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B402, Similar message as rooster just got. There is nothing that says we have to give you the freedom you
are given here yet still see so much personal projection framed as insult from you as we typically tolerate
"..they know you all aren't listening....."
It's clear to any reading this board that we listen an respond more than not, and you don't and ignore more than you've got.
rooster, I know your SCOTUS said it was ok to lie in public, that doesn't mean
we're gonna let you lie here as much as you have today. Get the message.
Don't sweat it, consider how well janice is handling the possibility ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174333754 .
I used to be more like you about questions like this, maybe age has
helped to put aside some of the anxiety-ridden emotional content.
That said yeah it's chilling, and it sucks that Trump could even win once,
Off now. It's stopped raining again.
And because you know it's never going to happen, is time to put it behind you. The milkman must be a kindhearted guy.
It was one of the first news items i saw my morning:
"...the court fined Trump $9,000—$1,000 for each violation.
That might seem like a slap on the wrist, but it is important to note two things: first, this was the maximum financial penalty the judge could impose under the law; second, the judge made quite clear that future violations of the order could result in jail time.
If past is prologue, it is not too difficult to imagine Trump will not be able to help himself—and that his mouth and social media fingers could very well send him up the river."
Your - https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-being-thrown-in-jail-for-contempt-could-really-happen?utm_source=web_push
B402 is an idiot, as you know.
UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh.
LOL That's a good story i'll use. And, you got me. i posted once when trying to work out how it worked.
Or maybe twice when i posted once again in trying to work out how it worked a 2nd time.
B402 looks stupidly dishonest for ignoring the fact that Biden's economy is doing better than virtually every other advanced economy in the world. If not better than every one. B402 looks very dishonest for continuing to ignore that fact.
Sweet stat. All the more reason for our trolls to vote for Trump.
rooster, That post is too too close to saying Biden is a murderer to let it stand. If you are capable of it you will have to learn how to rephrase.
Biden did a good job cleaning up the mess Trump left. Trump in fact could be fairly seen to be liable for manslaughter in his telling people drinking detergent would do the trick. You saying Biden let them die is not acceptable on any iHub board.
rooster, Virtually every post you make is misleading. 99% of them. It's one thing to be a conservative, it's
another thing to make ignorant, false statement virtually every post. You are unique here in that respect.
.
Just the thought is chilling.
"Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge."
Your - https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/
Will read the rest when you place is sleeping.
The rfk scam -- " And I haven't the slightest doubt that rfk jr is a total setup by mitch and the power
brokers of maga because a one on one against Biden, orangeshitface would have no chance at all."
‘A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose’: can Allan Lichtman predict the 2024 election?
[...]4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174326608
With -- 8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174334577
that's two keys looking to be in need of a recut. And even without those it's dicey
Yep, fixes in politics are not fixes but frauds. And we know the electoral college system favors Republicans.
Trump's map edge: Biden has tougher path to victory, veteran Dem adviser says
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174334243
That from a guy who says he doesn't believe in God. Oh, you were kidding. Ok, this time.
Will hope to the end one never hits anyone i know.
Well well. That's the first time i've read someone echo my thoughts of those days around '67, the year i wandered again from N America.
"When I was in the midst of that protest so long ago, I didn’t know what to think. There was a military draft back then, and the second you lost your student deferment — flunked out or graduated — boom, you were prime meat for Vietnam. Vietnam was a mystery to us, so far away. Was it a Communist domino or was it a place we shouldn’t be?"
U.S. Marshals and the Pentagon Riot of October 21, 1967
https://www.usmarshals.gov/who-we-are/history/historical-reading-room/us-marshals-and-pentagon-riot-of-october-21-1967
I leaned, but i wasn't nearly as sure as those around me.
Today one real concern is how many of the leaders of the demonstrations are anarchist Trump supporters.
Three stooges more like it, with Barr being the most dishonest.
"Why Are Prominent Republicans Who Despise Trump Voting for Him Anyway?
PARTY BEFORE COUNTRY
Bill Barr, Mitch McConnell, and other GOP bigwigs have all lambasted Trump for
trying to overturn the 2020 election. But partisanship is a helluva drug."
"Barr is the most grandiose and audacious of the three, saying, “I think Trump would do less damage than Biden, and I think all this stuff about a threat to democracy—I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration.”
Honestly, I have no idea what Barr is smoking. As a conservative, there are many things about the left that I can’t stand (see the antisemitism problem), but many of these same leftists are protesting Joe Biden."
Your - https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-are-republicans-who-despise-trump-voting-for-him-anyway?ref=home?ref=home
The most dishonest because, assuming Barr is still of right mind, no rational adult could honestly say what he said. No Biden administration would consider eliminating the Dept. of Education, or the Federal Reserve. Biden would not attempt to commit fraud on American voters by attempting to fix American elections, as Trump is doing. Biden would never refuse to hand over control to an incoming president who had beaten him in a legitimate election. Biden would not consider it was his right to assassinate a political opponent.
On reading what Barr said i never wondered what he was smoking, because no person who smokes that i know would even consider making such an incredibly unrealistic statement as he did there. .
Yep, bumped into that surprising, it was for me too, decades ago ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Nabors#Singing_career .
Still waiting for his nuance on that, eh. Or did he mean to say nuisance and run short of breath.
It's a real shame the students are protesting for a good cause, yet the protests
could end up contributing to a terrible cause in American politics.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174326608
I caught a spell of no rain here to pull a few, then it hit back hard.
That said, thankfully nothing ever here like your tornadoes.
Why? Look at yourself, and the millions who are happy to elect a crook to the nook in the White House.
Now off.
Yep, fixes in politics are not fixes but frauds. And we know the electoral college system favors Republicans.
Trump's map edge: Biden has tougher path to victory, veteran Dem adviser says
Mike Allen , author of Axios AM
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am
IMAGE
Just over six months from Nov. 5, longtime Democratic adviser Doug Sosnik tells Axios that while either candidate can win, President Biden has the narrower, tougher path to 270 electoral college votes, for three reasons.
Why it matters: Biden has been rising in polls since the State of the Union address. But Democrats continue to sweat their chances in the state-by-state math that determines U.S. presidents.
1. The electoral college favors Republicans: The last two Republican presidents were first elected despite losing the popular vote.
2. Biden can no longer count on carrying Michigan, which voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the past three election cycles.
3. Biden's 2020 victories in the Sunbelt battleground states — Arizona, Nevada and Georgia — were due to his overwhelming support from young and non-white voters. Polling shows Biden has suffered a significant erosion with these voters during his presidency.
Sosnik maps (literally) various road-to-270 scenarios for Biden and former President Trump in an interactive N.Y. Times op-ed , and warns Dems about Minnesota:
"Recent polling shows Mr. Biden with a narrow lead in Minnesota, a state that usually votes for Democrats for president. While it is mathematically possible for Mr. Biden to win without carrying Minnesota, it is unlikely he will be elected if he cannot carry this traditionally Democratic state."
