the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

God, I would let Joe Biden eat my non-essential organs if it meant that 2% of the defense budget would be transferred to building fast trains and fast internet infrastructure for the next decade.

is that a thing Joe Biden does?

well you never know until you ask

more http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/08/job_growth_s_been_stalled_for_18_months_and_nobody_s_doing_anything_about_it_.html

idk I'm just saying, I don't really have a lot else to offer, my money and my vote wouldn't mean much in the scheme of things, but if Joe Biden hungers for human kidneys I have an extra one xpx

appendix too, u dont need that right

basically treading water forever

Take a look at Gallup's approval rating starting in about December 2009--except for one noticably bad patch a year ago, it's practically a flat line.

ya its all sort of odd

http://i.imgur.com/XhShZ.png

its funny how romney had to come out and say this, what a world

It's interesting looking at the approval ratings for all the post-war presidents:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx

The most volatile seem to be Bush I and Carter. Reagan's is quite steady through two full terms. Nixon's steady, then, surprise, falls off a cliff. LBJ is one long decline. With Obama, it's like the people who talked themselves into giving him a chance bailed after a year, and hardly anyone's changed his mind since.

its funny how romney had to come out and say this, what a world

Romney takin the bait there

his incompetence as a candidate is kind of breathtaking

he's pretty firmly on the Dukakis/Kerry end of the scale

MA hasn't been able to generate a good Presidential politician since the Kennedy assassinations

more http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/08/job_growth_s_been_stalled_for_18_months_and_nobody_s_doing_anything_about_it_.html

― lag∞n, Friday, August 3, 2012 2:07 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i only skimmed this quickly, but it seems like in asking the question Yg isn't willing to 'go there' and say why.

frankly i think the investor/owner/banker class (and the fed governors whose mental world almost entirely overlaps with them) have political motivations. there is mountains of sidelined cash and no meaningful capital investment. the fed has a bunch of tricks that remain unpulled, even as it makes a mockery of half of its dual mandate. why? the answer sort of comes out as "idk, the time just isn't right." what's, uh, unique about this particular time?

we've got a world historical drought going, harvests in the fall are going to be dire and food prices are going to go haywire. the last rounds of QE had the effect of increasing commodity prices (for reasons i don't quite get tbh) so it's another good excuse to do nothing.

no doubt that sounds conspiratorial but jesus you have outright lunatics being taken seriously as interpreters of our political economy. that guy getting jonah goldberg's email might be flipping through resumes next, feel me?

I don't know if it has to be a conscious-level conspiracy but I think the fed is prob a little too isolated from the suffering of long-term unemployed ppl. the interest groups who have the most to gain are pretty far from political sphere. its as true in health care as monetary policy.

from the political sphere

ie old people and rich people both hate inflation and think our health care system is great

or Romney can listen to Mark Steyn:

Re: Put Up or Shut Up

By Mark Steyn

Sorry, Katrina, that Romney response seems weak tea to me. For a start, what’s with all the “Harry this” and “Harry that” stuff? Why maintain a pretense of cozy clubbability when some slug’s defaming you? He should call him “Reid”, and with a curled lip. Mitt is Mister Cautious, and I can understand that to a degree when you’re dealing with Obama and everything you say risks shrieks of “Racist!”, but if you can’t be rude about a seedy, unloved, timeserving hack like Reid, who can you be rude about?

can't wait for Romney's curled lip to scare Dems into voting for him.

It's interesting looking at the approval ratings for all the post-war presidents

dang folks really did Like Ike

have you guys read any good journalism in recent years on the Fed?

"seedy, unloved, timeserving hack" true enough but he came through your shitstorm with a smile didn't he

political reporters for obvious reasons shroud it in mystery.

have you guys read any good journalism in recent years on the Fed?

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 3, 2012 3:53 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well there was this one macro i saw on facebook

alfred you could try to follow some of the dissident finance blogs but it's hard going and i never know who is batshit, frankly.

yves smith, but she's kind of more-greenwald-than-greenwald as a writer

zerohedge is a little too ron pauly but i think hoos reps for them?

treading water

All the invest bankers and traders at my work, regardless of party affiliation, feel like nothing major's going to happen until after the election; the rich and the corps w/stagnant capital aren't going to undo their purse strings until they know what's what.

alfred you could try to follow some of the dissident finance blogs but it's hard going and i never know who is batshit, frankly

this is the problem

i read ritholtz but i follow so little of it i don't know why i bother.

it's like, finance shit i don't get, left-field analysis i don't get, old meme, dadrock, car porn, finance shit i don't get, bizarre political analysis, etc.

zerohedge is awful, yves smith is eh

read Ryan Avent and Steve Randy Waldman

I only read rit for his links

yeah, i mean, i like a nurburgring vimeo as much as the next office dude

is that a cab or a merlot?

re upping bernanke was one of obamas bigger mistakes imho even if there still wouldnt have been enough votes on the fed board to do real things w/e shit can that guy, def speaks to obamas over reverence for those type of dudes, tho of course the weird thing is all of bernankes academic work contradicts his actions to date so maybe its not really his fault its just the illuminatie whatre u gonna do

baseline scenario also good

HAV U GUYS HERD OF PAUL KRUGDAWG

(googles)

economics is v interesting, i plan on someday attempting to understand it

Woody in Manhattan: "My accountant says I did this at a very bad time. My stocks are down...I'm cash poor or something...I got no cash flow. I'm not liquid, something's not flowing. They got a language all their own."

I always view impatience and frustration at NRO as a good sign.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313043/de-bushing-romney-jonah-goldberg

love how liberal handwringing articles tend to be "obama needs to be more like the guy i thought he was in 2008" and conservative ones are "mitt romney needs to stop being mitt romney"

everybody stop being somebody sometimes

rortybomb!

"I have paid taxes every year" a classic non-admission admission.

Yeah, sales tax on his cars, property taxes on his homes ...

Loosely affiliated with the non-denial denial.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wYOqE4H4V6U/SnSaNptXGwI/AAAAAAAAAiU/V6wM4AMztEM/s400/ZieglerRon.jpg

Obama's fundraising birthday party today is sure to get some riled up

Do you need to show your birth certificate to get in? Because if so ...

Damn, I forgot I had 37 e-mail invitations to that. What time's it start?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/04/michael-tomasky-on-the-possible-coming-obama-landslide.html

someone on twitter said 'so well reasoned it must be wrong' lol

more http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/105743/romney-undecided-voters