| Obama | Romney |
| 99.6% probability of winning | 0.4% probability of winning |
| Mean of 327 electoral votes | Mean of 211 electoral votes |
The previous analysis showed President Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney by 334 to 204 electoral votes in an election held now. Obama would be expected to win the hypothetical election with 100% probability.
Since then eight new polls have been released:
| start | end | sample | % | % | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| st | poll | date | date | size | MOE | O | R | diff |
| CO | Purple Poll | 09-Jul | 13-Jul | 600 | 4.0 | 45 | 44 | O+1 |
| FL | Purple Poll | 09-Jul | 13-Jul | 600 | 4.0 | 45 | 48 | R+3 |
| FL | Mason Dixon | 09-Jul | 11-Jul | 800 | 3.5 | 46 | 45 | O+1 |
| IA | PPP | 12-Jul | 15-Jul | 1131 | 2.9 | 48 | 43 | O+5 |
| NH | U NH | 05-Jul | 15-Jul | 470 | 4.3 | 49 | 45 | O+4 |
| NY | Siena | 10-Jul | 15-Jul | 758 | 3.6 | 61 | 34 | O+27 |
| OH | Purple Poll | 09-Jul | 13-Jul | 600 | 4.0 | 48 | 45 | O+3 |
| VA | Purple Poll | 09-Jul | 13-Jul | 600 | 4.0 | 46 | 44 | O+2 |
Colorado offers Obama a +1% edge over Romney, 45% to 44%. The larger trend looks good, but not great, for Obama:
Two Florida polls split. Romney leads Obama by +3% in the Purple Strategies Poll, and Obama leads by +1 in the Mason-Dixon poll. The combined results of the five current polls suggest Obama would win now with a 68.4% probability. But the polling trends don’t favor either candidate. There is simply too much volatility:
Iowa gives Obama a +5% lead over Romney, and the lead in the past two polls. The trend is no comfort to either candidate. Obama has some good polls, they are almost all from one pollster (PPP):
New Hampshire gives Obama a small lead over Romney by +4%, giving Obama a six-consecutive poll streak going back to early April.
Why do pollsters even bother with polling New York where Obama has a double-digit +27% lead over Romney? I guess it’s a near-free-bee while polling other state races. (Still…I’d rather see a new poll in, say, South Carolina.)
Ohio puts Obama over Romney by a tight +3%. That makes three in a row for Obama, going back to early June. The overall trend looks pretty favorable for Obama:
Virginia has Obama up by +2% over Romney, and taking both July polls. On balance, the polling looks slightly better for Obama:
After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 99,646 times and Romney wins 354 times (including the 60 ties). Obama receives (on average) 327 (-7) to Romney’s 211 (+7) electoral votes. For that hypothetical election held now, Obama would have a 99.6% (-0.4%) probability of winning and Romney a 0.4% (+0.4%) probability of winning.
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Obama:
- 328 electoral votes with a 2.73% probability
- 341 electoral votes with a 2.69% probability
- 342 electoral votes with a 2.31% probability
- 329 electoral votes with a 2.24% probability
- 326 electoral votes with a 2.07% probability
- 327 electoral votes with a 2.04% probability
- 313 electoral votes with a 2.00% probability
- 319 electoral votes with a 1.95% probability
- 322 electoral votes with a 1.91% probability
- 335 electoral votes with a 1.89% probability
After 100,000 simulations:
- Obama wins 99.6%, Romney wins 0.4%.
- Average (SE) EC votes for Obama: 326.8 (20.6)
- Average (SE) EC votes for Romney: 211.2 (20.6)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Obama: 328 (284, 363)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Romney: 210 (175, 254)
Each column of this table shows the electoral vote total aggregated by different criteria for the probability of winning a state (Safe=100%, Strong=90%+, Leans=60%+, Weak=50%+):
| Threshold | Safe | + Strong | + Leans | + Weak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Obama | 87 | |||
| Strong Obama | 161 | 248 | ||
| Leans Obama | 80 | 80 | 328 | |
| Weak Obama | 13 | 13 | 13 | 341 |
| Weak Romney | 16 | 16 | 16 | 197 |
| Leans Romney | 11 | 11 | 181 | |
| Strong Romney | 141 | 170 | ||
| Safe Romney | 29 |
This table summarizes results by state. Click on the poll count to see the individual polls included for the state.
| 0 | 0 | EC | # | Total | % | % | Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 4 | Votes | polls | Votes | Obama | Romney | % wins | % wins | |
| AL | 9 | 1 | 484 | 41.5 | 58.5 | 0.4 | 99.6 | ||
| AK | 3 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| AZ | 11 | 1 | 475 | 43.2 | 56.8 | 1.4 | 98.6 | ||
| AR | 6 | 1* | 679 | 36.8 | 63.2 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| CA | 55 | 1 | 780 | 59.7 | 40.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| CO | 9 | 2 | 1505 | 51.5 | 48.5 | 79.1 | 20.9 | ||
| CT | 7 | 1* | 1239 | 56.8 | 43.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| DE | 3 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| DC | 3 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| FL | 29 | 5 | 3804 | 50.6 | 49.4 | 68.4 | 31.6 | ||
| GA | 16 | 1* | 404 | 43.3 | 56.7 | 3.4 | 96.6 | ||
| HI | 4 | 1* | 517 | 64.8 | 35.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ID | 4 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| IL | 20 | 1* | 546 | 61.5 | 38.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| IN | 11 | 1* | 447 | 45.0 | 55.0 | 6.6 | 93.4 | ||
| IA | 6 | 2 | 1996 | 51.7 | 48.3 | 86.2 | 13.8 | ||
| KS | 6 | 1* | 442 | 45.0 | 55.0 | 6.7 | 93.3 | ||
| KY | 8 | 1* | 528 | 45.5 | 54.5 | 7.0 | 93.0 | ||
| LA | 8 | 1* | 542 | 41.1 | 58.9 | 0.2 | 99.8 | ||
| ME | 2 | 1 | 516 | 58.3 | 41.7 | 99.6 | 0.4 | ||
| ME1 | 1 | 1* | 488 | 64.8 | 35.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ME2 | 1 | 1* | 421 | 53.7 | 46.3 | 85.7 | 14.3 | ||
| MD | 10 | 1* | 792 | 62.4 | 37.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MA | 11 | 1 | 848 | 58.5 | 41.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MI | 16 | 3 | 2479 | 50.8 | 49.2 | 72.6 | 27.4 | ||
| MN | 10 | 1* | 904 | 58.1 | 41.9 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MS | 6 | 1* | 717 | 40.0 | 60.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| MO | 10 | 1* | 455 | 46.2 | 53.8 | 12.4 | 87.6 | ||
| MT | 3 | 1 | 372 | 45.2 | 54.8 | 9.1 | 90.9 | ||
| NE | 2 | 1* | 553 | 43.4 | 56.6 | 1.3 | 98.7 | ||
| NE1 | 1 | 1* | 389 | 45.5 | 54.5 | 10.1 | 89.9 | ||
| NE2 | 1 | 1* | 252 | 49.6 | 50.4 | 46.8 | 53.2 | ||
| NE3 | 1 | 1* | 284 | 35.9 | 64.1 | 0.1 | 99.9 | ||
| NV | 6 | 1* | 450 | 53.3 | 46.7 | 83.1 | 16.9 | ||
| NH | 4 | 4 | 2167 | 51.5 | 48.5 | 83.9 | 16.1 | ||
| NJ | 14 | 1* | 947 | 62.9 | 37.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NM | 5 | 1 | 1178 | 56.0 | 44.0 | 99.8 | 0.2 | ||
| NY | 29 | 1 | 720 | 64.2 | 35.8 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NC | 15 | 5 | 3107 | 49.7 | 50.3 | 40.9 | 59.1 | ||
| ND | 3 | 1 | 348 | 41.4 | 58.6 | 1.2 | 98.8 | ||
| OH | 18 | 3 | 2221 | 53.4 | 46.6 | 98.7 | 1.3 | ||
| OK | 7 | 1* | 448 | 30.4 | 69.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| OR | 7 | 1 | 631 | 54.4 | 45.6 | 94.1 | 5.9 | ||
| PA | 20 | 2 | 2119 | 53.8 | 46.2 | 99.3 | 0.7 | ||
| RI | 4 | 1* | 495 | 59.4 | 40.6 | 99.9 | 0.1 | ||
| SC | 9 | 1* | 1833 | 51.7 | 48.3 | 84.6 | 15.4 | ||
| SD | 3 | 1* | 442 | 44.3 | 55.7 | 4.6 | 95.4 | ||
| TN | 11 | 1* | 654 | 46.0 | 54.0 | 7.6 | 92.4 | ||
| TX | 38 | 1* | 460 | 38.9 | 61.1 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| UT | 6 | 1 | 1149 | 27.7 | 72.3 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| VT | 3 | 1* | 528 | 67.8 | 32.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| VA | 13 | 3 | 2146 | 50.3 | 49.7 | 58.2 | 41.8 | ||
| WA | 12 | 1* | 1019 | 56.8 | 43.2 | 99.9 | 0.1 | ||
| WV | 5 | 1* | 373 | 40.8 | 59.2 | 0.4 | 99.6 | ||
| WI | 10 | 2 | 1754 | 53.5 | 46.5 | 97.9 | 2.1 | ||
| WY | 3 | 0 | (0) | (100) |
* An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.