The bottom line: "My analysis of voter history and polling," Sosnik writes, "shows a map that currently favors Mr. Trump, even though [new abortion restrictions .. https://link.axios.com/click/35114121.154998/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYXhpb3MuY29tLzIwMjQvMDQvMjAvYWJvcnRpb24tYXJpem9uYS1mbG9yaWRhLXZvdGVyLXJlZ2lzdHJhdGlvbi1pbmNyZWFzZT91dG1fc291cmNlPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249bmV3c2xldHRlcl9heGlvc2FtJnN0cmVhbT10b3A/5c777920a41e4f76a8235705Bb29def23#_ga=2.6794098.1728603291.1714526514-1131964722.1714271508 .. ] in Arizona improve Mr. Biden's chances."
More - https://www.axios.com/2024/04/22/biden-trump-path-win-election-electoral-college
long URLs. Rain has stopped, Sun is peeking. Off to fill the green bin.
Has a turtle ever been in a horse race? Back to the blue to red states population shift.
Hmm, Some creative songwriter should be changing the lyrics of Roses Are Red
LOL, yes you are kidding. I put much more consideration into this week and changed more out of the original six than our last event. Last week only had to pick Scheffler, lol. Not quite but it was a cute move, eh. Anyway this morning i compared players in that stat comparison thing and shifted and shuffled like a hockey player dashing and darting, and would i bet i won't end in the bottom quartile? No. Just look at the differences in the experts' picks. Lol, none of them come close to what i've ended with. lol GL PS: NO, am not gonna change again. Haha, wouldn't bet on that either.
You didn't take long to reply did you. Did you read past the heading i wonder. Obviously $700 more going out is harder for some than others. Right?
So you didn't put much thought into your question, did you.
"Is 700 A month cushy? Like transitory, soft is in the eye of the beholder (or bill payer).......With another K shaped recovery its getting hard to believe much dems say..."
Just an instinctive, defensive reaction to support your mindset, wasn't it. Yeah, it was. And no, a soft landing has an economic stat basis, and they apply to economies rather than individual families. As for your typical silly, snarky last no one is suggesting you believe what dems say, but you could do yourself a favor and pay attention to what other experts say. And to facts on the ground.
Or you can choose to wander in your ideological, fact-free fog for the rest of your unhappy life. Your choice.
The Soft Landing Is Global, but It’s Cushiest in America
"Beware Economists Who Won’t Admit They Were Wrong
Dec. 18, 2023"
That's one trait of Krugman's i've enjoyed from the start, he admits when he's wrong. I don't
recall ever seeing one of our many illustrious trolls admit they have been one.It's weird
that they won't, then again Trump doesn't. Please tell me if i'm wrong on the trolls.
Related: [...]JPMorgan’s Dimon warns inflation, political polarization and wars are creating risks not seen since WWII
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s most influential banker, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, told investors Monday that he continues to expect the U.S. economy to be resilient and grow this year. But he worries geopolitical events including the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, as well as U.S. political polarization, might be creating an environment that “may very well be creating risks that could eclipse anything since World War II.”
[...]Because of these issues, Dimon said he is less optimistic that the U.S. economy will achieve a “soft landing,” which he defined as modest growth along with declining inflation and interest rates, compared to the broader market. While he says the investors are pricing in a “70% to 80%” chance of a soft landing, Dimon thinks the chances of such an ideal outcome are “a lot less” than that.
P - Also, at a time when some investors and economists are questioning whether the Federal Reserve can make good on its projection for three interest rate cuts this year, Dimon warned of the possibility of rates rising to 8% or higher. The Fed’s benchmark rate is currently in a range of 5.25% to 5.50%.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174198357
.. and ..
B402, Why US economy is powering ahead of Europe's
[...]He pointed out that European countries have seen not only a bigger increase in prices, but also a greater propensity for businesses to pass them on to consumers.
P - "Both of these factors have helped U.S. inflation moderate to a faster extent than in many countries, especially Europe," he said.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174333343
Economies all over the world are lowering inflation while avoiding serious recession — but growth in the United States stands out.
Americans have only slowly spent down the savings they amassed during the early pandemic years, so the money has continued to trickle
through the economy like a slow-release booster shot. Amir Hamja/The New York Times
By Jeanna Smialek, Ana Swanson, Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley
Reporting from Washington
Feb. 2, 2024
The world is starting 2024 on an optimistic economic note, as inflation fades globally and growth remains more resilient than many forecasters had expected. Yet one country stands out for its surprising strength: the United States.
After a sharp pop in prices rocked the world in 2021 and 2022 — fueled by supply chain breakdowns tied to the pandemic, then oil and food price spikes related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — many nations are now watching inflation recede. And that is happening without the painful recessions that many economists had expected as central banks raised interest rates to bring inflation under control.
But the details differ from place to place. Forecasters from the Federal Reserve to the International Monetary Fund have been most surprised at the remarkable strength of the U.S. economy, while growth in places like the United Kingdom and Germany remains more lackluster. The question is why America has pulled out ahead of other developed economies in the pack.
The I.M.F. said this week .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/business/imf-global-economic-outlook.html .. that it expected the United States to grow 2.1 percent, a sharp upgrade from the previous estimate of 1.5 percent. Other major advanced economies are also expected to grow, albeit less quickly. The euro area is expected to notch out 0.9 percent growth, as is Japan, and the United Kingdom is forecast to expand by 0.6 percent.
“This is a good situation, let’s be honest, this is a good economy,” Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said at a news conference this week — two of nearly 20 times that he called the data “good” during his remarks.
Evidence of that strength continued on Friday, when a blockbuster jobs report showed that employers had added 353,000 .. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/02/business/jobs-report-january-economy .. jobs in January and wages grew at a rapid clip.
America’s outperformance has come from a combination of luck and judgment, economists said. Below is a rundown of some of the factors behind the comparatively strong performance — starting with those that reflect policy choices and moving to factors that owe more to fortune.
One reason for U.S. resilience: fiscal policy.
Part of the reason that economic growth has been so surprisingly strong in the United States is simple: The American government has continued to spend a lot of money.
Government expenditures as a share of overall output hovered around 35 percent in America in the years leading up to the pandemic, based on I.M.F. data. But in 2020 and 2021, they jumped above 40 percent as the government responded to the coronavirus with about $5 trillion .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html .. in relief and stimulus to people, businesses, institutions, and state and local governments.
Both states and households have only slowly spent down the savings they amassed during those pandemic years, so the money has continued to trickle through the economy like a slow-release booster shot. On top of that, government spending has remained elevated as the Biden administration has begun to make sweeping infrastructure and climate investments.
