Stephen Colbert on MSNBC’s Morning Joe – YouTube

Stephen Colbert on MSNBC’s Morning Joe – YouTube.

Gosh, I could watch this a dozen times.

Morning Joe Charts on Government Printing and Buying Money – Steve Rattner

StevenRattner.com: Morning Joe Charts: Fed
Morning Joe Charts: Fed

Posted: 20 Jun 2013 11:55 AM PDT

If you have time I recommend watching the video by clicking on the link below.

On yesterday’s Morning Joe, Steven Rattner discusses the growing number of bonds purchased by the Fed in its efforts to stimulate the economy. He shows how markets have reacted to Ben Bernanke’s pronouncements that the Fed will begin tapering down its bond-buying program should the economy continue to improve. Click here to view the video.

(Note: Red bulls-eyes on the last chart indicate statements made by Bernanke.)

The three dots in the chart above represent times when Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has spoken publicly. The most recent example of this showed some short term turmoil on the stock market.

Joe Scarborough and Paul Krugman Debate Deficit

A lot of political debates are based on different sets of facts, but for the most part this debate is based on almost entirely the same facts. The conclusions of what should follow is quite notable however. The basic ideas of Keynesian Economics are discussed in this recent debate between Joe and Paul (who each represent broad portions of our nation in political thought – although I think Joe’s approach might be a bit more populist).

Joe Scarborough on the Foreign Policy Debate

“If you watched that debate last night, and you thought that Mitt Romney was better on substance than Barack Obama – had a better grasp on substance than Barack Obama, then you’re such an ideologue…” -Joe Scarborough on the Presidential Debate over Foreign Policy 10-23-2012

P.S. Joe really looks like a young John Wayne… Seriously.

President Obama’s Approval Ratings Hit 50%, and Fundraising

For the first time in several months President Obama has out raised Governor Romney (albeit by a little). This fundraising shift was measured from the month of August, which doesn’t include any potential change in support for either side due to the parties conventions.

Moreover, It seems rather fair to say that in the court of public opinion that the Democratic Convention went better than the Republican Convention (regardless of the reality that little was said in real terms at either convention, and that’s not to say that Republicans would necessarily agree with this).

The big story here though is that the president’s approval rating has gone over 50%, and he is looking very strong in swing states (Ohio in particular).

People love to talk about swing voters playing a big role in elections, but I actually think that we’re about to run into an election cycle where the turnout of the steady voter will matter most, especially with the President leading (will his supporters make that lead count for something?).

Is Joe Scarborough the Second Coming of John Wayne?

As someone who watches the Morning Joe podcast every single day I have grown to love Joe Scarborough. We have some disagreements politically, and he plays political games of semantic proportions quite often, but I’m ok with it. I actually got to meet Joe and his co-host Mika Brzezinski at the launch of “No Labels”, which is a political group I worked for for a couple of months in Fall of 2010. I recommend looking into No Labels if you are interested in seeing what can be, and is being done to combat hyper-partisan politics.

Well anyways, I would imagine that Joe would love this comparison, I just had post it.

Polls: If Election Were Today, Swing Tally, & the Direction of the Country

These polls are a mixed batch from: NBC News / The Wall Street Journal poll, and the Quinnipiac / New York Times / CBS News poll.

The simple message that I am getting from these images here in political terms is that while voters think we could be headed in the wrong direction they don’t seem to be placing the blame on the President entirely, as many people do and have done for a long time. Whether enough of them will feel this way come election time for him to win the election is yet to be seen, but it seems that from current polling he will be outside of the margin of error if these polls are accurate and the race were held today. This is of course my conclusion after comparing the last 2 slides with the first one in particular.

As for the swing states, Ohio and Florida are always in the talk, but the battleground state that seems to be the front line for battle is Wisconsin. Several up and coming Republicans are from there, of course including Paul Ryan (the Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate). And after the failed recall election of Scott Walker earlier this year there has been more and more talk about an upset.

These next 2 slides are disheartening for any American, but the only way to make a real change in these charts is to have grown up conversations about entitlement spending (and to me that includes Military spending) without throwing out a social safety net, failure to pass/balance budgets, and setting aside a lot of social policy issues for the sake of the country. These polls will probably have to go down before they go up, as it’s going to hurt to do the right things.

Rattner’s Charts – Morning Joe: July Jobs Report and Impact on the Upcoming Election

MSNBC’s Morning Joe: July Jobs Report and Impact on the Upcoming Election.

I really loved this segment with Steve Rattner on Morning Joe. People are constantly trying to breakdown the Presidential race, but I think that his analysis here is the best that I know of. He explains in this segment some of the different factors that have been compared to re-election campaigns for Presidents, and which ones seem to be more indicative of a re-election succeeding or failing. Here are the charts and why they are/aren’t significant according to Steve:

1. Job Growth & Election Outcome – positive for Obama, but only mildly a good predictor of a re-election.
2. Unemployment Rate & Election Outcome – The most overrated, and most common predictor discussed, but not very positive for Obama.
3. GDP Growth & Election Outcome – has been 1.5% for Obama in the second quarter. This is a rather accurate predictor (explains about 60% of the former re-election attempts) and it rather positive for the President.
4. Income Growth & Election Outcome – *Likely the most important chart, 80% accurate in past election (10 of last 13 winners), this is Obama’s weakest chart, and could be very telling if he is not to be re-elected.

