Latest US Election Poll: Who's Got Your Vote if the Election Were Held Tomorrow

[magerette]

We've had several of these polls up over the course of the election, but I'm very curious to see how people feel right now as to who, if anyone, they expect to get their vote. Has your opinion changed? Are you more comfortable with your pick? Less comfortable? Are you sick of the whole thing and throwing your vote out the window to stay home and drink beer? Has the recent negative barrage of Carl Rove style campaigning from McCain influenced you? Is the liberal bloom off Barack Obama as he moves to center?

Enquiring minds want to know--namely mine--so everybody here and abroad please feel free to tell it like it is, and to tick off your choice from the options above.

Edit: The last option is for US residents only. ;)

[dteowner]

I voted for Obama.

NOT!

:p

[magerette]

Not even a lean? I'm shocked! :roll:

[Corwin]

How come there's no move to Australia option!! :)

[magerette]

Your immigration code is too strict.(That is, I'm too old--others may view it as a valid option however.) ;)

[Corwin]

We do take tons of retired people, if they have sufficient means of support, ie they have plenty of money. :)

[Bartacus]

I voted Obama. For me it feels like the lesser worst of the two. I think it's gonna be a close race.

[dteowner]

It would be interesting to break out the US vote from the international vote in this poll. I'm thinking those pinko fer-ners are skewing the results. ;)

[Prime Junta]

I'm not voting on this poll, precisely because I think it would be bad form. That said, Obama's been tacking to the right so hard lately that if I was American, I'd probably be seriously considering moving to Tierra del Fuego right about now. Or perhaps Chile; from what I hear, they're doing everything right, and I always liked the sound of Valparaiso...

[magerette]

Perhaps the non-USA contingent could leave a small post noting their vote? I hated to exclude them, but I'm sure they do make an adjustment necessary. (I'd say at least 50%)
I also am dismayed, but am too poor to move to Australia(not too old as I thought--thanks, Corwin--I think) or really anywhere else, and I can't help feeling that this election that seemed to be so different, is turning into the same lesser-of-two-evils one we have every four years.

[dteowner]

Valpo's about 4 hours north of me, PJ. We'll take ya, although you'll be required to take an active interest in high school and college basketball, for which I apologize. Oh, you did mean Valparaiso, Indiana, home of Valparaiso University, right? ;)

[vanedor]

Outside the US(well, barely, border to Maine is a 2 hours long car trip). Voted for Obama. Only reasonable option to me.

[Lucky Day]

The thing about McCain is he shot himself in the foot 8 years ago when he campaigned in Michigan playing the Catholic vote against he Evangelical and ended up winning that state's primary with crossover votes.

To me however, it showed some amazing political savvy. He pulled off a similar coup when he won the candidacy when everyone else wrote him off twice over. As well, his ability to win Democrats to his side made the party stand up and take notice.

Its a long campaign season and though people have been writing him off again in the wake of Obama-love, comments on Obama's celebrity being equivalent to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (the first being associated at one time with Bob Dole, the second's mother is a McCain contributor) are seeming to stick.

I think it will be very close as well. It may be a symptom of the two party system when campaigns are run well.

[Dez]

If i was a citizen of united states i'd probably vote obama since he is lesser of two evils or the 3:rd candidate just to show my protest against the system. Two party system is simply flawed. People don't have a real choise...only the illusion of choise. Better than nothing I suppose.

[mudsling3]

how about NOTA?

[dteowner]

Third party candidate is an option, mudsling3.

[Zaleukos]

Liberal foreigner for McCain. Either candidate is acceptable to me though.

[Prime Junta]

I'm curious about that choice, Z. "Worse is better?"

[dteowner]

Now, now, PJ, there seems to be a little assumption hidden somewhere in that question. What's the proper debate term, "basicus od boolshetium"?

[Zaleukos]

I'm curious about that choice, Z. "Worse is better?"

Since you ask, but let's not turn this into a long winded argument (there are more than enough such threads on US politics). First of all my impression of the US political scene, and my preferences, are somewhat different from yours. Second I look at how their policy might impact me as a Swede (I'd prioritise differently if I were a US resident).

The main issue is free trade. I'm not sure that I can trust Obama as a free trader. His foreign policy talk is marginally better, but not enough to offset my doubts on the trade issue in difficult times when there are strong calls for a return to protectionism. And we need the US as a trade partner to keep the world economy going. As an engineer in a country where exports count for 50% of the GDP that is self interest as much as a belief that free trade will make us all richer.

And I see either candidate as a break with arguably the worst US presidency during my lifetime (a lifetime that includes Carter:p), which I think is where we diverge the most. If I shared your assessment that McCain was a continuation of Bush I'd also share your sentiments towards the prospect of him getting a four year stay in the white house;)

[magerette]

Interesting, Z. This is one of the reasons I like to see non-US residents participate.

I don't think Obama's realization that Nafta has had some adverse affects on our job situation totally equates with what you're saying, though. In Audacity of Hope, he speaks about the need for global trade quite positively, merely saying it's a hard sell to some of his Illinois constituents in the Labor Unions. I think you'd find--should he happen to overcome the smear machine and get elected--that he has a more moderate and realistic policy toward the trade thing. He's really not nearly as "left" as he's perceived. And that's part of his problem now, as he seems to be shifting but in reality remains the conciliator and listener he's always been.

AFA McCain--he is indeed more Bush than Bush. Don't doubt that.

One of the things that's surprising me here is that no one has ticked off any of the undecided options. There's supposed to be a fairly large segment of voters who have not committedp; my question really was whether anyone is having their mind changed by the ungoing elections, or being persuaded one way or the other after not being able to pick. Apparently not, at least so far, and it seems people remain firm in their decision regardless of the tit-for tat BS that constitutes campaigning. That's reassuring in some ways and kind of scary in others(i.e., the "gut feeling" trumping any ability to show facts.)

[Zaleukos]

I would certainly be more informed if I were on the other side of the pond. Our media's coverage of the candidates is rather slanted towards the democratic side due to a combination of novelty and traditional preference.

I should clarify that my main practical beefs with Bush are the attitudes towards allies in foreign policy and the legacy of ignoring due procedure in the pursuit of security and terrorist chasing. While his domestic policies certainly arent my cup of tea the damage done by those policies are much more localised to the US itself, and I dont really care if McCain continues that part as long as it is what the electorate wants... I find it is best to reserve the moralising for actions that hurt others than the actor;)

EDIT: At any rate both candidates will be constrained by reality, and unless they combine native incompetence with tunnel visioned staff akin to the Bush administration they will adapt their policies accordingly. That's also why I dont give Obama many plus points for his foreign policy, as that in the end to some extent is guided by national interests/chauvinism no matter what your vision is.

EDIT2: Regarding the gut feeling of voters I think that is pretty normal. I'd say about 80% of our electorate are set in their party preferences (except for internal migrations within the center-right alliance, but the four alliance parties are very similar). The systems are of course not completely comparable since we vote for parties rather than people, but I dont think the voters work all that differently.

[dteowner]

I hate to burst your bubble sweetie, but Obama's voting record doesn't back up your "centrist" claim. I can't remember where I saw this, so I'm afraid I don't have a link right now (I'll try to remedy that after work if necessary), but the group Democrats for Action (or something like that) graded the voting records of various congressmen against proper lefty creed. Barack scored a perfect 100%. He made Teddy Kennedy's record (95%) look practically Republican.

[dteowner]

One of the things that's surprising me here is that no one has ticked off any of the undecided options. There's supposed to be a fairly large segment of voters who have not committedp; my question really was whether anyone is having their mind changed by the ungoing elections, or being persuaded one way or the other after not being able to pick. Apparently not, at least so far, and it seems people remain firm in their decision regardless of the tit-for tat BS that constitutes campaigning. That's reassuring in some ways and kind of scary in others(i.e., the "gut feeling" trumping any ability to show facts.)I'm not sure you're getting a fair sample. I think you'd agree that it takes a certain "strength of ideology" to want to play in the P&R sandbox. The undecided/uncommitted would drown in the waves of liquid sulphur or be bludgeoned by the flying brimstone.

[Zaleukos]

This vote doesnt have much of a "cost" associated with it either in terms of effort to register or facing the consequences of a bad choice, so I'd assume even a marginal preference might be enough for the uncommitted to vote...

[magerette]

I hate to burst your bubble sweetie, but Obama's voting record doesn't back up your "centrist" claim. I can't remember where I saw this, so I'm afraid I don't have a link right now (I'll try to remedy that after work if necessary), but the group Democrats for Action (or something like that) graded the voting records of various congressmen against proper lefty creed. Barack scored a perfect 100%. He made Teddy Kennedy's record (95%) look practically Republican.

And that's bad? :p
Actually, he has about the same voting record as Ted Kennedy, I think. I don't dispute your facts--I've seen that at various sources. However, I've made the point before that both McCain the mavericky maverick and the crazed leftie liberal Obama have both voted their straight party line throughout their (recent for McCain, complete for Obama ) careers.

I think the deal is , the center for you is a lot further right than the center for me. ;)

[magerette]

I'm not sure you're getting a fair sample. I think you'd agree that it takes a certain "strength of ideology" to want to play in the P&R sandbox. The undecided/uncommitted would drown in the waves of liquid sulphur or be bludgeoned by the flying brimstone.

True. This is no place for the faint of heart. Still. all you have to do is check a box, you don't have to get in between the firehoses. :)

This vote doesnt have much of a "cost" associated with it either in terms of effort to register or facing the consequences of a bad choice, so I'd assume even a marginal preference might be enough for the uncommitted to vote...

Possible--I also think it may be that people are actually less undecided than we're lead to believe. I find it pretty hard to believe that in this election climate, people don't have a clue on who is who. It's a much clearer choice than usual, I think.

[Prime Junta]

And I see either candidate as a break with arguably the worst US presidency during my lifetime (a lifetime that includes Carter:p), which I think is where we diverge the most. If I shared your assessment that McCain was a continuation of Bush I'd also share your sentiments towards the prospect of him getting a four year stay in the white house;)

Well, I do think he is a continuation of Bush. More to the point, I think he's utterly clueless about economics, and he's also disdainful of people who aren't. That means that he's less likely to get the US economy on its feet than his less utterly clueless opponent. Free trade with the US is only worth something if the economy is working.

(Points to consider: his economic plan is a continuation of Bush's utterly discredited supply-side economics, its basic arithmetic doesn't add up, and he's seriously advanced some utterly stupid ideas, such as the gas tax holiday, and when called out on it, declared that "economists don't understand the hardship of ordinary Americans.)

Besides which, getting out of all those trade agreements isn't as easy as simply suspending them -- there would be massive fallout, which I'm fairly certain neither of the two would like to deal with.

[Benedict]

(Points to consider: his economic plan is a continuation of Bush's utterly discredited supply-side economics, its basic arithmetic doesn't add up, and he's seriously advanced some utterly stupid ideas, such as the gas tax holiday, and when called out on it, declared that "economists don't understand the hardship of ordinary Americans.)
.

A telling quote IMO. Possibly the worst thing about the bush administration for me (and it's been a tough competition) is the anti-intellectual attitude he's shown, simple, unambiguous, plain speaking stupidity being more highly prized than well informed but inaccessible intelligence.

Even if I can't 100% pin down exactly what Obama stands for on a lot of issues he really does seem to stand for being frighteningly intelligent and trying his best to think about things properly. In that light I don't particularly mind if the outcome of his ongoing and exhaustive thinking is notable policy shifts, at least someone in the seat of power would actually be thinking.

[dteowner]

* insert obligatory apology here, because even a dedicated righty must admit that Dubya is a retard *

There's a need in Washington for plain speakin', but dumb is dumb.

[Corwin]

* insert obligatory apology here, because even a dedicated righty must admit that Dubya is a retard *

There's a need in Washington for plain speakin', but dumb is dumb.

They say that people get the leaders they deserve. What did the American people do to deserve him? Says great things about your political system, doesn't it!!

[dteowner]

After Slick Willie, America wanted a straight shooter, which they got. Unfortunately, Dubya speaks plainly because he's simply not capable of much beyond that.

[skavenhorde]

Lots of strong opinions on this, even in my own family we can't agree on this issue. Gotta love fights started over people who don't know you exist and don't really care.

For my mail in vote, it's going to Obama not for any of the reasons mentioned so far. I don't care about his inexperience. Could careless that he is black or who his preacher was. I decided to vote for him the day he made that speech on race. That speech moved me. Never in my 32 years of life have I seen any politician speak so bluntly about real problems in America. Not just black problems but white ones as well. He spoke of the real everyday problems that go on. Some caused by stupid laws that should never have been passed in the first place like affirmative action. Any politician that is willing to talk about real life problems in America instead of ducking behind the issue has my vote. Whether or not he backs up what he says in office remains to be seen. I sincerely hope he is able to change America. Our image isn't that good right now and it has everything to do with the business as usual type of mentality from the politicians. Not just republicans but democrats as well. It's time they shook up the foundation a bit and get our image back to the land of freedom instead of the land of intolerance and fear.

Possible--I also think it may be that people are actually less undecided than we're lead to believe. I find it pretty hard to believe that in this election climate, people don't have a clue on who is who. It's a much clearer choice than usual, I think.

You're definitly right. This has been the longest campaign ever. I was hanging on everyword from the politicians for months, but after so much you get a good idea of who is who and what they stand for. Like I said earlier I decided months ago who will get my vote and there is no changing it now, no matter what happens. Well, unless Obama turned out to be a secret Republican ;) then I might change it to independant.

Even my mom who is a Republican but despises the Republican party right now, she has decided to vote independant because she hates Obama but won't vote Republican this year. So I told her to vote for the little guys, they never get any votes. Maybe if Reps and Dems took the third parties more seriously then that would also shake up the political foundation a bit. That day is a long way off though.

[Yeesh]

Yeesh votes Obama. As far as I'm concerned, the single most important thing the next president will do is control the nomination of (at least) a couple of supreme court justices. With nominees getting younger, and people living and working longer, each one wil likely be on the court for 30 years or more. Think about that.

McCain's a fine guy, seriously. But he'll nominate conservatives, and the court will go from this:
4 - 1 - 4
to this:
5 - doesn't matter
or:
6 - doesn't matter

And then things will start to suck. Bye bye reporoductive rights, bye bye privacy rights!

Hello prayer in school, heck prayer in Congress! Hello, the following definition of 'War': A condition that the president announces (though he doesn't 'declare' it, of course), which lasts as long as he says so.

Really, I don't think the election has any rampification nearly so important as the supreme court nominations. Both guys will get out of Iraq, because the people will make them. Both guys will try to help with oil, and neither will be successful (oddly, the global market for oil doesn't seek presidential advice). Both guys will try to help with the mortgage mess and the slowing economy, and again they will have little impact. But I know they'll try.

However, those justices are going to be on the bench for the rest of my meaningful life. That's huge. If McCain wins, this country will begin to see changes to what exactly a citizen can count on as his constitutional rights. That's huge. The stupid issues on which the election will actually be decided are small potatos and no potatos.

[skavenhorde]

And then things will start to suck. Bye bye reporoductive rights, bye bye privacy rights!

Privacy rights have already gone the way of the Do-do. I'm really surprised why the country didn't get more upset over the eavsdropping the phone companies did while under good ol' Bushie. Even now they can monitor all incoming calls from outside the United States without a warrant or even a reason. So that means everytime I call someone back in the states, I'm not just talking to that person but also have some guy listening in on the conversation. Spooky in a 1984 kind of way. The way I talk about politics with my friends and family, I'm sure I said some words that flagged my phone call for monitoring. I won't be surprised if one day I fly back to America and have to be held for questioning, lol.

The question I'm afraid to ask is how far are we willing to let the government control us for our own good? Why not just let the government control every aspect of our lives. That would definatly make us safe, but then we have made Orwell's 1984 a reality and who wants to live in that world?

[Benedict]

However, those justices are going to be on the bench for the rest of my meaningful life. That's huge. If McCain wins, this country will begin to see changes to what exactly a citizen can count on as his constitutional rights. That's huge. The stupid issues on which the election will actually be decided are small potatos and no potatos.

Interesting perspective there, not an aspect I'd been aware of at all :)

Nice to have such an international forum here, I learn a lot more from it.

[Prime Junta]

Good point, Yeesh. Still, I think there are some pretty substantive issues there, too. In particular:

(1) Managing the decline of American power abroad. McCain is a unilateralist. His idea of a "League of Democracies" to supplant/replace the UN is stillborn for two reasons: first, any international decision-making forum that doesn't include China just won't work, and second, there aren't any takers -- other than Israel and the USA, the democracies of the world would rather rely on and reform/improve institutions like the UN and the ICC. Obama, OTOH, is much more of a multilateralist and has a much more realistic idea about how the world actually works, despite his recent saber-rattling on Iran and sweet-talking to Likud. IOW, I think he's the better man for that job.

(2) Managing the American economic crisis. It ain't over, not by a long shot, and things will be looking grim until 2010 at least. McCain's economics are just plain crazy-talk -- basically, continuing Bush's supply-side idiocy, only more so: borrow and borrow and spend and spend (on stupid things that won't help the economy to make it worse). That would run the American economy into the ground; it could even conceivably lead to a complete collapse of the dollar and a default on the US national debt, which would turn the USA into a nuclear-armed Argentina. That's not good, not for the US, and not for the rest of us. Again, Obama's economics are at least somewhat more sane; his advisers are better, and he appears more willing to listen to them.

[dteowner]

It's amazing that, by some divine intervention, "crazy talk" supply-side "idiocy" led to a decade of significant growth and prosperity across the country and across the socio-economic strata, starting in the hole of a full-on recession. It's certainly not a perfect theory, but neither are the ones you espouse.

Sorry to confuse the issue with historical fact.

[Prime Junta]

It's amazing that, by some divine intervention, "crazy talk" supply-side "idiocy" led to a decade of significant growth and prosperity across the country and across the socio-economic strata, starting in the hole of a full-on recession. It's certainly not a perfect theory, but neither are the ones you espouse.

Ouch, I've rarely seen so many factual errors and fallacies crammed into such a short paragraph.

(1) "a decade of significant growth and prosperity across the country and across the socio-economic strata"

Fact: the American median family income, when corrected for purchasing power, has been stagnant over the last decade.
Fact: the poverty rate in the USA has grown over the last decade.
Fact: regional income disparities have grown over the last decade.
Fact: employment growth during the recent business cycle, peak to peak, was millions of jobs short of previous business cycles.

Curiously enough, employment growth rates during *every Democratic presidency* since the 1950's or so have been greater than growth rates during *any Republican presidency.* Go figure.

Annual rates of employment growth, by presidency:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/jobgrowth.png

In other words, your claim of "...across the country and across the socio-economic strata" has no basis in fact whatsoever. It's pure fantasy -- the exact opposite is true. In other words, *you've been lied to,* my friend.

(2) Now, about the "...significant growth and prosperity..." bit: growth rates during Clinton's presidency were far higher than during Bush's presidency, even when measured trough-to-peak (i.e., not counting the losses incurred during this year). Both presidents started near the bottom of a business cycle, and ended near the top, so it's actually a fairly valid comparison: Bill had the Internet bubble, Bush had the real-estate bubble.

(3) And finally, you're making a "post-hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy, in stating that supply-side economics led to whatever economic growth we're seeing. If you want to demonstrate that, you have to provide more than bald assertion -- 'cuz I can assert that whatever growth the US economy experienced happened *despite* the idiotic fiscal behavior of your government, not because of it.

Sorry to confuse the issue with historical fact.

Yeah, indeed. :rolleyes:

[dteowner]

Wrong decade, sweetie. I hate to invalidate all your hard work, but you need to go back to the 80's under Saint Ron. That is when supply-side did its wonders.

You should give me more credit than to think I'd hold up Dubya's (or Clinton's) models for any serious investigation.

edit- BTW, overall employment numbers are a bit misleading since they don't take into account population trends, nor the "quality" of employment.

[Prime Junta]

Wrong decade, sweetie. I hate to invalidate all your hard work, but you need to go back to the 80's under Saint Ron. That is when supply-side did its wonders.

Gee, thanks a bundle; you could've been a bit cleare -- it *was* hard work to check all those numbers to make sure you wouldn't whack me over the fingers with a mistake.