“As the economy recovered, the U.S. just poured more kerosene onto the fire,” said Kristin Forbes, an economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a former Bank of England official.
Ms. Forbes noted that America’s deficit as a share of its gross domestic product .. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GGXCNL_G01_GDP_PT@FM/ADVEC/FM_EMG/FM_LIDC .. is larger than that in many other advanced economies, and today’s spending is adding to the American debt pile. Given that, strong growth today could come at a cost — including higher interest bills — down the road.
Administration officials have suggested it was worth the trade-off.
Lael Brainard, who heads President Biden’s National Economic Council, told reporters last week that the combined outlays had allowed families to “weather this really disruptive period of time and bounce back.”
Yet government spending doesn’t fully explain the divergence between the United States and other economies. Other countries also spent a lot .. https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2023-Social-Expenditure-SOCX-Update-Rise-and-fall.pdf .. in response to the pandemic, and places like the euro area and the United Kingdom are still spending .. https://data.oecd.org/chart/7kCN .. more than they did before the pandemic in recent years, as a share of output.
---
[Insert: Yes, but not as much and in different ways. See again: B402, Why US economy is powering ahead of Europe's
[...] High inflation has been a painful experience for many Americans and has shaped their view of how the economy is faring. But a strong jobs market has helped disposable income, which is the engine behind consumer spending.
P - The unemployment rate in the US has been below 4% since February 2022, which is on a par with historic lows. And while prices climbed steeply, real wages have risen too. Low-income households have seen some of the strongest real wage growth.
P - The US has also enjoyed a productivity spike in 2023, growing at its fastest pace in years.
[...]Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, points to the flexible labour laws which allowed companies to slash workforces at the start of the pandemic. This produced short-term pain for workers but allowed companies to adapt to the moment and invest in new technologies.
[...]The European approach favoured paying companies to keep workers on their payrolls when lockdowns crippled businesses. The UK furlough scheme paid employees 80% of their wages and lasted more than 18 months.
P - The US had more severe unemployment as a result but laid-off American workers were eligible for newly-expanded unemployment benefits, which sent cash directly into pockets.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174333343]
---
Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, said that he believed that the gross domestic product data — which can be volatile and gets revised — could be overstating the divergence between U.S. growth and those in other countries. But to the extent that there is a gap, he does not think government spending has been a big driver of the stronger U.S. performance over the past year.
Instead, a number of economists said, what is happening could owe partly to policy design differences — and luck.
Pandemic layoff responses were not created equal.
During the beginning of the pandemic, America paid workers to stay home. Bob Miller for The New York Times
America took a different approach than its European peers when it came to how it designed policy relief for workers displaced by pandemic shutdowns: It paid workers to stay at home, with one-time checks and expanded unemployment insurance, whereas countries in Europe paid workers to stay in jobs.
The resulting churn as Americans have sorted themselves into new and better jobs could be leading to the stronger productivity growth that the United States is seeing now, said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Ahead of time, “it was not clear which was going to be the better way to go,” Mr. Posen said, noting that many economists had worried that the U.S. approach would actually perform slightly worse. “As always, it is better to be lucky than to be good.”
Proximity to geopolitical problems is also important.
Other advanced economies have also fallen victim to misfortune. European countries have been much more exposed to the aftershocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a conflict that has pushed up gas and grocery prices — roiling the business environment and limiting households’ abilities to afford other discretionary products.
While the United States imported relatively little .. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51738 .. oil and gas from Russia, that was not the case for Europe. According to a 2023 survey .. https://www.eib.org/en/publications/20230285-econ-eibis-2023-eu .. by the European Investment Bank, 68 percent of European Union businesses had seen their energy prices increase by 25 percent or more, compared with 30 percent of U.S. businesses experiencing the same increase.
Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tuesday morning, Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for trade, said that Europe had been working to address its dependence on Russian fossil fuel, but that cutting those ties “came at a cost.”
Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the I.M.F., told reporters on Thursday that the resilience of the U.S. economy stemmed from several factors — including insulation from volatility in global energy markets.
“There have been good economic forces and winds blowing into U.S. sails,” Ms. Georgieva said.
Now, tensions in the Red Sea that are roiling shipping routes there could have bigger spillover effects for Europe. The disruptions have started to push up shipping prices .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/business/red-sea-attacks-shipping-costs.html .. and delay deliveries, particularly for goods traveling to Europe from Asia.
Biden administration officials are monitoring those disruptions, but they are less concerned since they are “a little bit less salient for American supply chains than for other parts of the world,” Ms. Brainard said.
Demographics play a role.
When it comes to the absolute level of growth in the United States versus advanced economies like the euro area and Japan, America also has the benefit of a younger population. The median age .. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/median-age/country-comparison/ .. in the United States is about 38.5, whereas it is 46.7 in Germany and 49.5 in Japan.
Youth helps to make an economy more dynamic .. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom : Younger adults work more, and families who are having children, buying houses and building lives spend more .. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/americans-spend-their-money-by-generation/ .. than retirees.
All of this could matter to policy.
Whatever is causing the divergence, it could matter for economic policy.
The Fed .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/business/what-to-watch-at-the-fed-meeting-today.html , the European Central Bank .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/business/ecb-eurozone-interest-rates.html .. and the Bank of England .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/business/uk-business-interest-rates.html .. are all nudging toward cutting interest rates as they try to avoid undermining growth. Central bankers don’t want to lower rates too early and fail to fully stamp out inflation. They also want to avoid keeping them too high for too long, inflicting more pain than is necessary to wrestle price increases under control.
For the E.C.B. and the Bank of England, slower growth could make that an especially delicate process — policy errors could tip those economies from slight growth to slight contraction. But completing the soft landing is a looming challenge for many central banks.
“At this time of the cycle, there is risk of premature loosening, but there is also risk of keeping interest rates higher for longer,” Ms. Georgieva said. “They now need to land the plane smoothly.”
Jeanna Smialek covers the Federal Reserve and the economy for The Times from Washington. More about Jeanna Smialek
Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade. More about Ana Swanson
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters. More about Alan Rappeport
Jim Tankersley writes about economic policy at the White House and how it affects the country and the world. He has covered the topic for more than a dozen years in Washington, with a focus on the middle class. More about Jim Tankersley
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 5, 2024, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Economies Worldwide Can’t Match U.S. Growth. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/business/economy/soft-landing-economy-inflation.html
Yep. That is the basic reason. And it's a fact which he himself doesn't seem to understand.
"What is it that has you ignoring that simple point.
Because he's a MAGA troll. "
Newsflash, blockhead. The point is the U.S. is doing better than other
countries worldwide. What is it that has you ignoring that simple point.
B402, See my next post for yet another credible article making that fact.
Yes, we know. Fact is families in other countries are suffering more from inflation than families in the U.S.A.
Democrats must get the fact over to voter like you that the U.S. is leading the world in bringing inflation down.
