pdogg Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 A question for the Americans living in the US - is there any explanation as to why this thing is as close as it is? I was on a weather website checking out how Hurricane Sandy could impact the election and here's two quotes that might shed some light: Conservatives will still vote! This may be a divine storm in the making, meant to keep the pansy liberals home... I thought this guy might be taking the piss but his Facebook page shows he's supports the Anti-Islam Alliance. Social conservatives yearn for the days of June and Ward Cleaver. Conservatives will still go out and vote since we will already be out working to support the Democrats on the dole. The way I see it is that it's Goldman Sachs who's on the dole. Goldman says they were perfectly hedged but this assumes that their counterparties didn't fall like dominos. The ruling elite has done a masterful job convincing the working class that single Moms on welfare take more from society than the beneficiaries of corporate welfare. Quote Link to comment
Kahuna Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 It is a sad day for the US and the rest of "us" when a freak unexpected storm might decide the election and the future of the free world for the next 4 years. Boo Hoo to that... This storm just might impact some folks lives much more than living four years with the wrong president... I don't have any idea how all this stuff works, but I surely can't see our government not changing something to allow folks to vote if voting is seriously disturbed by the storm...If votes are lost in all the states hit by this storm it's gonna have an impact on both parties...Not just the Democrats... Right about now we all should be more concerned with saving lives...Not with winning elections... Quote Link to comment
TTChang Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 There was an MSN poll on their UK site a few weeks ago: 'If you had a vote in USA, who would you vote for?' The end result was something like Obama 85% Romney 15%. Probably sums up how most people outside the States feel, and how it's going to affect the USA world image (as if Romney cared about that!) I'm a pessimist ...... I've put a small bet on Romney to win. Hope I'm wrong! Quote Link to comment
seven Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Obama 85% Romney 15%. Probably sums up how most people outside the States feel And that´s the UK who are more pro Usa than the rest of Europe. Try run that poll in France. poor and lower-middle class american women between the ages of 13 and 30 who never had to drive themselves across state lines and pay out of pocket to end a pregnancy they never wanted Its hard for a european to grasp that one of the combatants , who might be selected by the American people next week, is against abortion or Prolife as they put it. Any politician in a european country suggesting that would be committing political suicide. In certain humanitarian areas, you are 100 years behind the rest of the western world. 2 Quote Link to comment
pacman Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 A Romney election will bring on the biggest change the world has ever seen. while i think that might be just a bit of hyperbole there, I thought someone might pick me up on that. Taken on its own, it's completely overblown rhetoric. It was a line that should have followed my comments about Middle East oil. I was too lazy to edit my post & I was pinged for it. Not a serious reprimand but you know what I mean. On the subject of Romney changing the world, I can't help but notice in his speeches, etc, that he has enormous confidence about what he intends doing. And I am not sure if it is just him being a cocky politician or he really has planned out some move that involves utilising the militiary. Why else would he want to spend two trillion dollars on the militiary budget when they haven't even asked for it? That's the equivalent of TWO Iraqi wars!! And with Drone technology, they can do so much more with less. So what is he planning to do? I speculated about oil but whatever it is, he will have the power to bring about the biggest change the world has seen. Only my opinion but where's there is smoke, there is fire. Quote Link to comment
pdogg Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 I've put a small bet on Romney to win. The best predictors of elections and football are the bookmakers. Not the pundits or even the tracking polls. Here's the UK line as of a few days ago. A 5 quid bet on Obama wins you 2 quid. You give the book 5 and if Obama wins you get back your original 5 plus another 2. If you plunk down 8 on the Mittster and he wins you get 15 plus your original 8 for a total of 23. To make it easier to compare an 8 quid bet on Obama wins you 3 1/5 pounds. So a 1 quid bet wins you 2 1/8 quid on Romney and 40 pence on Obama. As you can see, a small lead in polls actually translates into a making Obama a significant favorite. Following Monday's final debate between president Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney, William Hill Race & Sports Books in the UK has again updated its odds for the U.S. Presidential race. Obama's odds have been trimmed from 4:9 to have him now as a 2:5 favorite to defeat Romney, whose odds stretched from 7:4 following last week's debate now to 15:8. Quote Link to comment
