Beyond the bounce

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Bill Glasheen
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Beyond the bounce

Post by Bill Glasheen »

I'm a data guy, and also do predictive modeling. Naturally I love looking at data and "reading the tea leaves." Human pattern recognition often helps with seeing if your computer models are working, or measuring artifact.

Traditionally a party gets a "bounce" in popularity after their respective convention. The bounce in some cases can be large enough to propell that party past the convention to the White House. From the looks of past conventions, you can see that in some cases the party got a convincing message across, whereas in other cases the situation was hopeless or otherwise eclipsed by the other party's effort.

Hopefully these plots will come through. They come from WSJ.com; I have an online subscription to The Journal. Maybe you'll be able to read these, and maybe not. Let me know.

I'll let the data speak for themselves. 8)

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Oh my... :)

Remember - presidents are picked by electoral votes, and not by popular vote. And polls have a margin of error that obviously was significant in the last election.

The real battle is happening in half a dozen states where the outcome is not yet predetermined.

- Bill
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RACastanet
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Post by RACastanet »

Thanks Bill. I like what I see!

Rich
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IJ
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Post by IJ »

I'm in process of buying a house. As things turn out, in San Diego, they don't come cheap. At least for married couples, one spouse can rely on automatically inheriting the other's share in the event of a death. I've learned that for either of us, the other's death will mean living in our own house will count as a "gift," and not only will we have to pay capitol gains on our own bedroom and kitchen, we'd have our taxes reassessed on the home's higher future value. The reason: marriage just has to be protected.

This is just one of the little benefits that comes with baseless, deliberately divisive social policies and is a good example of the veneer of pleasantries that covers the $hit that makes up Bush's policies. Everywhere you look, from environment, to strong armed intelligence manipulated on the basis of personal beliefs, to environmental policies, tax lies, Big Brother policies justified by keeping us all at orange alert, this guy just strikes me as an a$$hole. I wish they'd found someone inspiring to run against him, but no such look.

Oh well, either we'll get sick of being stepped on or at least Fox news will convince us it's all for our own good.

Oh shouldn't gore and bush be essentially superimposed at the end?
--Ian
benzocaine
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Post by benzocaine »

It doesn't seem fair that it's like that Ian. One would think it could be viewed as an investment that two partners could buy together. There is hardly any investment better than real estate. In 4 years I've seen my house appreciate almost 20 thousand dollars in value. In business, the general partnership (unless otherwise agreed upon) works on the premise that the survivor asumes all of the business' assets (and debts :roll: ). After all, that's what it is when husband and wife buy a house together: a partnership.

Best of luck.
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Panther
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Post by Panther »

But Ian, I thought Californication was sooooooo enlightened! At least that's what the hollywierd folks keep claiming. But it appears you'd be better off staying in Massachusetts than going to California...

Regardless, As I've previously said, I don't see what business government has in this ANYWAY.

IANALAIDNPOOTV, BUT... I don't see why this wouldn't work. You and your future spouse should form a business partnership as a 50/50 corporation that owns everything and states that the survivor gets the items to continue the "corporation". If you are equal partners in a private, two-person REIT that owns the house and one passes away, then the house doesn't stop being owned by the REIT. Then have the "corporate by-laws" state that in the event of either's demise, their shares in the REIT revert to the REIT and are controlled by the REIT. Then any taxes are avoided until the property is sold, in which case the same thing applies to any married couple.
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Ian

As the famous saying goes...

* If you are young and you aren't a Communist, you have no heart.

* If you are older and you are a Communist, you have no mind.

Believe it or not, Ian, you are on your way to shifting political views. Everyone votes their self interest, more or less. If you start making any amount of money, the reality of progressive taxation begins to bite you in the arse. It just hits you a little differently due to your nontraditional family status.

I'm with Panther here; you need some creative financial advice. My dad made quite a nice living as a stock broker and financial adviser helping people build a nest egg and keeping Uncle Sam from snatching it away.

Do your own taxes, guy, and you'll get more and more pissed off every year.

- Bill
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Post by IJ »

Interesting financial advice and I'll look into it. Thanks... Neither of us have any plans on dying luckily. I've already paid some grande taxes... it's not the end of the world. Surely I'd rather keep it, especially considering that it was 23 years of training in the making. But I'd rather pay slightly higher taxes and live under someone whose policies didn't make me ill. Oh well.
--Ian
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Things aren't always what they seem, Ian.

Cheney breaks rank on same-sex marriage

That's Mr. Ultra Conservative, mind you.

Within or outside the traditional parties, there's much room for individuals to influence.

- Bill
benzocaine
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Post by benzocaine »

Do your own taxes, guy, and you'll get more and more pissed off every year.
Yeah.

Especially in the future when our children and we have to pay for the huge defecit that's being run up.
The current administration is like a shopaholic with a platinum visa. Spend spend spend. Like my parents have always told me don't buy anything you can't pay for.
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

No arguments.

In the 2000 election, my son's homework assignment was to find out who mom and dad voted for. I told my son to tell the teacher that dad voted for gridlock. I don't know that the teacher understood... ;)

I'm a fiscal conservative. However barring any people on a ticket (like Edwards) that I couldn't possibly vote for, I think the best scenario is a Republican Congress and a Democratic president. Republicans won't legislate spending in general, and Democrates will veto pet Republican spending projects. At the end of the day, you have less government spending.