That was the point of the article i gave you. Your reply suggests you missed it.
rooster, Your desultory, delusional mindset could be cured by looking in a mirror three times a day.
B402, Why US economy is powering ahead of Europe's
"CNN...70%, give US economy a poor rating"
Opinion/polls vs Fact/truth. Dems must counter GOP's misleading inflation propaganda
Related: Att: sideeki ‘A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose’: can Allan Lichtman predict the 2024 election?
P - "Always good to read of more young voters arriving than older voters leaving. And for sure no right-minded person (lol
feels a misnomer there, but politics aside) could possibly deny the moral decay of the GOP is not glaringly obvious."
David Smith in Washington
The professor on his famous 13 ‘keys’ to the White House, a method for predicting election results that’s been right nine times out of 10
[...]For the next election, Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis by 18 percentage points in the opinion polls in May 1988, yet Lichtman correctly predicted a Bush victory because he was running on the Reagan inheritance of peace, prosperity, domestic tranquillity and breakthroughs with the Soviet Union.
[...]He predicted that George HW Bush would be a one-term president, even though he was riding high in polls after the Gulf war, causing many leading Democrats to pass on mounting a challenge. Then a call from Little Rock, Arkansas. It was Kay Goss .. https://www.unlv.edu/people/kay-goss , special assistant to Governor Bill Clinton.
[...]Perhaps Lichtman’s most striking prophecy, defying polls, commentators and groupthink, was that Trump – a former reality TV star with no prior political or military experience – would pull off a wildly improbable win .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/donald-trump-supporters-hilton-new-york .. over the former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton in 2016. How did he know?
[...]In 2020 Lichtman gave a presentation to the American Political Science Association about the keys as one of three classic models of prediction. In recent months he has delivered keynote addresses at Asian and Brazilian financial conferences, the Oxford Union and JP Morgan. As another election looms, he is not impressed by polls that show Trump leading Biden, prompting a fatalistic mood .. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/13/trump-the-front-runner-not-so-fast-00152010 .. to take hold in Washington DC and foreign capitals.
P - “They’re mesmerised by the wrong things, which is the polls. First of all, polls six, seven months before an election have zero predictive value. They would have predicted President Michael Dukakis. They would have predicted President Jimmy Carter would have defeated Ronald Reagan, who won in a landslide; Carter was way ahead in some of the early polls.
P - “Not only are polls a snapshot but they are not predictors. They don’t predict anything and there’s no such thing as, ‘if the election were held today’. That’s a meaningless statement.”
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174326608
13 February 2024
By Erin Delmore,New York business correspondent
Getty Images
While countries around the world have struggled to recover from the economic setbacks brought on by the pandemic, one has emerged particularly strong.
With a fast-growing economy, a strong labour market and falling inflation, the US has outpaced its counterparts in Europe and elsewhere.
In terms of GDP, it posted a 3.3% gain in the fourth quarter of 2023, far exceeding economists' expectations of 2%.
That put the US at 2.5% over the course of the year, outpacing all other advanced economies and on track to do so again in 2024.
"The US is holding up much better than other countries," said Ryan Sweet, Chief US Economist, Oxford Economics. "It seems like the engine of the US economy continues to hum along where it's sputtering in other nations."
Experts say that there are several reasons why the US is outperforming other nations.
1. Pouring trillions into the economy
When the Covid-19 pandemic slowed in-person work and social life to a halt, countries had to grapple with how to support their stuck-at-home citizenry - including many who lost their jobs or couldn't work.
In March 2020, Congress rushed to pass a $2.2tn economic stimulus bill that sent cash into the pockets of American workers, families, and businesses. Two more pieces of legislation followed to keep small businesses afloat and workforces employed.
This was the largest influx of federal money into the US economy in history. Some $5tn flowed to everyone from individuals making an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits to state and local transit agencies strapped for cash without commuters.
* US economy sees surprisingly strong growth
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68096633
"I think there was a whole generation of policymakers that came out of 2008 and 2009 with the lesson that if you don't go big and go bold, the problems last for a long time," said Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor.
"If you're tentative, you prolong the pain. So I think that's one reason why the fiscal response was so much more forceful this time."
That stimulus is still being credited with sustaining consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of economic activity. That capacity to spend despite high inflation has been a buoy.
Getty Images
Some of the money put into households' pockets ended up in excess savings, said Ryan Sweet, a war chest for Americans to tap into when they need it.
The size of the US rescue deal dwarfed what other countries did, although some like Japan, Germany and Canada also went big.
European countries have a more robust social safety net than the US and were able to adapt existing programmes without increasing spending. But this short-term advantage could not make up for the huge gap in stimulus size.
2. A flexible jobs market
High inflation has been a painful experience for many Americans and has shaped their view of how the economy is faring. But a strong jobs market has helped disposable income, which is the engine behind consumer spending.
The unemployment rate in the US has been below 4% since February 2022, which is on a par with historic lows. And while prices climbed steeply, real wages have risen too. Low-income households have seen some of the strongest real wage growth.
The US has also enjoyed a productivity spike in 2023, growing at its fastest pace in years.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, points to the flexible labour laws which allowed companies to slash workforces at the start of the pandemic. This produced short-term pain for workers but allowed companies to adapt to the moment and invest in new technologies.
She cited the example of hotels, which laid off workers and haven't hired back to pre-pandemic levels.
"They've simply changed a lot. They've introduced self-checkouts and mobile check-in technology. They've reduced the frequency of room cleaning, they've eliminated room service, because now customers tend to prefer to use Uber Eats anyway, and pick up orders and deliveries."
Hotels have become lighter and leaner and less personnel intensive, she said, a shift that meant they lived on which, in the longer term, benefits workers.
Getty Images
The US enjoys another advantage - an ability to resupply its labour market, especially through immigration at a time when the retirement of the baby boomer generation has slowed population growth.
The European approach favoured paying companies to keep workers on their payrolls when lockdowns crippled businesses. The UK furlough scheme paid employees 80% of their wages and lasted more than 18 months.
The US had more severe unemployment as a result but laid-off American workers were eligible for newly-expanded unemployment benefits, which sent cash directly into pockets.
3. Energy (in)dependence
The US is a net exporter of energy and experts say that's helped the US economy's strength.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and energy prices soared, Europe absorbed the impact much more than the US. Germany, a major European manufacturing hub, imported much of its natural gas from Russia via its Nord Stream pipeline. Its productivity took a hit.
Higher energy prices pushed up inflation in Europe, in what experts called a "double-shock" - the pandemic and then Ukraine.
The impact of the Ukraine war on energy prices was a lot worse in Europe than in the US, said Ben Westmore, who oversees surveillance of the US economy for the OECD.
Gas prices in Europe between early 2021 and 2022 shot up by something close to 20%, he says, whereas in the US, it was only 3-4%.