Saint Ron's economic record isn't all that rosy either -- there's a reason Bush Sr. coined the term "voodoo economics" to describe Reaganomics.

I've looked into this a fair bit, and I assure you that supply-side economics is quackery; it's to economics what homeopathy is to medicine, stemming from a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of monetary policy as sketched on a napkin over lunch by a guy with the same last name as Leisure Suit Larry.

[dteowner]

My most humble apologies. You could save yourself a lot of work by just accepting everything I say as greater Truth. Maybe? Maybe? Well, you can't say I didn't offer.

I know you get irritable when I get anti-intellectual, but there's a large part of me that couldn't give two hoots about the theory. There's a lot to be said for results. I'm not sure a "smoke and mirrors" argument will invalidate those results, either, since Washington DC has been the constant home of smoke and mirrors for a century or so. Reaganomics took us from a deep recession to a boom decade, where everyone from the CEO to the janitor was making good money, living large, and feeling secure. Some of that can be written off to the "natural biorhythm" of the USA economy (which Clinton capitalized on by not F'ing with it), but not so much as a majority.

[Prime Junta]

I know you get irritable when I get anti-intellectual, but there's a large part of me that couldn't give two hoots about the theory. There's a lot to be said for results. I'm not sure a "smoke and mirrors" argument will invalidate those results, either, since Washington DC has been the constant home of smoke and mirrors for a century or so. Reaganomics took us from a deep recession to a boom decade, where everyone from the CEO to the janitor was making good money, living large, and feeling secure. Some of that can be written off to the "natural biorhythm" of the USA economy (which Clinton capitalized on by not F'ing with it), but not so much as a majority.

Actually, that's not quite true either, but I'm too tired to argue the point right now. I'd just suggest that you look up the actual data -- GDP growth, job creation, national debt, trade deficit, median family income growth, and median family income growth by quintile. Then compare it to the other presidencies from Kennedy/LBJ to Bush II. You'll find that Reagan's period isn't nearly as rosy as you make it out to be.

FWIW, I've done a fairly big chunk of this homework about six-eight months ago when I did my semi-serious reading on economics in general and the US national economy in particular. Unfortunately I don't keep copious notes, and in any case I don't feel like writing a Reaganomics critique right now, so you'll have to settle for a few points; you can look up more for yourself if you're interested.

To pick two indicators I can still find from my notes, GDP growth per annum was 3.4% (average since WW2 is 3.6%), and net job creation was 16 million, which was just about exactly on par with population growth. Neither unemployment nor poverty rate hit their previous lows; IOW, Reagan's recovery from the severe recession the Fed triggered to break the 1970's inflationary spiral was weaker than previous or subsequent recoveries.

I don't have the numbers to hand on the federal deficit or the savings rate, but the former ballooned as the latter dropped; IOW, much of Reagan's growth was financed by debt: if you take out a trillion-dollar loan and spend it like a drunken sailor, it's bound to show up in the GDP numbers. Not unlike the weak recovery under Bush 2, for that matter -- only he didn't quite manage to shore up the bubble until the end of his second term; it popped about 12 months prematurely.

Finally, a thought: I find it amusing that you ascribe the Reagan recovery to Reaganomics, but the much stronger Clinton recovery to "not f-ing with the natural biorhythm of the American economy." I would suggest the contrary: Reagan's recovery was an exceptionally weak one due to his poor economic policy, while Clinton's was an exceptionally strong one due to him employing a crack economic advisory team -- and listening to their advice.

[dteowner]

Clinton took the reins of an economy that was bad but not recessionary. Taking a breath, as it were. Reagan inherited a serious mess and turned it around.

Secondly, although Reagan's numbers were smaller (I have no reason to doubt your data), I'd be very surprised if their effects were not more uniformly applied once the policy had time to sink in. I'd bet that the beginnings of our "rich get richer" stratification came under Clinton's watch based on the change in dominant vehicle for accumulation of wealth in that decade (from 80's era top-to-bottom salary growth to 90's era stock market investment). I can't deny that Dubya put a point on that pencil, though, as the vehicle shifted to 00's era corporate largess/shenanigans.

Finally, perception is overemphasized in a consumer-driven economy, and I'm here to tell you that they didn't call it the Big 80's for nothing. We bought the toys, which meant jobs to build the toys, which meant paychecks to buy more toys... During Clinton's days, the middle class started to realize they were getting squeezed, even though times were relatively good. There was a wariness there, a dawning realization, that a lot of us were about to get bent over.

And as a bonus "finally", I'd like to know just what advice Willie followed. He didn't prod the Fed. He didn't change tax code (that was done to him, not by him). He didn't significantly change corporate regulation. He didn't dramatically redirect government spending. He didn't attack the trade deficit. He didn't balance the budget (the Republican congress forced that down his throat, and besides that, you can't really give him credit for the dramatically increased receipts just because he was sitting in the chair at the right time). In a nutshell, he didn't do squat. That's actually one of the very few things I think he did right--he didn't screw with a good thing.

[Corwin]

Dte, don't get me wrong on this, I don't like Clinton any more than you do, but it seems to me that you're saying when something goes well under a Democrat it's because of Congress, but if anything goes wrong, it's the fault of the Pres!! Isn't that a little one sided, even for you!!!! :)

[blatantninja]

I'd vote 3rd party for two reasons:

1) I live in NYC. Obama is going to win this state so my voting for McCain isn't going to help him.
2) I'm a conservative. A REAL conservative and while I still feel that the Republicans are a better option than the Democrats, I'm disgusted with what the Republican party has become. One way that parties get federal funding for future elections is by their share of the vote in the previous election. Because of point #1, I'd rather give my vote to a 3rd party with no chance of winning this election in hopes that it gives them a better chance in the next one, because really, until a 3rd party emerges as a legitimate contender, neither the Democrats or Republicans are going to straighten up.

[magerette]

That's a reasonable argument, bn, and I've actually followed it in the past myself--though i didn't know about the funding thing. I agree that we need *at least* one more party to keep everybody honest and give people viable alternatives.

I'm still voting for Obama, though, even though Oklahoma is without any shadow of a doubt going McCain. (Last poll was 56-38 or something. O_O )

[Prime Junta]

Clinton took the reins of an economy that was bad but not recessionary. Taking a breath, as it were. Reagan inherited a serious mess and turned it around.

Not quite. Here, in a very small nutshell, is what happened.

The 1973 oil crisis triggered stagflation, which caused an inflationary spiral -- wages and prices leapfrogged each other year by year, as unions and employers one-upped each other. This was a very nasty situation that led to sluggish growth even during the upswing of the business cycle. Finally, Paul Volcker, the Fed chief, decided to wring inflation out of the system with a massive reduction of the money supply. This happened late in Carter's presidency. The predictable and predicted consequence was a sharp, deep recession and a sharp rise in unemployment. This broke the back of the labor unions in the US, and eventually killed inflation. At that point, the Fed initiated an expansionary monetary policy, and the economy started to recover. By that time, Carter had lost the election and Reagan was at the reins.

IOW, Reagan had nothing to do with turning around the economy -- that was the business cycle on the one hand, and the Fed on the other. What Reagan could impact was the strength and length of the recovery, and the way the growth was distributed.

Secondly, although Reagan's numbers were smaller (I have no reason to doubt your data), I'd be very surprised if their effects were not more uniformly applied once the policy had time to sink in.

I like surprising you, so I dug up some numbers.

Until Reagan, the graph or income growth per quintile looked like a picket fence: growth was pretty much evenly distributed. From Reagan onwards, it looks like a staircase: growth in the lower quintiles is stagnant, while in the higher ones it's... high.

Unfortunately I don't have an on-line graph for you, but here are the numbers (annual inflation-adjusted growth per family by percentile, in per cent):

(Note: (1) the dates are set by the business cycle, trough to peak, not the dates of the presidency, and (2) these aren't aggregated quintiles, but families at a certain percentile position in the income distribution; this eliminates the very rich and the very poor from the comparison; including them would give significantly different numbers, but they'd be less representative of what the bulk of American households gained or lost).

From 1947-1973 (end of the war economy to the oil crisis):
20th: 2.5% 40th: 2.6% 60th: 2.8% 80th: 2.6% 95th: 2.4%

From 1973-1979 (the stagflationary/inflationary doldrums):
20th: -0.2% 40th: -0.2% 60th: 0.0% 80th: 0.1% 95th: 0.5%

From 1979-1989 (the "Reagan recovery"):
20th: -0.4% 40th: 0.2% 60th: 0.5% 80th: 1.0% 95th: 1.5%

I'd bet that the beginnings of our "rich get richer" stratification came under Clinton's watch based on the change in dominant vehicle for accumulation of wealth in that decade (from 80's era top-to-bottom salary growth to 90's era stock market investment). I can't deny that Dubya put a point on that pencil, though, as the vehicle shifted to 00's era corporate largess/shenanigans.

Clinton certainly didn't do much to change the situation, but it started, and dramatically so, under Reagan's watch. (What Clinton could have done, and at what cost, is a whole different question; the short answers would be "something" and "possibly very high;" similar trends are visible worldwide, but there nowhere near as strong in Europe or Southeast Asia; OTOH Europe wasn't doing too great economically at the time to start with.)

Finally, perception is overemphasized in a consumer-driven economy, and I'm here to tell you that they didn't call it the Big 80's for nothing. We bought the toys, which meant jobs to build the toys, which meant paychecks to buy more toys... During Clinton's days, the middle class started to realize they were getting squeezed, even though times were relatively good. There was a wariness there, a dawning realization, that a lot of us were about to get bent over.

And as a bonus "finally", I'd like to know just what advice Willie followed. He didn't prod the Fed. He didn't change tax code (that was done to him, not by him). He didn't significantly change corporate regulation. He didn't dramatically redirect government spending. He didn't attack the trade deficit. He didn't balance the budget (the Republican congress forced that down his throat, and besides that, you can't really give him credit for the dramatically increased receipts just because he was sitting in the chair at the right time). In a nutshell, he didn't do squat. That's actually one of the very few things I think he did right--he didn't screw with a good thing.

Look dte -- you can't have it both ways. Either presidential economic policy doesn't matter, in which case Reagan just managed to put a wonderful spin on a mediocre recovery, whereas Clinton didn't manage to turn an exceptionally strong recovery into any political credit, or it does, in which case Clinton's record looks a great deal better than Reagan's.

As to what Clinton actually did, that would be a pret-ty long trek, so I'll just refer you to Joseph Stiglitz's excellent and highly readable book on what went right and what went wrong on Clinton's watch: _The Roaring Nineties_.

[ http://www.amazon.com/Roaring-Nineties-History-Worlds-Prosperous/dp/0393326187/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218059794&sr=8-1 ]

You were citing Reagan's "turning around the American economy" as evidence that supply-side economics works, remember? Whereas in reality, Reagan's numbers aren't all that hot, compared to any other post-WW2 business cycle, and the effects on income distribution are pretty much exactly what classical economics would predict -- i.e., regressive. As I said: supply-side economics is to economics what homeopathy is to medicine. Quackery.

[dteowner]

Dte, don't get me wrong on this, I don't like Clinton any more than you do, but it seems to me that you're saying when something goes well under a Democrat it's because of Congress, but if anything goes wrong, it's the fault of the Pres!! Isn't that a little one sided, even for you!!!! :)It's a question of who's driving the bus. Reagan bent a hostile democratic congress to his will; Clinton bent his willie while the republican congress did the heavy lifting. In this case, I'm a fan of both approaches.

[txa1265]

... there is a reason 'Wall Street' (which I watched again the other night' fell well under Reagan's term ... and it was so much a part of our culture already. Reagan's positive's had to do more with a feeling of importance and meaning something and getting beyond Vietnam.

[magerette]

Thanks for the economics lesson Prime J. I appreciated it and actually even understood part of it. Reagan had some positive qualities, but I certainly wasn't noticing this huge financial Big Eighties thing at my income level. In fact, we were barely breaking even back then. We did better in the Nineties as a family, which of course is partially due to having better jobs and I'm sure a lot of other circumstantial factors, but my overall memories are a little in conflict with the idea that life was swell under Ronnie, Clinton stole his goodies and the last eight years are somehow more his fault than anyone else's because he didn't forsee and do something about the future before he left office. I'm no fan of Clinton as a person, but I think it was a better country all around then than it is now.

Who was the one with the "trickle down" theory? Wasn't that Reagan? All I can say is, it never trickles very far through that big absorbent sponge at the top. :)

[dteowner]

but my overall memories are a little in conflict with the idea that life was swell under Ronnie, Clinton stole his goodies and the last eight years are somehow more his fault than anyone else's because he didn't forsee and do something about the future before he left office. I'm no fan of Clinton as a person, but I think it was a better country all around then than it is now.

Who was the one with the "trickle down" theory? Wasn't that Reagan? All I can say is, it never trickles very far through that big absorbent sponge at the top. :)I don't know that I've blamed the last 8 years on Willie anywhere. I blame the last 8 years on an unforseeable economic disaster (9-11) followed by a very poorly managed recovery plan.

Trickle-down was Ronnie. For all that sponge, we went from rampant unemployment and economic crisis to labor stability and consumer confidence.

Perhaps that's where PJ and I aren't quite seeing eye-to-eye. I'm putting a great deal of stock in stability in the labor force, which isn't part of PJ's charts and would be hard to put solid numbers to even if you wanted to. I haven't won any Nobel prizes, but it seems pretty obvious to me that, in a consumer-driven economy, consumer confidence is king and the primary driver (practically sole driver, IMO) in that is labor stability--I have a job today and I'm confident that I'll have that job (or a better one) tomorrow. The economic glory years under Clinton were driven by productivity improvements and stock market wizardry; labor stability steadily decreased for his entire presidency. Companies closed at the drop of a hat; jobs were continually lost to offshore outsourcing; traditional middle class manufacturing jobs were slaughtered and replaced with lower paying service industry positions.

[Prime Junta]

I don't know that I've blamed the last 8 years on Willie anywhere. I blame the last 8 years on an unforseeable economic disaster (9-11) followed by a very poorly managed recovery plan.

In that case, you're wrong again. The economic impact of 9-11 was negligible -- a temporary speed bump that hit a few isolated sectors and didn't last more than a few months. What's biting you in the ass now is the simple rule of "what can't go on forever, won't go on forever." Eventually the chickens will come home to roost, and that's what's happening now.

Specifically, these chickens:

* The trade deficit. Released by Reagan, shooed off further by Bush and Clinton, driven off with a whip by Bush 2.
* The budget deficit. Released by Reagan, plaintively whistled home by Bush 1, caught and locked in by Clinton, driven off with a whip by Bush 2.
* Consumer borrowing. Released by Reagan, cheerfully chased off by everyone else since.
* Insufficient infrastructure spending. Reagan thru Bush 2, no exceptions.
* Growing income differentials. When they grow enough, they become unsustainable. Reagan thru Bush 2, no exceptions.
* Recovery by blowing bubbles in the economy. Bush 1 thru Bush 2, no exceptions. Eventually you run out of bubbles, and then you're S.O.L.

As stated, 9-11 doesn't have zip to do with this, other than serving as a convenient excuse to spend money on "security" -- whatever that may mean.

Trickle-down was Ronnie. For all that sponge, we went from rampant unemployment and economic crisis to labor stability and consumer confidence.

Yeah. It's known as the "business cycle," and it got going once Volcker squeezed inflation out of the system, as I stated in my long-winded post above. It would have happened under Carter 2 as well; Reagan just branded it.

Perhaps that's where PJ and I aren't quite seeing eye-to-eye. I'm putting a great deal of stock in stability in the labor force, which isn't part of PJ's charts and would be hard to put solid numbers to even if you wanted to. I haven't won any Nobel prizes, but it seems pretty obvious to me that, in a consumer-driven economy, consumer confidence is king and the primary driver (practically sole driver, IMO) in that is labor stability--I have a job today and I'm confident that I'll have that job (or a better one) tomorrow. The economic glory years under Clinton were driven by productivity improvements and stock market wizardry; labor stability steadily decreased for his entire presidency. Companies closed at the drop of a hat; jobs were continually lost to offshore outsourcing; traditional middle class manufacturing jobs were slaughtered and replaced with lower paying service industry positions.

That's a good point. I've done a fair bit of reading on that too, and the reasons for the evolution are a bit on the complex side; they have to do with globalization on the one hand and changes in society internally on the other. I'll try to make a very small nutshell, though.

In the American case, job instability was the price to pay for getting out of the 1970's inflationary spiral -- the spiral was driven by the collective bargaining of the unions on the one hand and big business on the other. The unions negotiated pay raises; big business transferred the costs to prices. This created a vicious circle that was very hard to break. The late-1970's Fed-triggered recession broke the cycle, and broke the unions with it.

However, those selfsame unions were also responsible for negotiating "GM-like" working conditions, with stable employment, pay raises based on seniority, comprehensive health care packages, and so on. And the selfsame big business was powerful enough to fix prices so that all that could be paid for.

With the unions gone, companies were free to negotiate with employees on an individual basis; with globalization, their potential employee pool went from Michigan to Chengdu. Simultaneously, Wal-Mart and its like aggregated the bargaining power of consumers -- they used their clout to pit producers against each other in order to get the best possible bargain for their customers. And finally, the globalization of finance (when stock markets went real-time, electronic, and international) meant that competition for capital went global at the same time: CEO's found themselves under much more pressure to produce bigger growth and bigger profits, in order to please their empowered stockholders.

The upshot was a triple whammy: (1) enormous downward pressure on producer prices, through Wal-Mart and global competition, (2) enormous upward pressure on profits, through the globalized finance market, and (3) loss of labor's bargaining power through the destruction of the unions.

Surprise surprise -- the USA went from lifetime employment with health care, a pension plan, and guaranteed seniority raises to short-term employment with minimal perks, raises based on productivity, and a private pension plan, if that. IOW, there goes your job quality.

You'll note, by the way, that these developments are global. There's really no way this situation could have been avoided altogether; autarky isn't an option, as Comrade Kim has shown us.

However, it would have been possible to manage the transition in a way that would have reaped many of the benefits while avoiding some of the downsides. Some countries that have managed this much better than the US are South Korea, Chile, and some, but not all, European countries; others like Japan paid an enormous price for their choices but are looking a lot better right now. And I sure as hell can't tell how Reagan's policies made the transition any easier -- from where I'm at, it looks like the exact opposite; he was exacerbating the most undesirable features of globalization at the critical instant it was getting started.

[Prime Junta]

Oh, one more thing, dte -- you keep saying that Clinton didn't want to balance the Federal budget, but had this shoved down his throat by the Republican Congress.

This just ain't true either, and you'd realize it for yourself if you thought about it for a moment. You remember *how* Clinton balanced the budget? It's two words.

Raising. Taxes.

He was the one who had to ram that down Congress's throat, not the other way around.

Again, read Stiglitz's book if you're genuinely interested in the topic; it's an inside view of the deliberations that went on in Clinton's economic advisory team and their negotiations with the administration and pressures from Congress.

[dteowner]

In that case, you're wrong again. The economic impact of 9-11 was negligible -- a temporary speed bump that hit a few isolated sectors and didn't last more than a few months.I hate to tell you, but this is completely and totally false. I was tied in with industry across a 3 state region at the time and I'm here to tell you that industrial spending and industrial production went right in the crapper for over 12 months. It prompted a period of labor instability as manufacturing scaled back to manage the sudden excess capacity. That's no frickin' speed bump, mister.
With the unions gone, companies were free to negotiate with employees on an individual basis; with globalization, their potential employee pool went from Michigan to Chengdu. Simultaneously, Wal-Mart and its like aggregated the bargaining power of consumers -- they used their clout to pit producers against each other in order to get the best possible bargain for their customers. And finally, the globalization of finance (when stock markets went real-time, electronic, and international) meant that competition for capital went global at the same time: CEO's found themselves under much more pressure to produce bigger growth and bigger profits, in order to please their empowered stockholders.