The most recent analysis in this match-up can be found from this page.
retard
Just curious, Darryl, but why are your probabilities so different from Nate Silver’s probabilities?
Well, couldn’t expect 100% odds all the way through November, though I hope he never gets back down to below 70%.
Thanks again for doing this.
If 0.4% was all Rmoney could get from his investments he’d shoot himself.
Wow.. That’s worrying news!
heh.
From what I’ve been reading and hearing, it sounds like support of Obama’s pretty soft in Colorado right now. I’d call that the first thing I’ve seen as bad news for Obama.
One source:
In retrospect, it’s probably a good idea for me to expand on my question @1. I understand that Nate Silver’s model takes into account a number of factors, e.g. economic, other than polling numbers. I also understand that your model is a “if the election were held today” model, while Nate’s is more of a forward-looking model. I expect there to be some difference.
What I don’t understand is the magnitude of the difference. Silver’s model has Pres. Obama with a 2/3 chance of winning the election, while your model has him at a virtual lock. In terms of probabilities, that’s huge, and I’m trying to understand how to account for it.
One possibility, I imagine, would be that Nate’s model attempts to fill in some kind of percentage of undecided voters while yours doesn’t, and, in that case, one would expect some convergence between your model and Nate’s model as we get closer to the election (and more undecideds start deciding how they’re going to vote).
Am I on the right track with this, or are the two models just so completely different as to render worthless any attempt to reconcile the two?
Don Joe,
You are on the right track. There are a couple of issues here:
A) Last I read his blog, he was doing two types of predictions. (1) predictions about an election held now. (2) predictions to November.
Any predictions to November must have considerable uncertainty, so they would be closer to 0.5% than predictions for now.
B) In 2008, Silver’s distributions of electoral votes (like my bar-graph) where highly overdispersed relative to my distributions. Late in the election season, his graphs essentially “said” that McCain had some non-zero probability of capturing all the electoral votes (and ditto for Obama). This is simply absurd. The overdispersion results in shifts toward 0.5 versus a not-overdispersed distribution. Part of that may be his weighting of polls by “quality” which effectively decreases the sample size. But he also employs proprietary adjustments in his analysis that are not accessible to readers. I couldn’t find enough information to replicate his analyses.
My analyses make almost no assumptions beyond a binomial distribution and that the observed probability of D vs. R for a poll also contains sampling error (together, a beta binomial distribution in the statistics literature). The exception is my assumptions about when polls are “current” versus “too old”.
I purposely make my methods transparent, direct, and completely replicable.
Thanks, Darryl. In your sentence, “Any predictions to November must have considerable uncertainty, so they would be closer to 0.5% than predictions for now,” the “%” seems superfluous.
As for the broader point, I think you’re saying that Nate’s model has more variance in it. That variance translates into a wider distribution of probabilities such that the distribution itself includes “possible” events that are, strictly speaking, simply not possible. Am I reading that correctly? I admit, it’s been a quarter century since I took a course in statistics and probability, so it’s entirely possible I’m not remembering the vocabulary all that well.
Don Joe,
Yep…you have it! (And you are right about the %, too…should be 50% or 0.5)
Would the simplest way to look at this monte carlo simulation be “what are the chances that, due to the margin of error that all polls have, the person the polls say is leading is actually behind?”?
If so, I think another reason Obama’s chances are listed as so high is that a change in the polls by just 1% in support seems to, from what I have seen in other simulations drastically change the probability percentages. For example, in the governor’s election one poll had McKenna up 42-40, the other Mckenna was up 43-40, yet the percentage of Mckenna winning was nearly 80%. The reason that Obama’s chances are so high then is that the polls would have to be “wrong (in the sense of my first paragraph)” in several states and all of the times they are “wrong” Romney would have to be the one that benefits at the ballot (or in WA mail) box. Obama is not a lock because if Romney can get just a few undecideds or leaning but not sure Obama voters to his side it would have a big change in his chances (at least from what I have seen in how a few points changes the probability in the governor’s election).
Also, any chance we could see some monte carlo simulations for initiatives and party control of house/senate (both us and WA)?
Obama spends over $100 Million going hard negative against Romney and moves the needle close to ZERO. Obama is stuck at 47% Approval.
http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....-1044.html
I believe the Republican Convention will move the needle for Romney. He will announce his VP candidate and start going hard after Obama. Romney is saving lots of dry powder for when it really matters most. The Democrat Convention is a non-event. In 2008, it was huge. Now it’s not. The base is confused and perpetually pissed off..now at Obama. Obama is trashing America in order to try & squeak out a re-election. But how much more divided is the Country now? It’s actually worse than 2008. Folks feel a lack of hope…and have only seen change for the worse.
Will be interesting to see Darryl’s analysis a few days post Republican Convention…when it really starts to matter.
# 12: As you well know, it’s not the President who’s been dividing the country, it’s the Republicans, and they’ve been doing so for decades now. They just racheted it up into hyperdrive after the President was elected, because that’s the only game they know how to play and the rest of their took kit was empty.
As for the polling, Romney will probably get a bounce at the Republican convention and upon naming a VP candidate. But that’s it – it is a “bounce”, which means it will return to previous levels once the Democratic convention gets it’s own bounce which will equal things out.
As for Romney’s VP nomination, Romney’s facing a game of excessive expectations, given the available field of candidates. There are few potential “game changers” on the bench, but polling has indicated that they really don’t even make much difference in their home state, much less nationally. Breaking it down into groups, he’s got his choice of (a) about a dozen rich, boring white guys with little national name recognition; (b) a half-dozen white Republican tea-party favorite politicians who appeal to the Republican base yet didn’t dare enter the primaries, and have an adverse affect on undecideds in a national election; (c) three white political women, two of whom are nut-jobs and one who is serious but with little national political experience.