He pointed out that European countries have seen not only a bigger increase in prices, but also a greater propensity for businesses to pass them on to consumers.
"Both of these factors have helped U.S. inflation moderate to a faster extent than in many countries, especially Europe," he said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68203820
Possible delay and crime incentives: key takeaways from Trump immunity case
"Conservative Justices Take Argument Over Trump’s Immunity in Unexpected Direction
[...]The court is unlikely to draw those lines itself, instead returning the case to Judge
Tanya S. Chutkan, of the Federal District Court in Washington, for further proceedings."
No sweat group. Scratch the total immunity option. SCOTUS isn't into that extreme pornography, maybe a couple of them in private. Outer boundary immunity? Well, that's part of the conservative judges' scheme to help Trump, by delaying in argument on that but they won't take it on themselves. The above will be the option they take. Lay down misère .. ...and the player who bids misère undertakes to win no tricks or as few as possible, usually at no trump,... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mis%C3%A8re . It's 4.
US supreme court hears three hours of oral arguments on whether
ex-president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution
Hugo Lowell in Washington
Fri 26 Apr 2024 06.19 AEST
Last modified on Fri 26 Apr 2024 19.58 AEST
VIDEO - US supreme court presses Trump lawyer over immunity from prosecution claim – audio
All links
The US supreme court on Thursday heard roughly three hours of oral arguments about whether Donald Trump enjoyed absolute immunity from criminal prosecution because the acts included in the indictment alleging he plotted to subvert the 2020 election involved his duties as president.
US supreme court eyes returning Trump immunity claim to lower court after arguments
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/supreme-court-trump-immunity-claim
The court did not seem inclined to grant total immunity to Trump. But a majority of the justices suggested there should be some level of protection .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/supreme-court-trump-immunity-claim , and expressed an interest in having a lower court decide whether the indictment included “official” acts that could be expunged.
Here are the key takeaways from United States v Donald Trump:
1. Trump could get some immunity
The supreme court appeared unlikely to grant Trump’s most sweeping request for absolute immunity from prosecution, with both Trump’s lawyer and the justice department’s lawyer agreeing there were certain private acts that presidents would have no protection for.
But a majority of the justices – John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – expressed notable interest in remanding the case back to the trial court for further review.
The view appeared to come in part from the concession of Michael Dreeben, the lawyer arguing for the special counsel’s office, that there were some core presidential functions like issuing vetoes or pardons, which Congress could not regulate – and could therefore not criminalize.
Gorsuch declared that meant presidents essentially had some level of immunity. The questions from there centered on how to distinguish between official acts and purely private acts, and whether the court could create a test for a lower court to follow.
2. Conservative justices focused on future presidents
Alito and Kavanaugh suggested they were particularly concerned about zealous prosecutors going after former presidents once they left office for “mistakes” if the supreme court decided that presidents had no immunity from criminal prosecution.
“It’s not going to stop, it’s going to cycle back and be used against the current president and the next president and the next president after that,” Kavanaugh said.
The government disputed that prosecutors could wantonly target former presidents, arguing there were checks and balances in the judicial system like the grand jury process.
Alito was dismissive of the grand jury suggestion, bringing up the adage that a grand jury could indict a “ham sandwich”. When Dreeben said prosecutors don’t charge people who don’t deserve it, Alito responded: “Every once in a while there’s an eclipse too.”
3. Liberal justices say immunity would incentivize crime
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told Trump’s lawyer John Sauer that she was deeply concerned that granting immunity would embolden future presidents to commit crimes and use their office as a shield.
“I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is of turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminality,” Jackson said.
[Insert: LOLOL]
“Once we say ‘no criminal liability, Mr President. You can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office,” Jackson said of the concern that presidents could be hounded once out of office.
4. The court signaled the possibility of more delay – benefiting Trump
Should the supreme court decide to remand the case back to the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan, it would almost certainly inject months of new delay into the case and dramatically lower the probability that the case would go to trial before the 2024 election.
The remand might look something like this: Chutkan would have to review the indictment and take out any overt acts she determines as “official”, Trump would probably appeal to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit to get more acts taken out, sending it back to Chutkan.
That was how things played out with the Republican congressman Scott Perry, who had his phones seized by prosecutors in the 2020 election case. The DC circuit told a lower court to apply a speech-and-debate protection .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/13/scott-perry-trump-ally-phone-2020-election-investigation .. and take out any privileged communications from the evidence, a process that took months.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/supreme-court-trump-criminal-trial-immunity-key-takeaways
WHEW! Glad that's over. Refreshments all 'round, group. Soft drinks
included and welcome. And water, still some clean stuff around
Conservative Justices Take Argument Over Trump’s Immunity in Unexpected Direction
"More corrupt than insane, i'd say. If believing the president was above the law
was a measure of insanity then i'd agree... "
Thursday’s Supreme Court hearing was memorable for its discussion of coups, assassinations and internments
— but very little about the former president’s conduct.
Members of the court’s conservative majority on Thursday treated former President Donald J. Trump’s argument as a weighty and difficult
question. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
By Adam Liptak
Reporting from Washington
April 26, 2024
Before the Supreme Court heard arguments on Thursday .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/us/politics/trump-supreme-court-immunity-case.html .. on former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution, his stance was widely seen as a brazen and cynical bid to delay his trial. The practical question in the case, it was thought, was not whether the court would rule against him but whether it would act quickly enough to allow the trial to go forward before the 2024 election.
Instead, members of the court’s conservative majority treated Mr. Trump’s assertion that he could not face charges that he tried to subvert the 2020 election as a weighty and difficult question. They did so, said Pamela Karlan .. https://law.stanford.edu/pamela-s-karlan/ , a law professor at Stanford, by averting their eyes from Mr. Trump’s conduct.
“What struck me most about the case was the relentless efforts by several of the justices on the conservative side not to focus on, consider or even acknowledge the facts of the actual case in front of them,” she said.
They said as much. “I’m not discussing the particular facts of this case,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said, instead positing an alternate reality in which a grant of immunity “is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want.”
Immunity is needed, he said, to make sure the incumbent president has reason to “leave office peacefully” after losing an election.
Justice Alito explained: “If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”
[Insert: Hey, Jdgeu, (Jaundiced Alito does not deserve to be seen as a judge) what you are suggesting, while ignoring
the facts you are supposed to be considering of the case against Trump, has never happened in the history
of the United States. See a decent and honest legal-man Glenn Kirschner say it, here
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174326678]
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson took a more straightforward approach. “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?” she asked.
Supreme Court arguments are usually dignified and staid, weighed down by impenetrable jargon and focused on subtle shifts in legal doctrine. Thursday’s argument was different.
It featured “some jaw-dropping moments,” said Melissa Murray .. https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.overview&personid=40825 , a law professor at New York University.
