i'm going to have nate silver withdrawl post nov. 6

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/state-and-national-polls-come-into-better-alignment/#more-37179

this is an interesting calculation. the plot is silver's bayesian calculation of the probability of winning the electoral college given a margin in the national popular vote. thus, R+0.5 means romney wins the popular vote by 0.5% and D+1.0 means obama wins the popular vote by 1%. so even if obama loses the popular vote by 0.5% his probability of winning the electoral college according to this calculation is 60%. romney would have to win the popular vote by greater than 0.75% to get to a greater than 50% probability of winning the electoral college; and the latest polls of the national popular vote show obama up by 1.3% on average (averaged from multiple polls).



note: the image is taken from nate silver's latest article on his 538 blog at the times website.

I did not understand your subject heading, that you are going to have nate withdraw his post Nov 6.

What do you mean by that ?

rawemotions wrote:I did not understand your subject heading, that you are going to have nate withdraw his post Nov 6.

What do you mean by that ?

sorry i worded it poorly. i meant i am going to have withdrawal symptoms, i.e. i will be missing nate silver's wisdom after november 6. hope that was clearer.

Leaving aside all other aspects (there is a loony right, and there is also a loony left) there are two aspects troubling me about dems

I probably should create a separate thread, but normally there are not many responses, so I am going to continue here itself.

a) It is that they want to spend but cannot seem to figure how to bridge the deficit. You spend after making sure the income is on the way. Dems spend first and then figure out a way to find the income. Only now they are talking of taxing the rich, but I do not think it is going to be enough for S&P to reverse US rating.

The dollar is staying up despite all this only because oil trade is denominated by the dollar and because it is the de-facto currency of trade. And there are strong signs that is changing.

Whoever wins, needs to first solve that issue fast and clear. Otherwise it will not take long for Gold to zoom and Dollar to go down the tube.

b) Their strategy to create (sustainable) jobs does not seem to be sound. There has hardly been any systematic approach until now, all I have seen is adhoc strategies. Clean energy jobs/high technology jobs as buzzwords look good. But I know that in the tech industry China is aping US like mad in every single technology area, Europe has never been far behind anyway, that future technology jobs might have to be divided between the three regions unlike in the past. ch corridor in Siberia.

The other strategy has been shoftsighted (use stimulus for jobs, that just postpones the inevitable). The folks builds road this year, what will they do next year ?

c) Third strategy talks of retraining, but there needs to be a powerful new engine for jobs that people can move to, and get retrained on. I do not see it on the horizon unless the biotech sector (I think US has a decent edge on this) takes off, and all sort of allied industries come up like tech sector.

There has been enough left oriented activities done already, let us hope that if Obama wins the second term he will be as single minded in his pursuit of Jobs as Romney appears to be. Obama is a little high on principles/ideals less on details kind of guy. So he prefers a Jobs Czar etc.
He says he will give him full support and let the Jobs Czar manage the performance. In effect he is saying that he is not the one to focus on that, but it will be delegated.
But if the right Jobs Czar is not appointed (if it goes through a length senate hearing), then it becomes a political appointment and not a one based on necessity.

Also a Jobs Czar cannot do anything by himself , without co-operation from different departments. US is at a point where it needs departments like EDB of Singapore and the famed MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) of Japan.

nate silver just tweeted and upped his odds estimate for obama to 91% based on latest national polling data. that's a pretty ballsy prediction. let's hope he is right.

the deficit is a huge problem and needs to be addressed i agree. but any strategy that relies solely on spending cuts cannot be a credible strategy especially when it is coupled with tax cuts. that makes no sense. obama's plan to cut the deficit is incomplete but doesn't defy basic mathematics. the romney/ryan plan doesn't pass the smell test of basic math.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:the deficit is a huge problem and needs to be addressed i agree. but any strategy that relies solely on spending cuts cannot be a credible strategy especially when it is coupled with tax cuts. that makes no sense. obama's plan to cut the deficit is incomplete but doesn't defy basic mathematics. the romney/ryan plan doesn't pass the smell test of basic math.

I am not here to compare Mitt's plan with Obama. I have not read Mitt's plan and Obama has not outlined a clear plan except for taxing the rich and saying that he will encourage money parked abroad by companies to be brought onshore. He has also talked about cutting corporate tax rate. But nothing comprehensive to explain how the means achieve the ends. The CBO is not impressed either.

rawemotions wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:the deficit is a huge problem and needs to be addressed i agree. but any strategy that relies solely on spending cuts cannot be a credible strategy especially when it is coupled with tax cuts. that makes no sense. obama's plan to cut the deficit is incomplete but doesn't defy basic mathematics. the romney/ryan plan doesn't pass the smell test of basic math.

I am not here to compare Mitt's plan with Obama. I have not read Mitt's plan and Obama has not outlined a clear plan except for taxing the rich and saying that he will encourage money parked abroad by companies to be brought onshore. He has also talked about cutting corporate tax rate. But nothing comprehensive to explain how the means achieve the ends. The CBO is not impressed either.

this is an election. we HAVE to compare plans.

[/quote] this is an election. we HAVE to compare plans. [/quote]
My point is there is not much of a plan at all from Obama on such an important subject.
Right now Obama seems to be in lead, hence the focus on him. Although, as I said yesterday, I think the margin of victory would be around 290 to 310 if he wins, not 330-340.

Will look into Romney's plan if he wins.

Both Obama's and Nate Silver's job is on the line today.

Either Nate Silver becomes a cult, or en masse conservative vote drown his career by tomorrow.

The best way to neutralize the republican KOCHers is for the Dems to win like they lost in 1984 when Mondale won only in Minnesota.