How Do You Take The Vote?

Comments (Archived):

1. So tired and excited. I liked what Krugman wrote last night:”OK, somewhat more seriously: one big thing that just happened was that the real America trumped the “real America”. And it’s also the election that lets us ask, finally, “Who cares what’s the matter with Kansas?”For a long time, right-wingers — and some pundits — have peddled the notion that the “real America”, all that really counted, was the land of non-urban white people, to which both parties must abase themselves. Meanwhile, the actual electorate was getting racially and ethnically diverse, and increasingly tolerant too. The 2008 Obama coalition wasn’t a fluke; it was the country we are becoming.And sure enough that more diverse and, if you ask me, better nation just won big.Notice too that to the extent that social issues played in this election, they played in favor of Democrats. Gods, guns, and gays didn’t swing voters into supporting corporate interests; instead, human dignity for women swung votes the other way.A huge night for truth, justice, and the real American way.”

   1. My god every liberal assessment of this election splits people into artificial, superficial groups like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It must be a sad way to see this amazing country of individuals.

      1. Sorry – don’t see that at all. Far sadder in my mind the splitting of Americans into some imaginary 47% of people who are victims and need to be convinced to take personal responsibility for their lives.In any event, election is over.

         1. We’re just numbers to ‘them’ – there’s no emotions. It may as well be a boardroom row and shareholder voting rights. Elections are just a perfunctory means to an end and a pseudo tick in the box re: ‘democracy’ and polity.

      2. It must be sad to realize that you are a minority in this country and most of us want to come together and play as a team instead of freelancing like Carmelo Anthony all the time

         1. I’m trying hard not to give up on Carmelo. Not easy, but I’m trying. I think we have 4 more years with him.

            1. Surrounding him at all times with at least two veteran and crafty point guards may be a genius move by Woodson. They are moving the ball much better this year

            2. #truth

            3. I think Knicks may be finally getting it all together for a good season. I think ‘Melo also shows some positives signs. So far Knicks had it easy. Heat didn’t show up. 76’s are a shadow of what they were last year. I think this whelped the players gain confidence in themselves, in each other and the coach. Woodson seems to be a good coach, right for the job.Mavs are red hot. So it’ll be interesting how the team will respond to that challenge. They will be well rested, at home. A win may be enough to carry the momentum deep into the season.

            4. yeah. big game. i will miss it because i will be in LA but I will try to catch it on TV

            5. I agree the veteran point guard additions are very smart.However, when Amare comes back things could get sticky again.

         2. I have always been, and will always be the smallest minority possible, and I embrace that fully.I think that the electoral results are a good indication that a VAST majority do NOT want to come together right now.I’ve never been opposed to coming together and playing as a team….hell it’s what I do every single day… I just prefer it to be through voluntary, mutually-beneficial transactions and not because I’m standing on the wrong end of a government gun.Let the two sides fight it out, only the agreed upon ideas make it through….I love that. It’s like a filter for Federal Gov’t action.

         3. andyswan”It must be sad to realize that you are a minority in this country”It’s actually quite liberating to not be running a popularity contest and worry all the time about saying or doing the right thing.Krugman is a writer for the NY Times. What could be more secure and tenured than that other than Harvard? Even in this economic climate, and with the decline of newspapers, he will always have a job. And plenty of admirers and be able to eat with the classes. Which is an easy one because all he or any opinion writer has to do is sit on the sidelines and say shit. Kinda like we all do here on this blog in the comments. Without the tenure. Or the money. Or parties with the classes.

         4. I am not sure that teamwork is a traditional American ideal.Success, yes. Teamwork, only if it happens that way.

      3. The irony of this statement is that it totally devalues what happened yesterday. For the first time in American history targeting the group called ‘white men’ didn’t decide an election and people are getting pissy about it because they just felt their power slip.Why does it have to be about groups? It’s not about groups but in order to analyze statistics you have to group things together. Election results are statistics therefore they have to be grouped to be analyzed. When you compare baseball players you talk about batting average, homeruns, etc. When you compare how a politician did on election night you talk about the demographics of those who voted for him. No one can analyze 100 million votes individually and no one up to this point has ever cared to, grouping has been the way this has been done forever, why is today different? Right, because of fear. Fear of being the minority for a change. Fear of losing control.This election just proved that the US is a country full of individuals who all matter and not just a country where you can ignore everyone as long as you don’t ignore the old white men. This is change.

         1. Again… The only one talking race…

            1. Damn straight I’m talking race and I’m not hiding it. I’m sick and tired of this country trying to act like race doesn’t exist. I’m not being racist, I’m using race as a descriptor, there is a huge difference. Prior to yesterday you could cater to white men and evangelical christians and still, if done right, win an election. Yesterday showed that this is no longer possible. It showed that everyone else, the rest of the individuals in these United States would not be ignored and discounted. I don’t see how, in the context I used it, that me bringing up race is an issue.

            2. “the black guy standing by the picnic table” is a descriptor…. “old white guys are angry” is pure division.It’s not a descriptor when you use it to lump people together based on it…. It’s a sad paradigm for viewing the world. Good luck with that… I’m going to continue dealing with people as individuals, rather than pathetic voting blocks that will allow me to point the gov’t gun at another group

            3. @andyswan:disqus Good luck creating 300 million unique marketing campaigns next time you run a POTUS candidate’s campaign for election.

            4. Google could

            5. @andyswan:disqus A marketing campaign is not a solely automated task. Being able to segment down to user preferences is only one tiny part of it.

            6. I didn’t say old white guys are angry. I referred to old white men as a descriptor when referring to them collectively as a voting block demographic that went for Romney. Specifically I got the term from this article. http://blog.seattlepi.com/s…”In contrast to Obama’s rainbow coalition, Romney’s core supporters were older, evangelical and white. Among white voters, the Republican nominee topped Obama by 20 points, 59 percent to 39 percent. Romney scored particularly well among older white men, white women who have not completed college and rural white males.”If I offended, I apologize. It was not the intent. But how else can I refer to a demographic made up of older white men but than to call them such?Though your issue seems to be more that I’m referring to demographics at all. If that’s the case, you can’t really think you can wish away the entire field of statistics do you? If so, let’s ban sports talk as it inevitably comes down to comparing and grouping players by stats…or demographics. 80% of players who shot over 50% from the field and 90% at the FT line tend to make the HOF. 60% of teams who win more than 80% of their games in September win the World Season. 70% of hispanics voted for Obama. If anything the Obama stat is less threatening because it doesn’t try and ascertain why, it is just reporting the facts.How can you have a problem with facts? You’re an investor, I know you use statistics, even if not consciously. You see a potential investment and analyze the hell out of it. Has this market been tapped? Are people paying for the product? Is it likely that you’ll face compeition from a bigger player in x time. You answer all these questions in either absolutes (0 or 100%) or degrees (0-100%). All are stats. When you’re targeting a product, you target based on demographics. Upscale clothing boutique in a poverty stricken area? Probably not.None of this is any different. Facts don’t have a bias.

            7. The way facts are presented have a bias, especially the way this paper presents them. Take this one sentence:”In addition to minority voters, Obama’s majority-making coalition included young voters, highly educated citizens and women.”Now, make a couple of substitutions:”In addition to minority voters, Romney’s losing coalition included young voters, highly educated citizens and women.”It’s still 100% true. The fact is, this is an absurd way to explain the election. People vote for reasons. For most of us, those reasons don’t include our sex, color, age, race, religion, orientation, or any other “demographic characteristic”.And no, intelligent marketers do not target products based on demographics. They target based on the job to be done. As Ted Levitt famously said “People don’t want quarter inch drills, they want quarter inch holes”. One of the reasons that tv is rapidly failing as a medium is that it depends on advertising that it sells by demographic, whereas internet-based advertising tends to be intentional (based on the thing I was searching for). Demographics are a very crude proxy that may correlate to voting patterns, but they do not completely explain them.

            8. That’s fine until you consider that the majority of the demographics that they pointed out, voted Obama. That’s why it was mentioned, not to negatively imply anything about Romney voters, just as a way to describe the sample.

            9. Ask yourself why it matters.

            10. Ask yourself why you’re trying so hard for it not to matter.

            11. I’m not trying anything.Your position is that it is relevant. If so — if people voted because of race and age and sex — then why didn’t everyone who is of the same race and age and sex vote the same way.As I’ve pointed out, the only time demographics matter is negative reasons (how many hundreds of millions in untruthful and personal attack ads did Obama’s team run, intended to scare or alienate groups of people), unless you are accusing those voters of racism, ageism or sexism. On the other hand, if you are ascribing a stereotypical view of those voters based on demographics (whether you’re taking it from the media or not) then you are being racist, ageist or sexist.Correlations are not reasons. Reasons are reasons. Why did you vote Obama? From your previous responses, you have indicated that you are black. Did you vote Obama because you’re black? If that was your reason, then you cast a racist vote.

            12. Again, nonsense. If race mattered (to whites), Obama would not be in power.

            13. Race not racism, get it right. Race is a descriptor like gender, height or build. Andecdote time.I work in IT, often we get people who will call us up and say someone stopped by to fix an issue but they can’t remember his name. They’ll dance around all kinds of descriptors, kinda short (both of the possible guys are kinda short), athletic build (both workout often), on and on until I say, was he black or white? There is one black guy, one white guy who fit the description. If they weren’t so busy trying to dance around race the conversation would have been reduced to 15 seconds rather than the 2 awkward minutes it took.Point is, noticing that someone is black or white doesn’t make you racist, it makes you observant. Likewise noticing that older white males tended to favor Romney in the election doesn’t make them racist, nor does it make the observer racist, nor does it make Romney racist. It’s just a stat that got noticed.Am I making sense?

            14. I get the use of color to describe a person or object’s characteristics. No different than “black cat” or “white mug” or that “tall guy”. And, I’ve seen the hypersensitive dancing around that you describe. It can be quite comical.Regardless, it changes from being a neutral descriptor when you use it as an explanation for group behavior. So, if someone asked “what happened to the muffins in the kitchen” and you said “the black dudes came in and ate them all”, then I’d question why you identified them as black, since it’s completely irrelevant. It would be worse if you said “the blacks always grab the freebies before anyone else can get them”. There is a progression that increasingly indicates that you’re using race as a proxy for behavior, which suggests prejudice and racism.The only relevant factor in segmentation is the reason for a choice. If you chose Obama because he’s black, that is racist. If you voted against him because he’s black that is racist. If you group people by race, gender, color, orientation, height, age or any other factor that has no bearing on their decision as a means of explaining a result, then you are prejudging motivation. Therefore, the paper that you quoted from, whether they admit it or not, is racist and ageist. There were lots of old, white men who voted Obama — millions of them, in fact. There may well have been more who voted Romney — and, I don’t care.The only thing that matters to me is why they vote (and anyone who wants to spend their money wisely/efficiently, and win would care about this as well). I acknowledge that tv pundits want to put things in their easy boxes — I find it sickening. It encourages people to think as racists, rather than being color-blind. If the primary reason people voted was the economy, then I want to know why they prefer Obama or Romney on the economy.The more adjectives you apply, and the more connotation those adjectives carry, the more it becomes a slur. “Old white men”, and especially “angry old white men” are terms that are no different in character or intent than the nasty things and overt racism that minority groups used to suffer in this country (not just blacks, but Jews, Poles, Chinese, etc). The sooner we stop labeling demographics by race, age etc, the sooner we stop seeing things as being about race when they aren’t.My objective is not to paint you into a racist box, but to sensitize you. The media also needs major sensitization. I think it’s clear that you didn’t think you were being racist, so I accept that. But, think about the labels you use and why. If you don’t, you paint yourself into a box.

            15. “If you group people by race, gender, color, orientation, height, age or any other factor that has no bearing on their decision as a means of explaining a result, then you are prejudging motivation.” I finally see your point, but I still disagree with it. I’m not prejudging motivation, I’m group stats and exploring their meaning. Causation, correlation and all that. Statistical analysis is a science, it is inherently unbiased. I think it’s telling when certain demographics track a certain way in a statistically meaningful way. You can ignore that if you want but as I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, we do it all the time for sports, I don’t see why elections are any different.

         2. The fundamental assumption you are making (which is invalid), is that the primary reason people voted was because of their demographic category. If we all did that, then it would indeed by a simple exercise of counting the groups. Most of us don’t do things that way. And, the repeated “old white men” slur to describe everyone who voted for Romney is incredibly offensive.

            1. Look, if ‘old white men’ is offensive, I apologize but it’s what I’ve read and heard everywhere. Romney won the demographic of elderly white men voters and no others.

