Today's polls show a very sizable lead for Romney in Florida. Unlike my colleagues on the right, I'm not going to say that these polls are stupid and fat. Of course, these polls are accurate to them and the others (the ones that showed Obama ahead there recently) are not:)
And I still don't get the president's approval rating. Could it be that they approve of the job he is doing but think Romney could do better? If so, what specifically can Romney do better? Where are his details?
Friday, October 12, 2012
Another Piece of the Puzzle in Falling Unemployment Rates
Today Wells Fargo posted a record quarterly profit, due mostly to its mortgage arm. This increase in housing is part of the reason that unemployment numbers are down. However, Wall Street analysts were "disappointed":
Third-quarter net income rose 22 percent from a year ago to a record $4.9 billion, or 88 cents per share, the bank reported on Friday, topping the analysts' consensus estimate of 87 cents, as compiled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.The bank makes record profits but is excoriated for missing analyst's spitballing by 1%. JPMorgan also had a banner quarter, but both Wells and JPMorgan stocks are down so far today.
But total revenue of $21.2 billion missed the $21.47 billion analysts expected.
Analysts are unhappy with these companies because, while low interest rates encourage more home buying, it also means that the banks have to charge customers lower interest rates, which means less potential profit for them. In short, Wall Street analysts don't think the banks are screwing their customers enough.
The significant increase in the mortgage market provides more context about the "mysterious" fall in the unemployment rate. Housing is a prime mover in the economy. More housing sales mean more demand for products and services in the industry that tanked the economy five years ago, when the big banks brought the house down with their crazy financial "instruments" backed by adjustable rate mortgages they knew customers could never pay off.
The source of analyst's disappointment?
But where the bank stumbled was in the net interest margin, or the difference between what the bank earns on loans and pays out on deposits. That metric is crucial in the industry, and Wells Fargo's margin fell 25 basis points to 3.66 percent in the third quarter. That was a sharper drop than expected. [A basis point is a mere 0.01 percent.]Wall Street analysts register displeasure at the fact that Wells Fargo can no longer saddle the American people with ARMs that were the downfall of so many new home buyers and those who refinanced. They seem to want the housing sector—and the entire economy—to remain in the doldrums.
And who are these analysts, anyway? Their entire purpose in life seems to be to set up artificial expectations in the stock market so that computer trading programs can kick in and make billions of dollars by capitalizing on minute fluctuations in stock prices when worried investors churn stock based on fears raised by—you guessed it—analyst's expectations.
Wall Street just doesn't seem to understand that their wealth comes from all of us people out here. They don't create wealth out of thin air: they're doing it with our money. And when they screw up, everyone else suffers.
The American Ayatollah
Yesterday Canada denied entry to Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who burned a Koran and supported the Innocence of Muslims video that was released earlier this year. Both incidents sparked riots in the Middle East, resulting in death and destruction.
Jones insists that he has freedom of speech, but as a foreign demagogue who has incited riots that resulted in the deaths of Americans and their allies, he can't expect Canada to let him mark Canadians for death as well.
Terry Jones is the worst kind of rabble rouser. Burning the Koran and insulting Mohammed in a video are acts intentionally gauged to cause riots and death in the Middle East. Jones then points an accusing finger at Muslims, saying that they are evil, filled with hate and rage.
Jones is like a man who keeps a mean dog chained up, starving and beaten, who then turns it loose on the streets. And then when the dog mauls a child he says it proves that dogs are vicious monsters that should all be destroyed.
Jones incites hatred in Muslims against Americans in order to incite the same hatred in Americans. In the process he has tainted the Muslim view of all Americans. Just as all Americans are hate-filled bile-spewing fanatics like Jones, not all Muslims are evil, hate-filled rioting fanatics. But some certainly are.
A few days ago the Taliban in Pakistan carried out an assassination attempt against Malala Yousafzai, a fourteen-year-old girl. Her crime? She advocated for girl's education. Condemnation in Pakistan for this vile attack was swift. Similarly, Al Qaeda killed hundreds of innocent Muslims during the Iraq War, a fact which the United States used to its advantage to turn Sunnis against Al Qaeda and make the Surge possible.
Why burn a book or insult a prophet who's been dead for fourteen centuries, when Jones could point to real atrocities committed by fanatics and corrupt Muslim leaders against Muslims in the here and now? Muslims have risen up against despots in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, and Syria. Popular support for the government in Iran is wobbly as the country suffers from economic sanctions imposed by the UN. And yet, at a time we have a huge opportunity to gain the support of the average Muslim in the street, Jones is stoking the fires of hatred and sabotaging American foreign policy.