Romney’s problem in picking a VP is that a few of the more serious potential picks (Jeb Bush, etc.) chose to sit out this election cycle, probably thinking that whoever got the Republican nomination this time around was merely a sacrificial lamb. They are waiting for 2016 instead.
And the President needs to spend the next four years in developing national name recognition for serious Democratic candidates, so that the Democrats have not only a great front-bench, but a back-bench as well. This will help in the 2016 election, which if the Democrats win will prevent the Republicans from spending the next four years attempting to dismantle the repairs the Democrates made due to Republican mis-management during the Bush administration.
@ 11
Winning or losing an election is a binary outcome. In that sense, the probability that the outcome is the opposite of the poll result is simply 1 – the probability that the poll result is correct. So, no, I don’t think that simplifies our understanding. At least it doesn’t for me.
Darryl can certainly explain the details better than I, but I’ll give it a shot (for no other reason than to make sure I actually understand the basic ideas).
If you combine the results of a poll with its margin of error, you get a range of possible outcomes. There’s no particular reason to believe that any given outcome within that range has a higher probability of occurring than any of the other outcomes in that range, so, to generate a distribution of possible outcomes, Darryl runs a large number of simulations (100,000) where each simulation randomly selects one of those possible outcomes.
This is a Monte Carlo method, and its purpose is to reduce the variance in the distribution of outcomes. That’s why I reworded Darryl’s answer to my question in terms of the variance in each of the two models.
Now, what does that mean? Well, when you reduce the variance in a distribution of outcomes, the bell curve gets narrower and taller.
So, picture two bell curves showing a distribution of outcomes around the same central tendency (or “average” if you prefer). One is short and wide, while the other is tall and narrow. Remember that probability is on the vertical axis, so the points where these two curves intersect represent outcomes that have the same probability for each curve (or distribution of outcomes). Remember, also, that, for each curve, the sum of all the probabilities must equal 1.
So, for a probability distribution represented by a relatively wide and short curve, probabilities further away from the central tendency are higher than they are in a probability distribution represented by a relatively narrow and tall curve. Were that not the case, then one or both of the probability distributions would not sum to a total probability of 1.
Now, we’re doing this on a state-by-state basis to determine the results of an election involving the electoral college. If the amount of variance for the outcomes of each state is relatively high, then the probability for the overall electoral college result will be closer to 50% than would the probability for the overall result when there is relatively low variance in the outcomes for each state. The existence of the electoral college adds a level of complexity to the computation of probabilities associated with the possible outcomes.
This isn’t quite the same as the probability that the poll result is wrong in terms of who is in the lead. It’s really about the range of probabilities associated with different outcomes. And, the problem with Nate Silver’s analysis is that, when combined via the electoral college, that analysis assigns a non-zero probability to outcomes (e.g. one or both of the candidates actually getting all of the electoral college votes) that are, strictly speaking, not possible. This means that Silver’s analysis has too much variance in it.
That’s one point. The other is how you deal with undecideds. Darryl’s analysis basically leaves them out (or assigns them equally to each candidate based on the overall probabilities in a given simulation run, which, mathematically, is the same as leaving them out altogether–if you divide X by 2 and add the result to both sides of an equation, the equation still holds).
Nate Silver’s analysis attempts to predict how undecided voters will vote given a variety of socio-economic factors that tend to affect the way people vote (either for or against an incumbent). In this election, these socio-economic factors are not particularly favorable to the incumbent, which increases the probability that the challenger will win.
@ 12
Obama spends over $100 Million going hard negative against Romney and moves the needle close to ZERO. Obama is stuck at 47% Approval.
I see. So we’re going to measure the effectiveness of the Obama campaign’s efforts by looking solely at Obama’s favorables/unfavorables while completely ignoring Romney’s favorables/unfavorables. That strikes me as the behavior of someone who is desperate to find something, anything, positive to grasp and hold tightly.
let me see if I have this correct. In the mind of a conservative:
Repeatedly asking the president for a birth certificate that HAS been provided is acceptable
but
Repeatedly asking romney for tax returns that have NOT been provided is NOT acceptable?
The problem with using favorable/unfavorable ratings is that they don’t measure party loyalty in any way. There may be a number of Democrats who aren’t particularly happy that the President hasn’t been more of a firebrand and brought some more liberal issues to the table, and they may deem him unfavorable for that reason. But when the choice comes down to the President vs. Romney, they are still going to go with the President.
This is also true for Romney. But the dynamics are such that you can’t assume what is true for the President is equally true for Romney. For example, I know quite a few Evangelical Christians who despise the President, but can’t bring themselves to vote for a Morman. They will sit out this election unless some major religious figure tells them it is okay for the to vote for Romney.
The problem is, Jerry Falwell is dead, Pat Robertson has a tiny following, and a lot of other big Christian leaders have problems other than politics and will generally keep their heads low in this race. The only one approaching that is Billy Graham’s son, who doesn’t have near the following of his father simply because he’s been sticking his head into too many political debates. There is no one national Evangelical figure who can control the Evangelical vote in that way – it’s more splinted than it ever has been since 1976.
@ 17
Favorability is an intangible. Currently it favors Obama.
Voter enthusiasm is another. CBS/NYT has a new poll out today. This one favors Romney, by a wide margin.
The younger voter turnout, or lack thereof, will be a huge factor. This ain’t 2008, Obama’s gone (or is going) grey, and too many young voters don’t have jobs.
Watch out.
@18 It’s probably best to wait and see how the polls look when your candidate has finished with his implosion. My goodness, what with so many Republicans taking up pitchforks and torches, Romney might not even survive the convention. Have you ever seen such a thing? Probably not since McGovern-Eagleton. So what do you think he’s hiding? Zero taxes while raking in zillions in 2009? Stiffing the LDS? He has obviously calculated that whatever he’s suffering now, including the possibility of losing his party’s nomination, is far less painful to him than what would be revealed in his 2009 taxes.
Watch out.
Chris @ 11
‘Would the simplest way to look at this monte carlo simulation be “what are the chances that, due to the margin of error that all polls have, the person the polls say is leading is actually behind?”?’
That is a good way to look at it when using one poll for one state. I might replace “margin of error” with “‘error’ from sampling a limited number of individuals instead of everyone”.
Here is how I think of it:
Suppose we have a poll of 500 randomly drawn voters and find 55% go for candidate D and 45% go for R. More formally we have a partisan split, s = 0.55 and 1 – s = 0.45.
The analysis address this: What is the probability (call it p) that, for a sample of 500, that the true value of s is actually less than 0.50% for D.
There are two things that affect p.
1. The poll’s sample size. If we sample more individuals, then the p decreases. Each polled person provides a little bit more “information” about the true value of s. As we get more and more information, we become more confident that the leader (D in this case) is really in the lead.
2. The value of s itself also affects the size of p. When a race is near s = 0.50, uncertainty is maximized (p is greater), compared to a poll of the same size with s closer to 0.0 or 1.0.
Translated back into conversational English, the reason the “Probability of winning the election held now” is, say, close to 100% is because a large poll size gives us much certainty and/or the poll result strongly favors one candidate.
@ 18
Voter enthusiasm is another. CBS/NYT has a new poll out today. This one favors Romney, by a wide margin.
