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[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]
This year, fewer than 40% of voting age Americans will actually vote.
A serious glitch in self-marketing, I think.
If you don't vote because you're trying to teach politicians a lesson, you're tragically misguided in your strategy. The very politicians you're trying to send a message to don't want you to vote. Since 1960, voting turnouts in mid-term elections are down significantly, and there's one reason: because of TV advertising.
Political TV advertising is designed to do only one thing: suppress the turnout of the opponent's supporters. If the TV ads can turn you off enough not to vote ("they're all bums") then their strategy has succeeded.
The astonishing thing is that voters haven't figured this out. As the scumminess and nastiness of campaigning and governing has escalated and the flakiness of candidates appears to have escalated as well, we've largely abdicated the high ground and permitted selfish partisans on both sides to hijack the system.
Voting is free. It's fairly fast. It doesn't make you responsible for the outcome, but it sure has an impact on what we have to live with going forward. The only thing that would make it better is free snacks.
Even if you're disgusted, vote. Vote for your least unfavorite choice. But go vote.
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Musical Tribute to Quantitative Easin' Posted: 31 Oct 2010 11:05 PM PDT "Merle Hazard" writes ... Dear Mish It's a good song. Please give it a play. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Posted: 31 Oct 2010 06:30 PM PDT If you are in doubt of how to vote on Tuesday, the answer is simple. All you have to do is look at SEIU Endorsed Candidates and vote the opposite. That link is for Illinois, but the SEIU has similar lists for other states. See if you can find one for your state. The general rule is: Do NOT vote for any candidate endorsed by unions, especially public unions. Illinois Voters I am surprised to see a number of Republicans on the Illinois endorsed list, but those candidates are for state, not national choices. The SEIU did not endorse anyone for some races, no doubt because there was no democrat running, or neither candidate was willing to sponsor the garbage the SEIU wanted. In Illinois, at the National level, simply vote Republican and be done with it. the same applies for all of the high level state positions including Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Treasurer. The most important things to remember are that Governor Pat Quinn has vowed to raise your taxes in a bribe to win public union votes. Senate candidate Alexander Giannoulias will do the same. California Voters If you live in California please see How Not To Vote. In California the process is simpler because public unions have only backed Democrats. However, California does have a number of important propositions to consider, notably proposition 25 which will make it easier for politicians to hike your taxes. Don't fall for it. Vote no on prop 25. In addition you may want to vote yes on Prop 19, legalizing Marijuana, even though the unions have endorsed it (no doubt because it taxes the stuff). Other States If you live in other states and are unsure how to vote, take a look to see if the SEIU or other union has made it easy for you as well. Disclaimer Bear in mind I am not a Republican. Rather, I am a Libertarian who has openly and actively endorsed those who want to lower taxes, stop being the world's policeman, and in general get government out of the way. Unfortunately there are not many such candidates. Regardless, we cannot afford cap-and-trade idiocies, expanding public unions, expanding collective bargaining, or more war mongering. In general the Democrats have been on the wrong side of all of those issues, while Republicans are right on many of them. Simply put, we simply cannot afford 2 more years of disastrous Obama sponsored nonsense and public union handouts. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Posted: 31 Oct 2010 09:02 AM PDT Quite often simple explanations are the best. There are dozens of reasons why another round of QE will fail, but much of comes down to "Money's Already Quite Cheap". Please consider Schwarzman Says Fed Easing Won't Make Much Difference Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive officer of Blackstone Group LP, the world's biggest buyout firm, said another round of asset purchases by the U.S. Federal Reserve won't have much of an impact on companies.The junk bond market has already gone nuts as noted in Mad Dash Into Junk Sets October Record so what is Bernanke hoping to accomplish other than a bigger bubble in junk bonds, equities, and commodities? Virtually none of that helps small business owners shut of from the bond market and hurt by rising input prices and collapsing prices for their goods and services. Cost-Push Inflation? Someone sent me a comment that I do not understand push-through inflation and that is why I don't understand hyperinflation. Well for starters hyperinflation is not caused by rising prices, hyperinflation is a loss of faith of currency (typically caused by some political event). The result (not the cause of hyperinflation) is rising prices. For a further discussion of hyperinflation please see "Straight Talk" with Economic Bloggers Second the whole idea of cost-push inflation is silly. An excerpt from $30 Billion Offer No One Wants - Small Businesses Hit by Deflation will prove it. NFIB Small Business TrendsHere are a few charts from the article. Prices Received Actual Price Changes Cost-push inflation? Yeah right. Meanwhile, QEII is punishing small businesses, the very lifeblood of the job creation engine. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Happy Halloween: Pumpkins from Readers and Surveys about Ghosts Posted: 31 Oct 2010 08:35 AM PDT Richard D writes ... Mish, In a salute to Bernanke and the Fed, FRB stands for Fractional Reserve Banking, and QEII is Quantitative Easing round II. 27% Believe in Ghosts A Rasmussen poll shows that 27% Believe in Ghosts Twenty-seven percent (27%) of Americans say they believe in ghosts, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Sixty-three percent (63%) don't, but another 10% aren't sure.Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Simulation of a US State Defaulting Posted: 30 Oct 2010 11:29 PM PDT At the recent Buttonwood economic conference in New York City, a team of economists addressed the question "What If a State Defaults". WHAT happens if an individual state defaults? That was the question posed to a panel of luminaries at the Buttonwood gathering in New York, including Robert Rubin, Josh Bolten, Glenn Hubbard, Laurence Meyer and Laura Tyson. This is a very long video that some readers might enjoy. However, the panel did not address whether the long-term pension problem can be tackled if the courts decided that existing pension rights are legally protected. Long-term pension issues are without a doubt the most likely reason a state would default. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
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Some things to think about while the doorbell rings...
