european-british-blair
397. No it’s simply his skin colour.
390. Do you still think it will be six points?
397. Or maybe its a society which treated him as black growing up. If you’re really interested in the topic you should read his first book, which deals his teenage struggles with finding his identity.
Unconfirmed Rasmussen state polls :
New Mexico - M-42/O-55 .. Illinois - M-39/O-56 .. Kansas - M-54/O-41 .. Massachusetts - M-34/O-62
397- I certainly don’t know how the man thinks. But it is true that he was well-positioned by the circumstances of his upbringing as a rolling stone, never immersed in either a truly white environment or a truly black environment, and having a white mother and absentee black father, to choose how he wanted to live his adult life. He was neither conditioned to live as a typical black man nor as a typical white man. He therefore made a decision to live essentially as a black man (not without social forces at play, of course, but he did have an unusual degree of freedom to determine how he would live his life).
But as I say, I can’t really delve into his motives for largely turning away from the culture of the white mother who raised him and adopting a more typical American black indentity as an adult.
401. He was brought up by his white mother. He is not black, it is point of fact. They maybe many in the black and white sections of america society so desperate for a black person to reach the presidency they are willing to turn a blind eye to this fact.
Its the same with the silly nonesense when Halle Berry got her oscar. A great achievement for people of colour, ha, what a load of rubbish. Her mother was a white girl from liverpool, and her father an alcholic who beat up her mother and cleared off before she was born. She was brought up entirely by her white grandparents, yet she still calls herself black.
utter rot, you may encourage such people to indulge in such infantalism, but i wont.
307 etc. I would have thought that African-American was a very accurate description of someone who has one African parent and one American one?
386 - I went the 330-359 option, but take seriously what you’re saying.
This crisis goes much deeper than just a banking solvency crisis. At its core is the percentage of the economy that is devoted to the share of labour (wages) and the share of capital (corporate profits). For years (since the mid 1970’s in the US) the latter has been squeezing the former. But eventually you get to the point in a very sluggish growing economy where wages get squeezed too far, consumers go into debt in order to maintain current lifestyles - witness people doing more than one job to make ends meet, less one breadwinner 2 parents 2 kids households than there were 20-30 years ago. Even Henry Ford when making Model T Fords over 100 years ago recognised that you needed employees earning decent wages in order to be able to afford his new products.
So to all of us on the centre right, this is a big challenge, and will need a recognition that the Anglo Saxon economic model has reached its limits. I hope we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater though, and throw the model out en masse. But we do require a better balance between the share of labour / capital in economic growth, than we’ve had over the past years in particular.
403. Maybe because it was convienient to do so? He was obviously a very bright student, likely to do well. Unlike the experience of many genuine african americans, his colour has brought him nothing but advantage and preference.
Did Gord really say this?
We will be able to retrain as loft insulators
Yahoo: Unemployment ’set to spiral’
The Government has been warned that unemployment could spiral to 3 million after the biggest jobless rise since 1991 left 1.79 million people looking for work. However, Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that unemployment was higher in America, Germany, France and Italy than in Britain. Mr Brown said one way to tackle unemployment and at the same time climate change was to train people to install loft insulation
400- Socrates, as you know, I initially predicted months ago a 6 to 8 point margin for Obama in the two-party vote but then reconsidered later and posited that a 4 to 6 point margin was more likely. I guess down the stretch that I’m now squarely in the middle of that already narrow range and am predicting a 6 point victory (in the two-party vote). To me, at least, this shows the power of history and generic factors in guiding the determination of political outcomes since such factors have essentially been the basis for my predictions all along. I have put little stock in the candidates as individuals, although that is a factor among many. Election day will show whether I should revise or reinforce that approach to political prognostication.
409- Post in MODERATION, please liberate.
389
UK gilts = long dated have fallen 10% since start Ovtober.
The yield is rising. Market says inflation is coming.
Bit tough if you are invested in gilts…
(mind you issuing gilts to fund bank bailouts does not help)
403. I don’t think choosing to identify as black means he is rejecting white culture. He was President of Harvard law review, for Pete’s sake.