Michael Dorf ..https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/michael-dorf/ , a law professor at Cornell, said that “the apparent lack of self-awareness on the part of some of the conservative justices was startling.” He noted that “Justice Alito worried about a hypothetical future president attempting to hold onto power in response to the risk of prosecution, while paying no attention to the actual former president who held onto power and now seeks to escape prosecution.”
In the real world, Professor Karlan said, “it’s really hard to imagine a ‘stable democratic society,’ to use Justice Alito’s word, where someone who did what Donald Trump is alleged to have done leading up to Jan. 6 faces no criminal consequences for his acts.”
Indeed, she said, “if Donald Trump is a harbinger of presidents to come, and from now on presidents refuse to leave office and engage in efforts to undermine the democratic process, we’ve lost our democracy regardless what the Supreme Court decides.”
The conservative justices did not seem concerned that Mr. Trump’s lawyer, D. John Sauer, said his client was free during his presidency to commit lawless acts, subject to prosecution only after impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate. (There have been four presidential impeachments, two of Mr. Trump, and no convictions.)
Adam Liptak
Supreme Court reporter
Adam Liptak has covered the Supreme Court since 2008. He started at The Times as a copy boy in 1984, and later left to attend Yale Law School. He became a practicing lawyer and worked in The Times’s corporate legal department before returning to the newsroom.
Learn about how he approaches covering the court ..
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/insider/following-the-beat-of-the-court.html .
Liberal justices asked whether he was serious, posing hypothetical questions.
“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him,” Justice Jackson asked, “is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?”
Mr. Sauer said “that could well be an official act” not subject to prosecution.
Justice Elena Kagan also gave it a go. “How about,” she said, “if a president orders the military to stage a coup?”
Mr. Sauer, after not a little back and forth, said that “it could well be” an official act. He allowed that “it certainly sounds very bad.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, who participated in the case despite his wife Virginia Thomas’s own vigorous efforts to overturn the election, was not so sure.
“In the not-so-distant past, the president or certain presidents have engaged in various activity, coups or operations like Operation Mongoose when I was a teenager, and yet there were no prosecutions,” he said, referring to the Kennedy administration’s efforts to remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba.
Professor Murray said she was struck by that remark, apparently offered “as evidence that there was a longstanding history of executive involvement in attempted coups.”
Justice Alito also turned to history. “What about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II?” he asked. Could that have been charged, he asked, as a conspiracy against civil rights?
Prompted by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Mr. Sauer added another requirement to holding a former president accountable. Not only must there first be impeachment and conviction in Congress, but the criminal statute in question must also clearly specify in so many words, as very few do, that it applies to the president.
That seemed a little much for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the member of the court’s conservative wing who appeared most troubled by the sweep of Mr. Trump’s arguments.
Returning to “Justice Kagan’s example of a president who orders a coup,” Justice Barrett sketched out what she understood to be Mr. Sauer’s position.
“You’re saying that he couldn’t be prosecuted for that, even after a conviction and impeachment proceeding, if there was not a statute that expressly referenced the president and made it criminal for the president?”
Correct, Mr. Sauer said.
The court will issue its ruling sometime between now and early July. It seems likely to say that at least some of Mr. Trump’s conduct was part of his official duties and so subject to some form of immunity.
The court is unlikely to draw those lines itself, instead returning the case to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, of the Federal District Court in Washington, for further proceedings.
“If that’s the case,” Professor Murray said, “that could further delay the prospect of a trial, which means that whatever is ultimately decided about the scope and substance of presidential immunity, the court will have effectively immunized Donald Trump from criminal liability in this case.”
There is a live prospect, Professor Karlan said, that “there won’t be a trial until sometime well into 2025, if then.”
Sending the case back to the trial judge, she said, “to distill out the official from the private acts in some kind of granular detail essentially gives Trump everything he wants, whether the court calls it immunity or not.”
Trump, Immunity and the Supreme Court
In Immunity Case, Trump Can Lose in Ways That Amount to a Win
April 24, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/trump-immunity-case-supreme-court.html
Pace of Supreme Court Immunity Case Shadowed by Looming Election
Feb. 29, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/us/politics/supreme-court-immunity-case.html
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Trump’s Immunity Claim, Setting Arguments for April
Feb. 28, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/us/supreme-court-trump-immunity-trial.html
In Trump Cases, Supreme Court Cannot Avoid Politics
March 5, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/us/politics/trump-supreme-court-election.html
Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court and writes Sidebar, a column on legal developments. A graduate of
Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002. More about Adam Liptak
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-immunity-election.html
hap0206 Assuming you are talking about the morning-after pill you are misleading in your "Just wondering why they called it an abortion pill— Get Regular would have been much better" suggesting it is called an abortion pill .. https://www.acog.org/womens-health/experts-and-stories/ask-acog/what-is-the-difference-between-abortion-pills-and-morning-after-pills .. when only the ill-informed call it that.
"Just wondering why they called it an abortion pill— Get Regular would have been much better"
If i have the wrong pill then ok, just enjoy the read again.
Remember this post - hap0206, Invalid, disingenuous, misrepresentation recaps of yours, they are.
[...]The Absurd Pregnancy Math behind the ‘Six-Week’ Abortion Ban
"Briefs Draw Battle Lines as Texas Abortion Law Nears Supreme Court
"Texas Abortion Ban Goes Too Far For Even Some Republicans: ‘A Little Bit Extreme’"
The law the Supreme Court just failed to block is not just a blow to women; it’s biologically nonsensical
[...]But in reality, the six-week ban limits abortion care to only four weeks after conception, and only one week, realistically, from when a person could find out they are pregnant. At this stage, an embryo has implanted and has a neural tube, and the blood vessel that will develop into the heart begins pulsing. This pulsing, or “heartbeat,” is the basis for the emotional appeal of these bills. But at this early stage, the embryo is still in the process of differentiating organs and won’t be classified as a “fetus” until about a month later.
[,...]This is where pregnancy math meets menstrual math, which is further complicated by the limits of hormonally detecting pregnancy. Menstrual math, or predicting when a “missed” period occurs, is often based on an assumed 28-day cycle. If you have a regular 28-day cycle, the expected missed period should happen two weeks after conception. That gives you about two weeks before that “six-week” threshold to take a pregnancy test and see your doctor. But it’s recommended that you wait for a week after your missed period to take a pregnancy test, because if you take it too early, you may get a false negative. Pregnancy tests measure human chorionic gonadatropin (hCG), a hormone produced after implantation. Though it can be potentially detected shortly after implantation, at about a week after conception and “three weeks” pregnant, it may not build up to detectable levels until a couple of weeks later. Thus, for patients with a predictable 28-day cycle, there is only about one week before the “six-week” threshold to confirm pregnancy. For someone who knows they want an abortion, taking a test, getting confirmation from a health care provider and having the abortion would have to occur within a single week.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171700729
Back to Christianity causing death, at least what extreme Christians call human deaths.