Is there some point in your life when you’re going to start providing links to back up what you say? The problem with not providing links is that you can omit key details.
From cbsnews.com:
The CBS/NYT poll tries to measure whether or not people’s enthusiasm has increased compared to prior elections. Since enthusiasm for Obama was already high in 2008, one would expect the enthusiasm of some voters to drop even under the best of circumstances.
Here’s an ABC/Washington Post poll that talks about both favorables but also mentions enthusiasm:
Note that this one measures enthusiasm regarding the respective campaigns, and the gap favors Obama by a wide margin.
These are all just tea leaves. If you want to try to use any of this to try to predict voter turnout come November, you’re certainly free to do so. I would, however, suggest that you take care with the extent to which you place any hopes on either of these polls. Even in the weeks leading up to the election these polls can lead one to reach flawed conclusions if one doesn’t read them very carefully, and we’re still months away from November.
Don Joe @ 14
“…[to] generate a distribution of possible outcomes, Darryl runs a large number of simulations (100,000) where each simulation randomly selects one of those possible outcomes.”
Yep…that is the mechanics.
“This is a Monte Carlo method, and its purpose is to reduce the variance in the distribution of outcomes.”
I’ll only add that “reduce the variance” is a term of art for simulation analyses. It doesn’t have a very intuitive feel for people who haven’t studied simulation methods, so I rarely frame the description this way.
“Now, what does that mean? Well, when you reduce the variance in a distribution of outcomes, the bell curve gets narrower and taller.”
Just a technical point. People usually think of the “bell curve” as a normal (or Gaussian) distribution. For a binary outcome (“D wins or R wins”), a binomial distribution describes the probability distribution of the value of partisan split (s, as per my previous comment).
The normal distribution is sometimes used to approximate the binomial distribution. It works well if s is close to 0.5 and the sample size is large. When s <> 0.5 the binomial distribution becomes skewed…the normal distribution doesn’t.
These days there is almost no reason to use the normal to approximate a binomial distribution. So I don’t—I use the binomial distribution.
“The existence of the electoral college adds a level of complexity to the computation of probabilities associated with the possible outcomes.”
Yes…in fact, this is one reason to use simulations rather than trying to find the solution combinatorially.
But that is certainly another way of doing it. Given the poll data for each state, and assuming each state has one of 2 outcomes (D or R), one could look at all 2^56 (~ 72,057,954,040,000,000) possible state election outcomes and find the probability of each. (Note 56 = 50 states + DC + 3 NE districts + 2 ME districts.)
“This isn’t quite the same as the probability that the poll result is wrong in terms of who is in the lead. It’s really about the range of probabilities associated with different outcomes.”
Yeah…the extra complexity of multiple polls per state and the electoral college make the latter a better description.
“Darryl’s analysis basically leaves them out (or assigns them equally to each candidate based on the overall probabilities in a given simulation run, which, mathematically, is the same as leaving them out altogether–if you divide X by 2 and add the result to both sides of an equation, the equation still holds).”
I leave “undecideds” out. Assigning them probabilistically would not change the mean partisan outcome (s), but would artificially reduce the probability of being wrong (p in my previous comment). That is…I would be pretending I have information that I don’t really have.
“Nate Silver’s analysis attempts to predict how undecided voters will vote given a variety of socio-economic factors that tend to affect the way people vote (either for or against an incumbent).”
I am not sure, but I thought (in 2008) Silver dropped undecideds, like I do. As I recall, he adds an extra “pseudo poll” for each state that contains the demographic & socioeconomic factors. That pseudopoll is weighted into the other polls in some (frankly, mysterious) way.
@ 19
“He has obviously calculated that whatever he’s suffering now, including the possibility of losing his party’s nomination, is far less painful to him than what would be revealed in his 2009 taxes.”
Romney has more likely calculated that if he released his tax returns, each of which is likely to run hundreds of pages (my last one was 45 pages – just checked), not to mention the state return(s) and any other smaller returns he might file, he’ll have to deal with picky little questions, dribbled out in coordinated manner, between now and November. There won’t be an opportunity for him to talk about anything else.
If he holds his ground, the issue will go away except on HA, dKos, DU, and whatever MSNBC renames itself as. There will be the Olympics, Romney’s trip to see his buddy Bibi, the Veep selection, more economic news, the debates, and finally Israel’s bombing runs on Iran.
Plenty to talk about in the future. He’ll morph to an ‘Asked and answered.” response about releasing his taxes.
Go ahead and beat this for all it’s worth. Romney will still be even with Obama when the real campaign starts.
Oh, and this time Obama’s opponent in the general will be well-financed, and Obama will have a record.
I’m OK with all of this.
ev @ 12,
Most of what you wrote @ 12 is fanciful drivel that doesn’t merit discussion. (What do you do…write that shit in order to masturbate to it?)
But…I will address a serious point you mentioned:
“I believe the Republican Convention will move the needle for Romney. […] Will be interesting to see Darryl’s analysis a few days post Republican Convention…when it really starts to matter.”
The Republican convention will almost certainly “move the needle for Romney.” A little bit. At least for a week or two.
Interestingly, Obama got a small, transient bump from the 2008 convention (see this). Part of that might have been McCain’s Palin announcement the morning after the convention.
McCain got a big enough bump to actually lead in my Monte Carlo analyses for about a week. After that, it was downhill (or, uphill for Obama as the figure shows).
I sincerely doubt that Romney’s campaign will implode like McCain’s did (with the help of the disastrous Bush Recession and the Vetting of Sarah Palin). But I also think Romney’s convention bump will be as small and transient as Obama’s was in 2008.
@ 24
I think the convention is a non-issue unless there is something like a Chicago-style ’68 OWS disaster, or unless there’s some sort of earth-shaking defection from the Democrat party to a prime speaker slot at the RNC. A Zell-Miller-on-steroids defection. Would have to be huge.
Two more months of economic disaster and it could happen. You don’t see Republicans running from Romney the way Dems are running from Obama.
@ 25
When I speak of Dems running from Obama, this:
http://www.politico.com/news/s.....78653.html
is what I mean.
15. Don Joe spews:
@ 12
Obama spends over $100 Million going hard negative against Romney and moves the needle close to ZERO. Obama is stuck at 47% Approval.
I understand your point. However, history shows that in a hotly contested race, undecideds tend to break against the incumbent. Right now, in 1980, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were about even in the polls. You know the ultimate outcome. Obama is in a strikingly similar situation with a very poor economy.
I don’t think for a second Mitt Romney is a Ronald Reagan. So I don’t see a huge Convention swing coming. But perhaps, just enough. Time will tell. But it’s fun to talk about.
Yeah, I’ll second that. It even has a name: The Post Convention Bounce.
19. Steve spews:
But the problem for Obama is he has thrown everything at Romney and moved the poll needle little or not at all. 47% favorable=very vulnerable. Darryl’s analysis is a snapshot, not a November projection. Ultimately, undecideds will have to decide in November. This is where Obama is vulnerable.
“You don’t see Republicans running from Romney the way Dems are running from Obama.”
Run away from Romney? Wouldn’t your side need to actually embrace him first? We’re still waiting to see that happen. As for Democrats running away from the president, is this all you have? This is it?
“I’m not encouraging anyone to go to the convention, having nothing to do with anything except I think they should stay home, campaign in their districts, use their financial and political resources to help them win their election,” Pelosi said
Fail. Try again.