Kahuna Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 The best predictors of elections and football are the bookmakers. Not the pundits or even the tracking polls. I disagree PD...Bookmakers don't care who wins...As i understand how a bookmaker works their trade they make their money either way...That's why they set the odds to convince folks to bet on both sides of the wager...They get all the loses plus a percentage of the winnings..The vig...A 50/50 for and against waged contest is a perfect scenario for them...If the money starts to move too far in one direction they change the odds and start laying off the bets...If they are smart (which I suppose most of them are or they would be broke) they can't lose no matter who wins the election or the game... Quote Link to comment
Snick Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 A vote for Mitt is a vote for the Zombie Apocalypse ! Quote Link to comment
JaiDee Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 There was an MSN poll on their UK site a few weeks ago: 'If you had a vote in USA, who would you vote for?' The end result was something like Obama 85% Romney 15%. Probably sums up how most people outside the States feel, and how it's going to affect the USA world image I have seen similar polls from outside the USA....seems like the only people who don't know that Romney is a complete fool live inside our borders! You guys who don't come from here, you have to realize; we have a very large bible belt here, Red States with people who would never vote for the black, Muslim, Kenyan {?} guy in a million years. So when you are seeing the overall popular polls, they may look screwy at pretty much 50/50 but you have to understand that places like Texas and Alabama and Tennessee, Missouri, etc.... have large populations! Those people will always vote republican no matter who it is and will always vote against the black guy, that's a given and it's about half the country. 2 more things; first, this major storm which I am seeing outside my window as I type this has a few variable involved, but it won't actually affect the actual physical vote as It will be over a week before the real voting begins. How it will help or hurt Obama is when there are actual disasters and loss of life and shelter and power, etc,....and there will be......and a lot will depend on how he handles it all. There are still a lot of undecided people out there, and if he looks presidential this week and puts out all the proverbial fires in a timely manner this storm could be just the thing that puts him over the top. Of course, if he handles it badly, well.......... Lastly, the electoral college looks good for Obama right now. He pretty much just needs to win Ohio and maybe one or 2 other swing states like Iowa and Wisconsin and he has it wrapped up even if he loses Florida and Virginia and North Carolina. Obama supporters like myself focus more on those numbers than on the overall national polls, which really means not too much on election day. Remember; in another election which was just as close as this one, Gore won the popular vote but ended up losing to that illiterate Texan because he lost the electoral college. This time the outcome could be exactly the opposite. Quote Link to comment
Lefty Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Bullshit from a left side hater... You tell that Lefty to the guy who has had his unemployment insurance including all the extensions, expire... You tell that to the family who lost their home to foreclosure and are now trying their very best to raise their family while they make their home with their in-laws... You tell that to the family on welfare whose children won't get any Halloween or Xmas treats... You tell that to the old folks on supplemental social security who don't have enough money to buy food... You just keep telling everyone that Lefty...Maybe it will come true... My post was was only meant as my feable attempt to answer RX question...The only thing these folks can see and understand, right ot wrong, is that all this happened to them while Obama was President...Not Bush...Not Romney...So guess who they are gonna vote for...And you call them names and hate them for that...To me that is shameful... It is not bullshit. If one checks the so called economic indicators, the economy has improved since Jan 2009. The employment rate is better now than in Jan 2009, when Obama was sworn in. As for anyone who happens to fall into any of the examples you gave, there are people living in those circumstances during any administration. I'd like to think most people can see the big picture and not be as obtuse as you describe them to be. Any folks who are in any of the extreme situations that you described and blame it all on Obama, and think that Romney is going to improve their life, deserve to be called stupid, because they are. You happen to live in one of the most anti-Obama states in the country, and if the rest of the country thought like that, then yes Romney would win in a landslide. Fortunately enough of the rest of the country does not think like most people in your neck of the woods. Quote Link to comment