            2. @thinkdisruptive:disqus There is an marked difference between why people vote and the segmented groups that campaigns market to. The GOP’s target market has primarily been “old white men.” But last night showed that targeting that demographic is loosing its ability to carry an election.

            3. If true (which I see no evidence of), then they truly are stupid. Dividing audiences by demographics is a losing strategy (unless you’re selling something that’s only for women, such as sanitary napkins). What I see is a lot of democrats trying to paint republican supporters as “old white men”, as some kind of pejorative. I can assure you that 20-something Koreans who voted that way don’t much like it. Neither does Warren Buffett.

            4. @thinkdisruptive:disqus You are making @mlloyd:disqus’s point.

            5. Really? How is that?

            6. @thinkdisruptive:disqus That the Mitt Romney campaign effectively ignored people who where not old white men (e.g. 20-something Koreans) and hindsight proves it was a failing strategy.

            7. You’ve misinterpreted what I said, and are buying the distorted media view of this. See: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201… for the reasons why it is ridiculous to assume republicans targeted old white men as a primary demographic. It’s utterly absurd. My point was that many 20-something Koreans did vote republican, and Warren Buffett, who is a truly old white guy, voted democrat.In other words, it is exactly the opposite of what you state.

            8. @thinkdisruptive:disqus You misattributed my reason to believe the Republicans targeted “old white men.” The reason I believe that is I watched the campaign the Republican ran ad-nauseum and the I witnessed the choices they made. I happen to be white and somewhat old but I find the messages the Republican party presented to be targeted clearly at the “old white men” caricature. And yet they are out of touch. The fact that outliers voted for Romney is totally irrelevant to who is the party’s base.

            9. So, 85% of Romney’s supporters are outliers? What percentage of Obama’s supporters are outliers? Must be pretty close, because they got virtually the same popular vote.A 49 year old male is not considered old, in any grouping that I’m aware of. And, I did not see what you saw — ads targeting old white men — so, if you don’t know it, you shouldn’t assume it. It would be obscenely ridiculous to target your entire campaign at 5% of the population. In fact, I think most of the ads were targeted at independent undecideds, because the likelihood of persuading someone already in one column or the other to change is virtually nil. “Old white men” don’t tend to have a big concentration of independent undecided voters.

            10. @thinkdisruptive:disqus We are talking past each other. This is not productive. I’m going to get some work done and be happy that I don’t have a 4 year long nightmare ahead like I had in 2004. You handle it how you will.

            11. I expect to be treated as a cash machine by the government, for politicians to continue to dig us a bigger hole, and for no positive change to come. Not sure what nightmare you had to deal with, but I’ve already suffered a pretty crappy last 4 years, and don’t expect it to be any better the next 4.

            12. thinkdisruptive The military industrial complex sees me as a cash machine. Faith-based initiatives see me as a cash machine. Hell, my insurance companies see me as a cash machine. How are you unique?My past four years were much better than the prior 8, except for a progressive health issue that’s gotten worse the past 4 years. In 2000-08 I had to agonize over the Iraq war, something I felt was outrageously morally wrong. It didn’t affect me tangibly but it bothered me greatly to know my country could do so much harm to innocents.Economically my situation have very little to do with macro factors; as an entrepreneur I mostly make my own situation. If I were a 1%er then I could see government really affecting me. If I were an employee in a job that is loosing demand I could see the economy affecting me, but for the most part I don’t think people make their own destinies and government policy can’t really affect employment in the short term besides infrastructure projects (investments in long term, yes.)So what about your past crappy 4 years was Obama’s fault and not of your own making or just the rare case of bad luck?

            13. re: cash machine. It’s about the attitude of the politicians. I don’t care for what purpose they want more money — there isn’t any more to have. A bit silly to say “faith-based initiatives” view you as a cash machine — they can’t point a gun to your head and put you in jail if you don’t pay up. Voluntary vs involuntary. Big difference.re: Iraq war. Yup, it pains us all. One of the many promises that Obama didn’t keep, however, as it continued through most of his first term. Not sure how that got any better for you.re: things beyond my control that the government screwed up in past 4 years. – increased accumulated debt by 60%- wasted $1 trillion on stimulus- created a new unfunded healthcare program that will cost over $1T annually after promising it wouldn’t cost anything extra- has caused my private health insurance rates to skyrocket, while I get less benefits from them- my house is worth less than half what it was 5 years ago, with almost every policy introduced since 2008 further depressing its value, and bailing out people who couldn’t afford to buy houses in the first place on my nickel. no relief for people like me though, who spent within their means and always paid their mortgage. Continuing unemployment levels at rates unseen since the depression keep prices low and buyers out of market (although much of it isn’t counted anymore in official figures, since if you’ve been unemployed more than 3 years, you fall off the official list.)- have been trapped in my unsellable house, and forced to walk away from a job as a result that would have enabled relocation to another country to support aging parentsBroken promises- didn’t close Guantanamo Bay- didn’t keep unemployment below 8% or reduce it to 6% by this year (stimulus was supposed to achieve this). Single biggest reason for continued housing crisis — longest since Depression.- didn’t cut deficit in half. Has instead increased it significantly.- promised immigration reform to happen first year of term, and provide path to citizenship for illegal aliens in US already. Hasn’t done anything.- didn’t end war in Afghanistan.I mostly make my own way as well, however, the housing issue has impacted me dramatically. I don’t have sufficient resources to carry houses in multiple countries, so parents will probably die before we can relocate. Most of the financial issues that have hit us are the result of Frank-Dodd, repeal of Glass-Steagal (Clinton), and inept handling of the recovery since 2008.Although we are able to cope, we’ve also seen:- gas prices double- food prices up about 50%- insurance costs up 60%- almost everything else we have to spend money on go up 20-30%while inbound cash flows have mostly remained stable or fallen.And, I still count myself among the fortunate. But, that doesn’t mean that I’m better off than 4 years ago, or that things aren’t set to get a lot worse.

            14. @thinkdisruptive:disqus The “Faith Based Initiatives” I referred to were the ones that received significant funding and promotion from the G.W.Bush administration and that continue to hang on in large parts. So yes, the “gun to head” metaphor that you and Rand acolytes are so fond of does apply.You really blame Obama for the housing bubble and your choice to purchase in an area that remains depressed? The rest is subject to debate; would it not have been worse under McCain? There are many economists on records saying Obama’s policies really helped avoid real catastrophe. Since we can’t take the road not travelled we can’t know.One thing clear to me is that we are being affected by macro-economic trends that no president can be blamed for, not even G.W.Bush. The population is aging, that’ll change health care costs. Technology and communications have enabled other countries to gain from employment and income while we loose. Continued efficiencies reduce need for employment in manufacturing and many other sections. We could have isolated ourselves as does North Korea but I doubt things would be better if we did.I’m honestly curious what things “hit you” because of Frank-Dodd and repeal of Glass-Steagal? (I’m not taking a position on those in this comment, just honestly not sure how this applies.)Yes Obama broke many promises, many IMO because of an obstructionist Republican House and filibustering Republican Senators; congressmen that wanted nothing more than to cause him to fail so they could regain power.And many promises he broke because he just did. So did G.H.W. Bush. And Reagan. And every other POTUS. It happens; you have to look at the overall, not any one issue.All those increased costs? You blame Obama, I blame macro-economic trends. We are all dealing with it. Wherever there is difficultly there is also opportunity. It’s how we deal with it that matters.Overall I personally think Obama’s done a good job. I really hate some things he has done (the drone program, for example) but your identify and values obviously differ from mine, so you feel very different. Whose’s right? I’ll accept that it’s probably neither of us, but I wasn’t initially commenting on those topics.But I do appreciate your anger. I can relate because I was at least as mad on November 3rd 2004 as you seem to be today. But life goes on. And if the Republicans learn from this election you’ll probably get your turn again 4 years from now.

            15. re: blaming Obama for housing crisis.Absolutely. Everything they’ve done has been the opposite of what should have been done, and it was democrat policy of pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get more subprime people into houses they couldn’t afford that caused the mortgage fraud and crash (plus the repeal of Glass Steagal which amplified it several times).Regarding where I live, I’ve lived here for 13 years. It happens to be in a city where I worked and neighborhood I could afford (i.e. unlike most Americans, I had close to 90% equity in my house before the crash). Being prescient enough to predict 9/11, the over-reaction we had to that, the subprime mortgage crisis and massive fraud and securitization of mortgages, and the subsequent crash of 2007-08 is probably beyond almost anyone, so your snide remark is quite uncalled for. The only solution to all of that would have been not buying a house at all.It’s a good neighborhood, but the only two houses to sell here in the past 4 years were both foreclosures that the bank dumped at 300K below building cost (one of them was a new house right across the street from me, that sat empty for almost 2 years before the bank finally accepted a deal 85K below what they originally wanted, and 350K below what the builder built it for 5 years ago).Of course, I could sell my house if I was willing to give it away for a couple of hundred dollars (reductio ad absurdum), but many potential sales in the neighborhood have fallen through because of the stupid new appraisal rules in Frank-Dodd, which have caused appraisals to come in 25% or more below fair value and below what buyer and seller have agreed on. If it doesn’t appraise out, the bank won’t advance mortgage funds. So, the only choice for the seller is to accept a ridiculously low price, or refuse to sell. Another democrat fiasco. Across the country, as many as 40% of all deals are impacted by this, and it has kept prices artificially deflated despite record low values and record low interest rates.So, you can cast dumb aspersions on my choices, but I don’t control that this city continues to have more foreclosures and more government-owned properties than anywhere else in the country, and that it continues to have well above the national unemployment stats (which keeps buyers out of the market). This was a great place to live, but I’ve literally been unable to sell my house for 5 years. And, the bank says that my land + house is worth 300K below the cost to build that the insurance company requires me to maintain insurance levels at. And, I can’t afford to lose 300K or more in order to relocate, even though it probably means that parents will pass away before we can. So, yes, that is a personal hell that I lay entirely at the feet of Obama.I don’t care what “economists” doing voodoo math say. What they don’t account for, and don’t understand is psychology and behavioral economics, and they clearly don’t understand how to account for extreme levels of debt in the equation and the drag that creates.This country lacks confidence, and people continue to be scared that house prices will fall even more (which is why money sits on the sidelines and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy). The reason they feel that way is that nothing was allowed to reach its natural floor quickly and begin to self-correct (as in every previous crash), and so after prolonged falling prices, they’ve just kept falling, and are significantly below where they would have bottomed out naturally 3 years ago. Combine that with the Frank-Dodd effect, and the market stinks.Unfortunately, we can’t all live in the 4 cities where things are improving (and they may not be now, after the mess left by Sandy). What the government has done is manufacture a depression with stupid policies, over-spending (and on the wrong things at the wrong time), and excessive debt. The last time we had to deal with anything this bad was the 1930s, and apparently we failed to learn from that, because we’ve repeated almost every mistake that FDR made then.Except that he didn’t have to deal with the size of debt load that we have.btw, there is no macro-economic trend that is crushing my house value. There are 15% fewer people that own a house today than 4 years ago. Mostly due to foreclosures or being forced out because of being underwater on their mortgage. The collapse in value puts hundreds of thousands of properties for sale below the cost to build them — obviously not sustainable in the long run. The reasons it has persisted are a) unemployment, b) lack of buyer confidence, c) destroyed credit scores of people forced out of their houses, d) government policy. It certainly has nothing to do with affordability, as the cost to rent today is much higher than the cost to own (except for lack of liquidity), and relative to income, housing is cheaper than at any time since the Depression. And, if you compare to our cousins north of the border, who are subject to the same macro-economic trends, you have exactly the opposite thing happening. Prices are 4-5x ours for an equivalent house in an equivalent city and neighborhood, with comparable unemployment rates and higher interest rates and tighter qualification rules, but no dumb appraisal rules, no excessive foreclosure problem, and much greater confidence (maybe a bit unfounded given their record high personal debt levels).

