Thread: 2012 election predictions

Originally Posted by battleshipcpo

The voters are tired of the pc crap, lawless governing, the job market, the inept school system, the welfare system, siding with the enemy, making sexual perversions the norm, killing babies, fraud, corruption, rules of engagement and taxing half of them into oblivion to pay for these convoluted ideologies. A good indicator of this is the number of firearms/ammo that are being purchased along with other necessities with which to survive. If the elections cannot be rigged by the A-cornie bunch and the union thugs, these same voters are going to make every effort to vote these professional scumbags out. A silent majority that are tired of the rhetoric being spewed; patiently waiting. That doesn't include grabbing one's ankles.

I think your honest hated of homosexuals is refreshing and indicative of a lot of the opposition to gay rights but really not reflective of most here. The rest of your rhetoric is pure hatriot movement

Originally Posted by JAD_333

Says who? lol...given the economic situation, if history is any judge, he gets 44% of the vote. He needs an economic miracle by April...and in case you didn't notice, first-time claims for unemployment benefits edged up last week.

Why did he wait so long to unveil an ambitious plan to make the US energy independent? Why did he ax the pipeline.

The only thing he has going for him is a fairly decent foreign policy record and successes on the terrorism front, but that don't wash in bad economic times. Look at Bush one. One term. He had a great foreign policy record and Desert Storm, but the economy sank him. Same thing happened to Carter.

I agree the economy needs to continue to improve for him to win but his approval ratings are moving up steadily and were at 48 percent last week. That's still short of the 51 percent he needs. Remember GWB won and was hardly popular in 2004 and the economic perforance to that point wasnt so hot but it had started to improve as has our economy albeit slowly. The problem the opposition has is the weakness of the candidates. I think the best candidate Jeb Bush stayed out. Romney eleicits the same level of excitement for the base as kerry did which is a problem. Passion against someone is far less effective than passion for someone. Romney is no reagan and Bush 1 ws hurt by Perot. I think when we get closer we will see a third party canddate and who that is and who they draw from will be a factor. A strong libertarian is worth a point or two mostly out of republican votes.

Originally Posted by tgbyhn

astralis,

I mentioned Japan as an example of what is often the failure of large government deficits and stimulus spending - I didn't misrepresent your position. It wasn't even a rebuttal to your argument - it was a statement of my position on the generic Keynesian stimulus/government deficit spending model. Stating my position on a government policy that is under discussion (deficit spending/stimulus) and pointing to an example that illustrates what I believe is flawed about said policy is precisely that - a statement of personal position. I.E., my opinion on the matter. Japan has spent trillions on public infrastructure projects to stimulate its economy - I see little effect. There was a limit to which that spending was beneficial - which has long since passed.

The US could benefit from investments in infrastructure - however we need to completely re-work the existing model of expenditure and revenue before contemplating large projects with questionable benefits and practicality. I for one would support programs to fund and (continue to) legislate energy efficient lighting for residential, commercial, and municipal usage - it would reduce the strain on our national electricity infrastructure, reduce immediate needs for expansion of it, and bring down private and public expenditure on electricity that would be better invested and spent elsewhere. It's a very straightforward and easily quantifiable - anyone who has tossed out the Edison bulbs and replaced them with swirlies has seen firsthand the savings. Clunk Edisons, not cars. Get on board with the one-watt initiative. Tax deductions for solar panels in high sunlight regions. Newt Gingrich's space mirrors and mining on the moon for helium-3 are examples of energy infrastructure programs I question.

I believe our deficits are unsustainable in the long-term, and we face serious structural problems with unfunded future liabilities. We need to reduce our deficits, resolve the issues facing Social Security and Medicare by broadening the base and/or reducing expenditure. For decades we've been leveraging our future economic and fiscal solvency for questionable short-term benefit. We've spent the last 70 years raiding SS surpluses for IOUs that can't be cashed without borrowing.