“He’ll morph to an ‘Asked and answered.” response about releasing his taxes.”
Have you been paying attention? He can’t even do that with his own party. This isn’t going away. Quit dreaming and come back to earth, Bob. I know it must be difficult for you to watch your candidate’s campaign flail as it has and fall apart, but do try to be real about it.
@19 “Romney might not even survive the convention”
Which raises an interesting point — his veep pick might become the GOP’s presidential candidate in November.
I wonder if Romney is thinking about that? He knows what’s in his tax returns, and how bad it is, so maybe he is.
Does anyone here besides me visualize how Obama could find himself running for re-election against Jeb Bush?
I think that’s unlikely, but possible. I’ve long thought Jeb was the GOP’s most formidable potential candidate. What we saw this spring was the Nine Dwarfs. Jeb’s been out of politics and the limelight for quite a while now, but a comeback isn’t impossible.
Romney faces a conundrum. If he picks a running mate who is a credible stand-in presidential prospect, it’s easier for the convention to replace him if his IRS problem blows up in his face. If he picks a veep like Agnew or Quayle or Palin — impeachment insurance, i.e., the vice president is so incompetent Congress would never remove the president no matter what he’s done — he looks bad and weakens his chances of being elected.
There’s no easy way out of this for Romney. If I were a GOP strategist I’d tell him that I think his best bet is to admit what he did, ask the voters for forgiveness, and go with Jeb.
U.S. non-financial companies have 4.8 TRILLION dollar pile..
http://blogs.reuters.com/david.....-piles-up/
And right wing morons say cutting their taxes will create jobs..
Uhh.. nope. Sparking demand for their products will create jobs.
Michael–
But I also said and think the Democrat Convention is a non-event and could potentially be a negative if all the Seattle knuckleheads show up in anarchy garb. We’ll see.
That small Romney bump could be enough IF in the end, the majority of the undecideds break for Romney. Romney is not a weak-kneed as McCain was.
As is obvious, Romney has serious money behind him . This is Romney’s last shot at the White House. He will fight hard and as was pointed out, Obama has a record to try and defend. See how well Obama does when about $400 Million comes flying into the battleground states attacking Obama’s record.
Oh and you’ll here the Obama piece about business owners not really building those businesses ad infinitum.
@27 This election will be decided by approximately 961,000 swing voters in six swing states. The two parties will spend approximately $2,000 apiece trying to win those votes. About two-thirds of these crucial swing voters are women and a significant percentage of them are Hispanic. You can do the rest of the math yourself.
32. Have you read the New York Post today? No. My eyes are connected to my brain. spews:
Did you read the article bonehead?
A lot of the cash is held overseas. All Obama has to do is allow this money to come back to America tax-free (expatriated dividends) and the economy will begin to explode. I guarantee you President Romney will get this done.
Obama simply does not understand the Private Sector economy. He truly believes it’s all about the government. Which is why Obama needs to get un-elected.
@33 “But I also said and think the Democrat Convention is a non-event and could potentially be a negative if all the Seattle knuckleheads show up in anarchy garb.”
Given that the 2012 Democratic National Convention (not “Democrat Convention”) is in Charlotte, NC, they’ve got a long way to walk.
Also, the anarchists who break windows in Seattle generally come from Oregon. They’ve got a long way to walk, too.
@34–
Where did you get those numbers? I’m not saying they aren’t true or at least close, but what is your source?
“But the problem for Obama is he has thrown everything at Romney and moved the poll needle little or not at all.”
Speaking of needle moves, how do you like how the jobs report worked out for you? Sad, but everybody wants to talk about Romney’s taxes instead. Even wingnut talking heads can’t shut up about it. Romney just threw 16 million at his little, um, problem in one week, and all that’s changed is that everyone, including Republicans, talks about it even more. Sucks to be Romney, huh?
@34–
Did you also see this?
I suspect this is probably close which, combined with your analysis, means Romney would be wise to choose Marco Rubio as VP. It seems more & more certain that Romney will. That ought to really tighten things up.
@33
There’s a long time between the end of the convention and the election. The Post Convention Bump is something that almost always happens and almost always lasts a couple of weeks. It’s not something that wins elections.
@ 30
Wouldn’t your side need to actually embrace him first?
I don’t think we’ll be seeing any Romney kneepad sales this year. He’s not Obama, and the GOP electorate in 2012 isn’t as gullible as the Dem electorate clearly was four years ago.
The GOP is fine with Romney, by and large, the same way they were fine with GWB43. Romney is a conduit to deposing Obama, a means to an end. The money will be there, the interest will be there, and according to CBS News:
Meantime, three and a half months before election day, Republican enthusiasm about voting this year has shot up since Mitt Romney clinched the nomination in April, from 36 percent of Republicans saying they were more enthusiastic in March to 49 percent now.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50.....toriesArea
the embrace is already underway.
I think Romney helped himself tremendously with the GOP base in the way he responded to Obama’s idiotic statement that business creators didn’t actually create. If that’s the kind of stupid shit that will come out of Obama’s mouth when he’s off teleprompter, he’ll be back on in a hurry.
Utter drivel… And no links to back this piffle up.
business creators didn’t actually create.
Demand creates jobs. I could open a buggy whip factory and if there is not demand it will fail.
@ 43
I could open a buggy whip factory and if there is not demand it will fail.
Not the point. The point is, if you saved for years, developed on your own a new buggy whip technology, started a business and slowly built it to sustained profitability,
‘You didn’t build that.’
What Obama said will hurt him when the Fall ads run. To the extent that you do not understand how his comments were perceived, you will be very surprised when it happens.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/....._blog.html
Study the 1980 election. Carter & Reagan were dead even in polls right up to the election and Reagan won in a landslide. It was the undecided voters breaking hard against the incumbent during bad economic times. Romney’s campaign is well aware of this phenomenon.. and so is Obama. Which is why Obama is shooting his load now. Trying to firm up some of the undecideds. Doesn’t seem to be working.
Yes, the post-Convention bump usually only lasts 1-2 weeks. I agree. My point is Obama will have no bump with an uncontested convention and could have a negative plop if the leftist loons come out en masse like the Occupiers. Another Occupy event would be just what Romney ordered for pushing undecideds his way. Occupy was a complete bust because it was run by morons with no cogent message. I hope you try again though.
@ 45
I read the same thing. Apparently sentiment shifted during the weekend before the election.
By some accounts it was a sufficient surprise to Carter that he cried when he was told he lost.
re 12: You are an idiot. That’s my belief.
It’s the overseas secret bank accounts and Romney’s lack of candor about his tax returns.
That’s what will kill Romney.
He’s not hiding that from the Democrats, who aren’t going to vote for him anyway; he’s hiding it from the Republican base.
“The GOP is fine with Romney, by and large, the same way they were fine with GWB43.”
Yeah, I can tell that’s true by how the Republican talking heads are demanding to see Romney’s taxes as much as Democrats.
“I think Romney helped himself tremendously with the GOP base in the way he responded to Obama’s idiotic statement that business creators didn’t actually create. If that’s the kind of stupid shit that will come out of Obama’s mouth when he’s off teleprompter, he’ll be back on in a hurry.”
The usual wingnut horseshit. Lie about what the president actually said and then go on and on about teleprompters. Got it. In other words, you and Romney can’t come up with any reasons (Lib Sci asked you for only five and never got a response) for anyone, including your base, to vote for your candidate other than voting against his opponent? That’s a winning formula for you guys, no doubt.