            16. No, I’m not making that assumption at all. I stated that Obama’s support was broad and Romney’s support was homogeneous. If you want to distill it, that’s the point I was making. I further stated that Obama’s broad support proved that you can’t ignore those demographics that voted for him and still expect to win an election by focusing only on the traditional voting block the GOP is accustomed to targeting.And the ‘old white men’ descriptor, that you call a slur was written in a newspaper and I borrowed it. Would you had taken it differently if my avatar was of a white guy rather than a black guy?”In contrast to Obama’s rainbow coalition, Romney’s core supporters were older, evangelical and white. Among white voters, the Republican nominee topped Obama by 20 points, 59 percent to 39 percent. Romney scored particularly well among older white men, white women who have not completed college and rural white males.” http://blog.seattlepi.com/s…

            17. @mlloyd:disqus “Would you had taken it differently if my avatar was of a white guy rather than a black guy?”I’m 49, and white. I got your back here. 🙂

            18. Appreciate it! It really didn’t seem like a racist or pejorative statement to me, just the way the article described the specific group of people. Not sure how else to say older white men other than saying older white men. lol

            19. It’s easy. You don’t label a group as “old white men”. What you don’t seem to get is that the people who voted Romney are 85% not old white men (at a minimum), but that there are a set of reasons, not related to age or race that caused people to vote in a certain way. The reasons are paramount, not anything else.So, if you want a proper breakdown by group, you’d identify those who voted Romney because they thought he’d do best with the economy. And then another group who favor strong national defense. And then another group who believe his policies would best address unemployment. You would find that those groups are 100% homogeneous in rationale, but made of of assorted peoples from all races, ages, colors, sexes and so on. At best, there is a rough correlation of traditional demographic slices to these reasons. So, suggesting that the way to appeal to those favoring a strong military is to target “old white men” is simply bone-headed. It’s tv advertising-think, not intelligent campaign strategy or accurate representation of the electorate.I don’t find racial profiling and stereotyping of groups funny no matter who’s doing it, or their reason.

            20. 1. I can’t tell what your avatar is, so no, I don’t care. I look only at the meaning of what was said.2. You discuss the makeup of democrat and republican support by demographics, suggesting this is the reason for the result. That can only be true if you’re making an assumption that people vote because of the demographic group they’re in. This is only true if the group you belong to is the democratic or republican party (and even then, it isn’t universal). You may not have explicitly assumed that, but you certainly did implicitly.3. I don’t care where the descriptor came from. It is racist, ageist, and used as a pejorative. That makes it a slur.4. The Seattle paper is clearly biased. I need only look at their categories to know that they have drawn stereotypes as code words to imply narrow-mindedness. If I had the data, I’m sure I could group it in a much more favorable light. I’m sure these categories come from left-wing demographers, because fair-minded people don’t classify people this way. Notice that Obama’s so-called rainbow coalition doesn’t include groups labeled urban black male dropouts, black single mothers, ditsy actors, etc. Labels matter. Color doesn’t.5. What makes you think that Republicans focus on a “traditional voting block” of old white men? If that was true, it would be suicidal, and they wouldn’t be within 1% of the popular vote, so the characterization can only be coming from the other side. White males over the age of 65 constitute approximately 5% of the total population. Put another way, if every single one of them voted, and voted Romney, they’d all have to vote 3.3 times to deliver the number of votes that Romney got. Given the actual numbers of people over 65 who voted, and the split between candidates, 85% of Romney supporters were not old white men.So, ask yourself why the label is being used, and how it syncs with the facts. The only explanation I can come up with is to paint Romney voters as representing the past and being out of touch, and Obama voters as the “with it” future.

            21. @thinkdisruptive “That can only be true if you’re making an assumption that people vote because of the demographic group they’re in. “Again, you are conflating the way people vote with how the campaign chose to segment their marketing. They are different things.

            22. No, you are. I never said that republicans targeted old white males (that would be ridiculous, for reasons already given). I am responding and objecting to the media characterization that Malcolm is reporting, which groups people into offensive demographic buckets rather than asking what the dominant reasons were for picking one or the other candidate, which is the only segmentation that matters.

            23. I apologize for using the term since you find it offensive, it wasn’t intended by me as such. But I don’t apologize for the truth, the demographic information is fact. NBC link is below, I can hunt for others but there isn’t really a point. You can believe what you want, but the GOP lost yesterday because carrying ONLY white voters isn’t enough to win a presidency in high turnout scenarios and probably never again. This is probably the new normal and they need to adjust.http://firstread.nbcnews.co…

         3. I agree, although I think a lot of people would like ‘targetting’ & ‘election’ not be included in the same sentence.

            1. LOL – True but eh…what can you do. It is what it is.

      4. Did you mean “splits people into artificial, superficial groups like”liberals and right-wingers

         1. @raycote:disqus Touché!

   2. we’re still (and probably for the near term) underrepresented in congress. There are more districts for large areas that are rural rather than cityscapes.

2. Thanks for the heads-up on Albert’s blog, Fred. I wasn’t aware of it; it looks very interesting and I will certainly make the time to absorb it over the coming days.

   1. He is building a case for some big ideas that I know are coming later in the series

      1. Cool. I like Big Ideas.We spend too much time sweating on small ones. Small and Big take the same effort, often. And big ones are more stimulating. Think Big!

3. I saw a Diet Coke commercial and teared up this morning.Also, please God, let’s come together and fix this country.

   1. hahahhaha! thanks for the morning laugh 🙂

4. Let’s get down to business, now!There were some very gracious comments last night about working together. My hope is that they can be acted upon in some intelligent way forward.

5. I had to watch fox new’s coverage of the election last night (it was the only channel that came in!), and the most interesting thing to see was all the commentators talking about the need for reform in the Republican Party. Specifically, a more moderate party. Hopefully, this election will be the push thats needed.

   1. They need to discover the 21th century. They would possibly be served better by a larger thumping which would allow them to reject the lunatic fringe.

      1. So you’re saying after two cycles in a row where they nominate the “moderate” and lose to a radical, they should become more moderate? LOL

      2. Very gracious.

   2. Ummmm… after two cycles in a row of the most moderate Republican possible losing to a Chicago radical….I’ll take my chances with a move to the right like we had in the landslide of 2010

   3. I think its going to be hard but they need to have a place for folks like me and Bloomberg in the GOP

      1. actually Bloomberg has the politics, track record, and wealth to create a 3rd party. Perhaps formation of the Bloomberg party is the best use of his time after he finishes his final mayoral term.

         1. it would be cool if it was named the “Plan B party”

      2. Yes. This is the most rational thing I’ve heard anyone say about this. Fred, as long as someone like you feels they don’t belong in the republican party, they have a serious problem. I don’t feel I belong there either — I just see the democrats as being even more out of touch financially, and too anxious to try to fix everything with government. i suspect that the ridiculous comments about rape, abortion, 47%, etc were what cost the republicans a win. Romney would have earned more points for himself by aggressively acting to force Todd Akin out of the party than anything else he did during the campaign — would have sent a very strong message to everyone offended by that nonsense. The social and religious conservatives who dominate the conversation make it hard for good people who a natural GOPs to want anything to do with them.

      3. As the Republican party becomes more libertarian, the social issues will become less important. Arguably Obama won because of social issues. I think that this loss will only energize the libertarian wing and reduce the influence of establishment folks like Romney.

         1. If the GOP becomes more libertarian they have a good chance of landing me

      4. rockfeller republicans left the party a long time ago. sadly.

   4. Maybe they should have been taking about reforming Fox News as well?

6. Great post, Fred. Really looking forward to to your and Albert’s series on the economy. I hope it’s OK… I stole (with attribution) your “The Money Quote” convention in a post I wrote Monday titled, “16 Links Obama and Romney Need to Read the Day After the Election”. http://spnd.ws/16links

   1. Excellent

7. The coolest part of yesterday was President Obama spending part of his day playing basketball with Scottie Pippen in Chicago. 

8. Obama was re-elected and so were the people that we sent in 2010 to stop his steamroller.I hope they both do the job they were re-elected to do. I’m 100% for another 2 years of a harshly divided, neutered federal government.

   1. Joan Walsh, Salon.com: “a win for using government to improve people’s lives”. Hope not “a win for using government to improve people (that work for the government) lives”

      1. if working for the government you mean Senators and Representatives. Then sure their lives always have improved. This notion that somehow the government is evil and government workers are evil is just not always fair.Also remember many of the agencies we have did not come about because certain folks feel they need a fat government. We don’t have rules/regulations and government to enforce those rules/regulations etc if businesses would do the right thing, which sadly many businesses choose to not follow unless required to do so, they don’t always believe in doing the right thing.So Government has and will be one of the biggest players in improving peoples lives.I doubt Mr.Wilson’s USV would have ever have the capacity to take the kind of risk that only a government could take in developing the “internets”, The USV’s of the world thrive on governments playing that fundamental role and letting businesses build on top of that base layer.I just don’t think the Republican/Conservative/Libertarian/ John Galt view of the world is real and sustainable generally speaking.

   2. That won’t close trillions in deficit spending. What you are hoping for is reckless and irresponsible

      1. No, and if I had any indication whatsoever that Obama’s plan involved LESS federal government spending, I’d be all for this. Unfortunately, the last time he had the keys solo, he went 100% partisan (0 GOP votes— ZERO) and gave us a ridiculous and expensive takeover of healthcare and a “stimulus” that added a trillion to the baseline. Pass.

         1. I suspect he’s learned a bit in four years

            1. thats a job you should not be learning on sorry.

            2. well how do you prepare to be president otherwise?

            3. A $6 trillion education. Let’s hope it was worth it.

            4. clinton, bush II, obama. all rookies at the big leagues when they got the job.

            5. If so he will get more cooperation in 2014…that’s how the game is always played.

            6. That’s a very important point that I imagine most people don’t appreciate or take into account, though I imagine you can as an investor who invests in new companies – many (if not most) of which have someone who’s never been a CEO before.

         2. Do you know what people being healthy in society will mean?Do you understand there will be less crime, and therefore less costs for prisons?Do you understand people will be able to more productive?Do you realize the family unit will stay stronger, and less families destroyed due to financial debt because of health issuesAnd finally – do you know not understand how massive of a positive amplification effect this has?

            1. I do… And for all those reasons, I oppose government involvement.

            2. So what’s your solution to guaranteeing everyone has access to basic survival needs? And how do you get that system started? An insurance people pay into? What about people who are currently in the gutter? Or do you hope that those people just die off and not be a problem, and only those strong enough can make it?

            3. why stop at healthcare? wouldnt we all be better if we were all millionaires? why not raise minimum wage to $1,000,000?

            4. why is getting cash the same as getting healthcare?

            5. Money is merely time. With enough time any infrastructure can be created. There certainly are enough resources for everyone to live like a millionaire, especially when we do more things like sharing, sharing space, and when we can get more value from eachother instead of material goods, and especially when we create things that last, quality and not planned obsolescence, etc etc..

            6. Don’t worry that inflated $1,000,000 salary is coming. It is how you flush out all that debt and unfunded liabilities to the baby boomers!

            7. @kidmercury:disqus Reductio ad absurdum.http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

            8. my point is that healthcare by the government is not free and is actually far more expensive than if government would not get involved. already employers are hiring more part-time workers to escape obamacare. an observation conveniently left out of the celebrations of how great “free” healthcare is. great for pharmaceutical companies and the politicians they sponsor, for sure. as for everyone else…..

            9. @kidmercury:disqus Acknowledged, but that doesn’t change that you used reductio ad absurdum as your debate tactic.The problem with healthcare is special interest money, party polarization and obstructionism such that we can’t get good ideas passed.

            10. i dont understand what reductio ad absurdum is, sounds like a fancy way of saying i said something absurd, which sounds like an opinion. i dont think the analogy is absurd. promising free healthcare is just like promising free money or any other promise so grand it cannot live up to its claim.

            11. kidmercury Google is your friend, but then I also included a link to Wikipedia above that explains “Reductio ad absurdum” for you to save you the burden of searching.And yes proposing a $1 million minimum wage is reducing the argument to absurdity. Do you really want to argue that point?

            12. i read the wikipedia link and it didnt make sense to me. humorously i found it absurd.yes i’m up for arguing million dollar minimum wage. you find it absurd. how is it any more absurd than guaranteed free healthcare? my point is that there is a connection between wages and employment; if you made the minimum wage 1 million no one would hire anyone. the same exact thing is happening with healthcare in that employers are looking to hire part-time people to escape obamacare fees. tragically, there is no free lunch, and promises of such, even if they come with the threat of government violence against the non-compliant, are sure to yield unintended consequences.

            13. @kidmercury:disqus “yes i’m up for arguing million dollar minimum wage. you find it absurd. how is it any more absurd than guaranteed free healthcare?”For the former, do the math and show me how it could ever work (ignoring outrageous inflation.) For the latter, most other 1st world countries do it so it is very possible, unlike a $1 million wage.

            14. depends on how you define healthcare. what obamacare is pharmacare that is all about pushing drugs and will ultimately ration healthcare. just like if you gave everyone 1 million salary the 1 million would lose its purchasing power, so too if you force “free” healthcare for everyone will dilute the quality of that healthcare.

            15. It looks to me that the rest of the first world gets that healthcare is a basic infrastructure like sewer, water and roads.An infrastructure platform that allows everyone to get on with building a diverse and competitive society.