The upshot was a triple whammy: (1) enormous downward pressure on producer prices, through Wal-Mart and global competition, (2) enormous upward pressure on profits, through the globalized finance market, and (3) loss of labor's bargaining power through the destruction of the unions.An excellent nutshell, although I'm not sure (3) was a quantum shift so much as a pendulum swing to the management side, albeit a significant swing. There was an adjustment due on that balance anyway, although in typical American fashion we shot right on thru the happy medium and out the back side.
However, it would have been possible to manage the transition in a way that would have reaped many of the benefits while avoiding some of the downsides. Some countries that have managed this much better than the US are South Korea, Chile, and some, but not all, European countries; others like Japan paid an enormous price for their choices but are looking a lot better right now. And I sure as hell can't tell how Reagan's policies made the transition any easier -- from where I'm at, it looks like the exact opposite; he was exacerbating the most undesirable features of globalization at the critical instant it was getting started.Reagan was the right medicine for the disease we had, just as Clinton's hands-off (I notice you haven't given even a quick summary of tangible actions. I still claim that's because there was a preponderance of tangible inactions.) was the right medicine for those times.

I think that this shift, and the management of it, is highlighting the biggest flaw in US democracy. We are patently unable to form coherent long-term policy and even less able to stick with any policy with an incubation period longer than about 2 years (the span of congressional elections). There's several roads from where we're at to where we need to be and, while we might argue which road is the smoothest and most direct, the vast majority of them will get us somewhere close to "there" if we just picked one and stuck with it. As you point out, the Japanese probably picked a poor road, but they largely stuck to their plan and they're in the right neighborhood now.

[Prime Junta]

I hate to tell you, but this is completely and totally false. I was tied in with industry across a 3 state region at the time and I'm here to tell you that industrial spending and industrial production went right in the crapper for over 12 months. It prompted a period of labor instability as manufacturing scaled back to manage the sudden excess capacity. That's no frickin' speed bump, mister.

Show me the money. That is:

(1) The numbers -- a significant downturn in economic activity following 9-11 *should* show up in them, even apart from the normal swings of the business cycle. The quarterly GNP growth numbers are in, and the corrections have been made, up to 2004.

(2) The causative mechanism. It's tough to disentangle the different causes and effects in national economies, but plausible explanations are possible. I'd like to hear your take on what about knocking down two skyscrapers caused a 12-month slowdown in industrial spending and production -- and why the subsequent recovery to make up for the investment and production shortfall since then didn't... well, make up for it.

Otherwise I'll just treat your statement as anecdotal. I've done my homework to argue my point: your turn now.

I think that this shift, and the management of it, is highlighting the biggest flaw in US democracy. We are patently unable to form coherent long-term policy and even less able to stick with any policy with an incubation period longer than about 2 years (the span of congressional elections). There's several roads from where we're at to where we need to be and, while we might argue which road is the smoothest and most direct, the vast majority of them will get us somewhere close to "there" if we just picked one and stuck with it. As you point out, the Japanese probably picked a poor road, but they largely stuck to their plan and they're in the right neighborhood now.

Something like that. Your politicians do seem to have a very short attention span. Not that you, as voters, are encouraging them to do anything else.

One thing you have to say for Clinton, though, that fiscally his administration did act longer-term -- he ran up a huge surplus during the boom, with the idea that the next administration (Gore's) could then spend it when the cycle reversed. It would have been politically much easier just to spend the surplus, or to cut taxes not to raise the surplus in the first place. But he chose to do otherwise.

I find it rather depressing that nobody seems willing to give him credit for that; not even Democrats, let alone Republicans. For example, you're arguing that it was the fiscally-responsible Republican Congress that *made* him do that, even though strangely enough the same fiscally-responsible Republicans did no such thing when they were in power before and after the Clinton interlude.

[Prime Junta]

Re Clinton: I haven't said much about what he did because (1) I'm actually not a huge fan of his economic policy, since it was IMO unnecessarily regressive and rough on weaker economies, and (2) it would be a pretty long trek. Economically he was probably closer to implementing Milton Friedman's "balance the budget and don't f-- with it" prescription than any other administration before or since. Clinton's economic record is decidedly mixed; it only stands out because of the company he keeps -- no American president since 1973 has managed to do any better.

As a summary, here's my quick take on what went right and what went wrong on his watch.

What went right:
+ The budget surplus. Politically tough to do; it takes discipline and ability to ram through Congress, and the rewards only come when you get to spend it with the downturn, which he never got to see.
+ The biggest, strongest economic boom since 1973; much bigger than Reagan's recovery, let alone the truly anemic Bush Sr. or Bush Jr. ones. How much of this is actually creditable to Clinton is debatable, but as you said, at least he didn't screw it up.
+ A reasonably progressive tax policy, by American standards.
+ Focus on free trade using an international mechanism rather than strong-arming bilateral treaties, with some consideration given to distributive effects and managing the adjustment costs at home.

What went wrong:
- Insufficient infrastructure spending. American infrastructure -- roads, bridges, electricity grids, water supply, flood protections, what have you -- has been steadily rotting since the 1960's at least. Clinton didn't do anything about this (either). In other words, his budget surplus was at least partly "borrowed" too -- by deferring necessary infrastructure investment.
- Pursuing the disastrous "Washington consensus" policies in international trade. This had ruinous effects around the world (e.g. Argentina, Mexico, South-East Asia), and ended up pretty expensive for the US too -- the Mexican bailout, for example, was a direct consequence (and not bailing out Mexico would've been just about as expensive, if not more so).
- Cheerfully negotiating and exploiting loopholes in those WTO trade rules to pander to small constituencies, despite the damage they would do to the bigger economic picture.
- Doing nothing to cool down the Internet bubble. The economy overheated badly in the late 1990's; this made the 2000/2001 recession deeper and nastier than it should have been. A better administration might have seen it coming and hit the brakes about when bars started showing the NASDAQ ticker on their TV's instead of football.
- Doing little to help adjust to globalization. Job security and quality collapsed due to that confluence of three factors -- globalization of the capital market, globalization of the market for goods, and globalization of the market for labor. It would have been possible (indeed, it still is possible) to do something on the political level about this; yet Clinton did virtually nothing.

"What would this be?" I hear you asking. Here we're entering some pretty murky waters, not to mention another very long post which I don't feel like writing. However, it would be unfair to leave it at just "something," so here are a few random thoughts.

(1) Built-in economic stabilizers. For example, the Danish model of unemployment insurance -- it starts out high, very near your salary when you lost or left your job. From that, it gradually declines to a minimum "subsistence" level, slightly below minimum wage. This has a number of beneficial effects: it provides automatic fiscal stimulus immediately as the economy turns down (since unemployment is the first thing to go up), it lowers the cost of job-switching, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, thereby making the labor market more flexible, and it provides security for those who most need it.

(2) Encouraging domestic growth in industries that cannot be easily transferred offshore. For example, public transportation, the infrastructure needed to run it, ICT infrastructure, and so on.

(3) Improving the quality of the labor force. Better, more easily accessible, and better targeted vocational training; more widely available higher education, and so on. Outsourcing and offshoring has a lot of overhead costs; if domestic labor productivity is high, it makes less economic sense to do so.

[dteowner]

As we've touched on before, the lines between the political parties are a lot more blurry than they used to be. Joining Dubya and "fiscally-responsible Republican" to support any argument earns you 2 minutes in the penalty box. For that matter, if we're going to lay the cards on the table, my tendency to imply that Willie and "tax-n-spend Democrat" go together should probably put me in the sin bin, too. Sitting on his hands while the receipts rolled in would have to qualify him for a "moderate" label and I think I've said more than once that he deserves credit for his inaction because, as you point out, inaction was not the most politically expedient approach.

The Republican congress that I'm referring to only lasted about 2 years, you know. Following the "mandate" election, Gingrich and his pals drove a lot of good changes thru that Willie did not support. That movement turned to vapor once Newt decided being a big wheel was more important than serving the American people.

[magerette]

Some breaking news--not very complete at time of posting, but apparently they've arrested someone for threatening to assassinate Obama:

Man Held in Florida For Threatening Obama's Life (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26077318/)

[blatantninja]

Re Clinton: I haven't said much about what he did because (1) I'm actually not a huge fan of his economic policy, since it was IMO unnecessarily regressive and rough on weaker economies, and (2) it would be a pretty long trek. Economically he was probably closer to implementing Milton Friedman's "balance the budget and don't f-- with it" prescription than any other administration before or since. Clinton's economic record is decidedly mixed; it only stands out because of the company he keeps -- no American president since 1973 has managed to do any better.

As a summary, here's my quick take on what went right and what went wrong on his watch.

What went right:
+ The budget surplus. Politically tough to do; it takes discipline and ability to ram through Congress, and the rewards only come when you get to spend it with the downturn, which he never got to see.
+ The biggest, strongest economic boom since 1973; much bigger than Reagan's recovery, let alone the truly anemic Bush Sr. or Bush Jr. ones. How much of this is actually creditable to Clinton is debatable, but as you said, at least he didn't screw it up.
+ A reasonably progressive tax policy, by American standards.
+ Focus on free trade using an international mechanism rather than strong-arming bilateral treaties, with some consideration given to distributive effects and managing the adjustment costs at home.

What went wrong:
- Insufficient infrastructure spending. American infrastructure -- roads, bridges, electricity grids, water supply, flood protections, what have you -- has been steadily rotting since the 1960's at least. Clinton didn't do anything about this (either). In other words, his budget surplus was at least partly "borrowed" too -- by deferring necessary infrastructure investment.
- Pursuing the disastrous "Washington consensus" policies in international trade. This had ruinous effects around the world (e.g. Argentina, Mexico, South-East Asia), and ended up pretty expensive for the US too -- the Mexican bailout, for example, was a direct consequence (and not bailing out Mexico would've been just about as expensive, if not more so).
- Cheerfully negotiating and exploiting loopholes in those WTO trade rules to pander to small constituencies, despite the damage they would do to the bigger economic picture.
- Doing nothing to cool down the Internet bubble. The economy overheated badly in the late 1990's; this made the 2000/2001 recession deeper and nastier than it should have been. A better administration might have seen it coming and hit the brakes about when bars started showing the NASDAQ ticker on their TV's instead of football.
- Doing little to help adjust to globalization. Job security and quality collapsed due to that confluence of three factors -- globalization of the capital market, globalization of the market for goods, and globalization of the market for labor. It would have been possible (indeed, it still is possible) to do something on the political level about this; yet Clinton did virtually nothing.

"What would this be?" I hear you asking. Here we're entering some pretty murky waters, not to mention another very long post which I don't feel like writing. However, it would be unfair to leave it at just "something," so here are a few random thoughts.

(1) Built-in economic stabilizers. For example, the Danish model of unemployment insurance -- it starts out high, very near your salary when you lost or left your job. From that, it gradually declines to a minimum "subsistence" level, slightly below minimum wage. This has a number of beneficial effects: it provides automatic fiscal stimulus immediately as the economy turns down (since unemployment is the first thing to go up), it lowers the cost of job-switching, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, thereby making the labor market more flexible, and it provides security for those who most need it.

(2) Encouraging domestic growth in industries that cannot be easily transferred offshore. For example, public transportation, the infrastructure needed to run it, ICT infrastructure, and so on.

(3) Improving the quality of the labor force. Better, more easily accessible, and better targeted vocational training; more widely available higher education, and so on. Outsourcing and offshoring has a lot of overhead costs; if domestic labor productivity is high, it makes less economic sense to do so.

Amazing PJ, I agree with absolutely everything you said here!

[blatantninja]

Some breaking news--not very complete at time of posting, but apparently they've arrested someone for threatening to assassinate Obama:

Man Held in Florida For Threatening Obama's Life (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26077318/)

I seriously fear for his life if he gets elected, especially if Hillary ends up the VP nominee (which it appears not likely now). There are just too many ignorant racists that won't be able to handle a black President. And if Hilllary is VP, there are enough militant feminists that would see nothing wrong with taking out Obama to fulfill their dream of a female President.

[magerette]

I seriously fear for his life if he gets elected, especially if Hillary ends up the VP nominee (which it appears not likely now). There are just too many ignorant racists that won't be able to handle a black President. And if Hilllary is VP, there are enough militant feminists that would see nothing wrong with taking out Obama to fulfill their dream of a female President.

As this story develops, the guy looks like a blowhard more than anything, but you never know. I also think the Secret Service will have their hands full with an O presidency should it come to pass.I don't know about the militant feminist assassins coming out in force though--mostly they just seem to whine a lot, not collect armor-piercing ammo and sniper rifles. ( Now Hillary herself slipping something into the WH coffeepot...that's another story. ;) )

[blatantninja]

As this story develops, the guy looks like a blowhard more than anything, but you never know. I also think the Secret Service will have their hands full with an O presidency should it come to pass.I don't know about the militant feminist assassins coming out in force though--mostly they just seem to whine a lot, not collect armor-piercing ammo and sniper rifles. ( Now Hillary herself slipping something into the WH coffeepot...that's another story. ;) )

I don't know. I've met some pretty scary feminists at the gym!

[Prime Junta]

Amazing PJ, I agree with absolutely everything you said here!

You do realize that no Republican administration would pursue a policy even remotely like it, I hope?

[magerette]

I don't know. I've met some pretty scary feminists at the gym!
Could it be perhaps you were, er...admiring them a bit too obviously?(well, you do have 'blatant' in your screen-name) Just sayin--that can provoke serious feminist wrath even in normally docile females. :p

[blatantninja]

You do realize that no Republican administration would pursue a policy even remotely like it, I hope?

I don't know about that. A more centrist one would. You could say the same thing about most democratic administrations as well. Clinton moved very heavily to the center though during his presidency. I don't see anyone that had even a remote shot at the white house from the Democratic side this election that would pursue a policy like that.

[blatantninja]

Could it be perhaps you were, er...admiring them a bit too obviously?(well, you do have 'blatant' in your screen-name) Just sayin--that can provoke serious feminist wrath even in normally docile females. :p

Trust me. I have LOW standards, but even I was not 'admiring' these 'ladies.'

You ever take a stroll around Texas Women's University?

[magerette]

Trust me. I have LOW standards, but even I was not 'admiring' these 'ladies.'

You ever take a stroll around Texas Women's University?

Gotcha. I was going to say something about the traditional cowboy Cattle Call, but I figure I've probably offended enough people today.

[blatantninja]

Eh, what's one more?

[dteowner]

Sorta back on topic, interesting article about the new direction of the campaigns. Looks like boths side are saying "Don't vote for that other guy." instead of saying "Vote for me."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080811/ap_on_el_pr/candidates_ads_5

I notice that the Obama camp is trying real hard to turn it into a Bush referendum, which is solid tactics if a bit disingenuous. I seem to remember taking a beating for making that accusation several weeks ago.

[magerette]

What was I beating you up on again? With so many threads, I forget. :)

I find all the ads equally frivolous and stupid actually. The fact that they're so effective amongst what someone referred to as "the knuckle-dragging troglodytes" among us is what's scary to me.

I'm waiting for the first debate to see if some actual issues surface.

Then there's the VP selection. Read an interesting comment on a blog the other night. Someone had been talking to some friends who were independents and among the undecided I was trying to find with this poll--anyway they were going to base their decision, apparently, on who picked the best VP, betting that the possibilities for McCain keeling over in office or Obama being assassinated made it the top priority. I don't recall that factor in any previous election, but I have to admit it makes a certain amount of sense.

[blatantninja]

I find all the ads equally frivolous and stupid actually. The fact that they're so effective amongst what someone referred to as "the knuckle-dragging troglodytes" among us is what's scary to me.

That's exactly why I don't think just because you have a pulse, you should have the right to vote. There need to be qualifications.



Then there's the VP selection. Read an interesting comment on a blog the other night. Someone had been talking to some friends who were independents and among the undecided I was trying to find with this poll--anyway they were going to base their decision, apparently, on who picked the best VP, betting that the possibilities for McCain keeling over in office or Obama being assassinated made it the top priority. I don't recall that factor in any previous election, but I have to admit it makes a certain amount of sense.

IIRC it was a bit of an issue in Reagan's re-election bid. Not that there was any doubt that Bush was going to be the VP, but just that people felt, discretely, that if Bush took over, he'd continue on what Reagan was doing. Granted I was 9 when that went on, but I remember my Dad talking about it.

It does seem a priority issue this time. Personally, I think either candidate is probably a one termer simply due to the economy they will be inheriting.

[Prime Junta]

It does seem a priority issue this time. Personally, I think either candidate is probably a one termer simply due to the economy they will be inheriting.

Actually, I sorta think the opposite. The economy is in bad shape, but I don't think the recession is going to last four years. That means that in 2012 the US economy should be in full-on recovery mode, which would bode well for the incumbent.

[blatantninja]

I wish I shared your optimism! I'm not a complete pessimist, but given how much mortgage related mess is still to come (largest number of resets in residential to occur in September, CMBS still hasn't hit but has the same structure, just originated later) plus the areas that have been just devastated will take more than 4 years to recover. I think in a lot of areas it will resemble Texas after the Oil Bust. It took about a decade for a lot of parts to recover.

The real key for the next four years will be determined by how much inflation or deflation we see over the next 12 months.

[dteowner]

It does seem a priority issue this time. Personally, I think either candidate is probably a one termer simply due to the economy they will be inheriting.I agree that McCain would be a one-n-done, simply because the public can't stand more than 12 years under the same party. 8 years is actually a stretch, IMO. I could see Obama and the donkeys pouring enough free beer to get re-elected even if the economy continues to sputter.

[Prime Junta]

The problem with that scenario is that the keg's nearly empty. Free beer is only available as long as the rest of the world is ready to keep the tab open, and that era seems to be ending. The next administration will have to either straighten out the triple deficit, or face a collapse of the dollar and economic Armageddon.

[magerette]

It's hard to tell what the pattern would be for 2012. (Like 2008 is easy...) The only sure thing is that Hillary will run. ;)

I think the economy of course is on top of everyone's list, but after this Georgia/Russia thing, I don't think we can pretend to look at the world as it is and say Iraq/ Afghanistan is all we're going to have to face abroad in the next few years either. How a new Cold War era(as Prime J speculated on in another thread) or increasing global instability over energy sources wherever they may be found, will impact the next four years is a big unknown, but I doubt it will help either party govern and maintain popularity.

IOW, the dems may have to do a lot more than pour their free beer, and the repubs may have to do more than rattle empty scabbards and utter stern pronouncements about "never surrendering" and so forth to get through without a total meltdown here and abroad of the relatively stable period of peace and prosperity we've been experiencing since the end of WWII.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm old. :(

[blatantninja]

I'm not entirely sure of that PJ. While I understand the point you are making, our debt/GDP isn't even close to being as large it has been in the past. Additionally, when the economy sputters domestically, people shift more into Treasuries, and overseas, when there is turmoil, we see an inflow of capital buying Treasuries because it is considered the safest investment in the world. True that China is pretty high in the debt they own of ours, but if they see an economic downturn (which it looks like they will IMO), a lot more private money there will be chasing Treasuries.

So long as faith in the US government doesn't collapse (not saying it can't), I think there is still room to grow the debt significantly.

Not saying I want that. Not at all, just that it is economically feasible.

[Prime Junta]

Now who's the optimist? :D

[blatantninja]

It happens occasionally. Do they have meds for that?

[magerette]

blatantninja wrote:
That's exactly why I don't think just because you have a pulse, you should have the right to vote. There need to be qualifications.

That's exactly how I feel about having babies. You should have to get licensed first, pass a test on basics, etc. Unfortunately that's easier to accomplish with voting than procreating. :)

[dteowner]

You're looking at some pretty extreme politics, there, folks. I'm not sure whether it's way left or way right, but I am sure that it's way out.

Warms the black lump of coal that is my fascist heart, it does. ;)

[blatantninja]

That's exactly how I feel about having babies. You should have to get licensed first, pass a test on basics, etc. Unfortunately that's easier to accomplish with voting than procreating.

While I would agree with the sentiment, I couldn't support this. I would support forcing people to choose between recieving additional welfare or getting sterilized though! Extreme yes, but I think worthwhile.

You're looking at some pretty extreme politics, there, folks. I'm not sure whether it's way left or way right, but I am sure that it's way out.

Not really if you think about it. The Founding Fathers feared mob rule and hence made only white, land-holding males eligible to vote. Now, I wouldn't go with the same criteria, but the precedence of a democracy having criteria for voting exists.