Terry Jones is an American ayatollah, a spiritual clone of Khomeini with his constant talk of Satan and evil. Every time Jones burns a Koran and insults the prophet he issues a fatwa to all fanatics to kill Americans.
Jones insists that he has freedom of speech, but as a foreign demagogue who has incited riots that resulted in the deaths of Americans and their allies, he can't expect Canada to let him mark Canadians for death as well.
Terry Jones is the worst kind of rabble rouser. Burning the Koran and insulting Mohammed in a video are acts intentionally gauged to cause riots and death in the Middle East. Jones then points an accusing finger at Muslims, saying that they are evil, filled with hate and rage.
Jones is like a man who keeps a mean dog chained up, starving and beaten, who then turns it loose on the streets. And then when the dog mauls a child he says it proves that dogs are vicious monsters that should all be destroyed.
Jones incites hatred in Muslims against Americans in order to incite the same hatred in Americans. In the process he has tainted the Muslim view of all Americans. Just as all Americans are hate-filled bile-spewing fanatics like Jones, not all Muslims are evil, hate-filled rioting fanatics. But some certainly are.
A few days ago the Taliban in Pakistan carried out an assassination attempt against Malala Yousafzai, a fourteen-year-old girl. Her crime? She advocated for girl's education. Condemnation in Pakistan for this vile attack was swift. Similarly, Al Qaeda killed hundreds of innocent Muslims during the Iraq War, a fact which the United States used to its advantage to turn Sunnis against Al Qaeda and make the Surge possible.
Why burn a book or insult a prophet who's been dead for fourteen centuries, when Jones could point to real atrocities committed by fanatics and corrupt Muslim leaders against Muslims in the here and now? Muslims have risen up against despots in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, and Syria. Popular support for the government in Iran is wobbly as the country suffers from economic sanctions imposed by the UN. And yet, at a time we have a huge opportunity to gain the support of the average Muslim in the street, Jones is stoking the fires of hatred and sabotaging American foreign policy.
Terry Jones is an American ayatollah, a spiritual clone of Khomeini with his constant talk of Satan and evil. Every time Jones burns a Koran and insults the prophet he issues a fatwa to all fanatics to kill Americans.
It's A Draw!!
Per the request of the ever venerable last in line, here is a photo of us post debate, which we both thought was a draw.
last has more hair than I do...:(
last has more hair than I do...:(
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Polls For October 11, 2012
Some good news for the president in the polls below which show him still ahead in the swing states. A good debate showing next Tuesday will help cement his lead.
Ohio doesn't seem to be budging much at all and one has to wonder how very few people there are left there to swing the vote Romney's way. His comments about letting Detroit go bankrupt obviously outweigh the president's lackluster performance in the debate last week.
The president's approval ratings in both Gallup and Rasmussen are great news for him and awful news for Mitt Romney. Historically, presidents with approval ratings above 50 percent win reelection.
Ohio doesn't seem to be budging much at all and one has to wonder how very few people there are left there to swing the vote Romney's way. His comments about letting Detroit go bankrupt obviously outweigh the president's lackluster performance in the debate last week.
The president's approval ratings in both Gallup and Rasmussen are great news for him and awful news for Mitt Romney. Historically, presidents with approval ratings above 50 percent win reelection.
Tonight's VP Debate
I think I may be the only one in punditry land that doesn't think tonight's debate will matter all that much. The only way I see that it will is if Biden really does a poor job or says something stupid. I don't think anything Ryan does (good or bad) will matter.
At the end of the day, people care more about President Obama and Mitt Romney, not their second in command. The national polls have certainly tightened but they were going to do that anyway. Nothing much has changed in the swing states (more on that later today when I put up my daily poll numbers) and we are still basically down to 9 states.
Everyone's eyes are on next Tuesday as the President gets another chance to take on Mitt Romney.
At the end of the day, people care more about President Obama and Mitt Romney, not their second in command. The national polls have certainly tightened but they were going to do that anyway. Nothing much has changed in the swing states (more on that later today when I put up my daily poll numbers) and we are still basically down to 9 states.
Everyone's eyes are on next Tuesday as the President gets another chance to take on Mitt Romney.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Polls For Wednesday October 10th
Loads of polls today..
