ECOMINOES Radio With Candidate Bobbie Rose

Today Eric and I will speak with Bobbie Rose, a DEMOCRAT running against incumbent Tim Scott and Libertarian Keith Blandford for South Carolina's 1st congressional district. Going to be interesting. Don't miss the show at 4PM EST! Also, be sure to listen to ECOMINOES Radio archives.

Wages DECLINE In October

The media are scrutinizing the BLS's October jobs report, which showed more realistic numbers fudging than the ridiculous September report. But no one will talk about the elephant in the room: the 171K jobs created was accompanied by a decrease in wages. As I reported in September, the median household income is down 24% since Obama has been in office. And, according to this jobs report, the private sector saw average weekly earnings decline by nearly $3.00 during the month of October. In other words, if more people are being hired, they're being hired for lower-level jobs. Indeed, I recently reported that the majority of jobs filled since the official "end" of the recession in 2009 have been low-page, part-time positions filled by seniors.

Tea Party Bans ECOMINOES

I sure have been stirring the pudding this week. Twitter suspended my account for 4 days because liberals didn't take kindly to my criticism of Obama's warmongering in the Middle East. Now, the Tea Party has banned me from posting on their "official" Facebook page (the most popular TP page by far) because I dared bring up the fact that, since WWII, GOP presidents have increased the national debt more than Democrat presidents. (Is reducing the national debt not a key party aim?) Clearly, the party has strayed far from its roots as a movement against government bailouts.

Funny that Limbaugh calls the Tea Party the "antidote to the Republican establishment". It is the Republican establishment!

Polls Underestimate Romney’s Lead

This is perhaps the best presidential poll analysis I've found for this election cycle. The author of this report, Russ Winter of Winter Watch at Wall Street Examiner, concludes that Romney should easily defeat Obama next Tuesday. And he damn well better. With 4+ years of the worst economy since the Great Depression, more people displaced from their life's work than the population of the state of Texas (many of them for years), and strong public opposition to Obamacare (.pdf), anything less than a blowout in Romney's favor would be pathetic.

Partisans on both sides have been making claims of a lead in the polls — the Republicans cite the national polls and the Democrats the state. I’m not a partisan or a Romney supporter, but I feel compelled to argue that the poll models are flawed and underestimating Romney’s lead.

As far as modeling in these polls, the example of Marist and Mason-Dixon in Florida is illustrative of skewing. Marist tends to report big Obama leads, and M-D has reported decent Romney results.

From the Tampa Bay Herald: “Mason-Dixon, which has been polling in Florida for 28 years, uses a survey sample based on people’s voter actual registration to match the electorate in Florida, while Marist uses a sample based on whether people say they consider themselves a Republican, Democrat or independent. About 20 percent of the likely voters in the Marist poll were Hispanic, while 13 percent were Hispanic in the Mason-Dixon poll, more in line with the Florida voting patterns.”

Nationally, Pew Research illustrates Obama’s problem, as does a new Washington Post poll. The first Pew chart shows Romney’s strong supporters exploding in October, once he showed up at the debates appearing to be a moderate. Right now, each candidate has about the same level of strong supporters..

However, the badly flawed state polls don’t show that 5 percent fewer strong Obama supporters are more likely to vote than among Romney’s base.



Obama’s problem is even worse among leaning Democrats. This support, as I have predicted, hasn’t materialized. Only 62% of Democrats and Dem leaners were likely to vote or even registered to vote, and figure that hasn’t budged since September. That’s the real knockout blow for Obama.

Meanwhile, GOP and GOP leaners likely to vote have risen from 69% in September to 76% this month, which is a big 14% spread over Dems. This suggests that Dem leaners could be over counted in these polls relative to Republican leaners.



The Washington Post/ABC poll considers “partisan independents,” for which the gap is 8 percent Republican. Of Republican-leaning independents, 92 percent say they plan to support Romney, while 84 percent of Democratic-leaning independents are backing Obama.
The less partisan the voter, the worse outcome for Obama. When tracked for likely independent voters (including true independents), the Washington Post poll reveals an even more disastrous scenario for Obama. In the Post’s last three polls, Obama trailed Romney among independent voters by a range of 16 to 20 percent. That’s a striking reversal since 2008, when Obama won independent voters (who were 29 percent of the electorate) by 8 points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Another poll NPR gives Romney a 50-37 lead among independent voters definitely or probably going to vote.