Att. livefree_ordie - What the Christian Right Gets Wrong About Birth Control
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173956853
Absolutely, no worry there. 100%.
Haha. Only think that abut you sometimes, not for that. Only yesterday, four guys were sitting at a table in the General Gordon pub in Sydenham (lies beside Tempe) and one said, "Think about it. We have the most powerful country in the world, the country which ever since it's inception has been seen and admired as the leading advocate for democracy worldwide and the highest court in that country is corrupt." The other three nodded in agreement. It's almost unbelievable, but Trump and McConnell created it. And so many other corrupt congresspeople went along with it.
Breathing is that bad, 'specially in places in that song, it's hard. That means working
with the song in karaoke fashion has to be a good exercise. Simple logic, eh what. lol
More corrupt than insane, i'd say. If believing the president was above the law was a measure of insanity then i'd agree Alito is insane, but since it isn't am gonna just settle for Alito is corrupt as they come. Whatever, Alito and Thomas, for two, are two Americans America should not be at all proud of. Neither deserve the position they hold. Alito's position on presidential immunity has to be an unconstitutional one. Thomas we know is corrupt. Kirshner is an American America should be proud of.
Unfortunately only time will tell whether Barrett, Gorsuch or Kavanaugh
.. https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/justices.aspx ..
have more loyalty to the constitution, or to Donald Trump.
Partisan hacks’: Justice Thomas and Alito show their true colors in Trump Immunity arguments
Att: sideeki ‘A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose’: can Allan Lichtman predict the 2024 election?
"Always good to read of more young voters arriving than older voters leaving. And for sure no right-minded person (lol
feels a misnomer there, but politics aside) could possibly deny the moral decay of the GOP is not glaringly obvious."
David Smith in Washington
The professor on his famous 13 ‘keys’ to the White House, a method for predicting election results that’s been right nine times out of 10
David Smith
Fri 26 Apr 2024 22.00 AEST
Last modified on Sat 27 Apr 2024 04.57 AEST
Allan Lichtman is likely to make his pronouncement on the 2024 presidential election in early August. Composite: Getty Images
All links
He has been called the Nostradamus of US presidential elections. Allan Lichtman has correctly predicted the result of nine of the past 10 (and even the one that got away, in 2000, he insists was stolen from Al Gore). But now he is gearing up for perhaps his greatest challenge: Joe Biden v Donald Trump II.
Lichtman is a man of parts. The history professor has been teaching at American University in Washington for half a century. He is a former North American 3,000m steeplechase champion and, at 77 – the same age as Trump – aiming to compete in the next Senior Olympics. In 1981 he appeared on the TV quizshow Tic-Tac-Dough and won $110,000 in cash and prizes.
‘It’s very personal’: could Abdullah Hammoud, a Michigan mayor, hold the key to the 2024 elections?
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/21/abdullah-hammoud-dearborn-mayor-elections
That same year he developed his now famous 13 keys to the White House, a method for predicting presidential election results that every four years tantalises the media, intrigues political operatives and provokes sniping from pollsters. Long before talk of the Steele dossier or Mueller investigation, it all began with a Russian reaching out across the cold war divide.
“I’d love to tell you I developed my system by ruining my eyes in the archives, by deep contemplation, but if I were to say that, to quote the late great Richard Nixon, that would be wrong,” Lichtman recalls from a book-crowded office on the AU campus. “Like so many discoveries, it was kind of serendipitous.”
Allan Lichtman in his office in Washington DC in 2012. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images
Lichtman was a visiting scholar at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena when he met the world’s leading authority in earthquake prediction, Vladimir Keilis-Borok .. https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/obituary-vladimir-keilis-borok-249045 , who had been part of a Soviet delegation that negotiated the limited nuclear test ban treaty with President John F Kennedy in Washington in 1963.
Keilis-Borok had fallen in love with American politics and began a collaboration with Lichtman to reconceptualise elections in earthquake terms. That is, as a question of stability (the party holding the White House keeps it) versus earthquake (the party holding the White House gets thrown out).
They looked at every presidential election since Abraham Lincoln’s victory in 1860 .. https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/election-of-1860 , combining Keilis-Borok’s method recognising patterns associated with stability and earthquakes with Lichtman’s theory that elections are basically votes up or down on the strength and performance of the party that holds the White House.
They came up with 13 true/false questions and a decision rule: if six or more keys went against the White House party, it would lose. If fewer than six went against it, it would win. These are the 13 keys, as summarised by AU’s website .. https://www.american.edu/cas/news/13-keys-to-the-white-house.cfm :
1. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
Lichtman and Keilis-Borok published a paper in an academic journal, which was spotted by an Associated Press science reporter, leading to a Washington Post article headlined: “Odd couple discovers keys to the White House.” Then, in the Washingtonian magazine in April 1982, Lichtman used the keys to accurately predict that, despite economic recession, low approval ratings and relative old age, Ronald Reagan would win re-election two years later.
That led to an invitation to the White House from the presidential aide Lee Atwater .. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/30/obituaries/lee-atwater-master-of-tactics-for-bush-and-gop-dies-at-40.html , where Lichtman met numerous officials including then vice-president George HW Bush. Atwater asked him what would happen if Reagan did not run for re-election. Lichtman reckoned that a few important keys would be lost, including incumbent charisma.
“Without the Gipper, forget it,” Lichtman says. “George Bush is about as charismatic as a New Jersey shopping centre on a Sunday morning. Atwater looks me in the eye, breathes a huge sigh of relief, and says, thank you, Professor Lichtman. And the rest is history.”
For the next election, Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis by 18 percentage points in the opinion polls in May 1988, yet Lichtman correctly predicted a Bush victory because he was running on the Reagan inheritance of peace, prosperity, domestic tranquillity and breakthroughs with the Soviet Union.
George HW Bush and Michael Dukakis debate on 25 September 1988. Photograph: Bettmann Archive via Getty Images
That year Lichtman published a book, The Thirteen Keys to the Presidency. But he was still derided by the punditry establishment. “When I first developed my system and made my predictions, the professional forecasters blasted me because I had committed the ultimate sin of prediction, the sin of subjectivity.
“Some of my keys were not just cut and dried and I kept telling them, it’s not subjectivity, it’s judgment. We’re dealing with human systems and historians make judgments all the time, and they’re not random judgments. I define each key very carefully in my book and I have a record.”
He adds: “It took 15 to 20 years and the professional forecasting community totally turned around. They realised their big mathematical models didn’t work and the best models combined judgment with more cut-and-dried indicators. And suddenly the keys were the hottest thing in forecasting.”
Lichtman was a man in demand. He spoke at forecasting conferences, wrote for academic journals and even gave a talk to the CIA about how to apply the 13 keys to foreign elections. And his crystal ball kept working.
