A meaningless and unscientific poll. Yay!

[rowyn]

[Poll #321072]

Comments

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

Yay me! *First blood!*

(So shoot me---)

*grin*

Things are trending better, which is likely to help Bush

[telnar.livejournal.com]

A great deal of the Kerry-Edwards message ("two Americas", desire to repeal the tax cut to fund new programs, claim that Bush has poorly prosecuted of the war in Iraq) is structured in a way which benefits from bad news. All of the indications that I'm seeing recently, though, suggest an improving trend in economic and Iraq news between now and November, which is likely to be bad for Kerry.

[rowyn]

No lesser evils for you! :D

[rowyn]

No.

:)

Re: Things are trending better, which is likely to help Bush

[rowyn]

That sounds right. I think the worst sign for Kerry is that even people who hate Bush are not enthusiastic about Kerry. When "Johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com" sums up your campaign, things are not looking good. I think he needs to do better than "!Bush" to win.

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

It sort of depends on whether you think the macroeconomic supergoo happens before or after the election....

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

I'd be writing in Spongebob Squarepants if I could vote.

It's not the best set of choices, nope

[rowyn]

Out of curiosity -- did you vote in Canada's recent election?

[level-head.livejournal.com]

We are a few months before the election, and the rising economy is already evident. And its effect upon the election is well known, and pundits on both sides are keenly aware of it and spinning it.

The situation was quite similar in the few months before the 2000 election -- the falling economy then was visibly huring Mr. Gore's chances to retain a Democrat presidency. Here's an example from that time period:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/19/latimes.economics/index.html

It shows that the economy was sliding -- and that the Dot Com bubble had burst -- some time before the election.

===|==============/ Level Head

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

I see no intrinsic problems before the election. The recent wobble in the job creation vs. forecast job creation figures isn't anything to be concerned about.

[The cashflow reversal of the Social Security Trust fund is another question entirely. Ideally, that would be after 2008. The President managing the aftermath of that is going to have to be remarkable.]

It's extrinsic problems (energy/oil) that are on my radar. I do not have a solid understanding of the timing of the knock-on effects that the reference crude oil prices will have. [Futures for Brent crude are over $37/barrel again; light crude typically runs a few dollars higher/barrel, in this case over $40/barrel. Inflation-correcting these figures would be very interesting....]

Calling the election at this point is a near-completely blind guess because the intrinsic and extrinsic macroeconomic predictions through Nov. 2004 are in direct conflict.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

That assumes, of course, that the macroeconomic issues are the only major ones.

And remember what the Saudis did in the mid 70s -- they (who tie everything together in a sense) can open the floodgates in late October and make the final decision.

===|==============/ Level Head

Re: It's not the best set of choices, nope

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

No, didn't. I was aware it was going on, but getting an ex-pat ballot is a pain which I didn't go through.

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

Fair-Parke is still predicting a G.W.Bush win in November. A historical ~90% accuracy rate is not be to ignored lightly.

Going into this election, the main caveat is that the underlying macroeconomic model has systematically underpredicted the magnitude of the changes in the U.S. Fed discount rate.

[Saudis]
Yes.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, a zero [growth], zero [goodnews], and 5% [inflation] still gets a Bush win.

===|==============/ Level Head

It gets worse at the boundries

[telnar.livejournal.com]

I tried -5.25% real GDP growth in Q1-3 of 2004, 2.5% inflation, and 0 quarters of growth greater than 3.2% and still got a dead heat (Republicans getting 50% of the vote). I don't think that growth has been that bad for 3 quarters since before the 1973-4 recession (maybe going all the way back to 1938, but I don't have older numbers handy). Somehow I suspect that this equation overweights inflation relative to growth because of lack of data during periods of very low growth.

yep -- cartels do make predictions much harder

[telnar.livejournal.com]

Agreed -- predicting what the price of oil will be this November hinges mainly on understanding which way the Saudis will jump (since they are the only OPEC producer with the capacity to increase output or the political will to reduce it). The futures markets are in the same sort of difficult position as those betting on future US short term interest rates. A small group of people make the decision rather than a market, so it's all about understanding their likely incentives and behavior (ok -- Alan Greenspan tries harder to be predictable than Ali Al-Naimi).