deepthroat Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I'm extremely nervous, but I'm also quietly confident that President Obama can pull this one out. As Jai Dee alluded, it's amazing to consider that the wealthiest nation on earth can also have such ignorant inbred cretins making up substantial portions of the populace. Take a place like New York, which is viewed as a haven for liberal intellectuals. Although that might be true about New York City, much of the rest of the state is awash with cousin-fuckin' morons who honestly believe in alternate versions of virtually every science known, throwing away every shred of modern science that doesn't point to the age of the Earth as 6,000 years. They literally believe in Adam and Eve (without navels) and all the dinosaurs on Day 1, fossilization taking only a few hundred years, and all major geologic features having been created in a few days in Noah's Flood. They reject evolution, cosmology, geology, and every science that supports them; which, by extension, eventually includes every scientific discipline. However, in their minds, they don't reject them at all; they fully embrace completely wrong, misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misrepresented versions of them. Their worldview is based absolutely on the Bible as a perfect, unerring, literal historical account. As a followup, they have invented their own versions of natural sciences that they pretend supports this view. Oh, and they know for a fact that Osama Bin Obama is a kenyan muslim. I had a fantasy the other night which sadly might not be as far-fetched as it seemed at first glance. If things continue to go the way that the Fox News-es of the world are nudging us, I could see the day when the states on the West Coast (California, Oregon and Washington) band together with a few states from the Eastern seaboard to threaten the idea of secession. Without the tax support of California (the 8th or 9th largest economy in the world) many of the inbred states (think Kentucky, Mississippi, etc.) would be thrust into true 3rd world poverty. And without the tax dollars of these wealthier (better educated) states, the inbred portion of the country would be unable to survive. Perhaps then they might think differently of their insistence on "enlightening" the rest of us about their flat earth beliefs. Here's a rank of the world's 18 largest economies: 1 United States of America 14,119,000 2 Japan 5,068,996 3 People's Republic of China 4,985,461[2][3] 4 Germany 3,330,032 5 France 2,649,390[4] 6 United Kingdom 2,174,530 7 Brazil 2,087,890 8 Italy 2,051,412 9 California 1,911,822 10 Spain 1,460,250 11 Canada 1,336,068 12 India 1,310,171 13 Russia 1,231,893 14 Texas 1,158,194 15 New York 1,078,161 16 Australia 924,843 17 Mexico 874,902 18 South Korea 832,512 1 Quote Link to comment
ArchieBunker Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 It is not bullshit. If one checks the so called economic indicators, the economy has improved since Jan 2009. The employment rate is better now than in Jan 2009, when Obama was sworn in. As for anyone who happens to fall into any of the examples you gave, there are people living in those circumstances during any administration. I'd like to think most people can see the big picture and not be as obtuse as you describe them to be. Any folks who are in any of the extreme situations that you described and blame it all on Obama, and think that Romney is going to improve their life, deserve to be called stupid, because they are. You happen to live in one of the most anti-Obama states in the country, and if the rest of the country thought like that, then yes Romney would win in a landslide. Fortunately enough of the rest of the country does not think like most people in your neck of the woods. I hvae had loads of problems logging in so I havent been able to get in on the fun. Have no idea whats going on. Perhaps a Commie conspiracy to have me silenced :=). I will give youse an analogy about how bad things were when Obama took over. Its true but I could make a case (and Ol Arch IS that old) that the economic mess was just as bad if not WORSE in 1981. Check out the GDP numbers. hisatoically, the deeper the recession the more acute the recovery. This recovery has been piss poor. Obamas next annual GDP of over 3% will be his first. When was the last time we had GDP growth of OVER 4% and whe did the govt has it yearlt RECORD HIGH tax receipts?? But you know Washington is so disfunctional it never met a program it didnt like to expand. The analogy is this: Obama took over a football team that was 2-14. He did make all sorts of promises of what he would do and what he would achieve and has fallen woefully short of his promises. Now, you could blame the Rascally R's in the House but thats bogus as Obama had BOTH houses in his first 2 years and did fuck all. He took a 2-14 team and AFTER 3 YEARS he improved it to 6-10. NOT GOOD ENOUGH. He railed about gas prices and, guess what, they are higer than when he took over. inflation is higher. He turned down the chance to build the pipeline from Canada and is doing his best to thwart attemts to expoilt the Baaken oil and gas fields in the Dakotas. Why he has taken this tact makes no sense at all. The unemployent rate is the same but lets take into account at all the folks who have TOTALLY left the search. The real rate is much higher. Its not good enough and the 20-30% in the middle dont think so either..... Quote Link to comment
ArchieBunker Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I disagree PD...Bookmakers don't care who wins...As i understand how a bookmaker works their trade they make their money either way...That's why they set the odds to convince folks to bet on both sides of the wager...They get all the loses plus a percentage of the winnings..The vig...A 50/50 for and against waged contest is a perfect scenario for them...If the money starts to move too far in one direction they change the odds and start laying off the bets...If they are smart (which I suppose most of them are or they would be broke) they can't lose no matter who wins the election or the game... this is not really true, Kahuna. The nature of bookmaking has changed the past 10-15 years. Wont bore you with the details. The books can make a nice living eating up the vig thats certain. usually the public bets the "chalk' ie the favorties so the books are alwasy rooting for the underdogs. Quote Link to comment