Dynamic tension can be a good thing... :)

- Bill
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Panther
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Post by Panther »

Bill Glasheen wrote:In the 2000 election, my son's homework assignment was to find out who mom and dad voted for. I told my son to tell the teacher that dad voted for gridlock. I don't know that the teacher understood... ;)
:x :evil: :twisted:

While I understand your reply, the truth is that this is exactly why some teachers shouldn't have tenure. The proper response would be to have a "conference" with the school board, the superintendant of the system, the principal AND the teacher to tell the teacher in front of everyone that there is a reason we have private ballot elections in this country! Then tell them that if they disagree, perhaps you could have ALL of their votes for political offices published in the local paper, otherwise, the teacher should be sanctioned at the very least. IT IS NONE OF THE TEACHER'S effin BUSINESS! You see, we can all discuss politics all we want, but if someone who argues one way actually votes another way and is basically being a "devil's advocate" in these discussions, that's only their business. I know people who I'm close with who can sit in a room of Democrats and spout the party-line all night, but if you know them, you know they're not voting for that party come election day! AND, I know people who can spout the Republican party-line on issues all night and there is no way in hades they would ever vote for any Republican! In fact, some of them are my relatives. Pfffft! :P

This type of question to students ranks right up there with the socialist agenda being taught by some teachers... despicable...

:cry:
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Yep.. That was my reaction. It was the reason why I gave an obtuse answer. :twisted:

I think the teacher meant well.

- Bill
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Post by IJ »

I think teacher could appropriately ask students to ask their parent's voting with them. That's a great way to bring kids into the political process. Expecting to discuss this in class is quite another matter.

There's an article on Salon.com about the Bush administration's spending habits. In it a Reagan conservative suggests voting for Kerry to at least neutralize spending proposals a bit more often (a la Bill's vote). Excerpt:

============
"Even Bush's conservative sycophants have trouble finding policies to praise. Certainly it cannot be federal spending. In 2000 candidate Bush complained that Al Gore would "throw the budget out of balance." But the big-spending Bush administration and GOP Congress have turned a 10-year budget surplus once estimated at $5.6 trillion into an estimated $5 trillion flood of red ink. This year's deficit will run about $445 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation reports that in 2003 "government spending exceeded $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II." There are few programs at which the president has not thrown money; he has supported massive farm subsidies, an expensive new Medicare drug benefit, thousands of pork barrel projects, dubious homeland security grants, an expansion of Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps, and new foreign aid programs. What's more, says former conservative Republican Rep. Bob Barr, "in the midst of the war on terror and $500 billion deficits, [Bush] proposes sending spaceships to Mars."

Unfortunately, even the official spending numbers understate the problem. The Bush administration is pushing military proposals that may understate defense costs by $500 billion over the coming decade. The administration lied about the likely cost of the Medicare drug benefit, which added $8 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Moreover, it declined to include in budget proposals any numbers for maintaining the occupation of Iraq or underwriting the war on terrorism. Those funds will come through supplemental appropriation bills. Never mind that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had promised that reconstruction of Iraq could be paid for with Iraqi resources. (Yet, despite the Bush administration's generosity, it could not find the money to expeditiously equip U.S. soldiers in Iraq with body armor.)"
==================

It's nice to see Cheney breaking rank (in a sort of wishy washy, Kerry kind of way--what would we think of a politician who in 1964 suggested that civil rights of black people ought to be left to the states??). I'd say it's only because he has a gay daughter which forced the issue, but that's really to his credit in a way. Standing against gay rights correlates with knowing next to nothing about them, so its not surprising when a conservative who's been spoonfed nonsense about the end of culture has to face a jarring contradiction between the imagined enemy and the face of a kid grabbing milk out of the fridge. The name Goldwater comes to mind as well. It means they can learn, at least. But while I know Cheney's kind of in a tough spot on this (how's he really gonna tackle the boss?) it's not enough. Plus the man has other faults.

As for Bush, this pretty much sums up his public presence (again from Salon, in an article about the Bush biography "The Family"):

"But, as one of W.'s Yalie frat brothers tells Kelley, it's not the substance abuse in Bush's past that's disturbing, it's the "lack of substance ... Georgie, as we called him, had absolutely no intellectual curiosity about anything. He wasn't interested in ideas or in books or causes. He didn't travel; he didn't read the newspapers; he didn't watch the news; he didn't even go to the movies. How anyone got out of Yale without developing some interest in the world besides booze and sports stuns me." New Yorker writer Brendan Gill recalls roaming the Kennebunkport compound one night while staying there looking for a book to read -- the only title he could find was "The Fart Book.""
--Ian
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Once again, the Bush lack of intelligence argument doesn't hold water. We've discussed this on another thread. It was Bush who got into the number 1 MBA program in the country (Harvard) and did quite well. And it was Kerry who could not get into his preferred law school, and ended up having to go to Boston College. Kerry's ponderous, meandering discussions give the less enlightened the illusion of intelligence. If you actually bother to listen, you hear more vascillation and inability to commit to a point of view than substance. For a politician, that pattern could be considered a gift. :)

An inability to be a great public speaker - and Bush most certainly has his issues - may or may not be a reflection of one's overall intelligence. And like a cat who refuses to fetch, someone who doesn't do what you want or see the world the way you view it (or care to pretend they do) is not necessarily unintelligent for being so.

For those of us who lived through those times, recreational substance abuse was intentionally all about dumbing down. :silly:

- Bill
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