[dteowner]

Not really if you think about it. The Founding Fathers feared mob rule and hence made only white, land-holding males eligible to vote. Now, I wouldn't go with the same criteria, but the precedence of a democracy having criteria for voting exists.Actually, you can go further than that. The whole electoral college structure was intended as a safety valve between the popular vote and the actual rulership. Back in the day, electoral college reps had no restrictions on their vote like they do today. If the nation voted for King George or Mickey Mouse, those white, land-holding males of means (because you had to be reasonably wealthy to have the time for politics back then) could pick whomever they felt was right for the country.

Somehow, that part gets left out of civics class most of the time.

[magerette]

While I would agree with the sentiment, I couldn't support this. I would support forcing people to choose between recieving additional welfare or getting sterilized though! Extreme yes, but I think worthwhile...


Yes, because that's so much more rational than taking a parenting class..O_O..now I'm starting to agree with dte that we're getting a bit too far out. :)

Okay here's my actual argument for having standards in both:

License to Have a Baby:
If kids were educated about what having a baby actually means, and people were forced to exert some personal effort on proving they understood the rudiments of how to raise a child, instead of being allowed to let sentimentality, romanticism and hormones dictate the occasion, I can only see huge benefits for everyone--too many to even list.

However, I don't know a way it could ever be done without doing some pretty authoritarian things, which could go very wrong and create all kinds of unforeseen Orwellian consequences. So, it was purely a hypothetical.

License to Vote:
Could be like a license to drive. Be required to pass a citizenship test that covers basics like where Canada is and how many states there are, etc. Include some history and presidents and stuff. Nothing hard, just enough to see that there is a certain level of awareness.
This will never happen, though, as the low-info voters en masse are huge, easily manipulated sources of political power, and can be lead by the nose with a few ads and catchphrases. A class of educated, participatory voters would be more of a revolution in the way this country is governed than anything Abbie Hoffman or Malcolm X ever thought up. :)

[dteowner]

License to Vote:
Could be like a license to drive. Be required to pass a citizenship test that covers basics like where Canada is and how many states there are, etc. Include some history and presidents and stuff. Nothing hard, just enough to see that there is a certain level of awareness.
This will never happen, though, as the low-info voters en masse are huge, easily manipulated sources of political power, and can be lead by the nose with a few ads and catchphrases. A class of educated, participatory voters would be more of a revolution in the way this country is governed than anything Abbie Hoffman or Malcolm X ever thought up. :)I like that idea. You'd have to fight all sorts of accusations of racial bias and political bias and economic bias, but it would still get the job done. As you say, it would never happen. Would Arkansas just cancel elections entirely or would there be massive news coverage as the 3 eligible voters went to the polls? ;)

[Benedict]

While I would agree with the sentiment, I couldn't support this. I would support forcing people to choose between recieving additional welfare or getting sterilized though! Extreme yes, but I think worthwhile.
.

Much easier to do as well, the economic incentives for scrubbers should be to discourage further spawning rather than to encourage it. A baby shouldn't be a route into an easy life in a council house on benefits.

[Benedict]

However, I don't know a way it could ever be done without doing some pretty authoritarian things, which could go very wrong and create all kinds of unforeseen Orwellian consequences. So, it was purely a hypothetical.


Depends on your perspective. Personally I think the whole concept that the natural birth mother is in some way special and always the best possible thing for the baby is mental, as is the view that the rights of the mother to hang on to whatever plops out of her womb even if she's demonstrably unsuitable for raising that child should get preference over the rights of the baby to have a reasonable chance in life.

If they can't pass the parenting exam take the kids away at birth and put them in the adoption system before they're too scarred to have a chance.

[Corwin]

What, the rights of the child above the rights of the mother!! Now that's radical. Do you realise that argument would wipe out abortion as well? You're really setting yourself up for an attack!! :)

[blatantninja]

Yes, because that's so much more rational than taking a parenting class..O_O..now I'm starting to agree with dte that we're getting a

I'm just interested in taking away the financial incentive to kick out extra kids and then ignore them.


License to Vote:
Could be like a license to drive. Be required to pass a citizenship test that covers basics like where Canada is and how many states there are, etc. Include some history and presidents and stuff. Nothing hard, just enough to see that there is a certain level of awareness.
This will never happen, though, as the low-info voters en masse are huge, easily manipulated sources of political power, and can be lead by the nose with a few ads and catchphrases. A class of educated, participatory voters would be more of a revolution in the way this country is governed than anything Abbie Hoffman or Malcolm X ever thought up. :)

I think it has to be more stringent than that, otherwise, you really won't eliminate the type of voters I was talking about.

[Benedict]

What, the rights of the child above the rights of the mother!! Now that's radical. Do you realise that argument would wipe out abortion as well? You're really setting yourself up for an attack!! :)

Why? I would say that the ultimate aim is to maximise the rights and opportunities of any babies that are born, whether that means giving the mother the right (and financial, social & educational support) to make the most sensible and informed decision if it's the right time for her to have a child or whether that means rescuing any children from those mothers who've decided to press on when it's clearly not (and might never be) the right time for them to breed.

[dteowner]

That's one topic I won't touch. Waaaaay too much frothing at the mouth down that road and little meaningful debate to be had since the sides can't even agree on definitions to frame the discussion.

[magerette]

Yep, I'm staying out of that one also. I get too mad. I'll just draw the thread back on topic to say that the "pro-life" vs pro-choice issue is another very clear line between the candidates, and another reason not to vote for McCain for me.

[Corwin]

I just love to stir the pot!! :D

[Zaleukos]

Is this talk about license to vote serious? If so I find the thought extremely disturbing and it is pretty much the opposite of my ideal situation (where every legal resident above a certain age threshold automatically is registered as a voter) with as high a turnout as possible. There's just too many opportunities for arbitrary abuse from those with the power to set the bars for the "license", and plenty of historical examples showing that is just how such a license would be used...

[Pladio]

I agree with Zaleukos. The fight for the right to vote should not be set back a hundred years. In Greece only the rich voted on some issues. In Europe and in the US only white people who had land could vote. Later women could and black people too. Licenses to vote can be exploited too easily.

[Benedict]

Is the alternative much better? If any old idiots are allowed to vote then we'll just get more and more people like Bush in power, if it's restricted to people of at least passable intellect we'd probably do a lot better. Sure it'd be open to abuse, but the current system is hardly perfect either.

[blatantninja]

I agree with Zaleukos. The fight for the right to vote should not be set back a hundred years. In Greece only the rich voted on some issues. In Europe and in the US only white people who had land could vote. Later women could and black people too. Licenses to vote can be exploited too easily.

I agree that it can be exploited very easily. Of course, catering to the "me first" mob mentality that we currently have is easily exploited as well.

I am dead serious that I don't think everyone should be allowed to vote. I will say that until we develop a system that allows all people equal opportunity (like the examples I listed above) to earn the right to vote, we shouldn't go ahead with it, but the vast majority of people that cast ballots (at least in the US) really have no business deciding the future direction of the country.

When people like Cynthia McKinney get routinely elected to Congress, you know there is something wrong with the system.

[magerette]

I agree that it can be exploited very easily. Of course, catering to the "me first" mob mentality that we currently have is easily exploited as well.

I am dead serious that I don't think everyone should be allowed to vote. I will say that until we develop a system that allows all people equal opportunity (like the examples I listed above) to earn the right to vote, we shouldn't go ahead with it, but the vast majority of people that cast ballots (at least in the US) really have no business deciding the future direction of the country.

When people like Cynthia McKinney get routinely elected to Congress, you know there is something wrong with the system.

I honestly don't see what's the problem with McKinney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinney), but I do see she appears to be very liberal. In the opposite corner, in Oklahoma, we have Sally Kern (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_y3-ckuM3E).

The premise here is that politicians are being elected to represent not the interests of the country but the group identities of their constituents. It allows huge blocks of low-information voters to be brainwashed and manipulated, and many others more informed to throw up their hands and opt out of the process.

I've lived here now for over thirty years, and while I highly respect the work ethic, culture and values of many of the people around me, there's no doubt Sally Kern *does* exactly represent many of the people who voted for her. Im assuming the same for blatantninja's example. That's fine as long as it all balances out, but it's not balancing very well anymore.


It's very dangerous to think an animal, a small child, or a mob, really knows what's good for it.

[Pladio]

Is the alternative much better? If any old idiots are allowed to vote then we'll just get more and more people like Bush in power, if it's restricted to people of at least passable intellect we'd probably do a lot better. Sure it'd be open to abuse, but the current system is hardly perfect either.

It's better than reverting back to only the intellectuals right to vote or rich people ....

[blatantninja]

It's better than reverting back to only the intellectuals right to vote or rich people ....

Why? It makes us more susceptible to abuse in the short-term via spending and/or tax reductions that we can't afford in the long-term because those things are what get politicians elected.

While I wouldn't agree with only the rich voting, what would be so bad about having only intellectuals do the voting?

Alexis De Tocqueville put it best:

“The American Republic will endure until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”

[dteowner]

Technocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy)

I'm not sure we want to put pinko eggheads like PJ in charge (after all, the universities are full of pinkos with agendas) without the option for an occasional "attitude adjustment with extreme prejudice", but I'm certainly in favor of some IQ requirements, roughly 1 point below wherever I happen to test at. ;)

[magerette]

I like that technocracy idea--I'm just afraid it wouldn't take very long to turn into a plutocracy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy) Then we're right back where we are now. ;)

[dteowner]

You do realize that John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, and the Clintons each have more money than 99.99999999% of republicans will ever see, right?

[Toaster]

Don't really know what to say, but do you really, seriously believe in this idea?

My basic objections would be that in a representative democracy everyone who is of age should be able to choose who to be represented by, and since you seem to think and "stupid" people are too easily manipulated into voting one way or the other, do you really you vote a 100 % objectively yourselves? And if not, where and how to draw the line, how would you ever measure "democratic ability"?

I must say I've found the thought of a technocracy appealing before, but there's far too many principles which say straight 'no' for me.

PS. First time I'm posting here in P&R I think. I usually lurk and read everything and find it extremely insightful and interesting but can't really phrase my thoughts on the different matters well enough to make any good addition to the discussion but I guess that here I was a bit shocked by the topic and near-consensus about it...

[blatantninja]

Don't really know what to say, but do you really, seriously believe in this idea?

Without a doubt.

My basic objections would be that in a representative democracy everyone who is of age should be able to choose who to be represented by, and since you seem to think and "stupid" people are too easily manipulated into voting one way or the other, do you really you vote a 100 % objectively yourselves? And if not, where and how to draw the line, how would you ever measure "democratic ability"?

You draw the line on qualifications (whether they be by service, education or some other criteria). As for being 100% objective? No, of course not. No one is 100%. However, myself, and similarly educated people are a lot closer to that 100% than most voters. I would NEVER vote for (or against) a candidate simply because of a single issue. I'd NEVER vote for a candidate simply because they promised my income group the biggest tax cut/handout. Most voters can't say the same thing.

PS. First time I'm posting here in P&R I think. I usually lurk and read everything and find it extremely insightful and interesting but can't really phrase my thoughts on the different matters well enough to make any good addition to the discussion but I guess that here I was a bit shocked by the topic and near-consensus about it...

And it was a valuable contribution! Keep it up.

[magerette]

You do realize that John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, and the Clintons each have more money than 99.99999999% of republicans will ever see, right?

I feel I ought to have a graph handy representing incomes of successful politicians(and/or heiress-marryers) regardless of party vs humble normal people, but you get my drift.

You're getting a bit gunshy on the party front, dte. I may have to lighten up on you. All I meant was that there are a lot of rich people running the country--and a lot of them have never been elected to any office. ;)

[magerette]

PS. First time I'm posting here in P&R I think. I usually lurk and read everything and find it extremely insightful and interesting but can't really phrase my thoughts on the different matters well enough to make any good addition to the discussion but I guess that here I was a bit shocked by the topic and near-consensus about it...

Glad to see another person in the discussion, Toaster. Welcome.

AFA a consensus, I don't think that's the case. My suggestion was more along the lines of giving everyone who's entitled to vote a civics and history lesson before they get to exercise that privilege. I don't want to keep anyone from voting based solely on their IQ, I'd just like to see people use their votes to promote the best interests of the society as a whole, and to expect more from their government than free beer and promises. If someone doesn't know where Canada is, or who's the current president, maybe they aren't the best judge for who should be the next one. :)

[dteowner]

I don't want to keep anyone from voting based solely on their IQWe'll have to work on that. ;)

[Zaleukos]

I've lived here now for over thirty years, and while I highly respect the work ethic, culture and values of many of the people around me, there's no doubt Sally Kern *does* exactly represent many of the people who voted for her. Im assuming the same for blatantninja's example. That's fine as long as it all balances out, but it's not balancing very well anymore.


It's very dangerous to think an animal, a small child, or a mob, really knows what's good for it.

Before I go on to attack the positions of a person I respect I must say that I am fine with the idea of civics education for voters (even if that is vulnerable to bias as well):) Having an informed electorate is good, but I largely think that is the medias job (a job they could do better, and not only in the US).

But on to the attack;)

Animals and small children dont have the right to vote though:p

I do also believe that most people have a decent idea of what is good for them as individuals (or at least of their personal wants), and that is IMHO a perfectly valid basis for voting. The idea of some abstract notion of greater good that only the enlightened understand has very disturbing connotations. I'd much rather trust individual self interest than some common greater good, and I think it is a big step forward when voters vote on personal preferences rather than on some sort of tribal group identity (be that tribe called "blue collar worker", Swedish-speaking Finn, or worshipper of Zoroaster).

The best protection against bad government is to implement strong constitutional safeguards that prevent the state from abusing it's power and preventing a tyranny of the majority.

It should also be noted that the chance of stupid voter preferences evening out goes down with a limited franchise, and American lefties who think that limited franchise could work as a vaccine against Bushes might want to look at US voter turnouts compared to other western countries before they call for further reduction of the electorate. While blatantninja might take it as an argument for limited franchise I am sure that you would have had a different president if voter turnout was at 80% rather than 57% ;)

EDIT: In the end I think it boils down to me not really trusting the enlightened few to look out for the disenfranchised. I could easily see myself not giving a rats arse about the proles and have (and will again) voted for parties that will cut both my taxes and the benefits of the poor. Sure I believe that these policies are long term good for "society" but they are also incidentally good for me:p

[Benedict]

It's better than reverting back to only the intellectuals right to vote or rich people ....

What's wrong with only allowing people of certain intelligence to vote?

And as for only allowing rich people to vote, is that really much different from the current system where everyone votes but only those candidates that the rich approve of have the funding and airtime to attract the votes of the masses?

[Benedict]

Glad to see another person in the discussion, Toaster. Welcome.

AFA a consensus, I don't think that's the case. My suggestion was more along the lines of giving everyone who's entitled to vote a civics and history lesson before they get to exercise that privilege. I don't want to keep anyone from voting based solely on their IQ, I'd just like to see people use their votes to promote the best interests of the society as a whole, and to expect more from their government than free beer and promises. If someone doesn't know where Canada is, or who's the current president, maybe they aren't the best judge for who should be the next one. :)

Hmmm . . . I think that might be the best solution yet :) In theory that leaves the voting process open to anyone and everyone, but in practice the people who really shouldn't be going anywhere near a voting booth will probably refuse to sit through a long and boring politics & civics training day that they won't understand.

[Benedict]

I do also believe that most people have a decent idea of what is good for them as individuals (or at least of their personal wants), and that is IMHO a perfectly valid basis for voting. The idea of some abstract notion of greater good that only the enlightened understand has very disturbing connotations. I'd much rather trust individual self interest than some common greater good, and I think it is a big step forward when voters vote on personal preferences rather than on some sort of tribal group identity (be that tribe called "blue collar worker", Swedish-speaking Finn, or worshipper of Zoroaster).


I'm all for voting on the basis of individual self interest rather than some amorphous common greater good, but in practice that self interest is too easily manipulated and abused. Politicians are great at pushing a few buttons and giving a few short term and high profile handouts that make people think they're getting what's better for them. Without some level of comprehension of the longer term picture people can't vote for their own self interest properly, and ultimately end up voting for the politicians own self interest.

[Zaleukos]

I'm all for voting on the basis of individual self interest rather than some amorphous common greater good, but in practice that self interest is too easily manipulated and abused. Politicians are great at pushing a few buttons and giving a few short term and high profile handouts that make people think they're getting what's better for them. Without some level of comprehension of the longer term picture people can't vote for their own self interest properly, and ultimately end up voting for the politicians own self interest.

Instead we'd get the selfless full citizens voting in the interest of the plebs? I have a hard time seeing how that would assure better policy than letting the plebs make up their own uninformed mind in the general case. A smaller voter base is if anything more susceptible to being dominated by special interest groups.

Universal suffrage coupled with transparency and constitutionalism (to keep the government in check) is the way to go. Independent and pesky media that point out if/when the politicians cheat and lie is also important.

[Benedict]

Instead we'd get the selfless full citizens voting in the interest of the plebs? I have a hard time seeing how that would assure better policy than letting the plebs make up their own uninformed mind in the general case. A smaller voter base is if anything more susceptible to being dominated by special interest groups.

Universal suffrage coupled with transparency and constitutionalism (to keep the government in check) is the way to go. Independent and pesky media that point out if/when the politicians cheat and lie is also important.

Why do you feel that the boundaries would be that clearly defined, Us vs the Commoners? There's people who care about and think about and want to engage in the political process properly from all strata of society and all walks of life.

Independent & pesky media is all very well but when 80% of the electorate is flicking past the big brother stories to get to the tits on page three then I have a sinking suspicion that they're not quite absorbing as much political insight as they ideally could be.

[Corwin]

While Mags idea of an educated voter is great in theory, I can't see politicians voting for it. I think they like having 'uninformed' voters. Heck, down here EVERYONE over 18 has to vote if they're a citizen, or they get fined!!

[magerette]

Great to see all this discussion on what was really mostly a humorous thought (well, on my part--I won't speak for the libertarians/repubs and other riffraff;) )Just a quick response because I've got to get out of the house in a minute:

Zaleukos makes an excellent point about low voter turnout (something the Obama camp is addressing by a massive grassroots registration system, and I hope it pays off.) That's what I was referring to earlier about people "throwing their hands up and opting out of the process" like my husband is planning on doing. However, as with anything, IMO quality trumps sheer quantity, and a low turnout of educated voters might pick better leadership than a high turnout of the uninformed and uncaring.

And I think everyone has put a finger on the flaws--this is one of those ideas that makes sense hypothetically, but is difficult to implement and like my 'license for babies' idea is open to a lot of abuse. The State with a capital "S" is probably not to be trusted to determine who gets to vote and who doesn't.

And yes, there's no way anything like this would ever be initiated politically from the top--it's too much of an advantage to both parties to have uneducated masses. :)

[Zaleukos]

Why do you feel that the boundaries would be that clearly defined, Us vs the Commoners? There's people who care about and think about and want to engage in the political process properly from all strata of society and all walks of life.

Because that is the general pattern.

There is pretty clear correlation between phenomena such as voter turnout, reading of broadsheet newspaper (as opposed to the tabloids with tits on page three), and social group in all western European countries. I would be very surprised if the pattern is different in the rest of the first world.

EDIT: US turnout is a bit peculiar due to the winner takes it all system for presidential elections (making it rather pointless for a NY republican or Texan democrat to vote in the presidential election), gerrymandering, and both parties seeking to optimise the voter registration process to catch their own base while keeping the other side at a disadvantage. None of these problems are reduced by restricting the franchise.

EDIT2: I am too lazy to dig out broader studies, but here are some example numbers of the stratified voting from the Swedish elections of 1994 and 1998

Overall turnout: 86.8% / 81.4%
Employed: 89.5% / 85.6%
Unemployed: 78,5 / 71,3
Lowest income earners: 79,3 / 74,1
Highest income earners: 93,3 / 91,0
Blue collar workers: 85,3 / 79,8
Lower white collar workers: 93,5 / 90,8
Academics: 96,7 / 94,6
Naturalised citizens: 77,3 / 67,3
University graduates: 94,7 / 92,2
No highschool diploma: 85,6 / 75,9

Etc... Granted we have fairly high turnout over all, but the trend is pretty clear. Media consumption and a host of other indicators follow the same pattern.