            16. what if we spent on schools what we spend on prisons?

            17. what if we spent on schools what we spent on elections?

            18. win

            19. on this we agree.

            20. I don’t know the numbers, though money spent on educational will result in people who understand the world better, who will have an increased capability for self-awareness, and who will discover more in life, hopefully build more connections and relationships through mutual interests, and therefore have more to loose if they act in criminal / negative ways.

            21. i pay a lot of money to send my kid to private school because the schools where i live are underfunded. i would gladly pay more taxes and have good schools available for everyone — it’s not just the decent, moral and right thing to do, it’s also the economic thing to do. we can pay now or we can pay later; i’d rather pay now

            22. Could save a lot of money sending the school trouble makes straight to prison :)Oh wait what’s the per capita cost of housing prisoners?

         3. Sorry, calling bullshit here. He didn’t go 100% partisan the other side refused to work with him. Do you not remember the weeping and gnashing of teeth from the Democrats about Obama compromising TOO much? Let’s not re-write history here. As a Democrat I wish he had went 100% partisan in his first two years and bulldozed the hell out of the GOP, sadly it was not to be and is not his style.

            1. Name the GOP votes on Christmas Eve….

            2. That was after how many months of negotiations and how much stonewalling? How many times did they say to the press that their goal was to stonewall the President to make him a one-term president. They uniformly voted against everything he attempted. There was no negotiation on their point, just hostage taking. They deserved any dirty tricks they got by that point.

      2. Fred, I just witnessed a president elected in 2008 that had the best opportunity to bring this country together and address our problems and he chose to go it alone in the most partisan divisive way possible. Even after 2010 this man said F-U to bipartisanship. And you have the nerve to imply andyswan’s hopes are “reckless and irresponsible?” If you ran your business like Obama is running the country you’d be out of business in a big hurry! So why do you think it will work for the gov’t and not for you?

         1. let’s see what happens. you are bitter and angry. your candidate lost. i understand. but i don’t agree with you.

         2. Seriously? You believe what you typed out? The guy was the most bipartisan President in ages, he reached across the aisle so many times and conceded on so many points that his own base started to turn on him for not being stronger to GOP demands. And you can seriously think, better yet, commit these thoughts to internet paper? Wow. Just wow.

   3. wow, I wonder why you want a neutered government?Obama’s re-election is not about the next 4 years but about the next 50-100 years as SCOTUS will be reshaped hopefully with justices who are progressive not conservative or liberal to shape the public policies that need to be enacted, without cockblocking and stymieing the forward movement.

   4. I hate this worst case, but the most probable scenario…

9. ‘My favorite image of the entire campaign is the one of Gov Chris Christie and the President touring the ravaged Jersey shore together.”Image that was posted on Fred’s tumblog

   1. That was great for NJ and the country

   2. This is the link to the image that I posted on fredwilson.vc http://fredwilson.vc/post/3… And yes, that is the one

   3. Chris Christie may be one of the biggest winners in this election.

      1. .The next Governor of NJ will be Corey Booker who is a better Democrat than Christie..

         1. “Booker”!The funnier parts are at about 1:45′ in:https://www.youtube.com/wat…

10. We, as a country, raised and then spent $6 billion for the exact same congressional make up. Pathetic. Nothing will get done the next four years. Obama did not do a good job in his first term and I have no reason to believe he will do a good job in his second term. Pattern recognition. Electorate has changed and Republican party has to change. I want nothing to do with either party and am registering as a Libertarian today. I am a believer in fiscal conservancy (not spending more than you take in) and a strong defense. Leave social issues out of government, period.

    1. ….or around $17 per person. seems like a bargain for an election with high participation rates and a real choice. i think most americans would agree that that our democracy is worth a few lattes….

       1. Exactly. Why wouldn’t we spend a lot of money on the most important decisions every couple of years? We spend more money patting down grandmothers at airports

       2. yes, but I didn’t get most of those lattes. ohio did

       3. i get no lattes though – they all went to ohio and florida. At least if we are going to spend that much, can I get said latte too?

       4. High participation rates. That’s the key. The voter was the real winner this year. Lines of people to vote that stretched around city blocks, I don’t care what party you call yourself, that’s just good mojo right there.

       5. I like the perspective that come from that $/person breakout.Is there a website that breaks out all budget items as $/person?

    2. Amen. I buy into that platform

    3. Well said.

    4. time to pivot. but what is the vision we are working toward?

    5. I agree with this completely. I voted for Obama only because the Republican(Tea) Party scares me more, not because of what I believe Obama can do in the second term

    6. Sounds good, how would it work?

    7. Social issues? To me equal access to education and healthcare (pro-active prevention included) are as important to a developed civilisation as sanitation, garbage collection and corruption-free policing. These issues should be at the heart of government – liberty depends upon equality as a foundation.While the government can yet make moves to balance it’s books – raising tax revenue, reducing the ability of companies to dodge taxes through structures like the “double Irish” – there’s still a mess of dangerous private lending, and financial sector profiteering to be wound down. Running a bank should not be legitimised piracy – greed is not good. This points to more regulation, and clearer boundaries and accountability in this sector – or an entirely new structure.Everyone also seems so focused on recovery, recovery. More of everything, sooner. There is much less talk about stability, which is concerning. The major challenge to Obama, and consequently America, is overcoming petty partisan divides, and defeating the quasi-legal idealogs like Grover Norquist.Basically, I’m hoping Obama sacks up and makes some serious change.

    8. This is too simplistic a view.The strongest economy in NA – Alberta – is fuelled almost entirely by oil sands extraction. That entire industry was created by a Crown Corporation in the 1970’s. The oil sands were completely uneconomic at the time. The federal government of Canada created a company to work on extraction methodologies. When they got to a point where the company was economic, the public ownership aspect was dissolved (IPO) and, in the following 15 years, $100’s of Billions of investment has flowed in to the space.That is a valid use of government resources that lies outside of a strong defence & fiscal conservatism.It is what, in general terms, President Obama has talked about and totally botched. He is in the right room, but the lights are off and he can’t find the switch.

       1. Exactly. The same thing is happening here with SpaceX and Tesla, yet the GOP mocked it during the election.

    9. The Democrats won the popular vote for Congress, but are in the minority by about 40, mostly due to massive gerrymandering – http://www.slate.com/blogs/…Nuts that the House approval rating is in the basement, and yet you can’t throw these guys out, due to the party machine, safe districts, and advantages of incumbency.And after all that, they’re full of bombthrowers who don’t even cooperate with leadership so you can’t get simple things done.Prob got rid of Allen West, almost got rid of Bachmann, so maybe there’s a slim ray of hope.

11. folks can ignore it all they want, but the debt problem is the entire problem and it will not go away without cancellation. that is the whole story. it really is that simple.this is great depression 2.0 — the economy is not recovering and the worst is yet to come. the inflationary storm is gathering strength. a speculator’s field day, at least until it gets completely out of hand.clinton did not balance the budget and he contributed to the debt problem like every other president.the only president in the last 100 years to balance the budget 2 years in a row is eisenhower. this is because of monetary policy and the debt addiction/insolvency it breeds.clinton also signed into law the financial services modernization act of 1999, which repealed glass-steagall and enabled banks to go completely crazy with speculation with customer deposits. this played a big role in the 2008 meltdown and the meltup that is to come.debt is the only problem. nothing gets fixed until the debt gets cancelled and monetary policy gets reformed. the crisis will go on as long as it has to.obama isn’t going to do anything to fix the economy, because he doesnt understand the problem and because he’s bought and paid for the banks just like romney. the only question is how much war will occur and how other countries will respond.

    1. Exactly.

    2. seems that the US had done pretty well over past hundred years with only two consecutive balanced budgets. government debt is not the “only problem” and in fact is often the solution. this fetishization of debt misunderstands the role of government within a modern economy and monetary policy. government is not like a household and should in most cases be doing the opposite of what a household does in a given state of the economy.

       1. government is exactly like a household. the laws of economics do not change.the past 100 years have been characterized by steady price inflation, increasingly spectacular bubbles and busts, increasing concentration of wealth, erosion of savings, and 2 working parents for most households to get by (i understand many women wanting to work, although that is very different than *needing* to work). the saving grace has been technology. imagine how could it could be if government policy were actually appropriate.

          1. other then modern china…the past hundred years has seen the largest growth of a middle class the world has ever seen here in US.”laws of economics” – even if one agrees there is such a thing (economics is a social science lets remember), the role of government is to act in counter cyclical fashion.there are many situations where government debt is good and in fact can increase every year – can you name just one?as to these “laws of economics” – they exist no more then the base building block of most economic theory – that of the rational person maximizing their self interest. if someone knows one these mythical creatures please do point them out.

             1. it is false ideology to think the role of government is to stabilize the economy. that has never worked. all government does is interfere and magnify the problem. they tried to stop the recession of the early 80s with debt which led to the crash of 87. they tried to stop that and the LTCM crisis with the dot com bubble. they passed that on to the housing bubble. the market heals itself if you let it.as for middle class growth it depends on how you define it. middle class is now quickly evaporating. adding more debt and making it more difficult to file for bankruptcy is not helping and is only exacerbating income inequality and corresponding class warfare.

             2. you are now confusing failure to properly regulate (regulatory capture) the financial (casino) industry with government debt.

             3. no, i’m clear on the difference. under your scenario the problem is the government is never doing enough — not stimulating enough, not regulating enough, etc. the situation is so far out of control now government management is needed, but its constant involvement and forcing debt into the system that fuels the bubbles, income inequality, creates the wealth distortions needed to buy government, etc.

             4. “it is false ideology to think the role of government is to stabilize the economy. that has never worked. all government does is interfere and magnify the problem.”I agree with a lot of your points Kid. But FDR would have some interesting things to say about this one

             5. the best thing FDR did was revalue gold which had the effect of cancelling some debt as the economy was on a fixed gold standard at the time. but great depression didnt heal until after WWII ended. i think the boom of the 50s, during eisenhower’s tenure which was characterized by low war spending and balanced budgets, is what really allowed the economy to heal itself and blossom.

             6. The middle-class is a failed social experiment. Consumers. Society/class systems are polarised, always will be. Be comfortable and aspirational, yes – but if you are like most people, you are working-class – deal with it as a term and never lose sight of what you are. It’s chasing a credit/debt fuelled middle-class ‘dream’ that has created this mess.

             7. debt fueld middle class, not a middle class in and of itself. It is because we’ve been shrinking the middle class 🙁

             8. I’d like to believe it is an incomplete rather than failed experiment.The human body is made up of 10s of trillions of cells. I venture to say that most of those are middle class in regards to the their allocation of nutrient, oxygen, waste removal and immune servicing.That experiment took millions of years to assemble.We’re smarter than single cells so I don’t thing we should give up prematurely.We are not at the end of history regarding social evolution.OK… OK… probably no in my lifetime but perhaps the younger folks here have a chance?

             9. No class system at all would be good. It still stinks in the UK. The upper echelons of pretty much all aspects of British government/society are ex Etonians, for example.

             10. Government should be simply to manage / facilitate and make sure people’s base needs are taken care of; Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a pretty good guide…

             11. Isn’t the government part of the economy by having rule of law, making sure contracts are enforced, paying the people involved?

             12. If that was all they did, they’d be doing their job. Unfortunately, that represents a miniscule percentage of government spending.

             13. military spending is a big chunk of spending, and would fall under rule of law.

             14. No. Military spending is defense of country. It has nothing to do with the law.

             15. defense means in part maintaining rule of law: law sort of gets suspended if people attack you (or if you attack them)

             16. You can’t argue against military spending. It’s a fundamental component of an independent country. However, you can absolutely argue about the amount of military spending. Our amount is out of control. It’s beyond what we can afford and beyond what we need, but there is a lot of profit happening and so it continues…

             17. I didn’t argue against it. But I would definitely argue against the amount. The US spends 41% of the total global military spend, and 5x more than the next closest country (China), and more than the next 15 countries combined. It is the second highest per capita spender (2nd only to UAE, which spends 1/100th the total US budget). Israel is a relatively close 3rd at 85% of the US per capita spend. No one else is close. We could cut $500B in annual spend, and still be spending more than China, so there’s definitely room there to trim.

             18. Agreed. I think we could spend less and be more secure if we would focus on current and future threats, not yesterday’s engagement model. I think Obama gets this, based on the drone program. I don’t think the Carrier-counting GOP dinosaurs get this.

             19. In fact, we should split the budget between ‘defense’ and ‘offense’, just like a football team. We should get the oil companies to sponser the offense.