The Florida one is very interesting considering Romney's recent gains there.
I'm not sure why they are polling some of the eastern states...seems like a waste of time to me.
The last two polls (post debate) from Ohio have the president up +4 and +1 so I'm hoping this silences the shrieking from the left.
Killed by the Cure
Today the number of people who have died from fungal meningitis from a tainted steroid rose to 12, 137 have been infected and thousands have been exposed. The drug was made by the New England Compounding Center, which is basically just a pharmacy. Since it claims to be a pharmacy it escapes regulation by the FDA, and is instead regulated by a patchwork of state regulations. This despite the fact that this company makes huge batches of this stuff to sell to clinics nationwide, rather than for individual patients the way pharmacies are supposed to.
Now, the interesting thing about this compounding pharmacy is that it's owned by a guy named Gregory Conigliaro, who also owns an FDA-registered drug manufacturer called Ameridose, as well as real estate and recycling companies. It appears that Mr. Conigliaro is using New England Compounding to get around FDA regulations to make a killing on a drug that the big pharmaceutical firms have jacked the price up on. He seems to have decided to manufacture this drug in the back room of his pharmacy instead of in the FDA-monitored clean rooms of Ameridose.
The FDA has tried to control this kind of drug compounding for years, but conservatives in Congress stopped them and pharmacies in Texas and across the country sued to escape FDA regulation.
And this isn't the only recent instance of tainted substances being injected into hundreds of people. Last August there was a rash of infections from tattoo ink tainted with bacteria.
Conservatives have been on the warpath about deregulation, and unregulated compounding pharmacies are exactly the sort of thing they've been pushing. And this is exactly the kind of result we can expect when conservatives get their way.
They like to say that health care is just like any other kind of consumer business. Government should get out of the way and let businesses rise and fall on their own merits: if they screw up the marketplace will sort it out.
But when companies in the health care business take short cuts to boost profits people die. This tainted drug could have killed tens of thousands of people; we're just lucky that it's only a dozen. So far.
But this situation shows how fallacious the conservative argument against all regulation is. The people injected with this drug didn't get to choose its source. Tortured by agonizing pain, they went to their doctors for relief. They (and probably their doctors) had no idea that they were being injected with a drug made by a cut-rate compounding pharmacy run by some real estate wheeler-dealer. And now they're dead.
When medicine consisted of barbers amputating broken legs you could probably get along without regulating health care and drugs. But in this day and age, with tremendous advances in medical science and technology, and interstate and international transportation of drugs and medical devices, it's extremely difficult for consumers of health care to make any kind of informed decisions on what treatment is right for them, much less about the fitness of all the components of any procedures they undergo, which may involve hundreds of different medical instruments, drugs and devices that pass through half a dozen middlemen.
When you're suffering from agonizing back pain, the last thing you need to worry about is being poisoned or infected by the very drugs that are supposed to cure you. Someone with some muscle needs to keep on eye on the people who are making the stuff that gets injected under our skin and into our spines.
Now, the interesting thing about this compounding pharmacy is that it's owned by a guy named Gregory Conigliaro, who also owns an FDA-registered drug manufacturer called Ameridose, as well as real estate and recycling companies. It appears that Mr. Conigliaro is using New England Compounding to get around FDA regulations to make a killing on a drug that the big pharmaceutical firms have jacked the price up on. He seems to have decided to manufacture this drug in the back room of his pharmacy instead of in the FDA-monitored clean rooms of Ameridose.
The FDA has tried to control this kind of drug compounding for years, but conservatives in Congress stopped them and pharmacies in Texas and across the country sued to escape FDA regulation.
And this isn't the only recent instance of tainted substances being injected into hundreds of people. Last August there was a rash of infections from tattoo ink tainted with bacteria.
Conservatives have been on the warpath about deregulation, and unregulated compounding pharmacies are exactly the sort of thing they've been pushing. And this is exactly the kind of result we can expect when conservatives get their way.
They like to say that health care is just like any other kind of consumer business. Government should get out of the way and let businesses rise and fall on their own merits: if they screw up the marketplace will sort it out.
But when companies in the health care business take short cuts to boost profits people die. This tainted drug could have killed tens of thousands of people; we're just lucky that it's only a dozen. So far.