[blatantninja]

EDIT: US turnout is a bit peculiar due to the winner takes it all system for presidential elections (making it rather pointless for a NY republican or Texan democrat to vote in the presidential election), gerrymandering, and both parties seeking to optimise the voter registration process to catch their own base while keeping the other side at a disadvantage. None of these problems are reduced by restricting the franchise.

Well the electoral college was designed in the first place to basically keep the common man from determining the President. The whole theory was that each state would elect people they thought would be good at deciding who the President should be (I guess that is similar to the parliamentary system). It didn't take long though before that idea went out the window and it became a game of the candidates themselves winning states.

I don't really want a straight populace election for President, but I would like to see the electoral college votes awarded by voting district results rather than state results. One or two states already do this.

I agree that you can't just have the rich or educated doing the voting. I really have no problem with someone of low intelligence, education and/or wealth voting, so long as they take the time to understand what they are voting on. I think the history/civics requirement is a good one. Someone that puts forth that kind of effort should get to vote IMO.

However, I disagree that we are best off when people are voting their self-interests. It's why we will never have a long term balanced budget or pay down our debt. The mob simply won't allow it.

[Benedict]

However, as with anything, IMO quality trumps sheer quantity, and a low turnout of educated voters might pick better leadership than a high turnout of the uninformed and uncaring.

It would definitely shift the odds more in favour of politicians with coherent policies who can back them up and argue their cause rather than people with good hair and good sound bites.

[Zaleukos]

Well the electoral college was designed in the first place to basically keep the common man from determining the President. The whole theory was that each state would elect people they thought would be good at deciding who the President should be (I guess that is similar to the parliamentary system). It didn't take long though before that idea went out the window and it became a game of the candidates themselves winning states.

I don't really want a straight populace election for President, but I would like to see the electoral college votes awarded by voting district results rather than state results. One or two states already do this.

I know the reasons behind the system and there are obvious tradeoffs that have to be made in a large federal system. My main beef with any first past the post system is that you do get a lot of "worthless" votes depending on where people live no matter how you set district boundaries, but there's no obvious easy fix.

Maybe it would help participation if the president was elected by direct proportionality on the national level (it is after all one guy the whole nation is voting on) and you keep the districts for congress and senate in order to defend more regional interests, but that would require standardisation of the voting procedure and a whole host of measures that are anathema to the decentralised way you guys organise your elections.


However, I disagree that we are best off when people are voting their self-interests. It's why we will never have a long term balanced budget or pay down our debt. The mob simply won't allow it.

But what else should people vote on? As a classical liberal I dont think that the state has any intrinsic value except in the (ideally few but well defined) services that it provides to its citizens. National debt, budget balance and the like are only relevant if they hurt the quality of service provided or the tax burden, at which point the voters generally do vote by their self interest according to the "its the economy, stupid" maxim...

[blatantninja]

I know the reasons behind the system and there are obvious tradeoffs that have to be made in a large federal system. My main beef with any first past the post system is that you do get a lot of "worthless" votes depending on where people live no matter how you set district boundaries, but there's no obvious easy fix.

Tell me about it. I used to live in Texas and now I live in NY.


But what else should people vote on? As a classical liberal I dont think that the state has any intrinsic value except in the (ideally few but well defined) services that it provides to its citizens. National debt, budget balance and the like are only relevant if they hurt the quality of service provided or the tax burden, at which point the voters generally do vote by their self interest according to the "its the economy, stupid" maxim...

Uhh oh, I agree with the 'classical liberal'! I agree on the limited scope of government. I don't have a problem with people voting on what they think will benefit them in the long run. The problem is that we tend to vote on the short-run. Voting just for who will give you the biggest tax break or handout today is rampant.

When the debt service or tax burden becomes too much, the average voter doesn't scream 'cut spending', they scream 'tax the rich.' My fear is that if we continue this path of increasing debt, deficits and entitlements, we will continually raise taxes on the top 10% of income earners in the country to a point where it will become very detrimental to our economic growth ultimately leading to a collapse in our capitalistic system and potentially leading to a socialists or even a communistic leaning structure, which combined with an economic collapse will cause the average quality of life in our country to plummet.

[Zaleukos]

Liberal has a slightly different meaning on this side of the Atlantic:)

I suspect that the fears of how much damage an irresponsible government can do to the real economy is a bit exaggerated. Fiscal irresponsibility and overtaxation has to go up an order of magnitude to cause economic problems by themselves, and these problems would in turn have to be truly catastrophical to lead a society as individualistic as the US on a path towards communism or socialism.:)

[Benedict]

Because that is the general pattern.

There is pretty clear correlation between phenomena such as voter turnout, reading of broadsheet newspaper (as opposed to the tabloids with tits on page three), and social group in all western European countries. I would be very surprised if the pattern is different in the rest of the first world.



I think that here there's a lot of voters who from ideology and / or their own family background and history feel a strong kinship with the working classes even if they're now broadsheet readers, not to mention so strongly politically active unions, who'd become even more politically active if there was the threat of their interests being sidelined because of lack of political interest from their members.

As for the rest of your post, two words - proportional representation.

Fuck the mp system, the electoral college (collage?), everything like that which leaves a small number of parties. Nobody's vote should ever be wasted.

Also, as for sweden, in terms of overall turnout there's a difference but given the higher numbers in lower socioeconomic groups isn't the overall vote count still in their favour?

[Zaleukos]

I think that here there's a lot of voters who from ideology and / or their own family background and history feel a strong kinship with the working classes even if they're now broadsheet readers, not to mention so strongly politically active unions, who'd become even more politically active if there was the threat of their interests being sidelined because of lack of political interest from their members.

The blue collar unions are also by far the most politicised ones with strong ties to the social democratic party. It is however doubtful whether they act in the interest of their members or in the interest of the unions.

Academics who feel kinship with the working classes tend to be the rather detached from the actual issues that working class voters do care about and can never substitute actual participation. Such groups taking over the leftist parties rather tend to alienate working class voters and turn them into Reagan democrats. In Europe it'll push them into right wing populist movements who blame all ills on Johnny foreigner.

EDIT: I think that Obama's "guns and religion" slip illustrates the possible dissonance pretty well...


As for the rest of your post, two words - proportional representation.

Fuck the mp system, the electoral college (collage?), everything like that which leaves a small number of parties. Nobody's vote should ever be wasted.

I prefer proportional representation as well, but there are advantages to having "your own" MP or congressman that the PR system lacks.


Also, as for sweden, in terms of overall turnout there's a difference but given the higher numbers in lower socioeconomic groups isn't the overall vote count still in their favour?

Nope. Off the top of my head the blue and white collar groups are roughly the same size while the academic group is slightly smaller. Proportions are something like 35/35/30, give or take 5%. The social democrats have only stayed big by catering to middle class voters.

[Benedict]

The blue collar unions are also by far the most politicised ones with strong ties to the social democratic party. It is however doubtful whether they act in the interest of their members or in the interest of the unions.

Academics who feel kinship with the working classes tend to be the rather detached from the actual issues that working class voters do care about and can never substitute actual participation. Such groups taking over the leftist parties rather tend to alienate working class voters and turn them into Reagan democrats. In Europe it'll push them into right wing populist movements who blame all ills on Johnny foreigner.

EDIT: I think that Obama's "guns and religion" slip illustrates the possible dissonance pretty well...



Must have missed that one, what did he say?

Anyway, there's always issues. Voter turnout is generally low enough that single issue activists can distort things anyway by encouraging greater participation, people end up by default disenfranchising themselves because they can't be bothered, whatever happens some people lose out, and at least this way it'd be those who willfully disengaged from the process rather than the people who genuinely care and who see rare decent politicians pushed aside in favour of dangerous lunatics adept at manipulating the fears of the lowest common denominator.


I prefer proportional representation as well, but there are advantages to having "your own" MP or congressman that the PR system lacks.


Minimal advantages compared to what's given up IMO (at least in conjunction with local elections for councillors etc), everyone has an MP who in theory should represent their interests but that's always subordinate to their interest in their own political career, which means obeying the party line more often than not. If independents and single issue activists have a chance of getting to power with proportional representation then their own interests and your interests are more likely to be aligned, even if they're not local.

[Toaster]

I agree with pretty much Zaleukos said on all points (as another Swedish liberal at that!).

But on the voting rights issue I'd like to add that I completely agree that most voters are very under-informed on what they're voting for and why. This should be the school's and the free press' task but I think, at least in Sweden, that they both have failed and I guess that the situation is similar in most of the rest of the Western world. The difference possibly being that our schools do even worse and that the press is not THAT bad (although I have little good thoughts of it anyway).

Some kind of voter education doesn't sound bad, but I could never imagine it being implemented here even though it would probably do more good than bad if done right.

EDIT: Oh and don't get me started on either worker unions only pushing agendas benefiting the organizations themselves more than their members or politicians following the party line in contrast to the opinions of the voters they represent (see the FRA law for Swedes).

[dteowner]

Liberal has a slightly different meaning on this side of the Atlantic:)

I suspect that the fears of how much damage an irresponsible government can do to the real economy is a bit exaggerated. Fiscal irresponsibility and overtaxation has to go up an order of magnitude to cause economic problems by themselves, and these problems would in turn have to be truly catastrophical to lead a society as individualistic as the US on a path towards communism or socialism.:)This is not true for an economy that is consumer-driven. Consumer confidence is king, and half a percent of change in some tax bracket can have a dramatic effect on consumer confidence which shows up in the economy in short order.

[Pladio]

Why? It makes us more susceptible to abuse in the short-term via spending and/or tax reductions that we can't afford in the long-term because those things are what get politicians elected.

While I wouldn't agree with only the rich voting, what would be so bad about having only intellectuals do the voting?

Alexis De Tocqueville put it best:

“The American Republic will endure until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”

Intellectuals don't always have it right either. Second, they could make it so there's an intellectual elite governing while the less intelligent lose all they have. It just changes the elite from landowners, to rich people, to people with lots of assets to people who are deemed 'intellectuals' by themselves and their peers.

Also, it wouldn't be a democracy anymore...

[Pladio]

What's wrong with only allowing people of certain intelligence to vote?

And as for only allowing rich people to vote, is that really much different from the current system where everyone votes but only those candidates that the rich approve of have the funding and airtime to attract the votes of the masses?

Because, like someone said before, how would you measure the intelligence and where would you draw the line ?
Also my last post ^ :)

About the rich, it's a lot different since it's a democracy and not intelligence-cracy (don't know how to say it)
Of course, I don't approve of the US system though. I know multi-party system has its flaws, but I still prefer it to the two part system in the US...

[Prime Junta]

This is not true for an economy that is consumer-driven. Consumer confidence is king, and half a percent of change in some tax bracket can have a dramatic effect on consumer confidence which shows up in the economy in short order.

Only in the very short term. That is, a hullabaloo about a tax raise might spook the consumer and cause a dip in consumption that's bigger than the lost income, but only for short while -- weeks rather than months. (If you believe otherwise, I challenge you to find some evidence -- for example, just one recession triggered by a sharper than expected dip on consumption due to a tax raise on consumers.)

The interesting thing about consumption is that its income elasticity is very nearly 1 -- that is, in the long term, people consume almost everything they earn. They may get spooked, but once the bank account starts showing a balance, they'll start spending again.

The trouble is, of course, that in the US the consumer has been overspending for years -- consumption has been debt-driven rather than income-driven. That can't be sustained forever; the consumption will have to come down -- somewhat past the point where it's balanced by income, actually, so that some of the debt can be paid back and you'll get a halfway sane-looking savings rate again. That will be very painful and will entail major adjustments for the US economy. The world one too, if emerging markets aren't able to rev up their domestic markets to make up for the lost consumption in America. But that's nothing to do with taxes.

[Zaleukos]

This is not true for an economy that is consumer-driven. Consumer confidence is king, and half a percent of change in some tax bracket can have a dramatic effect on consumer confidence which shows up in the economy in short order.

I meant he overestimated the damage politicians can do, not that they are unable to inflict any damage:)

What you are talking about is still a minor bump compared to historical ripples such as the boom-bust cycles before ww1 or the great depression, or even the oil crisis of the 70s. You would need very extreme politicians for domestic policy to have that kind of effect. And the US wasnt near going socialist/communist during any of these past crisis.

Must have missed that one, what did he say?

You can probably find the event itself on youtube just by searching for "Obama guns religion", but here is the event as reported by the Guardian:


Obama was caught in an uncharacteristic moment of loose language. Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

source http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/14/barackobama.uselections2008

And while he actually might be right to some extent that doesnt really help garner the support of the masses:p

Regarding the representation issue: Having a local representative gets more important the larger your polity. I would sure as hell be rather distrustful of say the EU parliament didnt have any Swedish reps, but I dont really care if anyone from my small town is in the Swedish parliament. The US is more on the scale of the former.

[Benedict]

Because, like someone said before, how would you measure the intelligence and where would you draw the line ?
Also my last post ^ :)

About the rich, it's a lot different since it's a democracy and not intelligence-cracy (don't know how to say it)
Of course, I don't approve of the US system though. I know multi-party system has its flaws, but I still prefer it to the two part system in the US...

As DTEowner said, 1 IQ point below me ;)

Loads of ways to measure though, I think Margarette's suggestion of a civics class is the best, with an exam that tests people are at least paying attention and able to absorb some of the issues. I'm happy for the bar to be set pretty low, with the majority of people excluded due to lack of interest in participating rather than through not making the cut.

So better for inherited wealth to have skewed influence than for intellectual capacity?

[Benedict]

You can probably find the event itself on youtube just by searching for "Obama guns religion", but here is the event as reported by the Guardian:
And while he actually might be right to some extent that doesnt really help garner the support of the masses:p

Regarding the representation issue: Having a local representative gets more important the larger your polity. I would sure as hell be rather distrustful of say the EU parliament didnt have any Swedish reps, but I dont really care if anyone from my small town is in the Swedish parliament. The US is more on the scale of the former.

Ah that one, he was spot on though, but people are never keen on the truth.

I'd have thought there were plenty of ways of allocating things cleverly, in the UK for example I'd like the overall party split to reflect overall votes (including independents) and the overall location split to reflect broad overall location groups. Then you work out the number of mp's for each party, start the local allocation with the smallest party first as they've got less flexibility and then once you get to the largest parties give the (shadow) prime minister the chance to allocate mps according to the local split that's left. Should work well enough and give greens etc a fair chance.

[Pladio]

As DTEowner said, 1 IQ point below me ;)

Loads of ways to measure though, I think Margarette's suggestion of a civics class is the best, with an exam that tests people are at least paying attention and able to absorb some of the issues. I'm happy for the bar to be set pretty low, with the majority of people excluded due to lack of interest in participating rather than through not making the cut.

So better for inherited wealth to have skewed influence than for intellectual capacity?

No, I'm against both.
I'm saying real information campaigns would be the best, but can just as easily be biased towards one candidate too.
Civics class is good, but it doesn't help much when having to choose between all the issues people fight for.

[Benedict]

No, I'm against both.
I'm saying real information campaigns would be the best, but can just as easily be biased towards one candidate too.
Civics class is good, but it doesn't help much when having to choose between all the issues people fight for.

No sense mounting extensive information campaigns when there's a material proportion of the voting population utterly uninterested in information campaigns and more likely to vote on the basis of ill founded opinions from whatever bottom feeding media they normally indulge in.

Perhaps civics is the wrong word, a class that gives people the fundmentals of the big picture and the tools to understand the way politicians often distort the issues / the interplay between opposing issues / how to understand the long term picture etc so that they can make their own choices. Ultimately you can't and shouldn't suggest what choice to make, everyone's utility is different, you can just do your best to help everyone maximise their utility.

And as said, the main feature of the class would be to lead a lot of people who don't really give a fuck to disenfranchise themselves because they can't be bothered.

[Zaleukos]

Perhaps civics is the wrong word, a class that gives people the fundmentals of the big picture and the tools to understand the way politicians often distort the issues / the interplay between opposing issues / how to understand the long term picture etc so that they can make their own choices. Ultimately you can't and shouldn't suggest what choice to make, everyone's utility is different, you can just do your best to help everyone maximise their utility.

And as said, the main feature of the class would be to lead a lot of people who don't really give a fuck to disenfranchise themselves because they can't be bothered.

So essentially you want a class that either teaches voters who to vote for or inform them that they are too lazy/stupid for it to be worth bothering? There might be some potential for abuse by whoever handles this civic eduation, and of course the risk of a population that feels even more disconnected (and potentially disloyal) to the polity is huge as well. The arguments are somewhat 19th c and I think you'd have a hard time claiming that politics were cleaner or better back then...


I'd have thought there were plenty of ways of allocating things cleverly,...

There are lots of fairly simple technical solutions to assure that all geographic entitites have representation in a proportional system as well (and you only have to look outside your island and former colonies to find them;)). You do usually get representatives that are responsible to their constituency rather than to the party line with a FPP system. Whether that is better or worse is of course debatable.

Since I like separation of powers (which we usually dont have in parliamentary system regardless of whether they are proportional or FPP) I'd prefer the compromise where the executive is elected proportionally (since the executive power isnt split it makes sense) and the parliament is elected in an FPP manner. Might make politics more interesting with the parliament less of a rubber stamp...

[Benedict]

So essentially you want a class that either teaches voters who to vote for or inform them that they are too lazy/stupid for it to be worth bothering? There might be some potential for abuse by whoever handles this civic eduation, and of course the risk of a population that feels even more disconnected (and potentially disloyal) to the polity is huge as well. The arguments are somewhat 19th c and I think you'd have a hard time claiming that politics were cleaner or better back then...

Huh? Did you actually read what I wrote?

I want a class that teaches people the tools that they would need to go out and form their own opinions properly (rather than simply having their buttons pushed by one side or another). I want it to be a prerequisite so that those who cannot themselves be bothered (which may well include a disproportionate amount of the lazy and stupid) end up opting out of the voting process.

I don't see why that would lead to a greater disconnect among the element of the population that actually gives a shit anyway. They'd either have done it and be part of the process or have not done it and either accept it's their own fault for opting out or have opted out because they don't care.

[Zaleukos]

Huh? Did you actually read what I wrote?

I want a class that teaches people the tools that they would need to go out and form their own opinions properly (rather than simply having their buttons pushed by one side or another). I want it to be a prerequisite so that those who cannot themselves be bothered (which may well include a disproportionate amount of the lazy and stupid) end up opting out of the voting process.

I read it. You wanted a class that gives the big picture;) The potential for button-pushing is rather significant, and while it might weed out some lazy people (who might not bother to vote anyway) it's not hard to design classes that are inaccessible to whatever group one would like to keep out of the voting booth.

EDIT: Partially tangential, but the disconnect/dissatisfaction would rather exist among those who opted out regardless of the sorting mechanism used. In my experience it causes a whole lot of practical problems (that arent related to the political process) to have large chunks of the population who feel they arent part of society, but you seem to argue that this wont be a problem. Dont you feel that there is any risk of reducing social cohesion (afraid I cant think of any good term) tied to raising the bar for participation in the political process?

[magerette]

I read it. You wanted a class that gives the big picture;) The potential for button-pushing is rather significant.

No more significant than it is with a press that's owned by the wealthy and conservative(Rupert Murdoch, for instance) and claims to be "fair and accurate" when it's nothing of the kind. Leaving public political education to the corporate media is what button-pushing and control is all about.

Really, there's no simple solution to the issue of the low-information voter. And if you deplore the condition American politics is in now, you have to alot some of the responsibility to this segment of the population. In another thread, America electing Bush is seen as very poor judgement and against US interests with the world community. How exactly do you think he got elected? ;)

[Zaleukos]

FOX isnt considered the one great source of civics knowledge though;)

Murdoch is certainly not a provider of quality news, I'll give you that. And I agree that media could do a better job. IMHO pluralism is the way to go, combined with the possibility to sanction outright lies and fabrications.

The other side of the fence with no isnt very pretty either though. I'm old enough to remember how we prior to 1990 or so only had state owned TV and fairly politicised schooling (I particularly recall the standard history textbook that stated that it Portugal sadly didnt go communist after ridding itself of a military junta in the 70s). We had a great system for conditioning voters into good social democrats:p

My experience of working in the education system doesnt leave me with much faith in an unbiased education either (which of course doesnt mean that education is a bad thing)... To uphold quality and integrity of education it is best to keep it at some distance from the political process, or you end up with a government megaphone more than anything:)

[Benedict]

I read it. You wanted a class that gives the big picture;) The potential for button-pushing is rather significant, and while it might weed out some lazy people (who might not bother to vote anyway) it's not hard to design classes that are inaccessible to whatever group one would like to keep out of the voting booth.
[/quote[

I wanted a class that gives the fundamentals of the big picture, which I'd meant to be the fundamentals of how to consider the bigger picture. Everything can always be abused anyway.