             20. military spending is inherently keynseian — it employs a vast number of people, and it pays enormous sums for the manufacture of things that are the economic equivalent of digging holes in the ground and filling them up againhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

             21. The market heals itself after people die of starvation and poverty. Government’s job is to avoid that. In the past, in Feudal governments, it was the job of a peasant’s Lord to protect and feed his subjects. If the Lord couldn’t provide, the peasants could lawfully revolt. What this really means is that the Lord had to provide in times when the peasant couldn’t provide for himself.That’s the role of government, provide when the people aren’t able. So when the economy is fucked and people are out of work, it’s the role of government to step in and do whatever it takes, even borrow money if necessary, to ensure the safety of the people. Otherwise the people SHOULD revolt and choose another government.

             22. i dont think that’s the case. i think it is government that creates poverty. wherever you see dictators and big government, you see poverty. north korea, venezuela, and the rise of poverty growing alongside the rise of US govt spending in the US.now the problem is so big government cannot just step away or we are all screwed. but people are charitable and the free market gives the biggest reward to entrepreneurs that reduce cost (which is ultimately how poverty gets solved).

             23. Corruption creates poverty.

             24. sure, i can buy that…..although i believe big government is the most corrupt of all, and corrupt corporations will seek to expand the size and scope of government to get themselves lucrative contracts.

             25. To be fair to governmental efforts, it really is a fools errand to attempt such complex economic regulation via centralized regulatory mechanisms.The distributive redundancy of function is a generic hallmark of all organically complex systems.Organic complexity needs organic solutions.Yes – I know that is easier said than done!Still that is the challenge of our time.We need to get on with, reconfiguring our modelling processes and language around organics. Without that we are simply alchemist trying to spin straw into gold instead of chemist using the language of the atomic table to get on with producing plastics and silicon chips.Effective programs require effective languages.Anyone out there writing Web Apps in Fortran or Cobol?

             26. Ok maybe political economy is way to fuzzy to attach the label “LAWS” and far to organically complex for us to model at this point!Still the global themes generically inherent in complex system still apply. There is always some kind of cyclical dynamic, some cyclical zero-sum equilibriums(Homeostasis) that must prevail longterm within the economy as a whole.One can argue about what global indicator can and should be measured to get a fix on these macro scale cyclical equilibriums in order to maintain long term cyclical stasis.Thats is the challenge of our age. To grasp and model organic process instanciations as they apply to the dynamic cyclical fabric of human social organization(political economy).We need to develop effective organic narratives, metaphors and lexicons that make those abstract social visualizations accessible to mass culture. Without that it will be hard to move forward with any meaningful social debate about how to handle the organic component building blocks that make up our new networked zeitgeist.Developing a contemporary shared language that effectively maps isomorphically onto the underlying organic process realities with which we must contend is the ultimate Human to Human API.But dismissing the validity of such efforts seem futile.

          2. households can’t create money. In fact, if we fully pay off the debt, we suddenly would have no money. It was almost a national crisis! http://www.npr.org/blogs/mo…

          3. “government is exactly like a household. the laws of economics do not change.”The difference is in a household there is generally only 2 leaders that need to come to an agreement. And if that doesn’t work they get divorced and possibly begin the process later.Also in a household it is recognized that you can’t do all the things you need to do to make things “perfect” just because. At least sometimes.One of the things I always find that people do with spending money (and I’m not talking about things they know they are wasting money on) is to try and justify what they are doing as being “good”. Without regard to the total requirements that they need the money for or will need it for.”Summer camp will be so good for Johnny. It’s a wonderful experience for him”. Without looking at the cost of the camp as a downside. Same with soccer mom who ignores her health and schleps to the game with son as if it’s essential.”A law degree is a good thing to have” (one of the things I remember when growing up). w/o regard to the time it takes and of course the cost (this was back when the cost was reasonable and even then I would highlight the time and opportunity cost (as well as the detriment in business to thinking like a lawyer).Mitt I think said it best. (rough quote from memory): “I love big bird, I love you Jim I just don’t want to borrow from the chinese to pay for it”.I was engaged to a girl once (didn’t marry) and her mother wanted to take out a mortgage on their house to pay for our wedding. Seriously. I mean mortgage your house for a party?

             1. “mortgage your house for a party?”i’m shocked by how much people spend on weddings and wedding rings. if you’re rich and you want to throw a big party, go for it. for the rest of us, probably wiser to spend that money on something else that provides a stronger foundation for your life.

             2. “if you’re rich and you want to throw a big party, go for it.”You hit the nail on the head there. That is exactly the issue. People emulating what the rich are able to do when they have no business doing that. The idea of outlandish wedding parties I’m sure didn’t start with people of limited means. It started with people that could afford to do that. Then it becomes the thing that everyone does. (Also with Bar Mitzvah parties as well.) A race to the top.When I was growing up I remember my older cousin marrying a girl from a “rich” family that had spent time overseas going to school and traveling. Quite rare back then. Certainly not a middle class thing to do in the 60’s.But now it is different. If you look around you will find all sorts of middle class people sending their kids for study abroad for school, the summer, or even last term in high school. And it’s pretty expensive to do that. Many of those people have significant credit card debt and will just borrow more so their child can have “the experience”. It’s so important!!! What about giving them something to work towards that they will appreciate in the future when they have earned it and can pay with their own money? What’s the rush?

             3. I agree completely. Somewhere we went from buying what you could afford to buying anything you could pay for. When I say pay for I include taking on debt.Its pervasive. People wanted their lifestyles to go up and they went past what they could afford. I’ll give you another example worse than yours: Luxury Cars. I have known people and thought wow, do they drive a nice new car all the time, they just have a normal job, how do they afford that? Then my wife tells me their credit cards are maxed, Credit card debt and a giant car payment? When does that treadmill stop? Either people have a much higher risk tolerance than me, are way more confident than they should be, or most likely what I believe is that ignorance is bliss.I’ve also wondered how you get a 30yr mortgage when you are in your fifties. Seriously, the NYTimes had a story about a woman in her sixties who was underwater on her house because she had refi’ed, and was going to have to move. Seriously how do you write that mortgage?

             4. You’re lucky your wife seems to understand what is going on. There are many women who don’t. They only see what others have and then push their husband w/o knowing the back story. This has been going on since high school when the girls liked the cool guys instead of the nerds. The cool guys that are selling shoes now. Same thing with guys of course and the girls they go after in high school. Most people of course grow up over time and realize the right thing to do (men and women). Some of course do not.”how you get a 30yr mortgage”I am in the process of refiing a 5% mortgage so I can get a rate of 3.25% approx. Not only do they want 2 years tax returns (with full schedules) they also want my divorce agreement from 10 years ago to make sure I don’t have anything that will need to be paid to my ex wife in the future. I have no debt whatsoever (other than the existing mortgage). I own three other properties with no mortgage at all. Car paid cash. Cash in bank no problem. (Enough to cover the entire mortgage actually. Houses in this state cheap, taxes high!). Zip credit card debt. Fico in 800’s. Doesn’t matter. In order for them to be able to resell the loan they need all these docs. The experience is draining. It took me a half a day just to get them all the info they needed. I gave them a hard time on the divorce doc. Then I contacted someone else and it was the same deal.My question is why stop there? Why no colonoscopy before they will give you a mortgage!

             5. We’ll have to meet sometime. No the reason why I don’t have joint bank accounts or credit cards is my wife does not understand, but I also have my foibles. I was at lunch with an iBanker yesterday, and he got a text saying he needed to transfer money to his wife’s debit card and had to discuss so I’m sure he is in the same place.It used to be that way for mortgages I will take it that way versus what it was

             6. Things like that are very stressful. I remember the month back when minutes on cell phones cost $$ that my ex wife had a cell phone bill in the $400 range for excess minutes. For a few months she actually did $350 to $400 or more in charges. The best idea really is a firewall as you described. Or if you have a joint account put a low credit limit on it and monitor it carefully. Much easier now that you can simply view online.The best idea that I have come up with to reduce the stress of spending in marriage that seems to work is to just think of it as a “cost of doing business”. So in your brain you allocate a certain amount of “waste” in advance so it doesn’t bother you as much.On remarriage it’s much simpler of course since there is a built in firewall that you don’t have the first time around when things are more likely to be joint (since you start with very little and haven’t been around the block yet.)The good news is you’re in Delaware so you are automatically paying 7% less than I am in NJ given the same behavior.

             7. I actually reside in MD on the Chesapeake Bay in a 1839 “This Old House”I think the best way is to put in your mind, I will pay for everything around house, car, entertainment.Then have your spouse do something to earn money (I think that is very important, it has been a 100% determiner of whether you stay married among my 50 or so close friends, 5 divorces total 100% spouse had no paying job, 45+ with jobs all still married) They can spend that money however they see fit.

             8. Couldn’t agree more. Same goes for a University education when so much is available online now. Disruption is in our midst.

       2. Sure short term public debt can play a short term remedial role. The problem is that ounce that approach become a chronic ongoing fix it morphs into a household analogue.

    3. One of my favourite graphs:

       1. yup, and that peak you see in 2008 on the red line marks the point at which the debt issue can no longer be ignored.

          1. Strictly speaking that point came a little earlier and was ignored.

       2. Fiat money is screwed.We need a secular currency.

          1. you get a different set of problems with gold. we need world currency that is run by an independent from country bank rather than 80% of money is DEYY

             1. That’s a really bad idea. Just look at Europe. The currency isn’t the problem. Too few revenues for too many expenditures is.

             2. we’re halfway there with the DEYY system anyway. And part of the problem in Europe is that they all institute their own taxing/business policies because they aren’t a US and have one country. Every business regulatory change has to be ratified.I’m fine with a world government 🙂

             3. I’m fine with a world government when we eradicated the need for money.

             4. A world government doesn’t work in a world with religion and racism.

             5. No no no no no, we do NOT need that. That’s the EU and that didn’t go too well. The fact of the matter is that money is an illusion. It’s a statement on confidence in an entity. We need to be able to play games with it when necessary to keep the entity stable. The elasticity of money is an important tool to preserve society, without it, anarchy would reign…or at least feudalism.

             6. I agree about the elasticity of money, I’m just not sure you need to have multiple currencies to provide elasticity.

             7. No other way to do it unless there is a shared economy and shared government which in the end abolishes the need for money altogether. Resources would just flow to where they’re needed.

             8. i think you would still need money. Too inefficient to get rid of it as a store of value, or a way of marking trades.

             9. Well that’s my point, you can’t achieve these things until we no longer need to track trades. Italy needs food, you just ship them food. No payment, we’re all ONE.

             10. Gold is not the only alternative.Is anyone here able to point at an informed, credible and accessible outline of other alternatives?

             11. ellen brown has a book called web of debt and a blog somewhere. she goes through her solution which is nationalizing the federal reserve, eliminating income tax, and government prints however much money it needs. she hints at foreign exchange controls also so that a currency cannot be manipulated by speculators.

             12. Thanks!

       3. Doesn’t this chart argue for Richard Koo’s Balance Sheet Recession theory?And, therefore, argue for MORE public stimulus debt?

          1. .This is a very one dimensional view of things. It is the total cost of debt — principal and interest — which impacts the cash flows of the country which must be considered.We are simply running out of places to borrow and we have no money of our own.The wars are being paid for with borrowed money so even when the wars end, we will still be broke..

             1. I am not so sure about that – as Aristotle Onassis said: ‘once you owe enough, it becomes the lender’s problem’.What the last 4 years has shown is: if you give a flat busted large Co. a bunch of money, they will (right now) shore up the Balance Sheet and not deploy the capital into growth.So, why not deploy capital into potential new industries via the federal government (or state govt).I do agree with your point that it is a very scary proposition that all of America has become so leveraged – 3x GDP combined.Who will spend while this debt gets paid down?

             2. .”So, why not deploy capital into potential new industries via the federal government (or state govt).”Because they are really, really, really bad at it like the entire green energy loan guaranty portfolio? Less than 5% winners.My Shih Tzu has a better investment record than that and only has one eye..

          2. I posted the chart to make the point that the current crisis was caused by private debt, and (you have to know to connect a few dots) ponzi finance. Neo-classical economics has a blind spot with respect to the role of debt. As to the remedy, I have my thoughts, but they’re not popular.

    4. Clinton did balance the budget. Then Bush blew a hole in it with huge tax cuts and two wars

       1. depends on how you do the accounting. here is the argument for clinton surplus being a myth: http://www.craigsteiner.us/…basically it boils down to clinton robbing the social security fund to create the illusion of balancing the budget. this is all widely disputed, government budgets are never clear.in inflation adjusted dollars clinton’s war budget was the lowest since eisenhower, which is probably why he came closer than most to balancing the budget, and is perhaps why the rethuglicans have such a vendetta against him and concocted the lewinsky stuff.