But this situation shows how fallacious the conservative argument against all regulation is. The people injected with this drug didn't get to choose its source. Tortured by agonizing pain, they went to their doctors for relief. They (and probably their doctors) had no idea that they were being injected with a drug made by a cut-rate compounding pharmacy run by some real estate wheeler-dealer. And now they're dead.
When medicine consisted of barbers amputating broken legs you could probably get along without regulating health care and drugs. But in this day and age, with tremendous advances in medical science and technology, and interstate and international transportation of drugs and medical devices, it's extremely difficult for consumers of health care to make any kind of informed decisions on what treatment is right for them, much less about the fitness of all the components of any procedures they undergo, which may involve hundreds of different medical instruments, drugs and devices that pass through half a dozen middlemen.
When you're suffering from agonizing back pain, the last thing you need to worry about is being poisoned or infected by the very drugs that are supposed to cure you. Someone with some muscle needs to keep on eye on the people who are making the stuff that gets injected under our skin and into our spines.
More Moderate Mitt
There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda--- (Mitt Romney, October 9, 2012, Iowa)
OK, now this is just getting ridiculous...
OK, now this is just getting ridiculous...
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
Polls For Tuesday, October 9th
At first glance, this all looks like bad news for the president. Gallup has him down 2 points with Rasmussen having the race exactly tied. He's also lost some ground in North Carolina and Colorado. Remember that Gallup has now switched from "Registered Voters" to "Likely Voters" so now we can see that enthusiasm gap very, very clearly, favoring the Republicans.
But these are nationwide polls and if we look at a very key swing state like Ohio things look just about the same for the president since before the debate. The new Ohio poll from CNN (taken 10/5-10/8) shows the president up 51-47 with the ARG poll showing Romney up 48-47. The CNN poll is likely voters so that is very good news for the president.
And the president's approval rating has actually increased an overall net of 4 points and now stands at 53 percent. His favorables are still in the plus column while Romney's are still in the minus column. These numbers are now well after the debate which means...what, exactly? I guess I don't know for sure but it does mean not as much doom and gloom for the president because the head to head numbers don't fully reflect the jobs data release as much as the approval/favorable numbers.
One other thing to note here is the Senate picture still looks good for the Democrats. The fact that North Dakota is competitive is truly amazing and an excellent testament to being able to win in a deep red state if you are a good candidate like Heidi Heitkamp.
28 Days
With the election exactly four weeks away, I thought it appropriate to sit back and see where things stand currently.
Now that Mitt Romney is just barely to the right of Barack Obama, the president and his re-election team have a real problem. The Etch-E-Sketch idea is actually working because many people didn't tune into the election until the debates. To them, Romney is a very reasonable man who looks and acts like a president. He's not the guy who said he was a "severe conservative," wants to cut taxes for the rich, and thinks that society is made up of makers and takers (copyright Ayn Rand). They weren't paying attention then. He is, in fact, a moderate.
The president's re-election is now more difficult because of this new (times four) Mitt Romney (who I happen to think is who he has been all along. Politico agrees). So, Barack Obama and his team need to do two things in the next four weeks and they need to do them well otherwise they might lose.
The first thing they have to do is get people to vote. If everyone voted who supports the president, the only state that Romney wins that the president won in 2008 is Indiana. But voter enthusiasm is lower on the D side than the R side so that makes the race tighter. In short, they need to get out the vote. Spending the next four weeks getting people registered to vote would be time well spent. Spending time talking about Big Bird would not be time well spent.
The second thing the president has to do is vigorously defend his record in the next two debates, at rallies, and in the media. His team needs to stop talking about the last debate and focus on the next two. Personally, I don't think the Biden-Ryan debate is going to matter much because people want to hear from the president again, not a surrogate. In fact, the whole surrogate thing has to stop. No one can make his case for him anymore...the president has to nut up and do it himself.
He has a lot of great things to talk about so it should be easy. Our country is heading in the right direction on the economy with the unemployment number falling and jobs being added every month. His foreign policies have been specific (unlike Governor Romney) and largely successful. He needs to brag about them while illustrating that Mitt Romney's are a combination of dangerous naivete and a bizarre time warp to 20th century realism. And he really needs to pin Romney down on the economy with the details because Mitt doesn't have any.
As for folks like Andrew Sullivan, they need to leave the drama queen bit behind and start being helpful. The continued hand wringing over a debate now one week ago is getting very old. I realize that the art of performance is very important to media types like Sully but his posts are becoming so shrill it's hard for me to read them anymore. Personally, I think it's because his personal reputation is on the line after his Newsweek story about the president being the Democrat's Ronald Reagan and now he's worried that he might look foolish. Well, he's looking foolish now saying that the election is over with a full month left until people vote.