[quote]
EDIT: Partially tangential, but the disconnect/dissatisfaction would rather exist among those who opted out regardless of the sorting mechanism used. In my experience it causes a whole lot of practical problems (that arent related to the political process) to have large chunks of the population who feel they arent part of society, but you seem to argue that this wont be a problem. Dont you feel that there is any risk of reducing social cohesion (afraid I cant think of any good term) tied to raising the bar for participation in the political process?

There's always risk, but in this case I don't see any clear bias either way. Sure, some people who can't be bothered might fail to blame themselves and turn that resentment outwards. But I think in most instances people feel disconnected from politics because all they have is the choice of a few shits none of whom will ever do anything good anyway. If raising the bar stopped so much politicking by media and appealing to the lowest common denominator with everyone treading a bland middle ground because angering a few blinkered special interest groups tends to have far more impact than quietly doing a good job then people might start to see politics as a meaningful process again, increasing people's interest and participation in society.

[Benedict]

Really, there's no simple solution to the issue of the low-information voter. And if you deplore the condition American politics is in now, you have to alot some of the responsibility to this segment of the population. In another thread, America electing Bush is seen as very poor judgement and against US interests with the world community. How exactly do you think he got elected? ;)

My favourite Simpsons line springs to mind. "It's because they're stupid. That's why everyone does everything".

Except me and my liberal elite of course. (although in UK terms I'm a conservative).

[Pladio]

No sense mounting extensive information campaigns when there's a material proportion of the voting population utterly uninterested in information campaigns and more likely to vote on the basis of ill founded opinions from whatever bottom feeding media they normally indulge in.

Perhaps civics is the wrong word, a class that gives people the fundmentals of the big picture and the tools to understand the way politicians often distort the issues / the interplay between opposing issues / how to understand the long term picture etc so that they can make their own choices. Ultimately you can't and shouldn't suggest what choice to make, everyone's utility is different, you can just do your best to help everyone maximise their utility.

And as said, the main feature of the class would be to lead a lot of people who don't really give a fuck to disenfranchise themselves because they can't be bothered.

Major information campaign would probably be just that imo, either classes which teach the fundamentals or even on tv ...
But again, it's quite easy to manipulate.

I wasn't really speaking out against classes though, I find that a good thing. I was speaking against the intellectual elite, that you suggested before, should have the option to vote while the non-intellectuals shouldn't.

[dteowner]

FOX isnt considered the one great source of civics knowledge though;)

Murdoch is certainly not a provider of quality news, I'll give you that. And I agree that media could do a better job. IMHO pluralism is the way to go, combined with the possibility to sanction outright lies and fabrications.The slant of Fox News (and I won't deny it exists) is merely a balancing response to the long-held liberal slant of the 3 majors, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

[dteowner]

But I think in most instances people feel disconnected from politics because all they have is the choice of a few shits none of whom will ever do anything good anyway. If raising the bar stopped so much politicking by media and appealing to the lowest common denominator with everyone treading a bland middle ground because angering a few blinkered special interest groups tends to have far more impact than quietly doing a good job then people might start to see politics as a meaningful process again, increasing people's interest and participation in society.The end of the world is nigh! I agree wholeheartedly with a Benedict post. ;)

[magerette]

The slant of Fox News (and I won't deny it exists) is merely a balancing response to the long-held liberal slant of the 3 majors, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

That's Fox's story anyway, and they're sticking to it.:rolleyes:

If by "liberal" you mean "not rightwing" then I'll agree to the slant. I don't think the media has ever been "liberal" in the way the right means it. It can't be--it's focused on profit, and pushes what sells.

Allow me to present a rambling senile old hippy's view of the History of the Press in America in Our Time. (I'll keep the post under the maximum length by not starting with the Eisenhower years--just trust me, the press wasn't liberal). We'll begin with the Seventies, since you probably remember them better than I do:

The entertainment industry, Hollywood and the media along with most of the rest of the country always omitting the Amish, had a wild and crazy time and did wild and crazy sort of liberal things, it's true. Mostly the less constipated coverage of the Seventies was the result of a continuing intoxication-in all senses of the word--from the counterculture days of the Sixties when young collegiate journalists thought Hunter S. Thompson was a role model.

But since then, there's been the usual backlash, and it's been in place a long time. Media coverage since the boomers grew up and stopped taking non-prescription drugs has become progressively more staid and invested in the system, returning the media to the status quo. I can say firmly that none of the media outlets you named seems particularly liberal to me, and I'm not that liberal.They do occasionally speak at odds to the conventional establishment message, but not often, and never about what matters.

If you look at mainstream media coverage over the years--from the VietNam War, the "drug culture," the oh so scary threats of the Black Panthers and Yippies to the Iraq war and so forth--it's all totally dominated by what sells papers--fear and/or titillation.

Other than the occasional voice crying in the wilderness, the mainstream media always has been and always will be the possession of those who can afford to buy the ink. They may decide to push a liberal thought occasionally if it makes them money, and likewise a truly conservative one but like any business, they play to their market and the middle of the road is generally the safest place.

Of course, to some the middle of the road is further to the left than to others. ;)

[dteowner]

Mike Wallace and Sam Donaldson. Need I say more to prove the point?

edit- perhaps I should be more specific to say "pro-Democrat" rather than "liberal" since you seem to be aiming at the social interpretation rather than the political one.

[magerette]

Mike Wallace and Sam Donaldson. Need I say more to prove the point?

Probably, since I have only the foggiest idea of who those guys are. :p

edit- perhaps I should be more specific to say "pro-Democrat" rather than "liberal" since you seem to be aiming at the social interpretation rather than the political one.

Pro-democrat is liberal? I suppose, but you're right, it's very hard for me to think of one of the two major organized political parties in the US as fitting my definition of liberal. The Democratic mayor of Chicago issued that "Shoot to kill" order during the riots following the MLK assassination and authorized bigtime police violence at the 1968 Democratic convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention_protests)--I happened to be there at the time, and watched the Illinois National Guard roll through Old Town in tanks--so I don't see the party through the same lens as you do.

(I just read that linked wikipedia entry--oh for the vanished times..:'( You've got to love stuff like this:On Friday, August 23, the planned protests began. Jerry Rubin and a band of Yippies attempted to formally nominate the Yippie candidate for president, Pigasus the Pig. By the time Rubin arrived with Pigasus, “several hundred spectators and reporters had gathered” on the Civic Center plaza. The event was almost over before it started. Police officers were waiting, and as soon as the pig was released, Rubin, Pigasus, and 6 other Yippies were arrested

All slept sounder knowing the communistic pig was safely behind bars.)

But I digress. On with the next chapter in the novel--

We probably need to define terms a bit, I agree. If you want to name media names, I have to use NBC examples because we don't watch the others. To me, Keith Olberman on MSNBC's Countdown is a true far left liberal. The recently deceased Tim Russert was what I call moderate or middle of the road, like me, but still left of say, Andrea Mitchell-Greenspan or Tom Brokaw who are moderately conservative but still rational(and that's where I tentatively place you, btw, dte)

Fox noise-Rush Limbaugh and that ilk= the right wingnuts.

On the whole, I think you have to agree, there's not a lot of Olberman style coverage out there--not nearly as much as there is Fox, since that's an entire network, and none in the typical MSM news broadcast.

Anyway, there are a lot of talking heads in the media that like to pick a cry-in-your-beer liberal topic about race or abortion or gays, but who really are just doing the same thing as the boys at Fox--getting people stirred up and cornering a piece of the action. They certainly aren't promoting the leftie spirit, if they even know what it is, just giving it some shallow, attention-whoring lip service. The media tells the people what the boss tells them to tell the people, imo.

Somehow I feel I must end this with a flower. :flower:

[Benedict]

Major information campaign would probably be just that imo, either classes which teach the fundamentals or even on tv ...
But again, it's quite easy to manipulate.

I wasn't really speaking out against classes though, I find that a good thing. I was speaking against the intellectual elite, that you suggested before, should have the option to vote while the non-intellectuals shouldn't.

Depends what you define as the intellectual elite. I'm not drawing the bar to separate out those who are privileged & educated, I'm drawing the bar to separate "people with the inclination to at least think a bit" from "entirely reactive people unwilling to even try and engage their brain or give a shit". There'd be a correlation but nobody who wanted to give it a go would be excluded.

[Zaleukos]

There's always risk, but in this case I don't see any clear bias either way. Sure, some people who can't be bothered might fail to blame themselves and turn that resentment outwards.

Humans are notoriously bad at blaming themselves, so I doubt the resentment would be restricted to "some":p

The slant of Fox News (and I won't deny it exists) is merely a balancing response to the long-held liberal slant of the 3 majors, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

I'd say it's not so much a conscious balancing act as filling an open niche (right wing tabloid TV as opposed to the comparatively left wing tabloid TV of CNN which is the only other US news channel I have access to) in the media market that happens to coincide with Murdoch's personal positions. I dont have a problem with that as long as Murdoch (or the CNN guy whose name I cant recall) doesnt hold a monopoly on news.

[Benedict]

Humans are notoriously bad at blaming themselves, so I doubt the resentment would be restricted to "some":p



But they're exactly the people we want to exclude, anyone with such lack of self awareness or personal responsibility and such a sense that everything is someone else's fault shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a voting booth.

[Prime Junta]

Personally, I think that registering as a Republican is evidence of sufficient lack of judgment that it should automatically disqualify you from voting.

[Pladio]

Depends what you define as the intellectual elite. I'm not drawing the bar to separate out those who are privileged & educated, I'm drawing the bar to separate "people with the inclination to at least think a bit" from "entirely reactive people unwilling to even try and engage their brain or give a shit". There'd be a correlation but nobody who wanted to give it a go would be excluded.

So, where exactly do you draw the line ?
How do you distinguish between both ?
How can you see who are the ones who think and who aren't ?

[skavenhorde]

The slant of Fox News (and I won't deny it exists) is merely a balancing response to the long-held liberal slant of the 3 majors, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

DTE what is your definition of liberal media, because before pundits the "liberal media" seemed to be doing a good job at presenting FACTS. By facts I mean just the flat out truth about what is going on. Isn't that what news is supposed to do? They were pretty good at it too. There weren't too many opinions in the pieces, the news was just covering what was going on.

However that is dying now. The death came in a whimper in the form of pundits. These pundits both left and right do not spread facts, it's almost propoganda in the way they do it. It seems the American people liked these pundits and so their ratings grew. Now you have the big 3 (I don't count FOX they are blatently propoganda) trying to catch up in the ratings game. So now they've added a lot more junk than they did before. Let's put it this way CNN (not apart of the big 3 but still a major news organization) has Wulf Blitzer. If you haven't seen any of his shows please don't they are sorta sad.

Right wing and Left wing should be celebrating the death of real news. Now we just have opinion pieces or fluff that gets on the air. Well with a few exceptions. Real news has new spokesmen in the name of John Stewart and Colbert. After watching their shows and then go onto ABC, NBC or CNN, then you might have a good idea of what's going on in the world.

[dteowner]

News is supposed to be unbiased reporting of events. The national newsrooms of the big 3 networks haven't been unbiased in decades. Democratic politicians are regularly given "sweep it under the rug" passes for transgressions no less severe than events that are front page for 2 weeks if a republican politician is involved. Failed democratic policy gets ignored while failed republican policy (yes, it does happen on rare occasion) get highlighted. For example, Mike Wallace admitted airing the Bush National Guard story/lie for political purposes.

[Prime Junta]

A second one from [ http://www.basicinstructions.net/ ].

http://www.basicinstructions.net/images/basic080821.gif

[magerette]

Imagine you're in a room with someone you think is crazy...

I often have that feeling, even when I'm alone...

[Zaleukos]

News is supposed to be unbiased reporting of events. The national newsrooms of the big 3 networks haven't been unbiased in decades. Democratic politicians are regularly given "sweep it under the rug" passes for transgressions no less severe than events that are front page for 2 weeks if a republican politician is involved. Failed democratic policy gets ignored while failed republican policy (yes, it does happen on rare occasion) get highlighted. For example, Mike Wallace admitted airing the Bush National Guard story/lie for political purposes.

Completely unbiased news are pretty much impossible to produce. Choosing the angle, what events to report, or just the headlines are decisions that all introduce bias whether you want it or not. I think journalism would be better of admitting that it at most can strive to produce a wide and unobscured coverage. Consumers and regulators cant do much about it besides going to multiple sources and sanction outright lies.

But they're exactly the people we want to exclude, anyone with such lack of self awareness or personal responsibility and such a sense that everything is someone else's fault shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a voting booth.

I'd rather have them in the voting booth than on the streets feeling they arent part of society and thus dont have to feel any obligations towards it. I've lived in places where large chunks of the population was detached from society (among other things not voting) and it affected property values, graffiti levels, and worse...

[Benedict]

So, where exactly do you draw the line ?
How do you distinguish between both ?
How can you see who are the ones who think and who aren't ?

With the class idea, those who are fundamentally opposed to the whole concept of using their brains will shun something that looks so frighteningly educational. Everyone else is given a fair chance, they don't even have to use their brains well, they just have to be willing to give it a go.

[Benedict]

I'd rather have them in the voting booth than on the streets feeling they arent part of society and thus dont have to feel any obligations towards it. I've lived in places where large chunks of the population was detached from society (among other things not voting) and it affected property values, graffiti levels, and worse...

Hmmm, fair point. I'd been thinking more along the lines of those who already felt indifferent to concepts of society choosing to exclude themselves. And I'd envisioned a lot of people who'd opt out who did actually feel very embedded in society, community, family etc but who simply felt that the political process was a big load of shit and they're all just bastards so why bother.

[magerette]

Hmmm, fair point. I'd been thinking more along the lines of those who already felt indifferent to concepts of society choosing to exclude themselves. And I'd envisioned a lot of people who'd opt out who did actually feel very embedded in society, community, family etc but who simply felt that the political process was a big load of shit and they're all just bastards so why bother.

I think we already have this situation. Zaleukos I think it was you who pointed a finger at low voter turnout here, which is sadly very true, but I don't think it's due to any effort to "exclude" anyone from voting. It's the perception that voting makes no difference, as B. states above.

Sidenote: You could always "make" everyone vote I suppose, but I doubt the end result would be much of a political change. I was amazed the first time I read from Corwin that voting in Oz is compulsory--I can't even imagine how you'd enforce a law like that here. We can't even enforce our compulsory auto-insurance laws. ;)

[Pladio]

With the class idea, those who are fundamentally opposed to the whole concept of using their brains will shun something that looks so frighteningly educational. Everyone else is given a fair chance, they don't even have to use their brains well, they just have to be willing to give it a go.

I could agree to that, but what if the class becomes too difficult for even the average Joe ? What happens then ?

Also, is it just attending the class which is important or do oyu have to pass a test ?

[Corwin]

Sidenote: You could always "make" everyone vote I suppose, but I doubt the end result would be much of a political change. I was amazed the first time I read from Corwin that voting in Oz is compulsory--I can't even imagine how you'd enforce a law like that here. We can't even enforce our compulsory auto-insurance laws. ;)

It's easy. All eligible voters are on a list; when you vote your name is crossed off the list. Everyone whose name doesn't get crossed off gets a fine unless they have a very good excuse. If you don't pay the fine, you can end up in court etc, etc. Whether it has any impact on the result is debatable, but I think it does. Consider which socio-economic groups are most likely to vote with voluntary voting, and then think about what effect having the contrasting groups vote as well.

[Toaster]

Sorry for semi-derailing another thread with a humor link, but this was funny and concerns both the stupid voters and the media's role in it:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/poll_bullshit_is_most_important

[dteowner]

That was good. It's worth taking a moment to pay attention to the scroll at the bottom--there's some very funny stuff slipped in down there.

[magerette]

Love the Onion. The "430 New Demographics That Will Decide Elections" was also intensely appropriate.

[Zaleukos]

I think we already have this situation. Zaleukos I think it was you who pointed a finger at low voter turnout here, which is sadly very true, but I don't think it's due to any effort to "exclude" anyone from voting. It's the perception that voting makes no difference, as B. states above.

Yes that was me, and you are of course right. But given the low turnout one might ask if the US problem is that too many vote? :)

I'm under the impression that the low turnout stems both from the perception that politics dont make a difference and partially from an election system where a lot of votes dont matter (winner takes it all in a constituency). All countries see the first, but only countries with first past the post system (such as the US or Benedict's UK) suffer from the second. I also suspect that the added threshold of voter registration has a negative impact on turnout. I suspect further thresholds, no matter how soft, would only reinforce an already bad status quo and for very dubious gains.

IMHO the crux of the problem is one that both you and Benedict touched upon, namely that too few people find it worthwhile to take part in the political process, and that they would be likely to at least try to inform themselves if they found it worthwhile to participate. So I rather see fixes aimed at the latter problem. We cant really force people to use their brains, but we could make it more worthwhile to use them to make more people bother. Higher turnout also makes the system more robust to manipulation by interest group voter mobilisation and the like.


Sidenote: You could always "make" everyone vote I suppose, but I doubt the end result would be much of a political change. I was amazed the first time I read from Corwin that voting in Oz is compulsory--I can't even imagine how you'd enforce a law like that here. We can't even enforce our compulsory auto-insurance laws. ;)

Compulsory voting is an abomination:p I'm not sure countries such as Australia and Belgium got better politics out of it, and it can also lead to discontented voters who tick Mickey Mouse or extremist parties out of spite.

One thing you really should aim for automatic voter registration of everyone with a social security number or somesuch, but I think that there might be too many vested interests in the current fuzzy voter registration system for reform to take place.

[dteowner]

So I rather see fixes aimed at the latter problem. We cant really force people to use their brains, but we could make it more worthwhile to use them to make more people bother.A little more detail would be necessary here.

[Prime Junta]

I just ran across something that I thought might be of interest to people here. Namely, someone much more diligent than I has done a fair bit of number-crunching about tax policy, growth, presidential administrations, Democrats, and Republicans.

[ http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-graphic-data-on-taxes-growth-and.html ]

Salient points:

* The average actual income tax rate has never exceeded 11.5%, which was under Clinton. IOW, all those people who say they're paying more than half of their income as taxes are either full of it, or have the worst tax advisors ever.
* Democrats raise taxes while Republicans lower them. This happens primarily through better enforcement, less so by changes in laws.
* There is a strong positive correlation between higher tax rates and higher rates of economic growth.

As an aside, I'd surmise that the last, somewhat counterintuitive point is an example of correlation rather than causation. If Democratic administrations are generally better/more diligent at governing, this would result in both better enforcement of tax laws and better economic policy; the former would result in more tax revenue, while the latter would result in more growth.

[Benedict]

I could agree to that, but what if the class becomes too difficult for even the average Joe ? What happens then ?

Also, is it just attending the class which is important or do oyu have to pass a test ?

Depends how it all works really, I'd lean towards not having a test but the main concern would be special interest groups motivating their members to all go to the class and just sit their with their fingers in their ears refusing to learn anything. So possibly some kind of test to at least check that they'd been paying attention even if it didn't require any real comprehension or insight. Or possibly just a long and boring class that people who didn't care wouldn't bother with.

[GothicGothicness]

IOW, all those people who say they're paying more than half of their income as taxes are either full of it, or have the worst tax advisors ever.


I think US is full of other taxes and fees on top of the income tax, which makes it all rather confusing, which should also be mentioned in the debate I guesss. To know what kind of difference it would acctually make. Lower one tax raise another and you got a status quo.

[Prime Junta]

I think US is full of other taxes and fees on top of the income tax, which makes it all rather confusing, which should also be mentioned in the debate I guesss. To know what kind of difference it would acctually make. Lower one tax raise another and you got a status quo.

If you had actually read the article, you'd know that the author is trying to do exactly that -- looking at the taxes people actually pay, rather than the rates supposedly determining what they should pay.