Intragovernmental debt aside, we've seen an outright doubling of the publicly held debt in three years. We're not even raiding SS and Medicare any longer - we can't, we now have to borrow to meet the requirements of funding those - and we've entered a period of pure public borrowing in these last three years. Government policy caused the housing bubble, only to crash us into recession. I do not want to see us in the position of perpetually stagnant Japan, or the recent Euro-crisis. I do not want to see the US face a long decline as Britain did for the better part of the last century.

On the thread you mentioned - a make-believe, what-if discussion, in the preceding ten pages, my argument has been lately been characterized as a 30-60 day blitzkrieg armored warfare campaign, when in fact I've spoken of a 12-18 month campaign utilizing motorized vehicles for a partial motorization of the US military consistent with historical WWI motorization, generally getting from point A to point B, while having previously dedicated an a great amount of time to research the logistics, resources, and supply issues of WWI that I've had several members reach out to thank me for.

Anyways - I'm done with the economic bit. I'm not going to address it further, besides to say I don't believe in Keynesianism. Honestly - the economic/government budget posts would serve better on a thread in the economy forum, as wherever they began - they've become dissociated from any politician's platform and have become highly off-topic.

Going back to Gingrich and Romney and the 2012 race.

My opinion on the actual subject of the thread: I prefer Mitt Romney. I don't care for Newt Gingrich.

i actually agree with a lot of what you said. The biggest challenge faing us is our unwilliness to address systemic budget shortfalls generated by popular entitlements and a desore for low taxes. We have to wake up and relaize we need to address both issues to have long term stability and despite the vitriol at both extremes it is both issues that need addressing. Admitting an industrial policy isnt a bad thing would be a great leap forward as well. The problem is special interests corrupting the system with solandras and haliburton no bid crapola

Originally Posted by citanon

Mitt needs to show that he has the fire in his belly and the clarity of vision to connect with Americans. It's good that Gingrich is pushing him and testing him. We need him fired up and his message crystallized. He's a good guy, but now is his opportunity to define himself as a true leader.

The mitt of the last debate has a real chance to win

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

The mitt of the last debate has a real chance to win

Still a lot of things that have to happen before Mitt gets an even chance in the general election. He needs the endorsement of the all mighty tea party. He also needs to not alienate the RP voting block. If the GOP splinters in any way Mitt will go down in the historical footnotes as an "also ran". He needs to get the fence sitters to swing his way on Nov and that will largely depend on what the economy does in the next 6 months.

Originally Posted by bonehead

Still a lot of things that have to happen before Mitt gets an even chance in the general election. He needs the endorsement of the all mighty tea party. He also needs to not alienate the RP voting block. If the GOP splinters in any way Mitt will go down in the historical footnotes as an "also ran". He needs to get the fence sitters to swing his way on Nov and that will largely depend on what the economy does in the next 6 months.

You are right in a sense. However, the unifying factor among them all is a strong desire to defeat Obama.

And another point. The conventional thinking is that the mainstream GOP needs the Tea party and Paul's followers to beat Obama. But in reality, it's the other way around. They need the GOP mainstream to do it. They're too small to do it on their won.

But that's still not enough They also need a good showing among independents. As much as they feel comfortable with a Santorum or a Perry, those guys scare independents. Romney is the only GOP candidate that can energize both mainstream Republicans and independents.

Don't look for the Tea Party to endorse anyone. Just look for leading members to do any endorsing.

Originally Posted by JAD_333

You are right in a sense. However, the unifying factor among them all is a strong desire to defeat Obama.

And another point. The conventional thinking is that the mainstream GOP needs the Tea party and Paul's followers to beat Obama. But in reality, it's the other way around. They need the GOP mainstream to do it. They're too small to do it on their won.

But that's still not enough They also need a good showing among independents. As much as they feel comfortable with a Santorum or a Perry, those guys scare independents. Romney is the only GOP candidate that can energize both mainstream Republicans and independents.

Don't look for the Tea Party to endorse anyone. Just look for leading members to do any endorsing.

