The 2012 US Election

[Holbytla]

If you're not employed and not trying to change that, they don't count you as unemployed. This keeps retirees, stay-at-home parents, people in school, and the disabled out of the bin (can you imagine what the unemployment number at any given time under any given economic conditions would look like if it included students and retirees, especially now that the Boomers are retiring??).

I get all of that, but they need to also include the people that literally have given up and decided to either collect unemployment until it runs out or just live with someone because jobs are just not available to them, the poor shmucks that join the military part time, even though they are employed for a brief period of time, and the people scamming the system and collecting Welfare.

Yeah you can get a read on what is going on in general terms, but really those low rate fluctuations are meaningless and are within the margins of error.

Pick a number that suits you today regarding the number of unemployed or the percent of unemployed or the job rate. Are any of those numbers pleasing if you have been on hard times and can't feed the family or adequately shelter them?

Are those numbers pleasing at all? The numbers sucked 6 years ago, 5 years ago, 4 years ago and they suck today. I don't care who caused what. The numbers suck for someone trying to live in the US in today's world.
That's what I got out of the report.

[yovargas]

but really those low rate fluctuations are meaningless and are within the margins of error.

Individually, sure, but not if those fluctuations continuously are moving in one direction.

Pick a number that suits you today regarding the number of unemployed or the percent of unemployed or the job rate. Are any of those numbers pleasing if you have been on hard times and can't feed the family or adequately shelter them?

If my chances of getting a decent job are going up, of course they are.

[Primula Baggins]

The unemployment rate went up last month because the number of people trying for jobs went up, holby.

[Holbytla]

Nope still not understanding this.
My limited understanding still tells me that while the economy may be growing, there is a less of a chance becoming employed because there are more people looking for jobs even though the market is apparently increasing.

I'm not trying to be obstinate. I simply don't get how the unemployment rate can reduce one month and be a good sign, and then increase the next month and be a good sign.

Loads of people are still wanting jobs which they can't get.

[Túrin Turambar]

Based on Facebook likes, an analysis of the connection between movies and music and politics.

Obvious strong correlation between Passion of the Christ and Atlas Shrugged and voting for Governor Romney. No clear similiar correlation for Democratic voters, however - some of it simple appears to be a side-effect of younger voters preferring both certain music and movies and being more likely to vote for the President.

[axordil]

Those are fun charts, L_M, thanks for linking.

Nate Silver's column on employment, unemployment, and election results is useful: http://t.co/o5Nqa3oV

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Silver now has the president's reelection chances back up to 83.7%.

[N.E. Brigand]

Do you (any you) think that will influence anyone's vote?

If there's anyone who can be influenced at this point, I think that ad may give them pause. It is an entirely just rebuke of a man who said today, when asked whether he thinks rising oceans are funny, that he did not -- but there he was on television, smirking as he delivered that line to the convention in August. It reminds me of this:

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

Well, we can hope.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I would like to think that it might make a difference, but I suspect that for the tiny percentage of people who have not already made up their minds, climate change is probably not a high priority. I could be wrong.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Up to 85.1%. Almost all the way back to where it was before the Denver Debate (the high was 87.1%).

[vison]

Mr. Romney is not half the man Scrooge was. Scrooge was changed by what he saw on that amazing ride through life. He saw he had been wrong. Maybe not changed as much as restored.

Whereas. Whereas Mitt Romney is the Hollow Man. He is put in a box each night and polished up and groomed, teeth rewhitened, garments starched. The platitudes he he has been taught to think of as principles and ideals swim in a pious stew of ignorance and half-baked religiosity. Like a handsome fake-patinaed weathercock, he bursts from some chamber onto a stage, smiling that smile and rubbing his hands together.

He has done and is doing what he was built to do. Please his father? I don't know. But the thought of him and the legions
like him steering your nation further to some brass-plated hell, where success is defined only by money . . is sickening.

I am getting tired and will stop now.

[vison]

Mr. Romney is not half the man Scrooge was. Scrooge was changed by what he saw on that amazing ride through life. He saw he had been wrong. Maybe not changed as much as restored.