Finally, Obama has lost considerable support among two groups of likely voters: whites and seniors. In 2008, Obama trailed among white voters by 12% over McCain. This election, it’s 20%. It’s even worse among voters over 65. Obama trailed seniors 8 percent in 2008 and lags 19 percent today, according to the Pew poll. Obama has overwhelming support among black voters, but turnout is expected to drop to 59 percent this year, compared to the record breaking 65% in the last election. Among more unlikely voters ages 18-29, Obama has lost 13% of his margin since 2008, and can expect a much lower turnout to boot.




Purple Strategies (PS) illustrates some of the skewing issues with the state polls. It gives Ohio to Obama by 2 percent and Colorado to Obama by 1 percent. However, the PS independent-vote tally doesn’t square with the Post/ABC at all. PS labels 32 percent of Colorado voters as “independent” and surveyed a 42-42 split between Obama-Romney. They label 38 percent of Ohio voters as independent and gave those votes to Romney, 42-40. Yet, as mentioned before, the Post/ABC poll has consistently scored independents as favoring Romney, 16-20. PS used a 34(D)-33(R) sample in their registered-voter split, yet there are 837,732 active registered Republicans and 739,778 active registered Democrats in Colorado.

Further, even if the PS assessment is correct or even close, the likelihood of an Obama-leaning independent showing up to vote is much less likely  than a Romney-leaning independent. Among all registered voters, 69 percent of Republican-leaning independents say they are following the election closely, while just 49 percent of Democratic-leaning independents say the same. Among “pure” independents, 41 percent say they are closely following the election.

Democrat-voter registration is down in many key battleground states, and there has been a big increase in Independents — even more so than Republicans. In Ohio, about 7.9 million people are registered to vote in Ohio for the November election.  That’s down from about 8.2 million registered to vote in 2008. In Cuyahoga County alone (a Obama hotbed in 2008) , there are about 80,000 fewer registered voters than there were four years ago.
The Gravis poll in Iowa identifies its sample as 41 percent Democrats, 35 percent Republicans and only 24 percent Independent. The Dems and Reps surveyed said they were voting along party lines, while the Indies favored Romney 48-36, or 12 points. Because of the Dem-skew in the survey’s sample, Gravis gives Iowa to Obama by 4 points. Current Iowa voter registration figures show 35 percent are registered Independent, 33 percent GOP and 32 percent Democrat.



Even a more balanced national poll like IBD/TIPP, which gives Obama a 1.4% lead, shows a heavy 38-31 Dem skew in their sample that’s almost along the lines of the 2008 vote. The reason Romney is close is that the poll scores the Independent vote fairly high at 32 percent, although the 8-percent spread to Romney is lower than with other polls. The poll’s details: Sample size reflects 942 likely voters, who were identified from 1,091 registered voters with a party affiliation of 38 percent Democrat, 31 percent GOP and 32 percent Independent.

In sum, my election prediction is a 3-percent edge for Romney in the popular vote, and 301 to 237 lead in the electoral vote (see second to last chart) — and that’s giving Obama’s battleground-state ground-game strategy considerable credit for getting leaners into the voting booth. I project Pennsylvania will be close, with the outcome dependent on whether the 828,000 people without power get services restored before the election. Michigan may be closer than generally believed. Gasoline should be spiking by Election Day, which could psychologically effect voter outcome. Turn out nationally will be 6 percent below 2008 levels.
A Romney outcome would be perfectly consistent with Europe, where incumbents are booted out and replaced with new incumbents, who quickly become unpopular. Romney will have a huge mess on his hands.

This final chart shows national polls that are more accurately skewed and show a small Romney lead.



Copyright © 2012 The Wall Street Examiner. All Rights Reserved. The above may be reposted with attribution and a prominent link to The Wall Street Examiner.

GOP Presidents Increase Debt More Than Dems

I enjoy exposing the truth whether it's embarrassing to liberals, conservatives, or libertarians. Most of the time, my research is damaging to liberal ideology. Every so often, however, I come across something that puts conservatives in their place. This is one of those times. As you can see from the following chart from the Economist, with the notable exception of Eisenhower, GOP presidents since WWII have increased the national debt more than Democrat presidents. What's more, "fiscal hawk" Reagan increased the debt more than any president before him. And, George W. Bush--WORKING WITH A GOP CONGRESS--managed to increase the debt more than all the previous presidents combined! (Lest we forget that No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and the expansion of the EITC were GOP ideas.)


