the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

Have there been any past instances of an entire political party just deciding to shamelessly shill for a private corporation? Maybe they should declare FedEx Appreciation Day and every right winger will have to spend $20 to send their mail.

Of course politicians are bought and paid for by private corporations all the time. I mean for consumer-level products, the "Here's a picture of me buying this product and loving it! If you are a real American you will do the same!"

if people had to spend $20 to send mail the USPS wouldn't be in such bad shape

Does FedEx deliver gay packages?

everytime I see his name, I pray he's gone back to his important work on baseball.

Why, what's he done wrong?

Incurred the wrath of morbz, to begin with

The jobs report is about what was forecasted yesterday--and, as iatee pointed out, the unemployment rate edged up because more people re-entered the labour force.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/in-july-jobs-report-something-for-everyone/

Last time, the Republicans seized on the fact that whatever the unemployment rate was, it was actually much worse because of all the people who'd given up looking for a job and weren't counted. I'm guessing they will not point out this time that the increase is deceptive because people have resumed looking. It goes on.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/08/02/porn-star-jenna-jameson-endorses-romney-as-candidate-for-rich-in-sf/

Adult film star Jenna Jameson. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
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Barack Obama, Election, Government, Jenna Jameson, Mitt Romeny, politics, Porn Star, San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Porn star Jenna Jameson chose a familiar stage to make her endorsement for the 2012 presidential election Thursday night. At a San Francisco strip club, the former adult actress and stage performer said she was ready for a Romney presidency.

“I’m very looking forward to a Republican being back in office,” Jameson said while sipping champagne in a VIP room at Gold Club in the city’s South of Market neighborhood. “When you’re rich, you want a Republican in office.”

Ron Jeremy endorsed Barack tho

man I miss those old Gold Club billboards

all this sound n fury re job reports and gdp reports and other reports is a bit misplaced imho, while how people feel abt jobs the economy and other things is super important to the election i really dont think these reports are the same thing as how people feel, especially since there are a million different ones all the time

what matters is how Victor Davis Hanson feels.

will only officially be a huge deal if the number is negative. people are too stupid to parse all these numbers. especially since the real unemployment/underemployment/u6 number is always ignored anyway.

no individual number is important, trends are tho

and fwiw i dont really think having little interest in parsing each unemployment number is really a stupid approach

It's not that people are too stupid – it's who cares? What matters is whether I or someone I know is unemployed.

if its someone who i hate thats unemployed then for sure the president is getting my vote

will only officially be a huge deal if the number is negative

Agree. If the array of monthly numbers lurches along as is, Romney's ineptitude and taxes and all the rest will remain front and center.

the numbers have been basically treading water forever which is fine for obama, tho not actually fine irl

re washingtons indifference to mass unemployment http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/why-washington-accepts-mass-unemployment.html

God, I would let Joe Biden eat my non-essential organs if it meant that 2% of the defense budget would be transferred to building fast trains and fast internet infrastructure for the next decade.

is that a thing Joe Biden does?

well you never know until you ask

more http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/08/job_growth_s_been_stalled_for_18_months_and_nobody_s_doing_anything_about_it_.html

idk I'm just saying, I don't really have a lot else to offer, my money and my vote wouldn't mean much in the scheme of things, but if Joe Biden hungers for human kidneys I have an extra one xpx

appendix too, u dont need that right

basically treading water forever

Take a look at Gallup's approval rating starting in about December 2009--except for one noticably bad patch a year ago, it's practically a flat line.

ya its all sort of odd

http://i.imgur.com/XhShZ.png

its funny how romney had to come out and say this, what a world

It's interesting looking at the approval ratings for all the post-war presidents:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx

The most volatile seem to be Bush I and Carter. Reagan's is quite steady through two full terms. Nixon's steady, then, surprise, falls off a cliff. LBJ is one long decline. With Obama, it's like the people who talked themselves into giving him a chance bailed after a year, and hardly anyone's changed his mind since.

its funny how romney had to come out and say this, what a world

Romney takin the bait there

his incompetence as a candidate is kind of breathtaking

he's pretty firmly on the Dukakis/Kerry end of the scale

MA hasn't been able to generate a good Presidential politician since the Kennedy assassinations

more http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/08/job_growth_s_been_stalled_for_18_months_and_nobody_s_doing_anything_about_it_.html

― lag∞n, Friday, August 3, 2012 2:07 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i only skimmed this quickly, but it seems like in asking the question Yg isn't willing to 'go there' and say why.

frankly i think the investor/owner/banker class (and the fed governors whose mental world almost entirely overlaps with them) have political motivations. there is mountains of sidelined cash and no meaningful capital investment. the fed has a bunch of tricks that remain unpulled, even as it makes a mockery of half of its dual mandate. why? the answer sort of comes out as "idk, the time just isn't right." what's, uh, unique about this particular time?

we've got a world historical drought going, harvests in the fall are going to be dire and food prices are going to go haywire. the last rounds of QE had the effect of increasing commodity prices (for reasons i don't quite get tbh) so it's another good excuse to do nothing.

no doubt that sounds conspiratorial but jesus you have outright lunatics being taken seriously as interpreters of our political economy. that guy getting jonah goldberg's email might be flipping through resumes next, feel me?

I don't know if it has to be a conscious-level conspiracy but I think the fed is prob a little too isolated from the suffering of long-term unemployed ppl. the interest groups who have the most to gain are pretty far from political sphere. its as true in health care as monetary policy.

from the political sphere

ie old people and rich people both hate inflation and think our health care system is great

or Romney can listen to Mark Steyn:

Re: Put Up or Shut Up

By Mark Steyn

Sorry, Katrina, that Romney response seems weak tea to me. For a start, what’s with all the “Harry this” and “Harry that” stuff? Why maintain a pretense of cozy clubbability when some slug’s defaming you? He should call him “Reid”, and with a curled lip. Mitt is Mister Cautious, and I can understand that to a degree when you’re dealing with Obama and everything you say risks shrieks of “Racist!”, but if you can’t be rude about a seedy, unloved, timeserving hack like Reid, who can you be rude about?

can't wait for Romney's curled lip to scare Dems into voting for him.

It's interesting looking at the approval ratings for all the post-war presidents

dang folks really did Like Ike

have you guys read any good journalism in recent years on the Fed?

"seedy, unloved, timeserving hack" true enough but he came through your shitstorm with a smile didn't he

political reporters for obvious reasons shroud it in mystery.

have you guys read any good journalism in recent years on the Fed?

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 3, 2012 3:53 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well there was this one macro i saw on facebook

alfred you could try to follow some of the dissident finance blogs but it's hard going and i never know who is batshit, frankly.

yves smith, but she's kind of more-greenwald-than-greenwald as a writer

zerohedge is a little too ron pauly but i think hoos reps for them?

treading water

All the invest bankers and traders at my work, regardless of party affiliation, feel like nothing major's going to happen until after the election; the rich and the corps w/stagnant capital aren't going to undo their purse strings until they know what's what.

alfred you could try to follow some of the dissident finance blogs but it's hard going and i never know who is batshit, frankly

this is the problem

i read ritholtz but i follow so little of it i don't know why i bother.

it's like, finance shit i don't get, left-field analysis i don't get, old meme, dadrock, car porn, finance shit i don't get, bizarre political analysis, etc.