While I recommend staring at these charts I first recommend clicking on the link above to watch the clip where he explains them. He also shoots down the exaggeration about the recent jobs report for July. Enjoy, and please, do watch the clip, if you clicked on this link you won’t regret clicking that one…

 

If you’d like to see his charts on his website just Click Here

The Virtue of Flipping and Flopping

Over the past couple of weeks and months I have written and talked to people about how frustrated I have been with Governor/CEO/Entrepreneur/etc. Mitt Romney because of his rather incredible array of life experiences to bring to the table mixed with a campaign that has been full of half-truths and full on lies (if you haven’t been paying attention or don’t believe me go watch the video at the bottom). With that being said, I have also been very critical of the Republican nominating process for being so extreme – Romney and the nominating process existing at the same time has caused me to question the virtue of someone who has been so able and willing to change his positions to stay in a race. My initial reaction was to just say “he’s a liar, and lying is wrong, so he’s not my guy”. BUT, could it be possible that Mitt knows that the Republican party is self-destructing, and that the only way to keep some of their most important virtues alive (ie: hypothetical fiscal responsibility, government efficiency, limited federal powers) is to lie to them?… I’m not saying that I endorse the idea, but it seems to be what he is doing, and I can only come up with 2 reasons why he might do this: to be self-serving, or because he philosophically believe that it is best for the nation. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I’m hoping that he is in it for the people. To his credit if he really is lying to make the world a better place, the political landscape in the country right now really is such a game that there isn’t much of any other option for a moderate who leans right, because if they lean left they are simply a mainstream Democrat from my estimation.

*And incase you don’t think that Romney is a flip-flopper it really isn’t that hard to look into it. Click the following link, or scroll to the video at the bottom – Romney’s Flips and Flops, even conservatives seem to understand this point of attack as they have been making it for the past year and a half rather thoroughly.

Joe Scarborough made a great point on my favorite morning show Morning Joe, that there are 2 different federal election processes: the presidential election (which calls for moderates), and congressional elections for the house and senate (which seem to call for more and more fringe candidates). There are fringe issues, and candidates that set the agenda for the parties as of late, but considering that more of the country votes in Presidential elections it seems to be telling of a more moderate nation. This fall we really will have a campaign between 2 moderate candidates – one of them is labeled an extremist by a Republican fringe, and the other one is forced to pretend that he’s an extremist by the Republican fringe… It seems obvious to me that there is an identifiable source of rhetorical nonsense that is dividing this country, and I wish that we would have more people speak out about it, and it can’t be a real candidate for either party because they will disqualify themselves to be taken seriously any longer, much like George Romney (Mitt’s father).

George Romney is a great example of a nice moderate man who had opinions that leaned one way, which is entirely ok, but he was pushed out of the conversation for becoming president because he spoke out against the war in Vietnam, which was not only his opinion after having been there but it was also the majority opinion of the country. My guess is that Gov. Romney took note, and has decided that he won’t let the same extremism control him, whether it takes lying or not. I believe in a transparent government, and electoral process, but if Romney’s goal is actually to work around the crazies in the Republican party then part of me salutes the effort, in some odd way.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a fringe or radical left wing, but they don’t seem to have as much money/as many lobbyists/ or frankly as much organization. And I’m also not advocating that being a moderate is the right way necessarily, but I am saying that the mainstream of American voters seems to be rather moderate. I guess the conclusion here is that while I have been frustrated with Romney for being disingenuous I also know that he is having to simultaneously coalesce and combate the most powerful fringe in the nation, and I don’t envy him for that…

What the 1 percent and .01 percent made in 2010

(As usual, I talk a lot about this stuff, so feel free to skip to the important information and look at the charts, and/or click HERE to see this actual conversation)

So over the past year or so I’ve decided that Steve Rattner (formerly the Car Czar) is one of my new all time favorite Economists / Political Analysts, and he is regularly on one of my favorite news shows “Morning Joe“.

(If you’d like to see his thoughts on the Auto-Bailout CLICK HERE)

Mr. Rattner regularly brings charts and graphs with him when he goes on TV, and as an Economics major I really appreciate the idea of connecting the dots. I think that he is usually very fair and reasonable (and willing to go against the common wisdom of the progressive base the he best identifies with).

The three pictures below represent the trend about the growing wealth gap. My personal opinion about this is quite mixed. I think that people who produce for the economy should be rewarded the best, but I also think that it’s fair to talk about whether or not certain trends are threatening to our society. I’m really just proposing that the people who seem to be so uncomfortable with ever questioning people’s rates compensation reconsider…

Adam Smith (considered the father capitalistic philosophy) said things like:

“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

And though this quote is just about taxes (which aren’t a simple fix of everything, and I honestly don’t know anyone who thinks that they are) It seems relevant enough to at least think about the unimaginable concentration of wealth that is developing. I mean Sheldon Adelson, who is a casino mogul and the owner of the Venetian Hotel (and according to Forbes is the 14th richest man in the world, $24,900,000,000) is singlehandedly keeping New Gingrich’s campaign alive. Recently he gave $10,000,000 to Newt’s campaign to keep him afloat – and if you do the math that is like person who has $25,000 in their bank account and deciding to donate $10 so that they can help someone become the leader of the free world!….

This leads to a separate conversation about elections and money, but it has to be a part of this conversation as well… The short version of that conversation for me is that I’ve heard conversations about reversing Citizen’s United so that money is no longer viewed legally such as if it were speech, and rather look at it as if it were a commodity more comparable to labor.

I’m not trying to sound like a socialist, but I think that it isn’t that crazy to look at this trend and see how unsustainable this is for a civilized nation…

Ok, I’ve gone on enough, and I’ll post later about the the money being speech/labor conversation. Enjoy, and feel free to comment.

Also, if you’d like to hear see the actual conversation click the link below.

*Video on msnbc.com: Must-Read Op-Eds: Mika Brzezinski reads from a David Brooks NYT column on why he believes President Obama isn’t “all in” when it comes to tax reform. Financier Steven Rattner also returns with his charts, and this time he shows us the average incomes of the one percent and .1 percent.
Rattner On The 1% and the .01%