          1. I am good friends with a friend of Monica Lewinsky. That was real.Otherwise, keep going. You are on a roll.

             1. i’m sure it was real, and i believe clinton has a sex addiction problem among other problems. but i think the republican party used that to create a whole big production and basically limit his effectiveness. i’m not a clinton fan, nor a fan of marital infidelity, just suspicious of how that was used against him and how the national dialogue became more about one man’s personal issues than all the myriad of issues we all face together.

             2. really #thingsIneverknew.

          2. I always thought that Clinton was the beneficiary of being president at the front end of an economic bubble but I never did understand the mechanics. Thanks!

          3. @kidmercury:disqus You’re like those crazy old white guys everyone’s talking about — you know, the ones who want to legitimize rape. You keep polluting a solid message with some conspiracy theory or another. I don’t trust the government or any stripe of politician either, but Monica has the cigar and stained dress to prove it. Of course, it depends what the definition of is, is.

             1. i think my comments were miscommunicated. i dont doubt that clinton had a sexual relationship with lewinsky. what i find suspicious is the degree to which this become a national issue that basically hijacked political discourse for 2 years.on another note, though, i am a conspiracy theorist and have never denied this — in fact i frequently celebrate it.

             2. I celebrate it as well. There are some theories that would be proven as fact if people weren’t scared of the impact to society. Fear keeps us willfully ignorant.

             3. yup. That’s why I poked you. I agree that chasing after the Lewinsky story was politically motivated, and not out of concern for the country’s business.You have a very valid concern about the debt problem, and I hate to see that get undermined by the latest conspiracy theory, whether that’s government control of the weather or aliens in search of rectal tumors, or John Galt getting ready to overthrow the US. (Not saying they aren’t all true).

             4. debt is a part of the conspiracy — perhaps the biggest part. the idea that there is an international banking conspiracy is hardly new although it is becoming increasingly accepted as fact. dont be the last to join the trend! 🙂

             5. I’m never sure whether I should be laughing. Personally, I don’t care whether it’s a conspiracy or not. It’s bad. So is that pain in my rear after I’ve had some weird dream about spaceships.

             6. of course you should be laughing! i do all the time. where there’s humor there’s truth…..

             7. +1

       2. Bush was a coward. But the Clinton budget surplus was a myth. The Social Security “surplus”–which has been borrowed by the Federal Government every year, including under Clinton was the “surplus”, ####which itself never happened. Throw in the revenue from Robert Rubins borrowing and stealing  from grandma and poof you balance a budget. 

       3. Fred, when we fall into an even deeper recession and possibly depression sometime in 2013 please be sure to let us all know if you feel the same then about Obamanomics. Maybe a pair of even darker rose colored glasses will help you continue to see the best in Obama while still blaming Bush and the Tea Party when the bottom drops out.

          1. i don’t see that on the horizon at all. but i am an optimist and you are not.

             1. I am also an optimist, but it does not lay at the feet of ~520 elected officials that create programs to get re-elected. My optimism is in entrepreneurs and risk takers and frankly, in this environment I see a lot less taking that road. When the number of people during JFK’s term that did not pay “some” federal “income tax” was 18% and today it is north of 40% we have a real issue (not because they are not paying taxes but because they can not make enough to pay taxes). When it is possible to live in “fly over” country on government assistance comfortably, I see long term problems for the next generation of citizens.

          2. The weaknesses you perceive in Obama’s record and plan for the next four years do not convert into Republican strengths. I’m not a supporter of all of Obama’s policies, but I’m comfortable that America made the best choice of the two options on the table.Why do Democrats let Republicans get away with the mantra that Republicans are the champions of job creation and fiscal conservatism when history – recorded facts – demonstrate exactly the opposite? If you look at the last 50 years, Republican-led governments created significantly fewer jobs and borrowed significantly more money. Most interestingly, if you separate the debt Obama has incurred to deal with the economic winter and two wars that he was handed, he has been the most fiscally conservative President (by far) of the past 50 years.

             1. Governments do not create private sector jobs.

             2. Of course not. I’ll forgive you for being pedantic if you forgive my choice of words.Governments do manage policies and economies that significantly affect how many private sector jobs are created. My point, which I’m sure you understood, is that Democrat led governments have presided over economies that have led to significantly more private sector jobs being created than Republican led governments. Better? Clear enough?

             3. .The comparative performance of Texas v California — huge national economies in their own right — show the importance of the political landscape to the growing of jobs and prosperity..

             4. I live in Texas. Texas will be a blue state in the next election. Texas secret recipe is to quietly embrace and nurture immigration and tax incentives for new companies.

             5. .You live in San Antone and I live in Austin.I think you are right except I think it may take 3 election cycles.May never happen if guys like Sen Ted Cruz perform adequately.Funny thing is that the Hispanic culture should be a no-brainer for Republicans — Catholic church, strong families, great work ethic, entrepreneurial.The Republicans have to work this deal. George W did a great job in the Valley and in the entire state.It can be done..

             6. I’m in Dallas.You are right – embracing the Hispanic culture should be a no-brainer for the GOP. Rick Perry gets it and I think GWB did too. Unfortunately, visible GOP spokespeople like Jan Brewer cancel out all that goodwill because Hispanics understand that they are hostile and representative of the Tea Party right.

             7. .The Hispanic culture is the Republican values just in Spanish.It’s like the black culture failing to remember that civil rights legislation was passed by Republicans because all the Southern Democrats filibustered it.This gets back to messaging and painstakingly building the brand.I think one of the most interesting stories every told or lived was the relationship between GWB and Bob Bullock. Smart guys on both sides. Working for the common good of Texas not their respective political parties..

             8. “It’s like the black culture failing to remember that civil rights legislation was passed by Republicans because all the Southern Democrats filibustered it.”Civil rights legislation was passed in an era when both parties were much more cooperative (I miss it). The divide then was much more north vs south or catholic versus protestant (Women, Jews, and Muslims weren’t on the mainstream radar yet). The champions of the civil rights legislation were not Republicans.

             9. .Go look up the votes and report back. You are way, way wrong on this one. Southern Democrats filibustered it and Republicans passed it. Look at the vote totals.It was the party of LIncoln.I think the big difference in those times was the independence and discretion of the press..

             10. Aren’t you just agreeing that it was more north vs south than Dem vs. Rep? You can’t argue that RFK was the champion. I think you need to recognize that the party environment was different then.

             11. .Sure, it was both N v S and R v D. That’s where they lived.That issue delivered the South into the hands of the Republicans for half a century and perhaps for the rest of time..

             12. The emergence of the Hispanic community and the hostility of the southern Republicans towards it (Jan Brewer is the poster child) is going to turn the Republican Party into a fringe party unless it can evolve quickly. There are a LOT of southern ‘confederate racists’ so this change is not going to be easy. Better get started now.

             13. In general, not true. I heard Clinton’s speech too, but it’s a great example of statistics lying. For example, job creation has two low ebbs — when you’re in the depth of a recession and losing jobs, and again when unemployment is very low, and it’s virtually impossible to put anyone new to work. I’d rather live in a time of low unemployment/low job creation (such as during Nixon’s administration), than in the couple of years after a recession ends and people are getting back to work. The best for a president if you want to fluff the job growth stats, is to assume office when unemployment is high, but already rapidly declining and with the economy already in a full upswing (e.g. Clinton). It also helps to benefit from major external macroeconomic events, such as the Y2K problem, commercialization of the internet and end of the Soviet Union (and attendent need for cold-war level spending) — all of which Clinton was lucky enough to have handed to him.Regardless, all by himself, Obama has overseen more Americans lose their jobs and stay chronically unemployed for his entire term than any president in the last 30 years (since the Carter induced recession), and sustained at the highest levels since the Depression (worst performance in over 75 years).Context matters.

             14. “Regardless, all by himself, Obama has overseen more Americans lose their jobs and stay chronically unemployed for his entire term than any president in the last 30 years (since the Carter induced recession)”No, this is not accurate.

             15. Absolutely 100% accurate. http://www.huffingtonpost.c… Obama wins reelection with highest unemployment rate since FDR. And the last two months, at 7.8% and 7.9% are the lowest in 4 years. There was a period of about 18 months during Reagan’s first term when it peaked higher (11%), but it also fell faster and lower.What Obama has that Reagan didn’t is that it has stayed high for 4 years, and when people lose their jobs, they aren’t getting re-employed for a long long time. According to the dept of labor, the average weeks unemployed is 39 (9 months), and presently, the number unemployed for more than 27 weeks (1/2 year) is > 5M. But the average is actually low, because once they stop collecting UI benefits, they stop being counted officially.But the truer number is the U6 number — all those un- or under-employed — which hasn’t budged much from 15% for Obama’s entire time in office. It is currently at 14.7%. People who try to track those who’ve given up and/or stopped looking peg that number at closer to 17%. These are historic highs.

             16. Because Republicans keep repeating it over and over and eventually you get tired of arguing and go to bed.

             17. .To do a fair analysis, one has to look at the political makeup of the Congress and the President.The Clinton years were good but not because of Clinton but because of the Gingrich Congress..

             18. They were also good because of the massive Y2K remediation effort and resulting enormous capex in new hardware and software packages (was easier to replace all your old systems with SAP than fix Y2K). The last 7 years of the millenium were not only the period when we discovered the internet, e-commerce and a dotcom bubble, it was the single biggest spend on infrastructure replacement we’ll probably ever see, and most of it happened well-before those systems would have been replaced or updated otherwise.That single fact was responsible for much of the rah rah, pedal to the metal growth we experienced, and would have happened no matter who was president (even if Obama or Carter had been there). Clinton also benefited from the so-called “peace dividend”, significantly cutting military expenditures after the end of the cold war / dissolution of the Soviet Union and dismantling of the Berlin Wall.There are few times in history when that many major macro events conspired to juice the economy. Clinton also got the credit for being fiscally responsible that properly belonged to the republican controlled congress, as you note, which forced smaller budgets on him and initiated welfare reform (which he also takes credit for).

             19. .The Peace Dividend is one of the most overlooked economic considerations of the last century.Why it is important to rethink our war fighting strategy.Go in hard and get out quick. Give the keys to the UN. Leave a finite amount of money in the tip jar.Rebuild Newark not Kabul..

             20. Yup. But, also important that we look at things in context, and not give politicians the credit they want to take that belongs elsewhere.

             21. .Context is a funny thing, no?A’stan is Obama’s war given time, casualties and tactics.It is a stupid place to fight any war but this one in particular. Lousy terrain which precludes our ability to use firepower effectively, inhospitable mountains and elevation and a truly lousy partner in the Afghans.The Afghans are not a country but a series of tribes. Americans don’t get that quickly.Corruption and drug trade and backward barbaric society. Ugh.Graveyard of empires, indeed..

             22. Yes, to be fair, I think you have to include the willingness of both sides to work together. It wasn’t just ‘because of Clinton’, nor was it just ‘because of Gingrich’. It was a joint effort and that’s what we need now. I think Boehner is up to the task, but the party behind him is dysfunctional, IMHO.

             23. .All of DC is dysfunctional — Rahm, Daley, Pelosi, Reid being the dark side of the mirror.It is one of the checks and balances envisioned by the Founding Fathers..

             24. Yes, I agree it’s all dysfunctional. It’s full of career politicians and lobbyists. We need term limits. Serving in DC should be like serving in the military. A couple of tours and you’re out. New ideas come in behind you.I would be happier with your comment if you included Boehner, McConnell, etc., in your comment. Both parties are broken.

       4. .What we call the “budget” is really a subset of a traditional financial statement and is more akin to “appropriations v revenues” and does not include inter- and intra-governmental transfers, such as taking all SS $$ in as “revenue” and then stuffing a bunch of IOUs in the SS lock box.If anyone gets any credit for this it is Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress which made all the real appropriation decisions. Even so, all they did was to decrease the RATE of increase, they didn’t cut anything.The revenue came in because of the lasting glow of the Reagan era tax cuts which spawned job creation and growth.The acid test is to look at the National Debt. If you had a true surplus, then the National Debt would have decreased. It obviously did not.The Clinton budget surplus is one of the big lies of contemporary politics. The last guy to balance a real budget was Dwight David Eisenhower who did it 8 times in a row..