In addition to exposing the truth, I also enjoy holding peoples' feet to the fire. So, make the case, Republicans. Why exactly would Romney be different? When responding, don't blame your presidents' fiscal liberalism on Democrat congresses. The president drives budget priorities (Obamacare is named after the president, not Congress; Cold War spending was a Reagan--not congressional--initiative, etc.), and he has the power of the veto. And don't say "but Obama has increased the debt even more". That has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Besides, there it is on the chart, clear as day: GOP presidents have averaged a greater addition to the national debt than Democrat presidents.

ADP Slashes Jobs From Sept Report

The government's September jobs report was a crock. A sudden fall to 7.8% U-3 unemployment was statistically impossible. And today CNBC is reporting that revisions to the way ADP counts private sector job creation have resulted in a sharp drop in the September employment count:

ADP's new calculations put the monthly job creation at just 88,200, down from the 162,000 the firm originally reported earlier this month.

The new private payroll count now is actually under Labor's September job creation household survey net total of 114,000, 104,000 of which came from the private sector.  

So one truth comes out. But the MSM media won't report this. They already got their "7.8% unemployment" headline. And, they continue to closely guard the hidden truth about the quality of jobs created during Obama's presidency: they've been part-time, low paying positions filled by seniors.

Thank You, ECOMINOES Supporters!

Thanks to everyone who contacted Twitter on my behalf while my account was suspended, and special thanks to those who sent me emails of support. I got so many thoughtful messages that it's going to take time to reply to everyone. But I will get back with every single one of you. After years of job rejections, the overwhelming support put a huge smile on my face.

Facebook Shuts Down Navy SEALs Critical Of Obama

The social media gods sure have been busy silencing Obama opponents leading up to the election. Your humble blogger has been sitting in the Twitter gulag for 4 days now, and traffic to ECOMINOES is down by half as a result. And Facebook recently censored a Navy SEAL group that dared criticize Obama for his handling of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi. From breitbart.com:

Over the weekend, Facebook took down a message by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) which highlighted the fact that Obama denied backup to the forces being overrun in Benghazi.

The message was contained in a meme which demonstrated how Obama had relied on the SEALS when he was ready to let them get Osama bin Laden, and how he had turned around and denied them when they called for backup on Sept 11.

I spoke with Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc -- the media company that handles SOS postings and media production. Ward was the one who personally put the Navy SEAL meme up, and the one who received the warning from Facebook and an eventual 24 hour suspension from Facebook because Ward put the meme back up after Facebook told him to take it down. Here's what Ward told me:  

We created and posted this meme on Saturday after news broke that Obama had known and denied SEALS the backup they requested.

Once the meme was up it garnered 30,000 shares, approx. 24,000 likes, and was read by hundreds of thousands of people -- all within 24 hrs. On Sunday, I went into the SOS Facebook page to post something else and found a warning from Facebook that we had violated Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities with our meme. So I copied the warning, put it on the meme as as caption, and re-posted the meme to the Facebook page.   

Along with the re-posted meme, Ward put a link to the Facebook "feedback comment" inbox so visitors to the SOS page could send a message to Facebook if they were as outraged over the meme being jerked down as he was. Ward said Facebook pulled the re-posted meme down within 7 or 8 hours and suspended the SOS account for 24 hours.

In other words, Facebook put the Navy SEALS in timeout in order to shield Obama. How low can you go?

Like I said. Someone needs to start a rival social media company that actually allows free speech. Done properly, it could give Facebook and Twitter a run for their money.

Update 11:45 AM EST 10/31/12: FB has given into public pressure and has reinstated the SEALs' post.

Debt And GDP: Near Perfect Inverse Correlation

I wrote in one of my first posts on ECOMINOES that sovereign debt pulls down GDP after passing the 90% debt/GDP ratio. Today I found a wonderful chart on streettalklive.com that shows that, in the United States, the national debt and GDP are nearly perfectly inversely correlated. Periods of high national debt saw low economic growth. Periods of low national debt saw high economic growth. Take note, President Romney.

Attn Keynesians: Hurricanes Don't Create Wealth

I couldn't have said it any better than my buddy Brad DeVos, executive director of the Bastiat Society:

Dear Seth:
 
The morning after any disaster is tough. No doubt lives and property were lost last along the East Coast last night, and my heart goes out to those affected. Those of us who live in hurricane-prone areas understand the stress these events place on families.