Overnight markets are forecasting another 5% off the FTSE when it opens tomorrow.
404- But by that standard, there are really very few real blacks in America, particularly if you don’t include more recent black immigrants. American blacks simply don’t see themselves in the way you see them; they are likely to accept someone as black if they more or less look black, which could be as little as 1/4 blood or so.
404. There is a society outside your immediate family.
412
My 3460 target is coming closer…
412- Are you saying that you have to embrace white culture to be on the Harvard Law Review?! I don’t know, but an interesting theory!
Interesting stuff
413. And the same is true of American Whites, of American Asians and American Hispanics.
#412 Yes - when I glanced earlier, FTSE futures were showing it may open below 3873 (last weeks low).
416. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s clearly not a rejection of white culture like Malcolm X would have done.
408 - Yep. And if they train them very badly and very slowly then there may be enough lofts to go round.
409- I used “gener1c” again. On a political site, that really shouldn’t be getting trapped in spam filters.
Generic
Socrates, what is your predicted margin for the race?
By the way, Socrates, my prediction for you is caught in the spam filter. Hopefully, it will be out soon!
406. It does seriously question how large a finance industry we need in terms of investment banks, hedge funds etc. Obviously you need a certain amount as they provide liquidity, but there reaches a point where its not providing any extra liquidity and merely sucking up the most talented graduates from more productive fields.
John Murtha (D-PA) is an experienced politician, but I’m not sure if it’s the wisest course to call your constituents racists:
PITTSBURGH (AP) - U.S. Rep. John Murtha says his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama’s victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points. The 17-term Democratic congressman tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story posted Wednesday on its Web site that, as he put it: “There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”
417 - You might like this as well:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/13866677.html
Not so interesting for its scenario, but for its observation that: “financial history reminds us that ten-sigma events do happen. And, when they do, liquidity can ebb much more quickly than it previously flowed.”
423. I’m thinking about 8 or 9 points. People are getting a bit carried away with some of the polls at the moment, but we should remember McCain hasn’t won a media cycle for a while, and theres bound to be some more ebbs and flows before the election. However, I think Obama’s turnout operation could give him anywhere from an extra 1 to 5 points from the final days polling. A lot will depend on the last media cycle going into the election, seeing how volatile the electorate is at the moment.
385.”Watch the insurance companies next. I expect some household names may have serious problems…”
Weren’t there concerns about one or two of them a few years ago, were any regulations made looser at the time?
405. No it isnt, ‘african american’ is not used to describe someone like that. Learn more about what it means.
426 - “Obviously you need a certain amount as they provide liquidity, but there reaches a point where its not providing any extra liquidity and merely sucking up the most talented graduates from more productive fields.”
I think this is a very good point. The disparity in salaries on offer in the City were SO great and so immediate, that it is very difficult for the most talented to resist.
Did anybody see this on Iain Dales blog. It seems credible to me…
Brown: Less Superman More Clark Kent
Iain Dale 7:11 PM
Someone I know who used to work at Labour HQ has told me a tale which goes some way to explaining why Gordon Brown isn’t hugely popular among party staffers.
Just after Brown became Prime Minister, the then General Secretary of the Labour Party thought it would be a good morale building exercise if Gordon Brown payed a visit to Party HQ to meet and rally the troops. The PM agreed and so one day last summer he turned up at Labour’s Victoria Street offices to deliver a pep talk. All was going swimingly. He made a short speech, then toured the open plan offices, stopping at each person’s desk for a quick word.
After he had left, the excited party officials, still high on the adrenaline of meeting their hero, compared notes on their respective conversations with the PM.
“He said ‘how’s your desk?’” said the first woman. “That’s funny, that’s exactly what he asked me,” said someone else. “And me,” said a third. And so it went on.
It turned out that the only thing Gordon Brown could think of to say was to ask everyone if they were happy with the position of their desks.
I was telling someone this story this afternoon and they made a very telling remark. “Of course, stories like this could be apocryphal, but the fact that I can quite believe it to be true says it all.”. As Shane Greer constantly reminds me, perception is everything.
Does anyone have other examples of Gordon Brown’s inability to conduct ’small talk’?