ArchieBunker Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I have seen similar polls from outside the USA....seems like the only people who don't know that Romney is a complete fool live inside our borders! You guys who don't come from here, you have to realize; we have a very large bible belt here, Red States with people who would never vote for the black, Muslim, Kenyan {?} guy in a million years. So when you are seeing the overall popular polls, they may look screwy at pretty much 50/50 but you have to understand that places like Texas and Alabama and Tennessee, Missouri, etc.... have large populations! Those people will always vote republican no matter who it is and will always vote against the black guy, that's a given and it's about half the country. 2 more things; first, this major storm which I am seeing outside my window as I type this has a few variable involved, but it won't actually affect the actual physical vote as It will be over a week before the real voting begins. How it will help or hurt Obama is when there are actual disasters and loss of life and shelter and power, etc,....and there will be......and a lot will depend on how he handles it all. There are still a lot of undecided people out there, and if he looks presidential this week and puts out all the proverbial fires in a timely manner this storm could be just the thing that puts him over the top. Of course, if he handles it badly, well.......... Lastly, the electoral college looks good for Obama right now. He pretty much just needs to win Ohio and maybe one or 2 other swing states like Iowa and Wisconsin and he has it wrapped up even if he loses Florida and Virginia and North Carolina. Obama supporters like myself focus more on those numbers than on the overall national polls, which really means not too much on election day. Remember; in another election which was just as close as this one, Gore won the popular vote but ended up losing to that illiterate Texan because he lost the electoral college. This time the outcome could be exactly the opposite. Ahh yes the Electoral cCollege. You do know JD that had Gore carried his home state, he would have won. The Florida drama would never have happened. I think we will know rather early what way this might go. If Romney were to win Pennsylvannia or Michigan he wins. Its akin to Obama winning Ohio. Those 2 states are, indeed, in play. You could come up with a scenario where Romney loses Ohio and still wins but its far fetched. The first time I did my own Electoral Map months ago, it ended up as a tie!! LOL!!! Romney had been an underdog all the way and I have wagered some shekels. At one time he was a 3-1 dog and that was nuts. No way and I jumped on those odds. He is stil a dog. The last time I looked it was like +150. I think some of these polls are bullshit and here is why. Now this is according to GALLUP so its not some crazy source. I remember the 2008 election and there was a palpable buzz about Obama. his side was WAAAAAY motivated after 8 years of Bush 43. In 2008, Democrats out outvoted Republicans 54-42. BTW these are "self desribed" affiliations. In 2004, it was 48-48. Bush got enough of a trunout to win and Ohio was the key. in 2010, there was a complete turnaround: R 49 D 46!!! We saw what happened. It was one of the worst bloodbaths in the House ever if not the worst!!! There are many indications that the turnout will be rather even for 2012. If its even, omney wins. Many of the polls have been based on flawed turnout models ie they overcounted Democrats. What are the reason for this?? Who knows but I have my ideas. I think Romney wins and the Dems reatin the Senate then the R's can whine about obstructionism.....boo fucking hoo and... WHOP DEE DOOOOOOOOO PS Pigdogg get in touch!!!!!!!!!! JD has a new e mail address for ol arch!!! Quote Link to comment
deepthroat Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Arch, a more legitimate analogy would be that Obama was installed as coach by a huge majority of the teams' owners, but 1/2 of the players were actually working for a different team and spent 4 years purposely undermining every effort coach Obama and his players made to turn the team around. Their only goal was to ensure that the Obama presidency would be viewed as a failure. They weren't interested in solutions, only in obstructing and then blaming the president and the other 50% of the players that were actively working to solve problems. How else do you explain things like Republicans that worked on creating bills or sponsoring bills but then voting against the very same bills to ensure that the President wouldn't get any "credit"? The very notion of obstructing to ensure the president is vilified at the obvious cost of significant damage to the country is reprehensible. Many of these cowards should be charged with treason. And what of a presidential candidate who installed "Obamacare" in his state when he was governor and touted it's benefits, but now spends every pub opp pretending that "Obamacare" is the root of all evil? Who is willing to say most anything in order to up his chances of winning, even pretending that things he spoke for 3-6 months ago were never said? 1 Quote Link to comment
Kahuna Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 this is not really true, Kahuna. The nature of bookmaking has changed the past 10-15 years. That's where I live Arch..10-15 years past...Thanks for trying to bring me into the present... My apology to Khun PDogg... Quote Link to comment