          1. Simple metrics are always the answer.

          2. Reagan spent us into a pretty big deficit to jumpstart the economy. Same thing Obama is being accused of. Reagan also cut taxes at the same time guaranteeing that the deficit would be bigger than necessary by cutting revenue. While most consider the growth of the economy under Reagan to be due to the tax cuts, it was actually due to the incredible amounts of money he was spending to ramp it up.

             1. .At least know what you are talking about and don’t just mouth nonsense.Look at this chart and tell me that Reagan and Obama deficits are comparable on anything. In any manner.I have behaved very well all day and have not said a single ugly thing but you taxed me beyond my limit..

             2. .Even as a percentage of GDP this is a disaster of gargantuan proportions..

             3. I don’t see a chart.

             4. .Likely you are on a mobile device. I can see the chart clearly but I am on a desktop..

             5. I’m on an iMac using Safari. I changed to Chrome and I can see the chart now. Interesting.

             6. .Bush’s fault?.

             7. Had Reagan faced a return of the Great Depression WHILE fighting TWO wars then I guarantee you the metrics would be a lot closer to equal. Your outrage doesn’t make you any more correct.

             8. .I thought you were the one arguing for the comparability of the spending and resultant deficits. You can’t have it both ways.Obamacare is not a result of either depression or war. It is a costly NEW program..

             9. Obamacare is not the cause of the major deficits, two unfunded wars and a rapidly declining economy are though. I’m not trying to get it both ways, but you can’t gloss over the mess he inherited.

             10. .Obama is doing a fabulous job and he is not responsible for anything that happens during his regime all of which is Bush’s fault.The deficits, the credit downgrades, the staggering unemployment, the National Debt, the lagging revenue,the Porkulus, the growing dependency, the debt ceiling, the explosion of food stamps, the doubling of energy expenses, the fabulous alternative energy investments, the stagflation — ALL Bush’s fault.Hurricane Sandy, Bush’s fault.The guy is a genius and hasn’t made a bad move since renting Bush’s White House.Even leaving the guys for dead in Benghazi, Bush’s fault.Sheesh!.

             11. This is why I hate arguing politics. I respect you JLM so I’ll end this discussion before it gets ugly. We can agree to disagree.

             12. .Obama wants the credit for GM bailout and the killing of OBL but does not want to be held accountable for the failure to close Gitmo and to try KSM.These are just facts.The guy is the biggest scapegoater in the history of the world.When does he become responsible for his own performance?.

             13. Gitmo was closed due to Congress AND the President. Just to clear that up. Shared responsibility, Democrats largely, GOP to some extent as well. KSM relates back to Gitmo.Never said the guy was perfect, just better than the alternatives IMHO and unfairly judged at times by a Congress who made it their goal to obstruct everything in order to, unsuccessfully, limit him to one term.

             14. .”Gitmo was closed due to Congress AND the President.”Ummm, Gitmo was NOT closed being the point after all.KSM, who originally plead guilty in a military tribunal, was to be tried in a civilian court in NYC and then returned to a military tribunal in Gitmo.This is not an instance of measuring alternatives, this is a measure of HIS promises v HIS performance.He had the House and Senate for two years..

             15. Typo – should have read NOT closed. It was a shared fault as I indicated, Congress and President. Probably more Democrat than Republican but certainly both along with the President. That said, I’ve yet to see a President live up to ALL of his promises, but it’s certainly disheartening when they don’t.He had the illusion of Congress for two years, during his majority he was saddled with the ‘Blue Dogs’, you know those guys who called themselves Democrats but were really more like Republicans in disguise. They had 54 seats and refused to tow the party line which is why you have Obamacare instead of single-payer healthcare.

             16. .The failure to close Gitmo and the inability to get KSM’s guilty admission converted into the death penalty were failures of the executive branch and the President.He had a tail wind for two years..

             17. Partially, yes. I think I acknowledged that above. But not only his fault. Congress didn’t want to close Gitmo, both sides for their own reasons. Democrats were worried about winning the next election and increasing the risk to American soil by having the prisoners here. GOP have never been for closing Gitmo.In the end Obama promised to close it and didn’t. So yes, he didn’t live up to that promise but, like most things, it’s more complicated than that. Easy to find out too…just Google it…

             18. 72 days, not two years. How many of the country’s problems do you think you could solve in 72 days?

             19. .As pointed out above, you are confused between a filibuster proof majority and a majority..

             20. No, there were 72 days of ‘control’, regardless of the nomenclature you use to describe it.

             21. .To your question — ALL OF THEM as long as I did not have to deal with the Congress..

             22. Then run next time, and I will vote for you… the “72 Day Man”! 🙂

             23. .I have too many dreadful skeletons in my closet. I could not stand the scrutiny..

             24. .It was Obama and Holder who wanted to try KSM in NYC. Talk about an ill advised decision. Had absolutely nothing to do with the Senate..

             25. Stay strong my friend. You want to see the budget in an actual spreadsheet? http://peoplestaxplan.blogs…

             26. @Brad “Simple solution, give the responsibility back to the people. We all fill out our income taxes and fill in little boxes. I have government programs that I like and others that I do not believe deserve my money. Let me determine which government agency is deserving of my money. Give me 31 boxes and a place to determine what percent of my taxed money each agency will get. This would mean that although everyone votes, only those that pay taxes get a say where the money goes.”Brilliant. Looking at that budget sheet it’s clear how much more productive our debates would be if we all had to justify our opinions based on the math in the spreadsheet.Your proposal is awesome, especially if we could drill down to subcategories. There’s no way it could work in a binding way but damn it would be great for dialog if offered in a non-binding way. I think this could be a very successful grassroots startup…

             27. Mike, Would love for it to be a grassroots. I listen and follow politics and all I ever hear is pandering. In my opinion, social issues won the election for Obama. Unfortunately we can not pay for social issues let alone our current debt. It is sad. Join me, lets get a grassroots program going. Make politicians accountable by giving the people accountability.

             28. @Brad Build it and who knows maybe @fredwilson:disqus will fund it. I’d sure love to see something like that.

             29. @bjboyle:disqus & @mikeschinkel:disqus Indeed brilliant. I’ve never seen or heard anyone else suggest this before besides myself and my girlfriend. As I’ve opened my eyes more to politics now that I’m in my early 20s, I’ve started thinking heavily on taxation and have come to a very similar train of thought myself.If you are indeed going to hold a figurative gun to someone’s head and force them to hand over their money, allowing them to directly determine where their money (and only their money) goes is I think the best way to do that. It makes the money-spender (read: politician) play within the money-providers’ rules and would help to solve special interest problems quite a lot as a result, I imagine.It would limit the power of the politician immensely. Instead of “here is 10 billion dollars you don’t have much stake in, go spend it,” it becomes “here is your budget, go make sure it is executed.”Making taxpayers’ choices transparent I think too would go a long way in self-correcting some problems that might arise with the checkbox system.Count me in on a grassroots program!

             30. The spreadsheet shows Social Security as contributing to the deficit. It is separately funded via dedicated payroll taxes and via surplus funds collected in the past (as part of the Reagan initiative to save it back in the 1980s). It is not funded out of the general budget, and is not a cause of the deficit.As a matter of fact, the fully-solvent social security fund has bailed out the rest of the government, by being available as a source of funds from which to borrow. The only reason anyone is talking about cutting social security is because some people don’t want to have to pay back the money that was borrowed – thereby robbing the people who pay into the system in order to offset revenues lost via tax cuts for billionaires.Since it begins with such a colossally flawed premise, the credibility of the entire “people’s budget” proposal is called into question.

             31. Liane, the reality is you have to look at dollars going in vs dollars going out. It is like you saying that your mortgage is the first thing you pay so it does not lead to you using your credit cards for other things. You said it your self, social security bails out the other parts of government. They rob Peter to pay Paul and then start robbing the rest of us.I did not say anything about taking taking away social security, I just say that the 500+ men and women running our government now have way too many special interests to be objective in fixing this crisis.The Federal Budget is just “arithmetic, dollars in dollars out”. We just have way too many dollars going out, regardless of which line item you take it from.

             32. I tried.The credit downgrade is a joke. The agency that downgraded the nation’s credit is the same agency that rubber stamped AAA on junk debt that caused the housing crisis. They lack the moral authority to rate anything and if I had my way I’d have held them criminally liable for the whole mess, dissolved the company and returned whatever money was captured to the treasury to pay for the cost of the bailouts.The debt ceiling is a partisan generated BS crisis. By the Treasury Department’s count, Congress has acted 78 times since 1960 to raise, extend or alter the definition of the debt limit — 49 times under Republican presidents, and 29 times under Democratic presidents. Nothing to see here, move along.Unemployment has been decreasing steadily under Obama’s administration.While I’ll grant you that technically the rate is the same right now as it was the month he was sworn in, unemployment peaked at 10% and has steadily come down. Maybe not fast enough for some but Congress has also blocked some of his job creation initiatives. If unemployment is a fault, it’s shared between the President and Congress.Revenue is lagging because Congress won’t allow him to raise taxes. They have voted down and made claims – Boener just made another one within hours of Obama’s re-election, that they will not vote for new taxes. New taxes btw, includes letting the Bush tax cuts lapse. No increase in tax revenue, no increased revenue.The rest of that, to be frank, isn’t even worth addressing. In any case, don’t take my defense of these things as 100% approval of Obama, there are things you didn’t mention that I would have agreed with you 100% on, but not these things.

             33. .”The debt ceiling is a partisan generated BS crisis.”Senator Obama castigated President Bush about the debt ceiling calling it “unpatriotic” and now it is all simply BS?Any improvement in the reported U-3 figures is solely because of manipulations of the labor force participation rate and the classification of workers as “not looking for work” and thus dropped from the labor force calculations.The more accurate U-6 remains unchanged and disastrous.To suggest that 4 years into an administration it has no responsibility is just silly. They were freshmen and now they are seniors.Obama is a poseur, a fakir, a naif and you are an apologist.What single idea advanced by the President during the campaign will give rise to any economic improvement?Of course, it is all still Bush’s fault..

             34. When you say that Obamacare is a costly new program, are you factoring in the free emergency room visits for previously uncovered people that are now in the system? I’m not a supporter of Obamacare, but the reason is because I don’t think it goes far enough. I’ve lived in Canada, the UK, and Australia. All of them benefit from American health care *technology*, but all of them are much more effective at delivering health care to their people. The common thread is that health care is not a profit center, it’s more like a utility.

             35. .When a drug deal goes awry and the gunfire starts, I am suspecting that none of the wounded will likely be card carrying Obamacare enrollees.I could be wrong about that.There is nothing wrong with viewing healthcare like a utility — a decision folks make independent of other considerations.I can burn firewood rather than connecting to the gas grid.Healthcare should provide some of the same choices..

             36. So you’re saying that the few thousand ‘drug deal’ exception cases outweigh the 30 million non-exception cases?Surely you aren’t denying that our delivery of health care to the American population is an embarrassment relative to world standards? Are you really suggesting that? I think we can do much better and we have MANY better examples to learn from.

             37. Actually JLM, your choice to burn firewood has a deleterious effect on the rest of us (& I like burning firewood).Just like a decision not to be vaccinated.

             38. Neither Obama nor Reagan faced a “return of the Great Depression” (though we may have been on the precipice of one in ’08 before the Fed and Treasury stepped in with extraordinary measures such as guaranteeing money market deposits, TARP, etc.); both faced severe recessions. Reagan also embarked on a military spending build up which helped defeat the Soviets in the Cold War. That spending stimulated the economy as well as added to the debt.Obama has had one significant advantage over Reagan though: it’s been a lot cheaper for Obama to borrow, so interest on the debt has comprised a much smaller part of his budgets than it would have if he had to deal with the sky high interest rates Reagan faced in his first term.

             39. no doubt we have to get those numbers down and down fast. but it was the bailout of the economy put into place under Paulson and Bush that got them to that order of magnitude. Obama did not bring them down. that’s on him. he has to now. it is the most important thing he can do in his second term

             40. TARP under Paulson and Bush definitely contributed to the fiscal ’09 deficit (as did Obama’s stimulus, which I believe was slightly larger), but doesn’t Obama bear responsibility for the deficits in the subsequent fiscal years?

             41. Yes along with a Congress who would not bargain with him

             42. .What is the framework for the bargaining when an administration fails to even submit a workable budget for 3 years?Not one affirmative vote even from his own party..

             43. That’s a key point. If the Dems presented a budget and the GOP legislators refused to conference with them on it to hammer out a compromise, that would be one thing. But if the Dems can’t pass a budget on their side, then there’s no position to bargain with.

             44. .For two years he owned the Congress. If there is any blame, it on Reid and Pelosi.You may recall that when Obama was elected the first time, I said repeatedly that his biggest problem would be Reid and Pelosi..

