Bush Futures selling off ahead of debate

tradesports.com/intrade.com ^

[AxelPaulsenJr]

W. also needs to remind voters of who and whose party is largely responisble for our continued over dependance on foreign oil.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

My God, the gloom and doom sometimes in here is scary.I do NOT want to be on a sinking ship with most of you guys. This is starting to get like the LIB sites . If you want crazy mood swings and general malaise; head to those sites.I remain very optimistic.Bush came into office during a recession , the papers all said whoever wins the election is really the loser. We then suffered the largest terrorist attack in our countries history. The MSM is violently against him, and still he stands a good chance of winning with Three weeks to go. Awesome!

In so many ways I really do agree with you. However, that being said, I am not sure that I would want to be in a mine field with you.

[rookwood]

During the last 12 months there has been virtually NO reported good news for Bush, and by most accounts he is still leading. That should be encouragement enough.

The NO WMD report issued can be devastating for Kerry. Kerry's bump was the result of 1) the poor performance GWB and 2) the 'Kerry Doctrine' on how he will fix the world.

Having laid this out: 1) GWB will perform admirably tonight and 2) the Kerry Doctrine, in just one week, has thoroughly fallen apart and has been debunked. His allies have said no help in Iraq, and if Kerry didn't hear it the first time...NO! Iran said, kerry you Foolish Boy, why would we want to be dependant on your resources when we can produce them ourselves. China said the only way to deal with North Korea is by way of GWB's plan. Kerry, just yesterday, has had to admit to no help coming from France or Germany.

Most importantly, is the ISG report issued two days ago. People relying on the MSM only heard and saw 'No WMD'. But this report is devastating to Kerry. It virtually says Kerry's plan would have him still waiting on approval from the coalition of the truly 'Bribed and Coerced'. Also, Iraq was at the ready to begin production as soon as France had the sanctions lifted.Devastating. It's the seventh inning...not to worry!

[Hank Rearden]

Bush does not creat jobs.

No, but Big Stupid Government policies that he supports can kill them. Like out-of-control spending. The "free" pill scam. The grossly wrong steel subsidies. The proposals to resubsidize tobacco interests.

Etc. Etc.

I don't think he wants his job all that much; he's not doing much to construct a premise to win it back.

What, exactly, are his plans for a second administration? I don't want to hear how "hard" it all is. I want to hear solid, measurable commitments to start strangling Big Stupid Government, defend the borders and destroy (not dance with, as in Fallujah) terrorists.

And a coherent, non-lazy, debate performance tonight wouldn't hurt, either.

[Balding_Eagle]

How accurate have these futures been in PREDICTING who will win?

And is there real money behind these futures?

Sorry to paste and run, but I've got to go.

You can read about it here: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/

[Flashlight]

...But what is a deeper mystery to me, is how in a nation of 100,000,000 or so voters, a poll of approximately 700 or so voters can predict the outcome...

Just like by tasting one spoonful of a large vat of soup you can tell how salty the whole thing is.

If the salt is uniformly mixed in, one little spoonful tells you all you need to know. If the 700 voters are truly a random sample of actual voters, and they truthfully answer, etc., their responses will represent those of the entire population with a high degree of accuracy.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

If the salt is uniformly mixed in, one little spoonful tells you all you need to know. If the 700 voters are truly a random sample of actual voters, and they truthfully answer, etc., their responses will represent those of the entire population with a high degree of accuracy.

The variables mentioned explain a lot at to why so many polls are quite often so far off the mark.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

Bush election futures are now trading at 58.5, (and Kerry's at 41.5)

Yeah, it does look like it's over, we don't have the required 2/3 majority to keep a sitting president.

Ouch! That had to hurt.

[Flashlight]

yep. it seems that these days, the major problem in polls is just predicting who's a "likely" voter.

It's funny to me, because I would think that the problems of cell phones and people not home or not answering the phone would be bigger problems. But, apparently, using various weighting formulas, the pollsters can get around most of these problems (don't ask me exactly how).

But predicting who's actually gonna turn out seems to be the biggest difference in today's polls.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Ouch! That had to hurt.

Oh man yeah! In fact, instead of going to the polls to vote on November, I am going to buy an Iowa futures contract.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

Clearly, it hurt.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

But predicting who's actually gonna turn out seems to be the biggest difference in today's polls.

Well, as LBJ once said when one of his workers told him he had failed to get the names from a certain part of the cemetary.

"Hell boy, go back and get those names. Those sob's have a right to have their voted counted".

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Whatever!