There are communities that have moved Halloween from today, because they don't want it to be on a school night.
There are communities that abhor Halloween, arguing that it is a day for Satanists and other ideas that are anethema.
And there are communities where the goal is to obtain as many chocolate bars as possible. (The hobo costume will always remain the official teenager get up, because you can make one in three minutes).
How did fruit end up as treat non grata? How did the few giant candy companies end up stamping out variety, selling giant bags of cheap chocolate instead? (Hint: there's huge pressure to do 'the regular kind' as many consumers/homeowners are afraid to stand out in this regard). A great example of peer pressure meeting the race to the bottom.
And in the last few years, how did a trivial kids' holiday turn into a multi-billion dollar bacchanal for adults, complete with ornate houses and bespoke costumes? Is it because of some well-orchestrated Halloween Marketers of America initiative? It just seemed to happen, didn't it?
My take: Marketing home runs usually happen because the market/tribe/community is itching for a void to be filled, not because a marketer committed some brilliant act of promotion or pricing. The art, then, is to pick your niche, not to freak out about how to yell about it. You can't make a perfect storm, but you can find one.
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Housing Question From Down Under Posted: 30 Oct 2010 12:29 PM PDT Ben from Australia has a wife who is wondering about the wisdom of staying in cash on the sidelines waiting for Australia home prices to decline. With and Email header of Advice for an Aussie, Ben writes ... Hey Mish,Response to "Down Under" Hello Ben, that home prices in Australia keep going up is all the more reason to wait. The bigger the bubble the bigger the crash when it happens. Home prices always revert to the mean. Australian home prices are standard deviations above the norm in terms of price-to-rent and price-to-wages. The bubble will pop and the crash will be spectacular, no doubt as soon as every conceivable person on the sidelines is sucked in. "No Bubble?" Don't Believe It The central bank says there is no bubble. Don't believe it. Moreover, I laugh when I read articles like No house price bubble: RBA RBA deputy governor Ric Battellino said today house prices in Australia, relative to income, were reasonable.What Battellino seems to be suggesting is to look across the Outback and average prices and there is no bubble. This is like suggesting there is no bubble in San Diego because there is no bubble in Danville, Illinois. Well, there may not be a bubble in the central Illinois farm belt, but not many people live in widely dispersed small farm towns of a few thousand people each. It makes no sense to measure prices this way. The bubbles in Australia are where the vast majority of the people live. Ben Asked "But I look at China and your comments about Australia (and Canada) getting belted in the fallout. Would you suggest anything other than putting everything in the bank? " His question is in reference to Misguided Love Affair with China; China's Massive Monetary Expansion and Crackup Boom. One thing Australians have going for them is treasury rates of 4.5%. The second thing is they do not have to worry about currency fluctuations, something that carry trade investors do have to worry about. Australia Dollar Weekly Chart The Australian dollar has been on a tear. Yet, where to from here is of primary concern to carry trade players seeking 4.5% in interest but assuming the risk in the slide of the Australian dollar. Australians have no such concerns, and that does open up another play. Instead of sitting in cash, Australians can consider buying longer term Australian Central Bank notes on the expectation that when the housing bubble bursts, the RBA will respond by lowering rates. For someone living in Australia with expenses and wages in Australian dollars, long-term Australian Central Bank bonds looks like a very good opportunity. Those are my thoughts as to what looks attractive from this side of the ocean where 5-year treasury notes yield a mere 1.17% and 10-year notes a paltry 2.6%. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Mad Dash Into Junk Sets October Record Posted: 30 Oct 2010 12:56 AM PDT The mad dash into junk bonds continues. Please consider Junk Sets October Record, Mortgage Bonds Rally Sales of junk bonds in the U.S. set a record for October as returns topped investment-grade debt and more borrowers were raised than cut. Government-backed mortgage bonds may beat Treasuries by the most in at least 10 years.Lehman High Yield Bond ETF S&P 500 Weekly Chart Buy the Dip? The last two downturns in January and May of 2010 were buying opportunities. Will buy the dip work next time? Fundamentally I see no reason it should, but that does not mean it won't. I have been saying for 18 months that the stock market is unlikely to break hard as long as corporates are strong, but buyer beware, sentiment can turn on a dime. Extreme Sentiment We have a possible warning signal in that the corporate rally for the last two months has been US only. We have another type of warning signal with the CEO of MGM Resorts International proudly proclaiming "The bond market will get better." Will it? He does not know, no one does. Moreover, I see no reason to think it will. Finally, we have Richard R.S. Smith, head of high-yield capital markets at Royal Bank of Scotland's RBS Securities unit touting "We've pushed many of our clients into what we view as a very attractive market from a refinancing standpoint. We think it's going to continue as long as the U.S. government maintains a 10-year treasury rate below 3 percent." RBS just happened to pimp $500 million of MGM bonds rated CCC. This is exactly the kind of sentiment it takes to make a top. However, please remember that sentiment, no matter how extreme, can always get more extreme. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
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