That said, for me, the morning after a disaster is hard for another reason. It's tough because I know millions of people woke up this morning to read about how great disasters are for the economy. These claims are made by people who have obviously never heard of Frédéric Bastiat or his Broken Window Fallacy. If they did, they would know that property destruction never creates wealth. 

Putting Bastiat's example into today's terms, imagine a gutter fell off your house last night costing you $100 to fix. Sure the gutter repairman is happy to take your money, but you are out $100 - and still only have a gutter. You are in the same position as you were before the storm - and $100 poorer. Furthermore, everyone knows you planned to spend that $100 on toys for the holidays (at least your kids hoped you would), but now all you can do is take your children outside to admire your gutter ... the same gutter you had before the storm. You, your family, and the toy stores are worse off.
 
This storm is no different, and the stories in the newspapers were predicable. Countless stories proclaim that recovery spending will offset any economic loss, and that we may even see a "stimulus" as a result of Hurricane Sandy.
 
For example:
 
"...economists played down the likely long-term effects. The recovery after the storm, they said, could actually pump up growth temporarily in a few sectors, like construction and retail sales, when cleanup begins in earnest in a few days."

~ New York Times [Read the Entire Story]
 
"But property damage will be repaired, and lost economic output will largely be offset by other increased activity as residents rushed into stores to prepare for the hurricane."

~ USA Today [Read the Entire Story]
 
"But for the overall economy, damage from the storm will likely be limited. And any economic growth lost to the storm in the short run will likely be restored once reconstruction begins, analysts say. Americans may even spend more before the storm when they stock up on extra food, water and batteries."

~ Fox News/AP [Read the Entire Story]
 
"But 'if there is any silver lining in all the destruction the storm is expected to cause, it's that such storms tend to provide a boost to the economy in their wake.' ... Namely, a surge in employment in construction and skilled trades and a boost in spending as companies and homeowners replace damaged equipment and household items, according to [consultant firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.]"

~ Los Angeles Times [Read the Entire Story]
 
"A lot of the new infrastructure that eventually replaces what Sandy destroys will be 'more modern and productive,' according to economist and business professor Peter Morici of the University of Maryland. ... That minimizes the net impact, he said."

~ The Globe and Mail [Read the Entire Story]
 
"While the storm, which has been given the moniker Frankenstorm, will boost the demand for survival necessities like batteries and water bottles and created jobs in the post-hurricane reconstruction, the effects will be limited. According to Forbes, because Sandy is a one-time event, restricted to a specific geographic location, the storm will not provide economic stimulus for the whole country."

~ Wall Street Cheat Sheet [Read the Entire Story]

Some even took the opportunity to argue for bigger government and play politics...
 
"A Big Storm Requires Big Government"

~ New York Times [Read the Entire Story]

The Bastiat Society believes everyone who works in freedom should know how freedom works. However, given the vast amount of economic ignorance that exists in the world today, we need your help. I encourage each and every one of you to take a moment today to write a letter to your local newspaper editor, post a reference to the Broken Window Fallacy on your social media site(s), forward this email to your friends and colleagues, or simply correct someone who claims disasters are good for the economy. Do whatever you can to dispel the myth that destruction creates wealth.
 
Stay safe, and I'll see you at a future Bastiat Society event.  
In Liberty,



Brad DeVos - Executive Director
The Bastiat Society

Obama Admin Vows To Fight "Dangerous" Marijuana

While the nation is fixated on Hurricane Sandy (incredible pictures from NYC here) and I'm still stuck in the Twitter gulag (my account has been suspended for more than 30 hours now and traffic to the blog is down by half), there is other important news to report. Namely, the Obama administration, which promised to bring "change" to Washington, has now officially vowed to violate the 10th Amendment by overruling state marijuana laws. In a recent interview with “60 Minutes,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole proclaimed that the federal government is prepared to fight the states of Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, which will decide next week whether or not to legalize and tax marijuana. Fighting for the pharmaceutical companies under the guise of public safety, Cole told the news magazine the following:

We’re going to take a look at whether or not there are dangers to the community from the sale of marijuana and we’re going to go after those dangers.