I don't believe for a second that Rp or a tea party candidate can win without the rest of the GOP behind them but both the tea party and RP have shown that they are willing to go it alone to prove a point. Romney is going to need every vote he can muster to defeat Obama. If RP goes gets alienated enough he may run as an independent and he could siphon enough votes to ensure an Obama win. Same for any TP candidate. Some TP supporters are so focused that if they don't get whom they want out of the primary they may even stay home and not vote at all. Many don't see Romney as any different form Obama. Romney's margin for victory is that slim in the popular vote. As we use the electoral college, a few missed votes here and there can make all the difference. You can lose the total popular vote by 50 votes and lose in an electoral college landslide. It is what it is.

There is no denying that Romney stands the greatest chance of all the republican contenders of swaying the independents/moderates, but that is no guarantee of even winning the primary. In 2004 the democrats were all out to oust Bush but they got greedy and picked Kerry, aka, the poster boy for all that is wrong with the democratic party, and we know how well that turned out for them. At some point GOP members are going to have to capitulate to the inevitable and push Romney to fight Obama in the general election. The 64 billion dollar question is whether or not Romney is able to energize the more conservative aspects of the GOP while he courts the independents. Thats one heck of a tight rope.

All your points are all well taken.

Here are some more for you chew on:

Conservative need not fear Romney unless the GOP loses its House majority. They'll both act as checks on each other. And even if the GOP loses its majority, I don't see Romney wandering too far from his current stands because he'd just smother his re-election chances for 2016.

If Romney takes the nomination, conservatives will have to be brought around to the idea that, if they don't give him their all out support, they're going to get 4 more years of Obama, and I think that will give them pause.

Ron Paul: will he go off on a 3rd party tangent? I can think of ways to keep him in the fold. Mainly, give him some things he wants. Not all his stands are beyond the pale. Politics is compromise. You can be a winner with only half a loaf.

Gingrich will get behind Romney, or he can kiss his cottage industry goodbye. Santorum--a cabinet position? Depends on whether he thinks a rerun in 2020 is futile.

Donald Trump...lol...might run.

JAD,

Gingrich will get behind Romney, or he can kiss his cottage industry goodbye.

i doubt it; if gingrich doesn't succeed now he's not going to have the chance to go for political office again...so little incentive to get behind romney.

in fact, being incidienary/contrarian probably makes for better publicity, which in turn will make for better book sales/TV gigs later on. plus, it fits his personality better anyhow.

Originally Posted by astralis

JAD,



i doubt it; if gingrich doesn't succeed now he's not going to have the chance to go for political office again...so little incentive to get behind romney.

in fact, being incidienary/contrarian probably makes for better publicity, which in turn will make for better book sales/TV gigs later on. plus, it fits his personality better anyhow.

I meant if he looses out in the primaries. He can still be a gadfly at the expense of the other side. He'd be a good adviser to a politician seeking higher office.

Originally Posted by JAD_333

All your points are all well taken.

Here are some more for you chew on:

Conservative need not fear Romney unless the GOP loses its House majority. They'll both act as checks on each other. And even if the GOP loses its majority, I don't see Romney wandering too far from his current stands because he'd just smother his re-election chances for 2016.

If Romney takes the nomination, conservatives will have to be brought around to the idea that, if they don't give him their all out support, they're going to get 4 more years of Obama, and I think that will give them pause.

Ron Paul: will he go off on a 3rd party tangent? I can think of ways to keep him in the fold. Mainly, give him some things he wants. Not all his stands are beyond the pale. Politics is compromise. You can be a winner with only half a loaf.

Gingrich will get behind Romney, or he can kiss his cottage industry goodbye. Santorum--a cabinet position? Depends on whether he thinks a rerun in 2020 is futile.

Donald Trump...lol...might run.

With all my heart I want Donald to run......and never come back. Hopefully all his moronic minions will follow.

Newt just said he can endorse Mitt so that is a done deal but I am sure there is some closed door deal to be made. Newt for Sec of State?