[ThinkDifferent]

First of all trade sports is not as strong of an indicator as is the Iowa Electronic Market

Why do you say that? IIRC IEM investors are limited to $500, which I would think would inhibit market efficiency.

[reformedliberal]

The grossly wrong steel subsidies

---

I have heard steel workers in WVA thank W for those subsidies. They allowed US steel to remain in business for 22 months until the WTO used threats of sanctions to undo them. At that point, world steel prices were high enough to allow our steel industry to continue. I have heard the same thing on TV interviews from PA.

I am 61. I was an Objectivist briefly in the early sixties. Since then, I spent some time on the Left, a long time in the apolitical wilderness and more recently, support GWBush, person and policies.

Last summer, I attempted to re-read Atlas Shrugged. It is horribly written,IMO, but I decided to keep plowing through it for the ideology. It is a terribly dark novel. When I was 19, I loved it and thought it was wonderful. Today, I could only tolerate it in small doses.

One thing I realized before I lost interest and just put it aside: it is so dated. I remember the world of the late forties and early fifties that is the background for the book. To anyone born after 1950-55, it must read like a noir historical novel. There is, IMO, only a tenuous connection between the conditions and milieu of AS and today's world. The characters are all caricatures, on both sides.

In 1962, I wrote a term paper on Ayn Rand. In the course of the research, certain words and phrases she uses resonated oddly....I had read them before. I suggest anyone who has read all of Rand, including the earlier fictionalized treatments of individualism (We The Living; Anthem) then read some Philip Wylie short novels from the same time period of the Forties (not When World's Collide; I specifically recall The Disappearance & there may have been short stories). I was stunned to find that Wylie, a committed progressive of the period,would use a word or phrase, like *Attila The Hun* in one context and then Rand would publish within a year and use the same phrase and a similar context, only she would turn it around, ideologically. It left me w/a disquieted feeling: Wylie was a gifted story teller who wove his political ideology subtly into his works. Rand seems to me, since comparing the two contemporaries, to write blunt, heavy handed ideology cast into a novelistic format. It was as though I was reading a political debate by two writers, one a talented story teller and one an obvious demagogue.

This is a personal opinion. I read both authors many decades ago and haven't re-read Wylie since. But today I find Rand simplistic in our modern context and while I am not sure how many people still even know Wylie's work, Rand is known for her political ideology and not for much else.

BTW, her personal life was not very inspiring to me. But,I don't even know much about Wylie's and a quick google didn't turn up much.

This mini-rant is in response to your screen name. I am willing to discuss this if you wish, but I am too frazzled right now to get into a flame war over it and won't respond to that sort of discussion out of lack of energy.

[medscribe]

Good Lord!! All the nervous nellies around here remind me of a get together in Paris after the Nazis invaded in 1940!! For all you doom and gloom lovers out there, please tell me ONE red state that is anywhere near being in danger of going to Kerry this year. If the answer is ZERO, then game's over. Dubya wins with 278 EVs. I don't give a hill of beans what the popular vote is, it DOESN'T count.

[drangundsturm]

How accurate have these futures been in PREDICTING who will win? And is there real money behind these futures?

Academic studies have shown the markets are more accurate than polls, even polls taken the day before the election. They are also less volatile than polls, presumably because the people participating are using their brains to figure out what events will have long lasting impact and what events will merely blow over, whereas polls tend to be instantanous snapshots.

But, this is good news, because the markets are still predicting a bush win even with all the bad news this week, whereas several polls are now saying kerry has a slight popular vote lead. This must mean the markets are betting bush has a better than even chance of overcoming everything that has happened and the polls have over-reacted.

It would be illogical for the markets not to have at least a modest selloff after all this bad news. The markets are objective. They are now saying, "with all the bad news, bush is somewhat less likely to win than the assessment of 2 weeks ago, but he's still clearly ahead of kerry and it's pretty likely this is a temporary setback."

[B Knotts]

I believe that Carl [sic] Rove still has a trick or two up his sleeve.

Pres. Bush would be up by 20 if Rove advised him to get control of immigration.

I'm not impressed thus far with Rove's "tricks."

[B Knotts]

For all you doom and gloom lovers out there, please tell me ONE red state that is anywhere near being in danger of going to Kerry this year.

Ohio.

New Hampshire.

I think Pres. Bush will come back, but Rove is running another lackluster campaign, IMO. If it wasn't for the Swifties, I'm not sure we'd even be up at all right now.

[steve86]

Anyone tries to spin the jobs or Iraq news as positive is not being honest or realistic. President Bush will have to win based on other favorable factors (of which there are many). It frankly embarrasses me when Kudlow and others try to brag up the economic statistics.