@44[Demand is] Not the point. The point is, if you saved for years, developed on your own a new buggy whip technology, started a business and slowly built it to sustained profitability,
First, it doesn’t matter HOW good your new buggy whip technology is, if people don’t have spare money, nobody is buy it and you are going to go out of business. Why is that SO hard for you to understand?
Never the less, to use your example, you used public roads to get your goods to market, the internet to tell your customers about your products, the regulated electrical grid to power your factory, the regulated air line industry to fly to trade shows, the safety of the food and drug administration and Obamacare so you and your valuable workers don’t get sick and die, the courts protected IP so your new technology is not stolen, the military to protect you so you don’t have to take time away from work and yell “Wolverines” and “Avenge ME”, and everything else the government provides, but none of that matters you, cause you don’t want to pay your fair share of taxes.
“By some accounts it was a sufficient surprise to Carter that he cried when he was told he lost.”
So what? By some accounts you jack off to a photo of Ronald Reagan every day.
@ 49
What lie? I quoted him, in quotation marks, and provided a link. Obama said it, I didn’t. He might not have meant it, but it’s up to him to explain what happened and what he meant.
Meanwhile, did you hear Romney is rich?
@49. You mean this?
Fox & Friends Deceptively Edits Obama’s Comments On Small Business http://mediamatters.org/blog/2.....men/187146
@ 53
No asswipe, I mean in the link @ 44 I provided:
“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” Obama said Friday, referring to the government-funded tools that entrepreneurs have at their disposal.
Remember the comment Romney made about firing people who work for him?
Payback’s a bitch, peeps. Deal with it.
Context is everything.
@52, 54 Is that all you have, taking the president’s words out of context? Teleprompters? I would have thought you had more going for you, like maybe the ability to articulate five reasons why a Romney presidency would be good for America. Or least offer up one good reason he shouldn’t be considered a tax-evading sociopath. Or failing those, maybe a reason why an American who can’t recognize a chocolate fucking donut should be considered qualified to hold public office.
So you are upset with Republicans for using that sound bite?
42. Have you read the New York Post today? No. My eyes are connected to my brain. spews:
All Obama has to do is allow this money to come back to America tax-free (repatriated dividends) and the economy will begin to explode.
Here you go friend.
http://www.taxanalysts.com/www.....RRAY-8.pdf
I can only assume you attended one of the “EARTH MUFFIN UNIVERSITY’s” that plague America today. Step back and think for a second if it doesn’t hurt too bad to do so…
1) What would a couple TRILLION $$ coming back on-shore do to liquidity and investment?
2) Where in the hell do you think $$ is coming from for all these non-US jobs?? It’s coming from overseas earnings you numbskull.
Let the money come back tax-free and watch the market & growth get pumped up. PLUS, this ought to be music to your ears…
When the Economy GROWS, more tax $$ will be produced for you idiots to piss away.
It’s a win-win..unless you want the US government to take over business like ObamaCare is doing.
Sheesh. Do you ever think??
@ 57
Upset? No.
But is there a similarity in the ‘out of context’ claim that Doctor Steve @ 56 is raising and the same type of claim raised by Romney supporters back when?
Um, yeah. I think so.
We’ll all play this game for about two more months. Then the Q3 numbers come out. Right before the election.
I think Obama will be judged on his record. I think he should be.
@55-
Ummm, the “context” you provided actually makes Obama’s Marxist blurt even more offensive.
Quit while your behind.
The longer you discuss this, the better it is for Romney. So keep trying to explain away Obama’s comments. You might believe your lameass efforts, but I doubt the undecided voters will.
@35
A lot of the cash is held overseas. All Obama has to do is allow this money to come back to America tax-free (expatriated dividends) and the economy will begin to explode.
Really? Why don’t these firms simply put that cash to use overseas? Labor’s generally cheaper there than here, they have the cash, they can easily invest in plant and equipment that would produce goods and/or services that can be sold here in the US. So, why does it simply sit idle?
Go back to basics: firms will only hire new employees if they can increase their profits by hiring new employees. What are the circumstances under which hiring new employees will increase profits?
@ SerCon, from YOUR link:
Full disclosure, President Obama…
Obama is hardly a full-disclosure model, is he.
61. Don Joe spews:
@35
A lot of the cash is held overseas. All Obama has to do is allow this money to come back to America tax-free (expatriated dividends) and the economy will begin to explode.
It’s not all just sitting idle. And yes, a lot of it being put to work overseas creating jobs in other countries. That’s the point. That’s why we are better off getting as much of it back here as possible..NOW!
“Context is everything.”
Taking the president’s remarks out context is apparently everything for a wingnut who can’t come up with five simple reasons for a Romney presidency. If this president was so fucking horrible you’d think Bob could sell that by telling truths rather than resorting to making shit up by taking Obama’s remarks out of context and babbling about teleprompters.
Hmm, I see that Rush was going on about how Obama was shaped and molded by commies. Sheesh, and here I voted for him because I thought he was a Muslim Jihadist intent on bringing Sharia’ law to America. My bad, obviously.
# 45: This isn’t 1980. Carter was dealing with problems on multiple fronts: the economy heading south, oil shortages, the Iranian hostage crisis, and Soviet moves in Poland, Afganistan, and Pakistan. He had a strong challenge from Teddy Kennedy right through the Convention. Add to that a few completely uncontrollable events, such as a very bad winter in the northern states (right at the time of record oil prices). And even with all that, the undecideds didn’t fall toward Reagan until the last 48 hours before the election.
President Obama’s problems are just a fraction of those faced by Carter. And the economy isn’t getting worse, despite what the Republicans would have you believe. It’s considerably better than it was when President Obama took office. It just isn’t continuing to improve during the spring/summer at a rate fast enough to satisfy some.
Republicans complaining about the pace of the economic recovery are like unto an arsonist heckling the fire department, criticizing it for taking too long to put out the fire and bitching about the cost of the water being used.
@59. Of course you are not. IDMIIWDBAR.
Cash is a commodity..like oil, beef, other natural resources etc. An over-supply of cash will eventually be put to work. The question and problem is where? I agree, it will go where it can produce the most profitable rate of return AFTER TAXES. Emphasis is AFTER taxes.
Get it?
“Get it?”
That you’re a insipid twit content to splash around in the shallow end of the pool? Yeah, I think we all get it, Klown.
@ 59
But is there a similarity in the ‘out of context’ claim that Doctor Steve @ 56 is raising and the same type of claim raised by Romney supporters back when?
In terms of out-of-context remarks, I thought more in terms of the “I don’t care about poor people” remark from Gov. Romney. It, too, made the rounds.
Um, yeah. I think so.
Ooh, now there’s an astounding idea: there’s little substantive difference between out-of-context remarks regardless of who makes them. Who’d have guessed.
You might want to ask, whose opinions were actually swayed by this? The answer turns out to be not that many. This sort of thing tends to be grist for those folks who are already committed one way or another. The folks who don’t care enough to investigate the details are generally apathetic enough that it doesn’t make a great deal of difference, and the folks who do care enough to investigate the details figure out rather quickly that the remarks were taken out of context.
Out-of-context remarks tend to increase the heat of the words that homers shout at one another. They rarely alter the outcome of an election in quite the same way that, say, the whole SNAFU over Romney’s “retroactive” retirement from Bain Capital tends to alter the outcome of an election. That’s the kind of thing where the closer people look the worse it looks for the candidate.