pdogg Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 Whether the bookie merely balances the action or slightly tilts things in a calculated risk to increase profits is somewhat tangential. My point is that according to efficient market theory, the bookie's odds should be fairly close to the true odds since guys in the know will exploit price inefficiencies. Not suggesting Axelrod is making bets with London books but inside info does leak out. OTOH journalists and other pundits don't have any skin in the game and write stories that sound good. Quote Link to comment
pacman Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 I will give youse an analogy about how bad things were when Obama took over. Its true but I could make a case (and Ol Arch IS that old) that the economic mess was just as bad if not WORSE in 1981. Check out the GDP numbers. hisatoically, the deeper the recession the more acute the recovery. This recovery has been piss poor. Thank you Archie for raising the debt problems faced by Obama when he took office. There has never been a greater crisis faced by any incoming President & to compare the situation to 1981 is to misunderstand the situation entirely. All those voters who intend to send a message to Obama that he hasn't done his job & hasn't brought the economy out of recession have absolutely no idea of the extent of the problem & their "good intentions" are in vain. The first thing that Obama would have been told is that the banking system was broken. Not just the US banking system but the total banking system around the world. His first task was to stop it all collapsing. It still may not be savable but it had to be propped up with new liquidity to avoid a massive collapse of global markets. The US Federal Reserve didn't just bail out US banks, they took responsibility for all major banks who have been caught up holding the derivative trades that have entangled the entire world money supply. The deregulation of the banking system by the NeoCons who ran the place during Dubya's reign saw the bankers go mad with CDO's & ETC's & other derivative deals which are so entwined that no one can ever unwind them. The total value of these contracts is estimated in the 100's of trillion dollars. I saw someone put a figure of 1.000 times (or was it 10,000 times?) the entire world GDP. They represent a huge threat to every countries national security but just how they are dealt with is still being decided. Obama assembled a team of economic heavyweights to advise on what needed doing but some of the most important reforms were blocked in Washington by Republicans with an agenda to discredit the President. And now they have the nerve to label Obama a failure because the economy is still bad. There is no simple fix & the recovery is going to take a long time. Voting for Romney isn't suddenly going to make it all go away. And by putting a Republican back in the White House is like giving a fox the keys to the hen house. Romney won't make decisions unilaterally, he will be advised by those who caused the problem in the first place. Along with the banking community who have pledged millions to his campaign. And their first consideration won't be people on food stamps. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lefty Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 I hvae had loads of problems logging in so I havent been able to get in on the fun. Have no idea whats going on. Perhaps a Commie conspiracy to have me silenced :=). I will give youse an analogy about how bad things were when Obama took over. Its true but I could make a case (and Ol Arch IS that old) that the economic mess was just as bad if not WORSE in 1981. Check out the GDP numbers. hisatoically, the deeper the recession the more acute the recovery. This recovery has been piss poor. Obamas next annual GDP of over 3% will be his first. When was the last time we had GDP growth of OVER 4% and whe did the govt has it yearlt RECORD HIGH tax receipts?? But you know Washington is so disfunctional it never met a program it didnt like to expand. The analogy is this: Obama took over a football team that was 2-14. He did make all sorts of promises of what he would do and what he would achieve and has fallen woefully short of his promises. Now, you could blame the Rascally R's in the House but thats bogus as Obama had BOTH houses in his first 2 years and did fuck all. He took a 2-14 team and AFTER 3 YEARS he improved it to 6-10. NOT GOOD ENOUGH. He railed about gas prices and, guess what, they are higer than when he took over. inflation is higher. He turned down the chance to build the pipeline from Canada and is doing his best to thwart attemts to expoilt the Baaken oil and gas fields in the Dakotas. Why he has taken this tact makes no sense at all. The unemployent rate is the same but lets take into account at all the folks who have TOTALLY left the search. The real rate is much higher. Its not good enough and the 20-30% in the middle dont think so either..... From what I've read, it was only about 5 months that congress was actually in session during the time the Dems had a majority. I don't recall that the Dems ever had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Your analogy is worthless, because a POTUS does not have the same amount of control as the coach of a football team does. Quote Link to comment
SiamSam Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 You intellectuals make me dizzy. Especially you Lefty since you have that added musky sexual allure. My big yummy, bunny. Quote Link to comment
pdogg Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Nate Silver's New York Times 538 gives Obama a 91% chance of winning? Fox News call it dead even. Who to believe? I'd bet on Obama using Fox's odds and Romney using Silver's. But I do believe Silver is doing his best to be objective. Quote Link to comment
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