[Benedict]

IMHO the crux of the problem is one that both you and Benedict touched upon, namely that too few people find it worthwhile to take part in the political process, and that they would be likely to at least try to inform themselves if they found it worthwhile to participate. So I rather see fixes aimed at the latter problem. We cant really force people to use their brains, but we could make it more worthwhile to use them to make more people bother. Higher turnout also makes the system more robust to manipulation by interest group voter mobilisation and the like.
.

That principle I'd agree with, but personally I feel that the makeup of the electorate is in no small part behind the lack of value from the political process. While Obama's well thought out and well argued intellectual concepts for how to improve his country and make a real difference have no impact next to McCain's suggestions that he's just a bit too brown and different to be president then we're all fucked anyway. The more influence the lowest common denominator has the more politics will be all about appealing to that lowest common denominator.

I still hope that there'll be genuinely high turnout from the democrats this time round though, there's a more dramatic difference in the choices offered than is normal this time round on a close race, it's a referendum on America's future that's actually worth voting for (in the swing states at least). Much more valuable than the UK where a bland Cameron / Clegg / Milliband option is hardly worth bothering with.

[Prime Junta]

About ten, fifteen years ago I was active on a certain Usenet newsgroup. One of the regulars there, with the wonderful name of Mark K. Bilbo, was a teacher in the American educational system.

We were discussing politics a lot there, including American politics. Mark was universally pessimistic about the long-term prospects of America. He based this pessimism on his experience of the state of the system of primary education, and especially the direction in which it was (d)evolving.

Basically, the way he saw it, America as a democracy and as a modern, prosperous country was doomed, because the educational system was turning out ever fewer people with the skills and knowledge needed to maintain it, and ever larger quantities of people who are easy to manipulate. He felt that the American educational system was caught in a death-spiral -- a feedback loop where its failures feed and reinforce themselves.

He felt there was no realistic way this could be turned around, and that the inevitable upshot would be a populace that's simply unqualified to maintain the very complex and ultimately fragile structure of a free, open, democratic polity and technological, information-driven economy. Ultimately, any society is built and sustained by its human capital, and if this human capital is allowed to degrade, it will become unsustainable.

I didn't believe him then. I argued quite forcefully against him, in fact.

But nowadays I'm starting to think he just may have been right. The discussion on this thread certainly doesn't make me think he was wrong.

I also feel that a citizenship test won't do anything to solve the problem this discussion is about. It'll simply make official the transition from democracy to oligarchy that has already largely happened in practice. The only thing that will help is a better educated citizenry.

[dteowner]

I just ran across something that I thought might be of interest to people here. Namely, someone much more diligent than I has done a fair bit of number-crunching about tax policy, growth, presidential administrations, Democrats, and Republicans.

[ http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-graphic-data-on-taxes-growth-and.html ]

Salient points:

* The average actual income tax rate has never exceeded 11.5%, which was under Clinton. IOW, all those people who say they're paying more than half of their income as taxes are either full of it, or have the worst tax advisors ever.
* Democrats raise taxes while Republicans lower them. This happens primarily through better enforcement, less so by changes in laws.
* There is a strong positive correlation between higher tax rates and higher rates of economic growth.

As an aside, I'd surmise that the last, somewhat counterintuitive point is an example of correlation rather than causation. If Democratic administrations are generally better/more diligent at governing, this would result in both better enforcement of tax laws and better economic policy; the former would result in more tax revenue, while the latter would result in more growth.Ignoring the clear bias, let's take a quick look at this. Talking averages when 5% of the taxpayers pay 95% of the receipts is pretty well guaranteed to be misleading from the get-go. It doesn't take many zeroes to pull down a fifty, and there's nineteen times as many people available for the zero pool (I know that's not mathematically accurate, but you get the gist). Similarly, any analysis that treats all income the same is automatically flawed since the tax code does not treat all income the same and a large portion of the populace are see no direct effect from changes in certain aspects of the code.

That's after a quick view that I can do here at work. Imagine if I had some time on my hands. Better yet, imagine if someone smarter than me had some time their hands...

A complicated system like the US Tax Code will lend itself to selective parsing, regardless of who's doing the analysis. Veil it in charts and graphs, and it looks very convincing. I expect some portion of it is even accurate. Unfortunately, it's still selective, and picking the right lens will show you whatever you want to see (and that applies to me just as much as anyone else). So, while you'll trot out the "anti-intellectualism" dogs and the "esteemed economist" ponies, you're still building castles in the swamp. For every "economic genius" on the left, there's an "economic genius" and the right, and they're both very convincing and they're both happy to tell you how "quaint" the other guy is.

[Prime Junta]

The article was set out to debunk the common neo-liberal claim that lower tax rates result in higher economic growth. I've heard lots of arguments made in support of that position (also against, for that matter). However, I have yet to see any *empirical data* supporting that position.

Your "economic genius" argument is spurious, by the way. No economic genius of any political stripe has supported Laffer's supply-side economics. The rightist geniuses (Friedman and his disciples) have a very different program.

I'll take on your "5% of the taxpayers come up with 95% of the revenue" argument one of these days, by the way. It's clearly completely bogus, but I'm going to have to dig up some hard numbers to prove it for you.

[GothicGothicness]

If you had actually read the article, you'd know that the author is trying to do exactly that -- looking at the taxes people actually pay, rather than the rates supposedly determining what they should pay.

I took a look at the graphs and read you post.

The average actual income tax rate has never exceeded 11.5%, which was under Clinton. IOW, all those people who say they're paying more than half of their income as taxes are either full of it, or have the worst tax advisors ever.


Since you only mention income tax, and said people who tell half of the income goes to taxes are full of it. My conclusion was that you had not taken all the other costs into consideration. I do not think his article did that either, even if I did not read all of it from the part that I did read, it only appeared to consider some.

At least I have had US friends who get up to 40% of their income in taxes, and "fees" which are basically the same as taxes.

[Prime Junta]

Here are some quick numbers to get you started:

[ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?DocID=222&Topic2id=20&Topic3id=22 ]

This series ends in 2002, unfortunately. At that time, the top 5% of Americans accounted for 53.8% of federal income tax receipts. If it's gone up to 95% since then, though, George W. Bush must have been a lot harder on those poor rich people than I thought.

However, things only get really interesting when we compare the tax burden of these rich people with their share of the nation's economic pie:

[ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?DocID=467&Topic2id=20&Topic3id=22 ]

You'll find that for the same year, 2002, the top 5% accounted for about 28% of (pre-tax) national income. In other words, their tax burden is about double what it would be in a perfectly flat, non-progressive system of taxation. Still sounds like a lot, doesn't it?

Maybe not.

Take a look at some other numbers in the same table. Specifically, the breakdown of post-tax income. You'll find that the top 5%'s share for 2002 is... 26%.

In other words, the distributive effect of the tax progression slices a whopping two percentage points from the income of the richest 5%, and distributes that among those less fortunate than themselves. Damn, the state really is ripping them off. I'm surprised a compassionate guy like you can sleep at nights, thinking about their suffering.

[Prime Junta]

At least I have had US friends who get up to 40% of their income in taxes, and "fees" which are basically the same as taxes.

But these fees aren't really germane to the discussion on federal taxation, which is what this is about. Property taxes are set by municipalities, and states levy their own taxes. Depending on whom your asking, these fees could even include necessary non-tax stuff like medical insurance or tuition.

[GothicGothicness]

Yes, I included those costs. But in my opinion it does not really make a difference? in sweden tax is used to pay those money, in US there is a fee to pay it.

Health, yes you could skip to pay it, but let us face it anyone could get sick, or hit by a car, so they'd feel it is also a necesarry cost to pay. Same for tution.

None wants to walk in the street without a home when they are retired, so they also pay for that.

All of above is included in swedish tax. The only people who do not need to pay those fees IMHO, is the ones that are already very rich, since if anything happens to them they can afford to pay for it from their own funds.

[Prime Junta]

You're right about all of this, but it's somewhat beside the point. If we were discussing the relative merits of the American versus European systems, that comparison would be relevant, but here the guy's topic was American federal tax policy and its effects on economic growth. Not the same subject.

[GothicGothicness]

Well, my point was just to say that if one president makes the tax higher, but make the cost for health insurrance lower ( which was one the things Hillary had on her agenda if I am not mistaken) It could acctually mean the everyday joe has more money in his pocket, and thus also buys more to stimulate the economy. While Mr RichGuy just gets a little bit less income into his bank account every year.

[Prime Junta]

Well, my point was just to say that if one president makes the tax higher, but make the cost for health insurrance lower ( which was one the things Hillary had on her agenda if I am not mistaken) It could acctually mean the everyday joe has more money in his pocket, and thus also buys more to stimulate the economy. While Mr RichGuy just gets a little bit less income into his bank account every year.

Indeed it could, and I'm kinda surprised that this point hasn't been brought up more in the great American health care debate.

[dteowner]

Here are some quick numbers to get you started:

[ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?DocID=222&Topic2id=20&Topic3id=22 ]

This series ends in 2002, unfortunately. At that time, the top 5% of Americans accounted for 53.8% of federal income tax receipts. If it's gone up to 95% since then, though, George W. Bush must have been a lot harder on those poor rich people than I thought.The 95% number goes back a few years, and I believe it included more federal receipts than strictly income tax. I can't do proper research here at work, but let's just go with your numbers as advertised. All you've really done is change the magnitude of the skew that I complained about. So your averaging should be closer than it was with my numbers, but still suffers from averaging a population set that is significantly "un-average".

Again, we're disputing numbers when we should be questioning the underlying assumptions. I expect that my 95% number is completely accurate given the proper set of assumptions, just as your analysis is probably rock solid if you use the assumptions they've used. This is exactly why I don't particularly put much stock in quantitative analysis of insanely complex systems like taxation. The signal-to-noise is lousy, and determining true key input variables is a crapshoot at best. You pick any non-nutjob position and can then select the numbers to prove you're right. Of course, it's much more difficult to have meaningful debate on qualitative views.

[Prime Junta]

The 95% number goes back a few years, and I believe it included more federal receipts than strictly income tax. I can't do proper research here at work, but let's just go with your numbers as advertised. All you've really done is change the magnitude of the skew that I complained about. So your averaging should be closer than it was with my numbers, but still suffers from averaging a population set that is significantly "un-average".

The "skew" is known as "tax progression." The USA has relatively little of it, FWIW, and whether you should have it or not is more of a philosophical debate than a practical one. Again, the key numbers are the pre-tax and post-tax shares of the economic pie: for the top 5%, 28 and 26% respectively. That's really not that huge a "skew" in my opinion.

Again, we're disputing numbers when we should be questioning the underlying assumptions. I expect that my 95% number is completely accurate given the proper set of assumptions, just as your analysis is probably rock solid if you use the assumptions they've used.

It's not my analysis, it's analysis by the Brookings institution -- probably *the* most respected, solid, non-partisan research institution in the field. If your analysis comes up with a figure of 95%, I guarantee that it is bogus.

Hell, even a little common-sense thinking ought to be enough to debunk it -- if it were true, it would mean that the income tax rate for the bottom 95% could be set to 0%, and the top 5% raised just the hair that it would take to raise that last 5%, and tax revenues would stay the same. That is an obviously nonsensical conclusion -- it would mean that your tax contribution means, essentially, nothing economically (and also that the top 5% is truly ridiculously, outrageously rich compared to the rest of you).

This is exactly why I don't particularly put much stock in quantitative analysis of insanely complex systems like taxation. The signal-to-noise is lousy, and determining true key input variables is a crapshoot at best. You pick any non-nutjob position and can then select the numbers to prove you're right. Of course, it's much more difficult to have meaningful debate on qualitative views.

Oh come on, dte -- that's a really cheap cop-out, and one that really makes me want to trot out the anti-intellectualist jibes.

What started off this branch is not hard at all. McCain and the supply-siders are advancing a very, very simple proposition:

Proposition P: "Higher taxes cause lower economic growth."

Now, how can we test this proposition? Being an empiricist, I'd naively suggest we look at the data: if Proposition P is true, there should be a strong negative correlation between the tax burden and economic growth, possibly time-lagged by some unknown number of months (12? 18? 24? more than that?).

The article I linked to simply looks at this data -- the tax burden, and economic growth. Both are impossible to measure exactly, but pretty easy to measure precisely enough to see the sort of strong correlation that Proposition P predicts.

There isn't any. Not immediate, not delayed. If anything the data suggest the opposite -- that a higher tax burden correlates to *stronger* growth. (Incidentally, classical economics even offers an explanation for this -- it's called the "balanced budget multiplier," but a discussion of that would be a pretty long side-trek that would probably not even interest anyone at this point.)

[blatantninja]

I missed the start of this part of the conversation, but wanted to make a few points.

Salient points:

* The average actual income tax rate has never exceeded 11.5%, which was under Clinton. IOW, all those people who say they're paying more than half of their income as taxes are either full of it, or have the worst tax advisors ever.

Not necessarily. I'm not surprised by that number for the following reasons:

1) How you classify income can affect this number. Not that it would jump the average tax rate to 30%, but it will affect the number some.
2) In 2005, 42.5 million of the 131 million tax returns filed paid NO INCOME TAX. That's roughly one third. Take them out and the average rate of people that actually paid tax jumps to 17.25%, hence why using averages isn't a good indication. Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/542.html)
3) That link only talks about Federal Income Tax. Most states have a state income tax (NY goes to 9.75% IIRC) and some cities have a city income tax (NYC goes to 4.5%)
4) It doesn't include Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid, which amounts to 7.5% for the vast majority of Americans, and 15% for the self-employed

In the US, due to deductions, loopholes, and a variety of other obscure outs, the marginal tax rate for the highest income earners is generally lower than the marginal tax rate for the upper middle class. We have neither a progressive or regressive system, we have one that resembles more a right skewed bell curve.

I can tell you that I have a very good tax adviser. He's been doing it for 40 years and I've been amazed at some of the deductions he's pulled out for me. However, my last dollar rate last year was still 43% when you factor in all the income based taxes I am paying. The marginal rate was close 32%.

Outside of finding new ways to hide income, the only way I'm bringing it down is to either buy a property (working on it) or make a ton more than ends up qualifying for loopholes and other tax advantages.

[blatantninja]

The article was set out to debunk the common neo-liberal claim that lower tax rates result in higher economic growth. I've heard lots of arguments made in support of that position (also against, for that matter). However, I have yet to see any *empirical data* supporting that position.


I think the key on this is finding the sweet spot. Excessive taxation is definitely a drag on the economy, but so is severe under taxation. So the question becomes are we above or below the sweet spot currently? I think collections wise we are under, but rates wise we are above. IE I think they could lower rates, but eliminate lots of the loopholes.

[Prime Junta]

I think the key on this is finding the sweet spot. Excessive taxation is definitely a drag on the economy, but so is severe under taxation. So the question becomes are we above or below the sweet spot currently? I think collections wise we are under, but rates wise we are above. IE I think they could lower rates, but eliminate lots of the loopholes.

According to the article, that's pretty much what the Democratic administrations were doing. Most of them didn't actually raise the tax rates (Clinton being a notable exception); instead, they improved enforcement, which raised more tax revenue. Conversely, Republicans didn't as much lower the tax rates, as add loopholes and make enforcement laxer.

But anyway: the point of the article was to debunk the Laffer curve. Whatever you may think about the details, IMO it does do that pretty well -- the tax burden has gone up and down significantly due to changes in the administration, but the correlation predicted by the supply-siders isn't there.

If anything, the data would appear to support the proposition that the US is under- rather than overtaxed. However, I wouldn't want to go as far as draw that conclusion, since (I believe) the fluctuations in the tax burden is a relatively minor factor in the ups and downs of the US economy.

[JDR13]

I was 100% McCain until he chose Sarah Palin as his VP candidate, now I'm not so sure......

[magerette]

Anything in particular, or just everything in general?

[JDR13]

Palin has almost no experience with large scale politics. Until 2002 she was nothing but a small town mayor(Wasilla, population 7,025), she didn't even become govenor of Alaska until 2006. It blows my mind that McCain criticized Obama so much for lack of "experience", and then goes out and tabs Palin as his choice for VP.

I admit I thought she gave a pretty good speech at the Republican National Convention, but I thought she spent too much time hurling barbs at the Democrats and not enough time addressing the economy.

[Prime Junta]

Perhaps that's because under her watch, Wasilla's municipal spending skyrocketed and its debt ballooned. Now, I wonder what that reminds me of?

[JDR13]

Mmmm I question how true that is, most of what I've heard about her term in Wasilla was on the positive side.

[txa1265]

Mmmm I question how true that is, most of what I've heard about her term in Wasilla was on the positive side.

They call that 'spin' ... under more scrutiny there has been much more coming to light about how everything she now says is almost the polar opposite of how she has behaved in the past.

And as a basically conservative person, I am still floored that after the last 8 years, and knowing that the same folks are powering the Repub machine and will therefore be the ones populating the WHite House power structure ... I am floored that anyone could be 100% McCain. Because while it isn't the simplistic 'McCain = Bush' thing the Dems would have you believe, listening to Palin's obviously core-Repub crafted speech tells you that it also isn't that far from the truth.

[JDR13]

They call that 'spin' ... under more scrutiny there has been much more coming to light about how everything she now says is almost the polar opposite of how she has behaved in the past.


Perhaps you could give some examples of "polar opposite". Would it be anything similar to the way Barak "flip flop" Obama has constantly changed his supposed views depending on which crowd he's addressing at that moment?



And as a basically conservative person, I am still floored that after the last 8 years, and knowing that the same folks are powering the Repub machine and will therefore be the ones populating the WHite House power structure ... I am floored that anyone could be 100% McCain. .

It seems you took my earlier statement out of context. I meant that I was "100%" sure I was going to vote for McCain, that doesn't mean I 100% agree with everything he's about.

[Benedict]

:lol: Some great (and totally unbiased ;) ) coverage of John McCain's speech here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/oliverburkemanblog/2008/sep/05/uselections2008.cindymccain)


9.28pm: Praising Palin. "She's helped run a small business, worked with her hands and nose..." He ACTUALLY PAUSES HERE. Her nose? Oh, I see: "...Worked with her hands and knows what it's like to worry about mortgage payments and health care and the cost of gasoline and groceries." I seriously thought he was going to give us an Eskimo joke then.

9.31pm: He's happy to have introduced Palin to the country, but he can't wait to introduce her to Washington. She and he are maverick reformer mavericks, who will completely maverick the place up when they get there, "there" being, of course, the place McCain has been for many years.

10.09pm BALLOONS! I like balloons. Balloons are the whole point of American political conventions. The elitist Barack Obama didn't have any balloons, because he considered himself to be above them, and also because Invesco Field didn't have a roof, so a balloon drop was unfeasible. But maverick John McCain gives you balloons. (Two hundred thousand of them, apparently.) Balloons and confetti. Vote for John McCain, balloon maverick.

They're playing Rhythm Is A Dancer now. Rhythm may be a dancer, but the Michigan delegation are not.

[Prime Junta]

That was almost as good as BBC's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest. Gotta hand it to the Brits, nobody can sneer quite like them...

[Benedict]

That was almost as good as BBC's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest. Gotta hand it to the Brits, nobody can sneer quite like them...

We've definitely got a competitive advantage there, it's a cornerstone of our service economy.

[Prime Junta]

Here's something I found interesting: McCain's and Obama's acceptance speeches represented as word clouds. Guess which is which? (Via The Big Picture.)

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/2008/09/05/mccain_wordle.png

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/2008/08/29/obama_accept_speech.png

[Benedict]

Oooohhh . . . tough one actually, I'd say the first one is McCain because of the prevalence of fight and the general messiness and the second is Obama, but I could argue for the other way round almost as easily.

EDIT - woohoo, looks like I was right :)

[magerette]

Perhaps you could give some examples of "polar opposite". Would it be anything similar to the way Barak "flip flop" Obama has constantly changed his supposed views depending on which crowd he's addressing at that moment?

I think all politicians 'adjust' their views, but I won't deny that Obama really disappointed me on his FISA vote. The others, not so much.