The tea party is a whole other matter. Many in this cohort really do not see any difference between Mitt and Obama. RP is the wildcard. He already made his mark and he knows he is not going to be around for many more elections. Will he burn out or fade away? I think he will base his decision on how the GOP treats him. If the GOP was smart they would be throwing him some carrots.

niall ferguson, champion of austerity, now joins his fellow chicago-schooler john cochrane in admitting krugman was right. and then trying to caveat this as much as possible, lol.

----
NIALL FERGUSON: Okay, I Admit It

NIALL FERGUSON: Okay, I Admit It—Paul Krugman Was Right
Henry Blodget | Jan. 30, 2012, 1:21 PM | 21,072 | 79

Henry Blodget, Business Insider

Professor Niall Ferguson, Harvard University.

On Friday in Davos, I interviewed Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, who has been very vocal in recent years about how the world is careening down an unsustainable path.

Unless countries get control of their ballooning debts, Ferguson has argued, we will be headed for crisis after crisis. And Ferguson remains convinced that Europe is on the edge of disaster.

But Professor Ferguson's take on the United States has changed notably over the past year. He still thinks the U.S. budget deficit is unsustainable and that our entitlement programs will ultimately have to be cut. But he has changed his mind about the U.S.'s ability to sustain its huge debt load.

In one key way, Professor Ferguson now concedes, his adversary Paul Krugman has been right: The U.S. can carry a much-higher debt-to-GDP ratio than he thought. In fact, Ferguson now says, even his Harvard colleague Ken Rogoff, who wrote a seminal book about debt crisis called This Time It's Different, may be too pessimistic about the United States.

But Europe, Professor Ferguson says, is still screwed.

BLODGET: Welcome, Professor Ferguson! Great to see you again. So, where are we? You have been very concerned about the huge debt load the world’s building up, but so far we seem to be tolerating it.

FERGUSON: Well, I think that’s true of the United States. I don’t think it’s true of Europe. I think the debt crisis in Europe is unresolved and may be very close to going critical. The Greek default may be a matter of days away. And we heard from Angela Merkel, a speech at the beginning of the conference that really filled me with foreboding, because it suggests that she doesn’t get—or doesn’t want to admit—that the only way out of this short of disbanding the single currency is for substantial commitment of resources to the peripheral economies. All she’s offering is austerity, austerity, and more austerity. And that just isn’t going to work. So I think the debt crisis in Europe is an even bigger problem than it was 12 months ago.

BLODGET: And the U.S.?

FERGUSON: I think the U.S. is illustrating a curious paradox—or maybe it’s just the reverse side of the Euro—the worse in Europe, the better in the U.S. The money that has fled the European debt markets has largely gone into Treasuries, and that has given the U.S. a stay of execution. The debt problem in the U.S. is just as bad as ever, but the pressure on the politicians to do something about it has in fact been eased by the Eurozone crisis.

BLODGET: We’ll come back to the U.S. In Europe, what people are saying here [in Davos] is that they are surprised at how much of an impact the latest kicking-the-can-down-the-road has had. All the interest rates are coming down. People seem optimistic that maybe Greece defaults but no big deal, they’re not going to leave the Euro. Why are you still so concerned?

FERGUSON: Well, I am not surprised that finally an act of policy by the ECB has had a good effect. What [new ECB head] Mario Draghi has done is what [old ECB head] Trichet should have done some considerable time ago—and that is more aggressive expansion of the ECB balance sheet. That has solved the liquidity problem for the European banks. And that, in turn, has eased the pressure on some of the sovereigns. Not Portugal, though. And Portugal is a flashing red light telling you that you can’t just confine this to Greece. Whatever happens to Greece by logical extension will happen to Portugal. And believe me, what happens to Portugal by logical extension will happen to someone else. And if it’s Spain or Italy, that’s a heck of a problem. So I think the monetary side of the story is a definite improvement. I think we’ll see more of that. I think we can expect very aggressive policy by Draghi, though the rhetoric won’t be aggressive. The ECB cannot signal how aggressive it’s being because it has to talk, as somebody put it, in German, even while it’s behaving Italian. And that means that the impact is slightly muted. It’s not like Ben Bernanke, who can tell you exactly what he’s going to do for the next four years—guaranteed easy money as far as the eye can see. Draghi has to talk in a slightly more muted way. But if you turn your attention to the solvency issues, both on bank balance sheets and in sovereign budgets it’s horrible. So, I’m pretty sure that the Davos mood of “Oh, it’s all going to be fine” is, as usual, totally wrong. And we’ll probably find that just a few days after this conference, it will be panic stations again in the European debt crisis.