It generally means an American citizen who has African genetic descent. Which Obama has.
385 - I have my own reasons for keeping a close eye on this possibility. If that happens, phase 2 of the crisis could be at least as ugly as phase 1.
425 - yep, excellent point Socrates. I’ll be pleased to see science graduates going into their chosen scientific field, instead of being hoovered into investment (w)anking, as has been the case over the past 10-15 years.
432. Yeah, he’s not too good at the small talk - he’ll just have to make do with saving the entire world from financial meltdown.
406. Interesting post hunchman!
I don’t buy into the end of US style capatilism or UK capatilism for that! Capitalism has it’s up and downs but it is better than socialism which means perpertual poverty/hard times for all. In the UK the lack of economic growth comes as a shock but i can say that even in 2001 in Britain the last slowdown (Not recession) the private sector faired badly. It is the nature if the beast - it will get better after a while but it will be tough times! The last recession was tough and I remeber it well! To be honest it still felt like a recession until at least 1996 - ironically Blair’s election co-incided with a new feeling of prosperity. I think the election of Cameron may well feel the same. Labour have just been in power to long and the recovery under the tories will not be immediate.
Don’t know if anyone has already linked this already - but of interest to PBers
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_bradley_effect_selective_m.html
Hat tip to Electoral Vote
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Oct14.html
@398. That seems to be a very remote possibility to say the least. I cannot see any potential benefit for Brown. Why would he do it?
On topic. If you ignore the very Obama-friendly one-off polls, Obama’s lead has tightened over the past few days. That pattern looks familiar to me, the same has happened before at least the previous debate as well. I would say that’s more of a regression to the mean. What happened last time is that Obama won the debate and got (yet another) bounce out of it. Simply by chance, I’m not sure the Democrats can count on winning four out of the four debates with a clear margin (with voters, not pundits that is). So in the last couple of days, we may have seen the high point of the Obama lead.
Sean Fear has written an article on ConHom where offers his predictions for next years locals.
Local Elections 09. How will we do?
434 - I’m surprised that AIG didn’t kick a few more dominoes off in the insurance field. That certainly provides an appealing explanation for a next wave downwards. But, as I said last night, I see this heading to a whole developed country financial viability crisis, and by that, I mean a much bigger country than Iceland.
Another possibility is a country specific crisis in Eastern Europe. One of Hungary, or the Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia block could be a possibility. So much property speculation based on Swiss Franc borrowings. Have been a little surprised that the Swissie hasn’t mirrored the Yen as closely in this deleveraging. But at some point I expect it to.
439. I’m not convinced voters have thought Obama won both debates with a clear margin. They just thought he did enough to reassure them into voting for the person they want to, and he did.
442 - Haven’t Hungary already had their crisis? They are currently being bailed out by the IMF.
436
Which way has the stock market gone since Brown became PM?
How many banks have collapsed since he became PM?
Which way have house prices gone since he became PM?
Which way have the unemployment figures gone since he became PM?
Which way has the inflation figures gone since he became PM?
Which way has the budget deficit gone since he became PM?
442 Socrates. The immediate post debate CNN and CBS polls and later Gallup and Rasmussen polls all gave the three debates to Obama and Biden by decisive margins.
436. And that will be before breakfast. After breakfast he will just carry on making evertything worse.
The Rasmussen state polls noted at 402 are confirmed :
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
436 - Gabble watch tonights news - the story isn’t Gordon saving the world anymore, it’s the British economy swirling around the lavatory pan.
‘No more boom and bust’ Brown said. What a lie.
You’ll be seeing that plastered all over billboards across the country in the run up to the next GE, next to laughing Gordons face.
How many votes is it going to lose for Labour?
I see that with 600+ votes now the pb.com voters are less McCain orientated than Betfair punters reckoning his chances at only 10/1 compared with 11/2.
@442. I agree completely, but in effect that amounted to a victory for Obama, especially the “crossing the threshold” first debate. My point is that those thresholds have been crossed and expectations are now higher for Obama. A draw may now actually be a draw and McCain winning on points may give him slight advantage.