Dangers? What a load of shit. Sorry, James. In the year 2012 only the most brainwashed, sheltered Bible-thumpers and Republican gray hairs believe marijuana is dangerous. The only thing that is "dangerous" about marijuana is that, because it's illegal in most places, one often has to risk arrest (and sometimes safety) in order to purchase it. Nice try.

ECOMINOES Victim Of Liberals' "Twitter Gulag" Attack

(Author's note: After four days, Twitter finally unsuspended my account around 11:30 AM EST on 10/31/12.)

I'm sitting in #TwitterGulag, and I know a bunch of overzealous liberals put me there.

In addition to the usual libertarian and conservative hashtags I assign my tweets, I promoted the recent post Obamnesia Cost Lives In Iraq (10/25/12) with #obama. Apparently, #obama is a favorite hashtag of overzealous liberals who enjoy bombarding me with nasty direct messages. Since the Obamnesia tweet, Twitter has twice suspended my account for unspecified reasons. I suspect a gulag attack, a nifty little trick a group of overzealous liberals have been using against prominent conservatives and libertarians. The trick affects conservative and libertarian pundits who promote their works by tweeting it to someone with the @ symbol. If you tweet to someone unsolicited, see, Twitter recognizes that as an action of a spammer. So enterprising liberals identify tweets that use the @ symbol from prominent conservatives and libertarians and get their friends to flag that tweet as spam. If the tweet is flagged enough, Twitter shuts down the tweeter's account. I was able to easily escape the gulag the first time by "admitting" my culpability by e-signing a form stating that I promise to play by Twitter's rules. This time, I have to wait for Twitter engineers to manually unsuspend my account. It's a great scam! I've had my Twitter account for years, and I had exactly zero problems until I tweeted with the hashtag #obama. This is not a coincidence.

The suspension caused me to miss Sunday night's prime social media time (the best time of the week to promote blog posts), and traffic to ECOMINOES has suffered as a result. Hopefully, the gods will promptly end the suspension. But this ordeal should have never happened. And it wouldn't have but for Twitter's monopoly of the mass message social media niche. If Twitter had competition, it would have reason to inoculate itself against "gulag attacks" and the like. (Someone please start a rival company. You could easily do better. All it takes is seed capital.)

If you'd like to help free me, please tweet to @support that @sethjmason isn't a spammer. Reference #TwitterGulag. Or, you could help by contacting Twitter directly by submitting this form. Thanks so much!

Update 10/29/12 10:00 PM EST: Still in the gulag. It's been 30 hours now. Traffic to the blog is down by half, I'm sure my Twitter account is hemorrhaging followers, and all of this couldn't have come at a worse time: just a week before election day. This is a complete disaster. It's sickening that Twitter hasn't yet responded to this. I hear that some pundits have sat in the gulag for weeks. I so very much hope my account isn't suspended for that long.

I found another interesting article about gulag attacks here. I've also learned that Twitter's CEO is an Obama advisor.

Update 10/30/12 10:30 PM EST: At 6PM Twitter sent me a form email stating that my account was unsuspended. It gave no reasoning for the suspension. But...the account is still suspended! So I replied to the email asking why the account is still suspended if the gods said they unsuspended it. And get this: they replied WITH THE SAME FORM EMAIL! Someone create a rival company and bankrupt those assholes.

Update 10/31/12 11:50 AM EST: I've finally been released from the gulag. Thanks to everyone who contacted Twitter on my behalf. Let's hope the Twitter gods don't pull this again.

The Future: Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal

Take note, GOP: You might take the presidency and hold the House, but that's only because the country is mired in an economic depression. Considering how bad the economy has been for the last 4 years, the 2012 elections should be a blowout in your favor. But the best you can do is squeak out a victory. That's pathetic. And it goes to show how badly you turn off much of the country with your anachronistic social conservatism.

Today the AP published a story profiling the next generation's political stances. They verified what I've been saying all along: the majority of Americans my age and younger are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, the polar opposite of the Karl Rove-George W. Bush GOP. Hopefully, the GOP is learning that, if it wants to remain a relevant political power in future national elections, it needs to calibrate with younger Americans' politics. That means jettisoning social conservative deadweights such as Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, and Scott DesJarlais and adopting a platform that incorporates many libertarian ideas. (After all, don't you have to be socially liberal to be fiscally conservative? Doesn't it cost gobs of money to futilely legislate morality?)

In other words, if the GOP had any sense, it would start treating the "Paulbots" with some respect. Because, like it or not, they are the future.