Whereas. Whereas Mitt Romney is the Hollow Man. He is put in a box each night and polished up and groomed, teeth rewhitened, garments starched. The platitudes he he has been taught to think of as principles and ideals swim in a pious stew of ignorance and half-baked religiosity. Like a handsome fake-patinaed weathercock, he bursts from some chamber onto a stage, smiling that smile and rubbing his hands together.

He has done and is doing what he was built to do. Please his father? I don't know. But the thought of him and the legions
like him steering your nation further to some brass-plated hell, where success is defined only by money . . is sickening.

I am getting tired and will stop now.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Do you (any you) think that will influence anyone's vote?

If there's anyone who can be influenced at this point, I think that ad may give them pause. It is an entirely just rebuke of a man who said today, when asked whether he thinks rising oceans are funny, that he did not -- but there he was on television, smirking as he delivered that line to the convention in August. It reminds me of this:

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

Well, we can hope.

I think this MoveOn.org ad featuring Alec Baldwin is more likely to be effective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDA9KGc8 ... r_embedded

[Holbytla]

I think the likelihood of the candidates or campaigns themselves doing or saying anything at this point to nudge someone in one direction or the other is about nil. About the only thing that will accomplish anything now is rallying people to actually vote.

I highly doubt that we will see a different makeup of Washington on Wednesday morning. Obama will win (though with a somewhat smaller margin of victory) and both houses of Congress will retain the majorities that they do now.

We'll see what is on the agenda over the next 2-4 years, but I don't expect a lot to change.

[River]

Maybe some of the gridlock in Congress will loosen up just because, having failed to deprive Obama of a second term, what else can the Legislative Branch do but legislate. Or maybe I hope for too much.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think the likelihood of the candidates or campaigns themselves doing or saying anything at this point to nudge someone in one direction or the other is about nil. About the only thing that will accomplish anything now is rallying people to actually vote.

I highly doubt that we will see a different makeup of Washington on Wednesday morning. Obama will win (though with a somewhat smaller margin of victory) and both houses of Congress will retain the majorities that they do now.

We'll see what is on the agenda over the next 2-4 years, but I don't expect a lot to change.

The irony is that if things don't change, then a lot will change quite quickly. Two things will happen in the beginning of 2013 if the parties don't reach an agreement to act otherwise. First, the so-called Bush tax cuts will expire, raising taxes for everyone, but also generating some much needed additional revenue to stem the deficit crisis. And the so-called sequestration automatic spending cuts will kick in, including unprecedented cuts in defense spending. I know most economists claim that allowing this to happen will be the equivalent of going over a fiscal cliff, sending the economy back into recession and all sorts of mean and nasty things. I don't buy it. Or rather, if it happens, it will be because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, caused more by the panic generated by all the dire predictions rather than the inherent negative effects of raising taxes and cutting spending. I think it is probably more likely that the "grand bargain" that President Obama and Speaker Boehner were discussing previously will be reincarnated, to the howls of protest from both ends of the political spectrum.

[axordil]

The lame duck session will be interesting in any case. Whatever happens will involve at least some people who have nothing to lose by doing whatever it is one does when one has nothing to lose.

[River]

The lame duck session will be interesting in any case. Whatever happens will involve at least some people who have nothing to lose by doing whatever it is one does when one has nothing to lose.

Vindicating the choices of the voters, maybe.

[Dave_LF]

I like this a lot:

The case that Obama is a great president

In a nutshell, they argue that Obama's big achievement has been to make incremental motion toward rational policy despite overwhelming opposition from the other party and half-hearted support from his own.

I decided to support Barack Obama pretty early in the Democratic primary, around spring of 2007. But unlike so many of his supporters, I never experienced a kind of emotional response to his candidacy. I never felt his election would change everything about American politics or government, that it would lead us out of the darkness. Nothing Obama did or said ever made me well up with tears.

Possibly for that same reason, I have never felt even a bit of the crushing sense of disappointment that at various times has enveloped so many Obama voters. I supported Obama because I judged him to have a keen analytical mind, grasping both the possibilities and the limits of activist government, and possessed of excellent communicative talents. I thought he would nudge government policy in an incrementally better direction. I consider his presidency an overwhelming success.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's one of the best articles about Obama that I have seen (since it pretty much expresses my own opinion).