@ 64
It’s not all just sitting idle. And yes, a lot of it being put to work overseas creating jobs in other countries. That’s the point.
Come again?! From the original article:
So, you’re going to try to make your case by completely altering the central tenet of the story that’s led to this discussion in the first place?
You @35:
Did you read the article bonehead?
Looks like you either didn’t read the article or you managed to forget the central part of the story. In either case, I think you’ve just abrogated any credibility for throwing around the term “bonehead.”
Muslim Jihadist! I thought he was a radical Christian from Bangladesh. Boy, did I get that one wrong.
But at least we now know that the official Obama birth certificate issued by the state of Hawaii is fraudulent. That’s the conclusion of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio findings from his “birther” investigation. Those Arizona redneck sharruffs sure do have their shit together.
David Cay Johnston is an anti-corp/big government/high tax wonk. He always has been.
Even if his analysis is correct, his recommendations are ludicrous if he really wants to see the economy improve. He has essentially made the case for the stimulus being tax-free repatriated dividends. Forbes takes this on here–
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ti.....-one-year/
73: That’s hillarious. A publicicty-seeking Tea-Party county official is trying once again to keep the “birther” movement alive. His “investigation” consisted of publicizing anything which his “volunteers” forwarded to him.
And here Romney is complaining that he’s being treated unfairly because he’s asked to release his own tax returns! You could get whiplash trying to keep up with Republican attempts at logic!
@68
I agree, it will go where it can produce the most profitable rate of return AFTER TAXES. Emphasis is AFTER taxes.
Oy. Except that we’re talking the rate of return firms can expect to receive from an increase in jobs. You can’t hope to reach a coherent conclusion when you keep switching the fundamental premises of the discussion.
Again, go back to basics: under what circumstances will firms be able to increase their profits by hiring new employees? Are you at all familiar with the concept of “marginal revenue equals marginal cost”?
@ 74
Even if his analysis is correct, his recommendations are ludicrous if he really wants to see the economy improve. He has essentially made the case for the stimulus being tax-free repatriated dividends.
Sorry, but Worstall’s argument has the same problem that plagues your overall argument: that there’s something significant about the fact that the cash is sitting idle overseas. There isn’t. If the cash is sitting idle overseas, then there’s no substantive reason to believe that the cash won’t sit idle if we let firms bring it back here. Something else has to change!
@70 “You might want to ask, whose opinions were actually swayed by this?”
Likely nobody who shows up here. I’ve wondered why our trolls bother. Surely there’s something better to do with their precious lives.
I conclude that most trolls lie and distort because that’s simply what they do in life. I’m sure we’ve all met people like that, although not as often as we do here. That can be explained by the GOP attracting people with that character flaw, much in the same way that the GOP attracts the nation’s pedophiles to their ranks. It’s like flies being attracted to pile of shit. The GOP’s atmosphere of moral corruption, racism, bigotry and hate is going to attract those types of people. Unfortunately for us, our HA cesspool gives a few of these people a place to congregate, hang out, and to do what they love to do, lie their damned asses off for the cause – ripping America’s social contract to pieces until we’re all as morally and intellectually decadent and degraded as they have become.
“Muslim Jihadist! I thought he was a radical Christian from Bangladesh. Boy, did I get that one wrong.”
You must be one of those people I’ve heard of mentioned by our trolls so often, people who voted for Obama because they consider him to be “The One” or as some say, “the “Milk Chocolate Messiah”. That’s gotta be Christian. Seeing as Obama’s been previously outed as a a Kenyan-born Jihadist and today a commie, I can see how that’s gotta fuck with your God-fearing Christian mind. Bob might have a point after all. Enthusiasm actually might be down this year compared to 2008.
In the meantime, we can amuse ourselves by speculating on the reasons why Romney won’t release his tax returns:
(1) No taxes paid in 2009 due to “carry forward” losses from 2008.
(2) Those returns would indicate he made a lot more money, and paid a lot less taxes in general, than anybody has yet to report.
(3) Romney doesn’t want the Mormon church to see he pays less than a 10% tithe.
(4) The details reveal evidence linking him to management of Baine Capital during years when he said he had no involvement.
(5) There are suspicious items in those returns – perhaps “overly agressive” interpretations of the rules, which if brought into the spotlight might trigger an IRS audit.
(6) Details within the returns might indicate that he was not qualified to vote in the 2010 special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, making him guilty of voter fraud.
@ 80
(7) There’s evidence in the 2009 tax return that Romney sought amnesty for illegally avoiding paying taxes on funds held in a secret Swiss bank account.
# 80: And there’s also been speculation that Romney doesn’t want the Evangelicals (or his own church) to see what kinds of businessess were purchased/managed by Bain Capital.
And maybe Romney hasn’t been too upfront with his own wife, and she would be surprised at what’s in those tax reurns?
It will all work out OK. No worries!
Ya know, if you guys don’t like the complexity of the tax code, then simplify things. I’m OK with a simple, flat-rate plan. Why not give that a try?
@84–
I’m with you on the Flat Tax. Steve Forbes had a great plan which went no where because BOTH parties grab political power via tax deductions/credits etc.
Hell, I even liked Herman Cain’s 9-9-9.
It was better than the clusterfuck we have now.
Romney is betting that none of this Bain stuff will matter to the swing voters.
I think he is wise waiting until the Convention to launch his attack. Hopefully he will choose Rubio as his VP candidate.
Remember 2004? Rossi waited 2 days too late in launching a massive attack that really moved the polls. 2 days earlier and Rossi would have won. Now that is cutting it close.
Romney has plenty of time, plenty of issues to attack Obama with and plenty of money. Timing is critical. The convention is soon enough. Watch.
It isn’t surprising that by nearly three-to-one, American voters see government as the problem as opposed to the solution in today’s economy. And a 55% majority believes President Obama’s policies are expanding the government.
@73 Comments like this prove HA has the world’s dumbest trolls. The GOP sends them here because no other blog will take them. Maybe it’s time we did some culling, too.
@87 “It isn’t surprising that by nearly three-to-one, American voters see government as the problem as opposed to the solution in today’s economy.”
Are you referring to the “Keep government’s hands off my Medicare!” crowd?
The problem with shrinking government, be it the Department of Defense, the Department of Education, or whatever, is that it means increasing the amount of people in the un-employment lines. That’s the problem faced by both parties. As far as I can tell, the Republicans’ solution is to increase the Defense Department which will lead to more undeclared wars and runaway spending. The Democrats’ solution is to just spend money on “green” jobs and more government programs for the “poor” (who are doing fairly well, by world standards for poverty). Either policy is flawed, but these policies do seem to get those Republicans and Democrats who believe in them re-elected, time after time. And that’s what’s really important to the Democrats and Republicans: getting re-elected!
@84 I’m okay with a flat tax, too. It’s time for billionaires to pay the same tax rates as their secretaries.
@37 NBC News.
Don Joe–
It appears you are saying it makes absolutely no difference to the US economy whether Corp. cash is in US or overseas..right?
“Keep government’s hands off my Medicare!”
Yeah, everyone is forced to pay into it, and they damn sure want the max they can get out of it!
The big problem with Medicare is that no cost containment was ever built into the program. It just kept growing and growing, and the fraud involved with Medicare is horrendous. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and the system is in danger of failing.