If polls match the usual pattern and show some degree of convergence towards the end of this race, a repetition of the past performances may not provide a bounce that masks this trend. This in turn could well be sold as a good performance by McCain and a “comeback”.
It was just a thought because there seems to be a very real expectation of a landslide now. That’s entirely possible, but since the McCain campaign does not seem to implode entirely, I don’t think it’s higher than a 50:50 chance. On the other hand, since the primaries, I have constantly been overly cautious. Makes for pleasant surprises.
BBC reporting UK soldier killed in Afghan blast
Isn’t it a terrible indictment on 21st century Britain or America that we are having a debate about whether Obama is black, white or coffee coloured. For goodness sake he is just a rather tall, slim, handsome, highly articulate, well educated man with an African father and American mother of Irish extraction.
Surely the point is that given he was a child in 60s America when black people of any shade tended to be treated like shit, he would have had no choice but to grow up as the Black son of a white woman!
For no other reason than it might finally shatter the obscene racist thread which still runs through large parts of American society (and I’m sad to say also British, French German etc etc)I hope Obama wins and wins well. I for one will applaud the USA if he wins and I hope by tomorrow morning I am also applauding John McCain for standing up against any bigotry in tonight’s debate as I am sure he will, unlike his running mate.
I was stunned a few months ago when a lad from London was anxious about sending me a photo of himself to accompany his CV. I finally teased out of him on the phone that he was mixed race. When I said “so what” he was stunned. It is not so long since Lord Taylor failed to win Cheltenham and there was anxiety about local LibDem leaflets which stressed that their candidate was “local” unlike Taylor.
I remember being shocked at the suggestion of racism which ran through the LibDem campaign because to be fair to that party, I have never known any LibDem to have a racist hair on his or her head. I wonder how we would react if PRince William brought home Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter as his future wife instead of lovely Kate? Probably not very well. After all Mandela is a great grandson of an African king who died as long ago as 1832, long before the Union Jack flew over much of that great continent.
We forget that great empires like Troy, Sheba and indeed Egypt all lay within Africa.
Completely changing the subject unemployment in SCotland announced today as having risen 18% and a major factory I happen to have had dealings with has announced 600 to 800 redundancies in East Kilbride which will be a key SNP target at the GE if it is to win 20 or more seats.
Anyway I am off to type entries into my family tree programme so I wish those among you who are insomniacs the joy of watching the 3rd debate in 3 1/2 hours time.
to see how things are different - have a look at the state polls 4 years ago
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/special/polls/index.html
452. “Surely the point is that given he was a child in 60s America ..”
No he wasn’t; by his own account, and the official record, he was a child in 1960s Indonesia…
btw, which family tree program do you use?
**** NEW THREAD **** NEW THREAD **** NEW THREAD **** NEW THREAD ****
Having Saved The World, Will Super Gord, Like John Major wear his Y Fronts On The Outside ??
441. Keep an eye on Romania.
43 - please continue to comment, I for one value your comments and thoughts
444. tories
Just watched a report on SkyNews from Haiti. Following the storms, they featured a woman who has been reduced to feeding her kids dried mud.
We are living in the lap of luxury. Don’t you ever feel a tiny bit embarrassed having to pretend that the UK is some sort of hell on earth?
452.
Be careful not to over compensate, or over egg your argument. But you cannot be allowed to get away with “We forget that great empires like Troy, Sheba and indeed Egypt all lay within Africa”
They may have been within Africa, but they were not african.
452 Neither Troy, nor Sheba, lie within Africa.
When applying for a job in the public sector, in the UK, these days, being part of an ethnic minority is quite advantageous, IMHO.
458 - Gabble, I’ll take the test at 444 on your behalf.
1. DOWN
2. ? many
3. DOWN
4. UP
5. UP
6. UP
Some record for the so called global economic saviour!
Treasury to Newsnight “the banks misunderstood the deal”.
WTF, what are these clowns (Darling and Brown) up to with the multi billions they are handing around?
This whole financial deal is starting to unravel.
464 - 447, not 444
461 - Gabble “We are living in the lap of luxury”
Are you another Champagne socialist friend of Roger?