On Palin, I think she's getting a lot of scrutiny, and has certainly been put under the media microscope for a lot of varying coverage--from overly positive to overly negative, so it's very hard to tell what's what, but here are a few examples from an authenticated e-mail (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/The_antiPalin_email.html?showall)from a long-time resident of Wasilla who's known her for years(while it's obvious the woman doesn't like her, these have all been reported on in various places so they aren't undocumented slurs--it's just the easiest way to get them all in one place):

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing...These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city...

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter...

...Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law....

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative...

CLAIM VS FACT
*"Hockey mom": true for a few years.

*"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.

*"NRA supporter": absolutely true

*social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

*pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

*"Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

*"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

*political maverick: not at all

*gutsy: absolutely!

*open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

*"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

*fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

*pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

*pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

*pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.


Had to do a lot of snipping to get this under the char limit--you can read it all at the link.

[magerette]

I actually think there's a lot of positive in that account, btw. Ultimately, we all have to make up our own minds- and the hardest part is seeing things straight.

[JDR13]

Nah, that little write up wasn't biased or anything...... ;)

"doesn't like her" would be a huge understatement, it looks like that woman had her own agenda in writing that e-mail, the entire thing is nothing but a huge smear.

I have no doubt much of it is true though, Palin wouldn't be fit for Washington otherwise....

[Prime Junta]

Nah, that little write up wasn't biased or anything...... ;)

Everything's biased. (In particular, reality is known to have a strong leftist bias.) Ignore it. Look at the facts as stated. Verify them where possible. Then make up your mind.

[JDR13]

(In particular, reality is known to have a strong leftist bias.).

Hey, that comment was biased! :lol:

[magerette]

Nah, that little write up wasn't biased or anything...... ;)

"doesn't like her" would be a huge understatement, it looks like that woman had her own agenda in writing that e-mail, the entire thing is nothing but a huge smear.

I have no doubt much of it is true though, Palin wouldn't be fit for Washington otherwise....

Good point. One more barracuda in the big pond. :) Kind of what I meant about the positive angle--she has the tools and mindset to be a sharp politician.

Only problem is, she's running on being a high-minded reformer. ;)

[Squeek]

Today Bob Barr just offered Ron Paul the VP slot on his presidential ticket, despite the fact that he already had a running mate, and it made me wonder if Barak Obama could, somehow, end up doing the same thing with Hilary Clinton.

Sarah Palin is turning out like a porcupine that gets tossed into a crowded room. She's actually not all that threatening, but you'd better be careful how you handle her, and you're really better off just leaving her alone.

Nobody left her alone, obviously. The last straw was Obama's unfortunate "lipstick on a pig" remark (giving him the benefit of the doubt), which could end up costing him the election.

One solution is to ask Joe Biden to step aside to open the door for Hilary. I really think it could happen.

[Bateman]

Ok I don't want to start a new discussion so I will post my question here. I want to hear an American's opinion on this.

It seems this years' election is getting close. Regarding so-called Battleground-states:

1. Isn't the pre-election wide-known classification of states as 'solid' or 'battleground' discouraging some voters from even voting, e.g. Republican voters in California?

2. If a presidential candidate would lose a number of these states, chances get bigger for a candidate with more popular votes to lose the electoral and thus the whole election. What do you think would happen, would electors from the same state vote different and would there be a big discussion about the electoral system?

These questions ultimately lead to the being of the electorals-system ("winner takes it all"), and if it will remain untouched (I personally think it will out of traditional reasons). Because if it is getting close, it could make the majority of voters in fact lose an election, and thus voting-equality ("one man one vote") wouldn't be given anymore. On the other hand, you could argue the single states are all separate entities ... well but then there is the disproportion between tiny and big states and the number of electoral delegates they get...

So you could have a long discussion on this issue, and maybe there is no real fair and perfect voting-system. So maybe only concentrate on the two questions, I would preferably hear the opinions of actual American voters, and esp. not those of European wise-guys and wannabes. Thank you.

[Squeek]

The answer to your first question is, "Yes, it probably does discourage some voters, and the press is often criticized for it."

The answer to the second is that you're really not understanding the Electoral College System (that puts you in the majority, btw). It's a system that was put in place to ensure that candidates for national office wouldn't ignore states without large metropolitan areas. Otherwise, they might just concentrate on places with lots of voters like New York and Boston.

As with everything else concerning our wacky system for electing Presidents, there are folks who disagree with that (but I'm right!). About the only thing everyone agrees on is that it will never be changed.

[Bateman]

So you say if the electoral vote was different from the popular, The guy with less votes would get elected and everyone would agree that it would be alright?

[txa1265]

So you say if the electoral vote was different from the popular, The guy with less votes would get elected and everyone would agree that it would be alright?

No - the loser would bitch about it endlessly and the losing party would use it as a hammer to block any progress and people would say 'he isn't MY president' ...

... oh wait, that happened 8 years ago!

[Bateman]

No - the loser would bitch about it endlessly and the losing party would use it as a hammer to block any progress and people would say 'he isn't MY president' ...

... oh wait, that happened 8 years ago!

Oh, you are right, forgot about that. My impression was always that in 2000 there was more trouble about the Florida-vote and the circumstances. So if Bush had won Florida ... 'properly' there maybe would have been less fuss.

[magerette]

So you say if the electoral vote was different from the popular, The guy with less votes would get elected and everyone would agree that it would be alright?

I don't know about everybody agreeing about anything, but that's what happened in 2000. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000)

As to your points:
1. Some may be discouraged. Not me. For instance, my state polls and votes 95% Republican and is a so-called red state. I will vote even though theoretically unless I vote for McCain my vote is meaningless. Why?--well, you just never know, do you. Under the winner-takes-all electors rule (The candidate that wins the most votes in the state wins the support of all of that state’s electors) if there were enough people voting against the prevailing trends, it could tilt the end result the way I'd like to see it go. So even if it's spitting in the wind, I'll vote my conscience. My husband, however, so far sees no point in voting, but I'm working on him. :)


2. There have apparently been a lot of big discussions and attempts to change the set-up to straight popular vote over the years. I tend to think if something like the 2000 election couldn't do it, it probably isn't going to happen any time soon. Right now the country is completely polarized and divided, so any attempt to redistribute votes is going to be seen as gerrymandering.

Edit: Mike types faster!

[Pladio]

I thought California might be a Republican state this election. I mean I heard it was a possibility unlike in earlier elections ...

[dteowner]

We've got some folks from CA that could speak more definitively, but I'd say the only way CA would go Republican is due to the immigration issue (Repubs take a tougher stand on it). I don't see that being enough to tip the balance, Pladio.

@magerette- you can still switch over to the right side. We'll take ya, even though you've strayed for a few months.

I'm not sure Squeek is historically accurate about the purpose of the electoral college, but not disenfranchising the rural areas is definitely a good effect of the system.

[mudsling3]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEw0qKjP7hk&eurl
check this CNN interview

[Squeek]

There have apparently been a lot of big discussions and attempts to change the set-up to straight popular vote over the years. I tend to think if something like the 2000 election couldn't do it, it probably isn't going to happen any time soon.The constitution would have to be amended for that to happen, and that requires a two-thirds vote in congress. Representatives from states that benefit from the College system (states whose citizens' votes, effectively, count for more as a result of it) would probably never support that amendment. So we're probably stuck with it forever.

@dteowner: There doesn't seem to be much chance of us going red this time around.

[dteowner]

Interesting interview, mudsling3. While I still think a few of those 4 positions are wacko, I like their stance of shaking up the system a bit. I particularly liked when Ron Paul pointed out that Republicans are supporting deficit spending and Democrats are supporting the war. Another voice with mine saying that the parties have lost touch with their traditions.

@Squeek- didn't figure so, but didn't want to assume...

[magerette]

dte wrote:
you can still switch over to the right side. We'll take ya, even though you've strayed for a few months.

I'd be flattered, except I've seen the other people you're happy to take. ;)

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/37632/thumbs/s-JOE-LIEBERMAN-large.jpg

Edit: your party, that is. I don't imagine you personally have much more use for this guy than I do.

[JDR13]

I don't approve of Obama's "You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig" remark, as well as his old stinky fish jab. I was surprised that he would be dumb enough to say something like that. The media is currently having a field day with it, and I think he definitely gave the Reps a boost with that little faux pas.

[Prime Junta]

I'm curious: what is it that you don't approve of it?

Also, do you also disapprove of McCain's use of the "lipstick on a pig" expression when he used it to describe Democratic policies?

[Benedict]

So you could have a long discussion on this issue, and maybe there is no real fair and perfect voting-system. So maybe only concentrate on the two questions, I would preferably hear the opinions of actual American voters, and esp. not those of European wise-guys and wannabes. Thank you.

LOL!

Yes, we all just wish we could be super cool americans.

Although in these particular circumstances it would be handy if the rest of the world could vote to help dilute the remarkable prevalence of idiots (/Republicans) in your country ;)

[Benedict]

I'm curious: what is it that you don't approve of it?

Also, do you also disapprove of McCain's use of the "lipstick on a pig" expression when he used it to describe Democratic policies?

I pissed myself when I heard it but politically it was a bad move, he does seem worryingly rattled by Palin, I hope he doesn't lose his smoothness too much.

[txa1265]

I pissed myself when I heard it but politically it was a bad move, he does seem worryingly rattled by Palin, I hope he doesn't lose his smoothness too much.

Not *him*, as evidenced by the remark. But the media seem completely snowed in by her gender that she isn't just a surrogate for Romney at al ... and therefore are acting like complete idiots (yes, I know the same could be said about their treatment about Obama, but can we just acknowledge one without 'equal time' for the other for once?)

[Prime Junta]

Lucky for you that there are European wise-guys and wannabies around to set the record straight, eh? ;)

[Benedict]

Ah fafblog, king of the web . . .

link (http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-sarah-palin-sarah-palin.html)


MAVERICKNESS.
As a moose-hunting Jesus-fearing hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose, Sarah Palin isn't some petty Washington bureaucrat. She's a petty Alaskan bureaucrat, and she's gonna shake things up in Washington! For her first reform she will pose for photographs with a gun and a stuffed moose head! For her second reform she will say something bold and brassy. For her third reform she will give birth at a live press conference to six eagle scouts, three peregrine falcons and an American mastodon, rear them in the Christian faith and release them into the wild before hunting them down, shooting them and mounting their heads in the Roosevelt Room!

Now some of you are saying "oh Giblets these aren't actual reforms" because you are boring and stupid and I hate you. But if you think about it, Sarah Palin would be reforming Washington just by being elected and finally giving a voice to marginalized white Christian evangelicals everywhere. She will also re-ban abortion, in case abortion got away the first time.

[GothicGothicness]

Is it just me or does someone else think it is sick that after a massive TV jippo the rating goes up 7% for a candidate, just to go down again after people forget about this TV jippo. Here is a strategy to win make massive rockstar jippo tours each weekend, with the jury from american idol, and other famous americans. It is sure to win the election. Sometimes United states feels like one big toy country like my cousine often says.

It also works for consoles that is what MS did with the XBOX 360 and look what happend it became immensively popular in the US.

Now they are doing the same with vista, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Seinfeild, Bill Gates, what a dream trio :D

[magerette]

Sarah Palin--the next console! Great comparison, GG. :p And I agree with your cousin, --it's often a toy country, or a pop culture country. That's no big deal when it comes to TV show ratings, but kind of a problem when the election turns into a TV show. :)

The thing to remember about polls is that they are a snapshot in time. I know a lot of people are buying the out of context lipstick remark, but I think McCain has jumped the shark with the sexism response. It's just another way to control the news cycle for a few days and distract from the issues facing the country, because they can't talk about them in any meaningful way. (If you actually listen to the remark, Obama used it in exactly the same way as McCain himself used it about Hillary Clinton's health care plan--twice. No one called it sexist when McCain said it.) The 'stinky fish' aspect is just ridiculous. No politician in their right mind would ever make that comparison to a woman in a public speech. He was obviously talking about McCain's policies, in particular, running as an agent of change when he's supported the current administration wholeheartedly over the last few years.

And what is with not allowing your VP to talk to the press? I can understand having some limitations the way the press salivate over stupid stuff, but not to allow even the press entourage traveling with McCain to ask her a question? Not to speak in public except to repeat the same speech written for her at the convention? If she can't sit across the table from Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press, how's she going to sit across the table from Medvedev or Ahmadinejad? That's right, her team of Bush mentors (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/09/02/bushies-come-to-palin-s-rescue.aspx) will tutor her. What a maverick!

The Palin love affair will die down, the slime machine personality-only tactics will continue, and we'll see how the polls sit after the next Superstar Rock Concerts--the presidential debates. :)

[magerette]

LOL!

Yes, we all just wish we could be super cool americans.

We know you all want to move to California and check out the talent.

Although in these particular circumstances it would be handy if the rest of the world could vote to help dilute the remarkable prevalence of idiots (/Republicans) in your country ;)

The Republicans didn't use to be such idiots. The Dems are pretty much idiots, too. It's a potpourri of stupidity, actually. I personally would welcome an influx of Euro-trash--as they said about the Okies migrating to California during the DustBowl--it raises the IQ in both places. ;)

[Bateman]

Whatever stupidity American politicians commit - you can never get even CLOSE to the socialist euro-fag-lands and their politics of betraying their peoples permanently... NEVER!

[JDR13]

I'm curious: what is it that you don't approve of it?

Also, do you also disapprove of McCain's use of the "lipstick on a pig" expression when he used it to describe Democratic policies?

Were they talking about the same thing?

[Benedict]

Whatever stupidity American politicians commit - you can never get even CLOSE to the socialist euro-fag-lands and their politics of betraying their peoples permanently... NEVER!

Personally I think our politicians have done a pretty good job, over here only the very bottom end of the gene pool is still that stupid and homophobic, certainly not enough to stand a chance of winning a vote for a third term of apocalyptic idiocy :)

[magerette]

Were they talking about the same thing?

Obama was talking about McCain's policies. McCain was talking about Hillary's policies(health care.) Decide for yourself:

ABC Make up Your Own Mind Clip (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5770967)

I tried to find a written transcript but all I can find are video clips--sorry about the 30 second commercial.

[Prime Junta]

Whatever stupidity American politicians commit - you can never get even CLOSE to the socialist euro-fag-lands and their politics of betraying their peoples permanently... NEVER!

See? Not everybody hates Americans. You *do* have friends here!

[Corwin]

Yeah, and with some friends, who needs enemies!! :)

[Benedict]

Daily mash article on the pig remark (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/obama-defends-'creationist-psycho-bitch'-remark-200809111247/)


DEMOCRATIC candidate Barak Obama last night claimed he was quoted out of context after describing Governor Sarah Palin as a 'creationist psycho bitch'.

He dismissed the 'phoney outrage' of the Republican camp, insisting the remark was not intended to do anything other than draw attention to Governor Palin's insane beliefs and ugly, bitch-like qualities.

Senator Obama said: "I was simply implying what a stupid, horrible, terrifying freak she is. I can't help it if people decide to take that literally.

"I was using a metaphor to make the important point that if you want another four years of psychotic, blood thirsty creationists who love sucking the oil industry's big fat cock, then vote for my opponents."

He added: "I did then go on to say that if Jesus came down from heaven and told me I would have to fuck either Sarah Palin or a pig, you'd have to drag me off the pig.

"Now that doesn't mean I'm comparing Governor Palin to a pig. What I am saying is that if it's a straight choice between Governor Palin and a pig, I'm fucking the pig.

"If I then went on to say that I'd rather fuck a dead pig than Governor Palin, that should not be construed in any way as a personal attack."

Senator Obama refused to apologise to the Governor, insisting it would take too long to translate the words into her 'retarded hillbilly language'.

[JDR13]

Meh.....pretty lame actually. :thumbsdown:

[GothicGothicness]

DEMOCRATIC candidate Barak Obama last night claimed he was quoted out of context after describing Governor Sarah Palin as a 'creationist psycho bitch'.

He dismissed the 'phoney outrage' of the Republican camp, insisting the remark was not intended to do anything other than draw attention to Governor Palin's insane beliefs and ugly, bitch-like qualities.

Senator Obama said: "I was simply implying what a stupid, horrible, terrifying freak she is. I can't help it if people decide to take that literally.

"I was using a metaphor to make the important point that if you want another four years of psychotic, blood thirsty creationists who love sucking the oil industry's big fat cock, then vote for my opponents."

He added: "I did then go on to say that if Jesus came down from heaven and told me I would have to fuck either Sarah Palin or a pig, you'd have to drag me off the pig.

"Now that doesn't mean I'm comparing Governor Palin to a pig. What I am saying is that if it's a straight choice between Governor Palin and a pig, I'm fucking the pig.

"If I then went on to say that I'd rather fuck a dead pig than Governor Palin, that should not be construed in any way as a personal attack."

Senator Obama refused to apologise to the Governor, insisting it would take too long to translate the words into her 'retarded hillbilly language'.

That has to be a joke right? I cannot imagine such a thing acctually happening??? are they grown ups?

[JDR13]

That has to be a joke right? I cannot imagine such a thing acctually happening??? are they grown ups?

It's just some foul satire.

[Maylander]

That is, without doubt, far from serious. The language used is not even close to Barack Obamas usual language.

[Prime Junta]

I think it's slightly scary that the last three times someone has deadpanned heavy political satire here, every time someone has either taken it completely at face value, or had to ask if it's for real. What does that say about the quality of (a) politics today and (b) our personal ability to distinguish bullshit from fact?

[Benedict]

I think it's slightly scary that the last three times someone has deadpanned heavy political satire here, every time someone has either taken it completely at face value, or had to ask if it's for real. What does that say about the quality of (a) politics today and (b) our personal ability to distinguish bullshit from fact?

IMO a sign of good satire if it mimics the convolutions of actual political wrangles like this accurately enough that there's people who take it seriously even if only at first glance.

As for the comment about people being grownups, personally I'm much less disappointed with a satire website for running with a topical story and taking it somewhere pretty silly and crude than I am with a 74 year old man bidding to be in charge of the world's biggest economy and military who's taken a standard political remark and basically gone "Ahahaha! He called her a pig! You all saw that right, he called her a pig! No take backs!", something which really deserves equally childish satire.

[Prime Junta]

Oh, I wasn't at all disappointed at the satire website. I am a bit scared that the reality is so close to satire that it's conceivable that Obama might've said something like that, or Medvedev talked jive at European bosses over South Ossetia, or the EU imposing curvature constraints on Russian gherkins.

(Come to think of it, I think at least one of your concerns is self-correcting -- if said 74-year-old does get charge of it, it won't be the world's biggest economy for long.)

[GothicGothicness]

Nothing wrong with satire I love it. But I thought that the pig, and psycho things really happend? Sure I know the parts about fucking a dead pig is not true and Obama would never say such a things.

and crude than I am with a 74 year old man bidding to be in charge of the world's biggest economy and military who's taken a standard political remark and basically gone "Ahahaha! He called her a pig! You all saw that right, he called her a pig! No take backs!"

Indeed it is very childish.

What does that say about the quality of (a) politics today and (b) our personal ability to distinguish bullshit from fact?

To me this US election is bullshit. I have never seen a more childish election in my life. How about that action figure of the VP :D

(Come to think of it, I think at least one of your concerns is self-correcting -- if said 74-year-old does get charge of it, it won't be the world's biggest economy for long.)

That was an excellent writing PJ, and how true it is, China is already the biggest though? it passed US just recently?

[Benedict]

To me this US election is bullshit. I have never seen a more childish election in my life. How about that action figure of the VP :D

Now with opposable ethics!

[Benedict]

(Come to think of it, I think at least one of your concerns is self-correcting -- if said 74-year-old does get charge of it, it won't be the world's biggest economy for long.)

:lol:

Every cloud has a silver lining!

[Prime Junta]

That was an excellent writing PJ, and how true it is, China is already the biggest though? it passed US just recently?

Not by a long way. Even in purchasing-power parity adjusted numbers, China's economy is half the size of the USA's; in nominal terms, the US economy is over four times bigger.

[GothicGothicness]

I use GDP (PPP) to judge the economical power.

[Prime Junta]

I use GDP (PPP) to judge the economical power.

That's the wrong measure. GDP (PPP) is sort of useful for measuring standard of living, but GDP (nominal) is better for measuring the economic weight of a country in the global economy. While the amount a dollar can buy varies from country to country, in global trade a dollar is a dollar.

And even by GDP (PPP), the American economy is double the size of China's.