Social Security in not as bad off, but Social Security’s problem is that the age of elegibility never was adjusted for increased life expectancy, and the benefits were expanded to include more than just retirement income for old people. Heck, if we’d adjusted the eligibility age over time, the current retirement age for full Social Security retirment benefits would be something like 81 or 82! But that’s not too popular with the folks in their sixties now. They want their Social Security, and they wnat it now, because, like Medicare, they were forced to participate and, damnit, they want what’s coming to them. To paraphrse H. L. Mencken, they’re gonna get what’s coming to them, good and hard!
@91,
One of those rare times we’re in agreement, rodent. I suggest a simple, yearly minimum wage deduction for however many people are listed on the individual return. Then subtract this amount from total family unit income. Pay a single flat rate on the balance. Problem solved!
@92 Correction, Newsweek.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/n.....ident.html
@95 Subsistence income should be exempt from taxation, but I wouldn’t base that exemption on minimum wage. It has to be higher than that. Minimum wage workers get about half of their income from the government (food stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies, energy assistance, etc.).
@93
Don Joe–
It appears you are saying it makes absolutely no difference to the US economy whether Corp. cash is in US or overseas..right?
It appears that I actually said (@76):
This whole discussion started with YLB’s post @32:
To which you replied @35:
How, on earth, do you get from that general conversation to, “it makes absolutely no difference to the US economy”? I don’t see how you get there without being deliberately evasive.
The general issue is jobs. I have, twice before, asked you what are the general circumstances under which firms can increase their profits by hiring new employees. You have yet to answer that question. I’m now asking that question a third time. If you continue to ignore that question, I have no choice but to assume that you’re nothing more than a frothing-at-the-mouth idiot who really has no clue what he’s talking about at a very fundamental level.
This is basic Economics; stuff people learn in their very first year. Why do people like you find it so difficult to think through the implications of these very basic and simple ideas?
@97
Give everyone their first 20K free of income taxes, tax everything over that and allow zero exemptions.
@ 97
And, of course, no one quite captures the essence of swing voters quite like Yoram Bauman does:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW9dxFrAk-I
The only thing is, I’ve yet to figure out whether our Politically Incorrect belongs with the libertarians way back on the left or with the libertarians way back on the right.
99. Michael spews:
@97
If you did that, a flat rate of 8-9% would generate what is being generated now.
I would be ok with this as long as it isn’t used to increase the government take over current levels. I suspect, over time, a flat tax would eventually increase government revenue. Might have to eventually lower the rate.
@98 The fundamental fault in his comment is his claim that allowing corporations to repatriate overseas cash tax-free will make the U.S. economy “explode.” That’s sheer nonsense. U.S. corporations are already sitting on over a trillion dollars of cash and they’re not using it to hire because there’s no demand. Adding tax-free overseas profits to their domestic cash hoard won’t create a single job. Not one. Therefore, there’s no reason to give them a tax break on their overseas profits. Furthermore, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in terms of U.S. jobs whether they bring that cash home or leave it overseas.
@ 102
The fundamental fault in his comment is his claim that allowing corporations to repatriate overseas cash tax-free will make the U.S. economy “explode.”
Yes. I was hoping to get him to understand this in terms of basic Economics. We can talk about demand until we’re blue in the face, and they’re not going to get it. Nevertheless, the basic argument from Economics is exceedingly simple.
There is one, and only one, reason that firms hire new employees: in order to increase output. Hiring new employees is an increase in costs. Therefore, firms can increase their profits by hiring new employees if, and only if, the additional revenue from selling the additional output is greater than the costs of hiring these new employees.
If the new output ends up stuck in inventories, then the additional revenue from the additional output is zero. If new customer support employees spend their time surfing the internet, because there aren’t enough incoming calls requiring customer support, then the revenue from the additional call-handling capacity is zero.
All of this is another way of saying that labor is a cost of production, which means that labor usage is subject to the old profit-maximizing equation where marginal revenue (MR) is equal to marginal costs (MC). This is true for any factor of production.
By the way, a good little thought experiment is to consider the corporate income tax effects on factor utilization. It’s really easy to see if you look at the math, but changes in corporate income tax tend to not result in changes in factor utilization. For anyone with a basic understanding of accounting, factor utilization is the same thing as “costs of goods sold”. There’s a reason that “COGS” is almost always listed as a separate category on an income statement.
In general, it’s a good idea for people to have a solid grasp of basic economic forces before they make grandiose statements about incentive effects. That holds true for both sides of the political spectrum.
A significant change in the availability of money supply in a economy impacts interest rates, investments, consumption and the general price level. The easier the liquidity is in an economy, the more stimulus force the liquidity may provide to economic growth. Investments create jobs. More $$ available makes credit easier.
Consumption rises.
That’s real stimulus..not pissing away borrowed $$ (additional National Debt) like Obama did. Extra liquidity in the US will stimulate the economy. The dollars are already there..just in another country.
@ 104
A significant change in the availability of money supply in a economy impacts interest rates, investments, consumption and the general price level.
First, interest rates in the US are already about as low as they can reasonably go. The real interest rate on even the long bond is negative.
Second, as this graph shows, both the M1 and the M2 money stocks have grown at a pretty rapid rate both during and subsequent to the recession. Why has unemployment remained high? If your argument is correct, then wouldn’t repatriating these funds increase the risk of runaway inflation?
Third, even offshore, that money is still in the money supply, which is why I’ve asked you, why don’t these firms just start up operations offshore? Labor’s generally cheaper there than here, and repatriating those funds and starting up operations here still subjects the subsequent earnings to the relatively higher US corporate income tax rate.
Lastly, you still haven’t answered my question about the circumstances under which firms would be willing to hire new workers. Rather than answer that question, you’ve done nothing but come back with standard macro economic pablum that one can find through even a cursory internet search. Given the more than 4 and 1/2 hours between your last two comments in this thread, I’m inclined to believe that you really don’t understand this stuff all that well.
But, this is the real kicker:
That’s real stimulus..not pissing away borrowed $$ (additional National Debt) like Obama did.
You’ve just demonstrated that you haven’t a clue as to the difference between a monetary stimulus, i.e. changes in the money supply, and a fiscal stimulus, i.e. when the government goes out and buys things like new roads or a smart energy grid or, dare we say it, new energy sources that will help us reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
‘Course, if you had understood the point behind my question as to the circumstances under which firms actually do go out and hire new employees, then you would readily understand the difference between monetary and fiscal stimulus.
Thanks for your explanation Darryl. I think that with what you said about what I said about “the chances the poll is ‘wrong’ ” is a correct way to look at the monte carlo simulation in each individual state contributes to Romney’s low probability. This is because, for Romney to actually be ahead in the electoral college right now, the polls would have to be wrong in several states, and in all of those states it would have to be wrong in the direction that means Romney is doing better than the polls show and it would have to be wrong by enough to flip a blue state to red. Further, the polls could never be wrong in a direction favoring Obama by enough to flip a red state to blue. (though I already said all of this).
However, what about those Monte Carlo simulations on state initiatives? That would be fun to see. I would love to see the chance that we become the first (or with Colorado) second state to take the first step in ending the rediculous war on marijuana.
Virginia is a big state for both Obama and Romney.
Quinnipac now has it even with Romney having the momentum.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/inst.....aseID=1778
Wow–Obama now has blood on his hands because of Obama’s political correctness agenda-
This is a report on the Ft. Hood murderer–
Chris,
“However, what about those Monte Carlo simulations on state initiatives?”
I’ve done these in the past, and may do them again when the polling data becomes available. Also, I’ll probably do the U.S. Senate like I did in 2008. I won’t do the House, but may do some individual races (like WA-1 after the primary).