Replies to post #4093 on Just Politics

[EZ2]

<< And thus, the last sentence of the OBIWAN CHRONICLES.....is written!! ;-)


Good one!!!!

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Ron Dzwonkowski: Too much time, money wasted on campaigning

Jun. 26, 2012
2 Comments


Just think what $11 billion could do.

OK, it would not make much of a dent in our $15.7 trillion national debt. Still, it's a sizable pile of money. Enough to build, say, four new bridges between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

But we will not have anything so concrete to show for this $11 billion.

What we will have is a presidential election — and $11 billion is the Federal Election Commission's estimate of what will be spent to win it.

This is crazy. It is a completely out-of-hand situation that's ripe for corruption, which is the standard by-product of mixing large amounts of money into our political machinery.

Guess what? Immediately after the Nov. 6 election, it will start all over again, for 2014 and 2016. If you run for a job and win, you hardly get to do the job before you have to start running for it again. Or in the case of Mitt Romney, if you don't win it on the first try, you just keep running right into the next election cycle.

That takes money — for polls, consultants, airplanes, dinners, advertising — lots of advertising, enough to carpet-bomb people with campaign garbage, most of which is so negative that it serves mainly to deepen the many divides that already exist in the country. The negative nature of today's campaigns also makes it impossible for the people who run on this stuff to compromise on anything if they win — and it discourages smart, young, open-minded citizens from careers in public service. Who wants to work in that climate?

So how do we get to climate change?

First, shorten the season. Stop the endless political cycle. Give the people a break and let those who are elected attempt to do their jobs for a while without the constant need to raise money to keep them.

Consider these points:

Campaigns don't need to run so long to "get the message out" anymore. We live in an age where anybody can reach millions of people in minutes through the Internet. Fall into a fountain one day, you're on YouTube the next and TV's "Today" show within a week.

Those billions of dollars are really aimed at a relatively few voters. Look at any recent poll in the presidential race and, with four months to go, the undecideds are, at most, 12 percent to 14 percent. Everybody else already knows for whom they are voting and will not be persuaded otherwise. Studies show that even when presented with contrary information, they dig in their heels. My guess is that this holds true in just about all political races. Most minds are firmly made up early and will not be changed. The undecided voters don't make their choice until a week out from the election. So all that nasty advertising in-between is largely wasted money.

In presidential races especially, campaigning would be far cheaper if the helter-skelter primary calendar was replaced with a system of four or five dates for regional primaries, rotated to let a different region go first each cycle. This would require cooperation of the states, but also give their regions more than one or two days of attention from the candidates.

Let no candidate for any office spend a single dollar in public pursuit of it until 90 days before the election. All spending up to that point could be for only organizational purposes, hiring staff, etc. But instead of a marathon that ends with the runners and spectators both exhausted, let's make it a sprint, with all contestants leaving the blocks at the same time.

Given our short national attention span, this is plenty of distance for the real leaders to distinguish themselves. We'll also see who knows how to make the most efficient use of resources — a mandate for anyone going into government today.

We can save that $11 billion for other purposes, we can engage more people in the political process, and we can, in less time, make choices that will be at least as good as any we will make this November.

But we won't. Why? Because the people pouring that $11 billion into our political system see it as an investment — and they won't let the people in whom they are investing change the system in any way that might reduce their return.

Ron Dzwonkowski is associate editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at [phone] or at [e-mail].

http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20120626/OPINION01/206260321/Ron-Dzwonkowski-Too-much-time-money-wasted-campaigning

[EZ2]

Just can't do much of anything to help da' hood!!! :-(

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Home prices rise in nearly all major US cities

Jun 26, 9:28 AM (ET)

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER


WASHINGTON (AP) - Home prices rose in nearly all major U.S. cities in April from March, further evidence that the housing market is slowly improving even while the job market slumps.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index shows increases in 19 of the 20 cities tracked. That's the second straight month that prices have risen in a majority of U.S. cities.

And a measure of national prices rose 1.3 percent in April from March, the first increase in seven months.

San Francisco, Washington and Phoenix posted the biggest increases. Prices fell 3.6 percent in Detroit, the only city to record a drop.

The month-to-month prices aren't adjusted for seasonal factors. Still, prices in half of the cities are up over the past 12 months.

Prices are increasing as other parts of the housing market are strengthening. Sales of new and previously occupied homes are up over the past year, in part because mortgage rates have plunged to the lowest levels on record. Builders are more confident and are starting to build more homes.

The S&P/Case-Shiller monthly index covers roughly half of U.S. homes. It measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The April figures are the latest available.

Its measure of home prices for all 20 cities fell 1.9 percent over the 12 months ending in April. That suggests weaker markets continue to weigh on national prices.

But other measures show home prices have risen nationally over the past year. CoreLogic, a private firm, calculates that prices rose 1.1 percent nationally in the 12 months ending in May. Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, says prices have increased 3 percent in the 12 months ending in April.

Recent data indicate that the housing market has started to recovery more than five years after the bubble burst.

Greater interest from buyers is boosting builders' confidence. In May, builders requested the highest number of permits to build homes and apartments in three and a half years.

The supply of homes for sale remains extremely low, which has helped stabilized prices. The inventory of previously occupied homes is back down to levels last seen in 2006. And there were 145,000 new homes for sale in May. That's only slightly higher than in April, which was the lowest supply on records dating back to 1963.

Despite the modest gains in housing, the broader economy has weakened in recent months. Employers have added an average of only 73,000 jobs a month in April and May. That's much lower than the average of 226,000 added in the first three months of this year. Some economists worry that the sluggish job market could weigh on home sales just as the housing market is flashing signs of recovery.