Henry Blodget, Business Insider
BLODGET: You say you found Merkel’s speech concerning because of a commitment to austerity?

FERGUSON: Well, you see the problem is that the logic of what she said was that she sees Europe becoming like the Federal Republic of Europe over the next 20 years. The European Commission will be the government, Parliament will be more powerful, the Council of Ministers will be like the second chamber. Fine. But the Federal Republic of Germany isn’t based on an austerity pact that requires countries never to run a budget deficit. It’s based on a transfer union. The money goes from the richer Bavarians to the poorer north Germans and, of course, to the East Germans. And it’s based on a central treasury with things called Bunds. Now, if you apply the analogy to the European level, it means there has to be a proper European treasury and European bonds. And that’s just what the Germans have been opposing. So the German position is inconsistent. They want a Federal Europe, that’s now clear. But they’re not prepared to will the means. And you cannot base fiscal federalism exclusively on a pact—a kind of pact of death that nobody ever runs a budget deficit.

BLODGET: So, stepping back from all this… You’ve done a huge amount of research on previous societies that have built up huge debt loads like the ones we have. Historically, is there any way out of this other than total collapse and crisis?

FERGUSON: There are, in fact, three ways out of an excessively large public debt. One is that you default on it a la the Greek scenario. You give the bondholders a haircut. The second is that you inflate it away, which is a scenario we’ve seen more often than not, actually. The big debts of the world wars, in fact, were to a very large measure inflated away, including the substantial part of the U.S. and U.K. debts. There's a third way, which is that you grow your way out of it. That's rare. I mean not many countries with a debt in excess of 100 percent of GDP have paid it off without either inflation or default, but it is in theory possible. I think when we look at the European situation the default scenario is the more likely, or the most likely, of the three, simply because to inflate the debt away is something that the ECB is prohibited from doing. And as for growth, well, if austerity is the only solution in German minds, you can forget that. I think we are going to get some defaults one way or the other. The U.S. is a different story. First of all I think the debt to GDP ratio can go quite a lot higher before there's any upward pressure on interest rates. I think the more I've thought about it the more I've realized that there are good analogies for super powers having super debts. You're in a special position as a super power. You get, especially, you know, as the issuer of the international reserve currency, you get a lot of leeway. The U.S. could conceivably grow its way out of the debt. It could do a mixture of growth and inflation. It's not going to default. It may default on liabilities in Social Security and Medicare, in fact it almost certainly will. But I think holders of Treasuries can feel a lot more comfortable than anyone who's holding European bonds right now.

BLODGET: That is a shockingly optimistic view of the United States from you. Are you conceding to Paul Krugman that over the near-term we shouldn't worry so much?

FERGUSON: I think the issue here got a little confused, because Krugman wanted to portray me as a proponent of instant austerity, which I never was. My argument was that over ten years you have to have some credible plan to get back to fiscal balance because at some point you lose your credibility because on the present path, Congressional Budget Office figures make it clear, with every year the share of Federal tax revenues going to interest payments rises, there is a point after which it's no longer credible. But I didn't think that point was going to be this year or next year. I think the trend of nominal rates in the crisis has been the trend that he forecasted. And you know, I have to concede that. I think the reason that I was off on that was that I hadn't actually thought hard enough about my own work. In the "Cash Nexus," which I published in 2001, I actually made the argument that very large debts are sustainable, if your borrowing costs are low. And super powers—Britain was in this position in the 19th century—can carry a heck of a lot of debt before investors get nervous. So there really isn't that risk premium issue. There isn't that powerful inflation risk to worry about. My considered and changed view is that the U.S. can carry a higher debt to GDP ratio than I think I had in mind 2 or 3 years ago. And higher indeed that my colleague and good friend, Ken Rogoff implies, or indeed states, in the "This Time Is Different" book. I think what we therefore see is that the U.S. has leeway to carry on running deficits and allowing the debt to pile up for quite a few years before we get into the kind of scenario we've seen in Europe, where suddenly the markets lose faith. It's in that sense a safe haven more than I maybe thought before.