He predicted that George HW Bush would be a one-term president, even though he was riding high in polls after the Gulf war, causing many leading Democrats to pass on mounting a challenge. Then a call from Little Rock, Arkansas. It was Kay Goss .. https://www.unlv.edu/people/kay-goss , special assistant to Governor Bill Clinton.
“Are you really saying that George Bush can be beaten in 1992?” she asked. Lichtman confirmed that he was saying that. Clinton went on to win the Democratic primary election and beat Bush for the White House. “The Clintons have been big fans of the keys ever since,” Lichtman notes.
The one apparent blot on Lichtman’s copybook is the 2000 election, where he predicted victory for the Democratic vice-president Al Gore over George W Bush, the Republican governor of Texas. Gore did win the national popular vote but lost the electoral college by a gossamer-thin margin. Lichtman, however, believes he was right.
Al Gore answers a question during a town hall style debate against George W Bush in St Louis, Missouri, on 17 October 2000. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA
“It was a stolen election. Based on the actual votes, Al Gore should have won going away, except for the discarding of ballots cast by Black voters who were 95% for Gore. I proved this in my report to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. One out of every nine to 10 ballots cast by a Black voter was thrown out, as opposed to one out of 50 cast by a white voter.
“Most of those were not so-called hanging chads. They were over-votes because Black people were told punch in Gore and then write in Gore, just to be sure, and those ballots were all discarded. Political scientists have since looked at the election and proved I was right. Al Gore, based on the intent of the voters, should have won by tens of thousands of votes.”
He adds: “I contend I was right about 2000 or at a minimum there was no right prediction. You could argue either way. I contend – and a lot of people agree with me – that I’m 10 out of 10. But even if you say I’m nine out of 10, that’s not bad.”
Perhaps Lichtman’s most striking prophecy, defying polls, commentators and groupthink, was that Trump – a former reality TV star with no prior political or military experience – would pull off a wildly improbable win .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/donald-trump-supporters-hilton-new-york .. over the former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton in 2016. How did he know?
Donald Trump’s acceptance speech is broadcast in Times Square in New York on 9 November 2016. Photograph: Michael Reaves/Getty Images
“The critical sixth key was the contest key: Bernie Sanders’s contest against Clinton. It was an open seat so you lost the incumbency key. The Democrats had done poorly in 2014 so you lost that key. There was no big domestic accomplishment following the Affordable Care Act in the previous term, and no big foreign policy splashy success following the killing of Bin Laden in the first term, so there were just enough keys. It was not an easy call.”
After the election, Lichtman received a copy of the Washington Post interview .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/23/trump-is-headed-for-a-win-says-professor-whos-predicted-30-years-of-presidential-outcomes-correctly/ .. in which he made the prediction. On it was written in a Sharpie pen: “Congrats, professor. Good call. Donald J Trump.” But in the same call, Lichtman had also prophesied – again accurately – that Trump would one day be impeached.
He was right about 2020, too, as Trump struggled to handle the coronavirus pandemic. “The pandemic is what did him in. He congratulated me for predicting him but he didn’t understand the keys. The message of the keys is it’s governance not campaigning that counts and instead of dealing substantively with the pandemic, as we know, he thought he could talk his way out of it and that sank him.”
Adam Kinzinger: second Trump term could be ‘devastating for world order’
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/22/adam-kinzinger-trump-interview-republicans
In 2020 Lichtman gave a presentation to the American Political Science Association about the keys as one of three classic models of prediction. In recent months he has delivered keynote addresses at Asian and Brazilian financial conferences, the Oxford Union and JP Morgan. As another election looms, he is not impressed by polls that show Trump leading Biden, prompting a fatalistic mood .. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/13/trump-the-front-runner-not-so-fast-00152010 .. to take hold in Washington DC and foreign capitals.
“They’re mesmerised by the wrong things, which is the polls. First of all, polls six, seven months before an election have zero predictive value. They would have predicted President Michael Dukakis. They would have predicted President Jimmy Carter would have defeated Ronald Reagan, who won in a landslide; Carter was way ahead in some of the early polls.
“Not only are polls a snapshot but they are not predictors. They don’t predict anything and there’s no such thing as, ‘if the election were held today’. That’s a meaningless statement.”
He is likely to make his pronouncement on the 2024 presidential election in early August. He notes that Biden already has the incumbency key in his favour and, having crushed token challengers in the Democratic primary, has the contest key too. “That’s two keys off the top. That means six more keys would have to fall to predict his defeat. A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.”
Joe Biden in the east room of the White House on 23 February 2024. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Lichtman gives no weight to running mate picks and has never changed his forecast in the wake of a so-called “October surprise” But no predictive model is entirely immune to a black swan event.
Speaking in the week that saw a jury seated for Trump’s criminal trial in New York .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/18/trump-day-three-juror-hush-money-trial .. involving a hush-money payment to a pornographic film performer, Lichtman acknowledges: “Keys are based on history. They’re very robust because they go all the way back retrospectively to 1860 and prospectively to 1984, so they cover enormous changes in our economy, our society, our demography, our politics.
“But it’s always possible there could be a cataclysmic enough event outside the scope of the keys that could affect the election and here we do have, for the first time, not just a former president but a major party candidate sitting in a trial and who knows if he’s convicted – and there’s a good chance he will be – how that might scramble things.”
Millions of people will be on edge on the night of 5 November. After 40 years of doing this, Lichtman will have one more reason to be anxious. “It’s nerve-racking because there are a lot of people who’d love to see me fail.” And if he does? “I’m human,” he admits. “It doesn’t mean my system’s wrong. Nothing is perfect in the human world.”
Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the world?
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-live-events/2024/mar/14/biden-v-trump-whats-in-store-for-the-us-and-the-world
On Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/26/allan-lichtman-prediction-presidential-election
It doesn't wipe my niggle about Nov., but it's great to see the suggestion Lichtman is leaning to Biden. Gotta say though the comment on the stolen 2000 election does stress again my concerns aroung Cleta and ALEC .. from previous ..
[...] Reminder of ALEC organization and Cleta Mitchell:
[...]The Election That Could Break America
[...][Insert: Meet Cleta Mitchell. Trump's election fixer. Mitchell is heading a real-time Putinesque, Orbanespue,
whichever strongman election-fixer you want to use, American effort to fix American elections.
"Republicans Paddle Faster to Try to Keep their U.S. Senate Hopes from Sinking"
Lawyer Who Plotted to Overturn Trump Loss Recruits Election Deniers to Watch Over the Vote
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169737199]
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174314209
Understood. Always figured we shared some feelings. On reading yours i googled "only electoral process us can beat biden", and got a Guardian article
which will post to the one you replied to. I was thinking the word weird after "only", but left it out. Next i'll put the weird in for a 2nd search. lol