There are many folks in the political media that simply need to take a fucking chill pill. The new Pew Poll that shows Romney up 4 points nationally makes perfect sense when you consider that many people that took that poll identified as Republican. Unlike that whiners on the Right who foamed at the mouth about "skewed polls," people on the left (and everyone really) need to realize that this is simply how sampling works in some of these polls so that's why the numbers are weighed that way.
And, honestly, the national tracking polls are meaningless at this point as the 6-8 swing state polls hold more obvious insight.
Overall, I've noticed a somewhat muted response from the far right on the new, new, new, new Mitt Romney which I find to be fascinating. Are they being quiet because they don't want to jinx him? Are they afraid that he really is going to turn out to be a moderate? Or do they think he's just fooling everyone and the severe conservative will pop up if he wins?
Not that I want this to happen but I think it would be very interesting if Romney won the election and pretty much did the same things that President Obama is doing. After all, that's more or less what he said he would do in the first debate. Is this what the Right really wants?
Now that Mitt Romney is just barely to the right of Barack Obama, the president and his re-election team have a real problem. The Etch-E-Sketch idea is actually working because many people didn't tune into the election until the debates. To them, Romney is a very reasonable man who looks and acts like a president. He's not the guy who said he was a "severe conservative," wants to cut taxes for the rich, and thinks that society is made up of makers and takers (copyright Ayn Rand). They weren't paying attention then. He is, in fact, a moderate.
The president's re-election is now more difficult because of this new (times four) Mitt Romney (who I happen to think is who he has been all along. Politico agrees). So, Barack Obama and his team need to do two things in the next four weeks and they need to do them well otherwise they might lose.
The first thing they have to do is get people to vote. If everyone voted who supports the president, the only state that Romney wins that the president won in 2008 is Indiana. But voter enthusiasm is lower on the D side than the R side so that makes the race tighter. In short, they need to get out the vote. Spending the next four weeks getting people registered to vote would be time well spent. Spending time talking about Big Bird would not be time well spent.
The second thing the president has to do is vigorously defend his record in the next two debates, at rallies, and in the media. His team needs to stop talking about the last debate and focus on the next two. Personally, I don't think the Biden-Ryan debate is going to matter much because people want to hear from the president again, not a surrogate. In fact, the whole surrogate thing has to stop. No one can make his case for him anymore...the president has to nut up and do it himself.
He has a lot of great things to talk about so it should be easy. Our country is heading in the right direction on the economy with the unemployment number falling and jobs being added every month. His foreign policies have been specific (unlike Governor Romney) and largely successful. He needs to brag about them while illustrating that Mitt Romney's are a combination of dangerous naivete and a bizarre time warp to 20th century realism. And he really needs to pin Romney down on the economy with the details because Mitt doesn't have any.
As for folks like Andrew Sullivan, they need to leave the drama queen bit behind and start being helpful. The continued hand wringing over a debate now one week ago is getting very old. I realize that the art of performance is very important to media types like Sully but his posts are becoming so shrill it's hard for me to read them anymore. Personally, I think it's because his personal reputation is on the line after his Newsweek story about the president being the Democrat's Ronald Reagan and now he's worried that he might look foolish. Well, he's looking foolish now saying that the election is over with a full month left until people vote.
There are many folks in the political media that simply need to take a fucking chill pill. The new Pew Poll that shows Romney up 4 points nationally makes perfect sense when you consider that many people that took that poll identified as Republican. Unlike that whiners on the Right who foamed at the mouth about "skewed polls," people on the left (and everyone really) need to realize that this is simply how sampling works in some of these polls so that's why the numbers are weighed that way.
And, honestly, the national tracking polls are meaningless at this point as the 6-8 swing state polls hold more obvious insight.
Overall, I've noticed a somewhat muted response from the far right on the new, new, new, new Mitt Romney which I find to be fascinating. Are they being quiet because they don't want to jinx him? Are they afraid that he really is going to turn out to be a moderate? Or do they think he's just fooling everyone and the severe conservative will pop up if he wins?
Not that I want this to happen but I think it would be very interesting if Romney won the election and pretty much did the same things that President Obama is doing. After all, that's more or less what he said he would do in the first debate. Is this what the Right really wants?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)