BLODGET: You mentioned the three ways that countries can work their way out. Japan has been trying to create inflation for two decades and can't do it. The United States would love some inflation, even though they will say the opposite. Can countries do something to create that inflation? And will they?

FERGUSON: Well, certainly Japan is a terrible warning to the United States, that you can get into an awful equilibrium of very, very low growth and an inexorably growing debt mountain. And that is not where the U.S. wants to go. There are various forces in [the United States'] favor. It's socially not Japan. It's demographically not Japan. And I sense also that the Fed is very determined not to be the Bank of Japan. Ben Bernanke's most recent comments and actions tell you that they are going to do whatever they can to avoid the deflation or zero inflation story. The U.K. is actually ahead here. If the game is to quietly give bondholders negative returns without awakening public fears of inflation, the U.K. is doing pretty well. We clearly are more likely in the U.S. to go down the U.K. route than the Japan route. In other words, the model whereby you eventually do tighten fiscal policy, that for sure is going to happen in the U.S. By the way, it should be said, going back to the Krugman/Ferguson argument, that if Krugman has been right about rates, I'm right about fiscal policy, because the U.S. is doing pretty much what Britain did, but later. In other words, it is on the path to reduce its deficit and it doesn't really matter who's President, that's going to happen. And the U.K. is doing a combination fiscal stabilization and monetary stimulus. I think that will be the U.S. recipe too. It's not a recipe for rapid growth, mind you. But it's certainly preferable to the European option or the Japanese option.

BLODGET: Looking forward to the next 12 to 24 months, what do you think happens?

FERGUSON: I think that the drama in Europe takes a new and alarming turn and we see the European Lehman event, which is probably a disorderly Greek default. At which point, as in the United States, everybody blinks and the Germans blink in particular. I think that's probably the next scene in the drama and quite soon. I think in the U.S., people begin to start pricing in a bit more carefully an Obama re-election and what that means for fiscal policy. You know I think the fiscal tightening will come next year even with Obama as President or Romney, so we probably need to assume that this is the last year of any meaningful fiscal help. Even that's not true, even now we're kind of in a fiscal headwind. But the headwind is going to be stronger next year. People will start, I think, perhaps to come off their optimism on the U.S. I felt that the last quarter of last year was a bit of a false dawn because it was a sharp drop in the savings rate that was really driving the story and that's not sustainable. We'll probably get back to deleveraging. So when the Fed revised down its forecasts, it was pretty much in step with my thinking. If there's optimism still here about the U.S., it probably won't last long. Third scene for 2012 is brinkmanship, brinkmanship, brinkmanship over Iran, but probably not a war. But the Strait of Hormuz ... you can't rule out the possibility that this could escalate into conflict. A lot of people in this game have an interest in conflict. And then the fourth scene that I'm thinking more and more about is China and what exactly unfolds there in this year when they have to manage political transition efficiently. That means steady as she goes, take no chances. But in reality they have a problem. It's still not over, the real estate crisis and its financial ramifications. And I think that we need to be quite cautious about how that plays out. I don't think we should take Chinese growth for granted, while the shadow banks of Wen Jiabo are imploding. I've talked to a lot of Chinese journalists here and clearly that's one of their big concerns.

BLODGET: Thank you very much, professor.

FERGUSON: My pleasure.

And this belongs in an election prediction thread why? Are you trolling, lol?

-dale

without gunnut to do his thread-jacking, i will have to suffice. now go back to your gingerbread dojo, or i shall mock you for your whining for a second time. (lol?)