             45. The Democrats had a majority in Senate + Congress for 72 days. 72 days. Less than three months. It took Al Franken seven months to get seated because of the recount dispute, and by the time he was, Ted Kennedy was dying. So Democrats really only had 60 senators from September 24, 2009, when Kennedy’s replacement was named, until February 4th, 2010, when Republican Scott Brown won the special election there. The senate was in session for just 72 days over that period, so that’s how long Obama had a real Democratic Senate + Congress — 72 days, not two years.

             46. .You are confused between a filibuster proof majority and a majority. As I said — the President had a majority for two years.That is a perfectly true and correct statement..

             47. No, I’m not confused. The difference between a filibuster proof majority and a simple majority is the difference between control or not. There was 72 days of control, regardless of the nomenclature you use to describe it.

             48. .Surely you are joking — Sens Snow and Collins from Maine nothwithstanding?They were more Democrats than half of the Democrats.You are not acknowledging the reality of the situation..

             49. I guess we agree to disagree. I don’t think you’re acknowledging the reality of the situation. I still want to hear your opinions, but I know when I’m banging my head on an immovable wall. Peace.

             50. .Study the performance of Presidents like Eisenhower (2 years of House/Senate majorities) and Reagan, Clinton — made great legislative advances with virtually no “control”.You are making weak excuses for a lame legislative performance which had the power base to be much grander..

             51. I don’t have to ‘study’ it, I was there. The difference is that those administrations were not faced with a Congress that prioritized failure of the administration over doing the right thing for the American people (Mitch McConnell’s words, stating that Obama failure was #1 priority).I think you’re in denial. I do think that Obama could have achieved more, but he was trying too hard to be popular. Big mistake. I don’t think he understood what the other side was willing to do to make him fail. I think he understands that now.

             52. .Even I don’t pay attention to Mitch McConnell.Obamacare and DADT and other legislation were not well handled from an execution perspective. Obama created much of his own opposition.I always said Obama’s biggest problems would be with Reid and Pelosi. The manner in which Obamacare was passed ensured he would not receive cooperation on — anything.He came very close to striking a grand bargain and then got greedy. An amateurish mistake. Get the first slice of the loaf and then come back for more. Lyndon Johnson would never have made that mistake..

             53. OMG. I agree 100% with this comment. I am opening a beer and toasting you on this one.I hope we won’t see the same mistakes in the second term. The speech last night makes me think that Obama is humble enough to learn from his mistakes.

             54. I don’t recall that, but I believe you and it sure turned out to be true.Congress is on the spit in the next 2 years, IMO.

             55. .Really?The Stimulus has no Paulson or Bush fingerprints on it, or is that incorrect?The Stimulus was a total waste of money and achieved nothing. Shovel ready, indeed.Obama has not only not brought the deficits under control — “cut them in half in the first term” — he has accelerated them to dangerous levels which literally cannot be sustained.By every projection, we are looking at $1.5T deficits as far as the eye can see.Are these still Bush deficits?.

             56. The big spike in the “Obama” deficit is the rolling of the war spending back into the budget. The wars had been financed by special resolutions, and were not included in the official budget during the Bush administration. When Obama took office, he incorporated all the war spending into the regular budget. You’re looking at the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, combined with the revenue losses from the Bush tax cuts.Context is actually important – understanding the numbers behind the chart makes determining the necessary solutions easier. You need to know where the money is going in order to know what holes to plug on order to stop the money from draining. You also need to know which faucets have been turned off, in order to determine how to refill the tub.

             57. … *in* order, not *on* order…

             58. Reagan actually raised taxes, more than once. In fact, he raised them 11 times (http://www.bloomberg.com/ne…. In addition, he removed tax breaks that had been extremely beneficial to the middle class (you used to be able to deduct credit card interest from your income, for example). He also cut survivor’s social security benefits that had subsidized college tuition for children of people who died young – a cut that tossed a college roommate out of school.He had initially cut taxes, but the ballooning deficit made it very clear that he needed to bring in revenues. I never imagined I’d wish for more Republicans like Reagan, but at least he was willing to set aside his ideology when basic math made it clear that the ideology was wrong.

       5. Then Obama blew a bigger hole in the budget by extending those Bush tax cuts, adding new ones, and adding hundreds of billions of additional spending per year.Clinton added $1 trillion to the US debt in 8 years. Bush added $5 trillion in 8 years. Obama added $6 trillion in 4 years.

       6. Ir was Newt Gingrich’s Congress who balanced the budget but rightly or wrongly, president gets the credit or blame.

       7. And this is why a person like Romney couldn’t be trusted. On top of that, he keeps changing his answers on topics in the favor of the people.

          1. Agreed. I think Romney is an ethical and moral person, but he’ll say or do anything to get elected. He’s like a salesman hunting a deal. His campaign slogan should have been “Trust me, I’ll do the right thing”, because that’s what you get with Romney. You can’t count on anything he says, because he’ll say something different tomorrow.Having said that, I do trust the guy. I think he would have worked very hard to ‘do the right things’ that need doing. However, I do NOT feel the same way about Paul Ryan and many of the other GOP fruitcakes in his party.

             1. .Comparing politicians is like debating virtue amongst hookers. Nonetheless, I think Romney is a doer, a guy with a To Do List who will clear that list.I have a very high regard for Ryan as he routinely gets re-elected in a 65% Democratic district. No mean feat.Having been involved in lobbying in multiple states, I can only say that if flies, floats, fornicates or votes — RENT IT. It will be cheaper that way..

             2. We agree on Romney. I think he would have been a tireless worker and good value for our votes. Too bad about the rest of the party and the special interest groups.

             3. .What is the end game? Legislation.It is never really the people, it is the policies.I have enjoyed listening to LBJ’s tapes and hear his voice in direct and measured conversation with his civil rights opponents — Southern Democrats. In the same tone with supporters of the LEGISLATION, Republicans.He had the touch to be able to cajole a vote out of his most ardent opponents. A great skill.Obama had everyone over for a Super Bowl game and then — nothing.Why the Hell would he not have played golf with Boehner every single weekend? Why not?He does not possess the common touch of politics, he is way too professorial..

             4. Yes! I agree. LBJ was a master. So was Clinton. I was ready to vote for Clinton after his speech at the DNC. I felt sad that Obama was the candidate.Obama has been too detached from the deal-making. I think he knows that. I hope he can change it, though I fear it’s a personality trait.

             5. .Everyone forgets who created Clinton — Ross Perot.Ross Perot doesn’t get a narcissistic urge for a spot of acclaim and Bill Clinton is an obscure horny Governor of Arkansas.He is an adolescent narcissist who is damn lucky that none of his conquests had a big brother.He was a deal maker. He let Gingrich write his history and that was a very smart decision..

             6. I think I might have voted for Ross Perot in this election. Perot is like Ron Paul without the bat-shit crazy part or Paul Ryan with knowledge.I think you’ve misjudged Clinton. I think he is by far the most intelligent and charismatic President we’ve had in my lifetime. GWB and Reagan are frankly both dummies in comparison. Clinton had his faults, but governance and intelligence were not among them.I’ve met the guy in a corporate function, and he is an incredible presence. Hillary is going to run in 2016, and Bill will be there. The GOP better start shedding the fruitcakes now.

             7. .Last comment tonight, I have an early meeting tom’w.Bill Clinton is a horny teenager with an El Camino with astroturf, a six pack and a hard on. Come to take your daughter out. He is trouble. He is so yesterday as to be a dinosaur. He has shot his wad literally and figuratively.Having said that he has a modicum of charm, no denying that but he is purely an accident of Ross Perot history.Everything that Clinton did was attributable to Gingrich and then he spent years getting impeached and perjuring himself.Listening to Clinton lecture us on lyng recently was priceless. Truly priceless.Hillary better call in Omar the Tentmaker quickly and book him for 2016 because she is starting to show her age and skid marks.Mean comment, sorry. Nobody in their 60s will be running next time..

             8. I am done for tonight too.You are big-time wrong on both Clintons. You can’t compete if you deny the strengths of your competitors. Bill Clinton is smarter and more forward thinking than any politician on the American stage today, including the President we just elected.

             9. More than faults. Deeply flawed character. There is a difference.

             10. I think you’ve misjudged Ron Paul if you think he’s got a “bat-shit crazy part.” I see it like this: He’s an excitable older man who doesn’t always construct his sentences well before they leave his mouth. Rhetoric is not his best asset, and it causes him to get misunderstood constantly. But boy, his ideas are always stone-cold cool and collected. One just has to listen empathically sometimes.He is a man who stands for true liberty, and if that’s crazy that’s a shame.

             11. There is good and bad with Ron Paul. His views on foreign policy are refreshing. His grasp of economic policy is non-existent. Suggesting that America return to the gold standard is indeed bat-shit crazy.Ron Paul is not Presidential material, but I’d love to see him replace Leon Panetta or Hillary Clinton. The Military Industrial complex would crap in its collective pants.

             12. In my opinion a gold standard is far less bat-shit crazy than printing your way to a +100% debt to GDP ratio.To be clear, his grasp of economic policy is actually extraordinarily sophisticated and in line with some of the most renowned economists in history: the Austrian school. Far, far from non-existant.If you are unfamiliar with the Austrian school I’d be happy to share some info with you. Just ask.In the meantime, here for example is the power of the Austrian school at work: a video that has since gone viral of Ron Paul’s economic advisor, Peter Schiff, in 2006 & 2007 being mocked repeatedly on news shows while predicting exactly what the economy has done in the last 4 years: http://www.youtube.com/watc…

             13. If you think that reverting to the gold standard makes any sense at all for America, then I’m not interested in your thoughts because I don’t think you have a good grounding in economics and our positions are too far apart for an intelligent dialog. I wish you the best and thank you for your perspective.

             14. Certainly. But I think you’re making a mistake not to consider anything else I mentioned. Peter Schiff is brilliant about the economy…and that’s why Paul Krugman can’t stand him.Regarding the gold standard, I simply implied it was less crazy than going bankrupt. Nothing more. It shakes out like this:Printing yourself into overwhelming debt -> Decent chance of going bankruptHaving a gold standard -> No chance of going bankruptNot going bankrupt is a requisite of good economics, don’t you think? (I’ll spell this out as rhetorical, since I see you’re done chatting. Wish you well too.)

             15. This is, by far, his single greatest weakness. He seemed to have this touch on the way to the White House – it like getting elected went to his head or he got overwhelmed.

             16. Wish I could double like that one.

    5. Debt isn’t the big problem, the wholesale export of the American economy is the issue. We shipped all of our jobs to foreign countries in search of lower cost doodads to support a ‘consumer economy’ that can’t function without the jobs that were shipped out. That has to be acknowledged and fixed first and foremost.Secondary to that is revenue. No one with the means to do so is paying their fair share anymore. I’m not an advocate of strangulation level taxes, but Clinton era taxes for individuals and a corporate tax code that ensures that you actually pay the 20% we should charge would go a long way towards raising revenue to pay down debt. It’s insane when I paid more in taxes than GE by dollar amount and percentage. It’s insane that Apple can pay 1-2% taxes on income earned outside of the country.I’m a money guy. I can’t get enough of it, mostly because it allows you to be free, but there is a level where you have to start to think that maybe…just maybe you are taking too much out of the system for it to survive to generate more money for you. Just a thought.

       1. those are all related to debt, debt is the mother issue. if consumers had more money to spend on stuff instead of serving debt, businesses here would hire more and employment would be solved. if government was committed to reducing its debt it would tax the people less too.

          1. Businesses won’t hire more HERE. That’s the problem. They employ hundreds of thousands of non-americans in manufacturing. Jobs that were here in the past and paid a respectable salary but are now gone because making things cheaper allows segments of the population down the economic ladder to afford your things.However, eventually no one can afford those things anyway because there are no jobs and no jobs mean no discretionary income. Businesses only hire more when they have demand, but they don’t care where the demand comes from, they do, however, care where they get labor. They get labor wherever it’s cheapest and that is not America. Business won’t hire more Americans UNTIL they have a reason to, but since the rest of the world is growing faster than us, they don’t need to worry about that just yet.Therefore there is no logic to the idea that lowering taxes on non-existent salaries would promote spending on surplus items.

             1. i believe they’ll hire here for jobs that require hiring here. as customers have more money, they’ll have more demand and will demand more stuff here. there are also many advantages to operating locally within a market. lenovo, a chinese computer manufacturer, has plants and offices here as part of their strategy for reaching the US market. if the US market becomes more lucrative, something facilitated by more customers, they’ll expand accordingly. lenovo is not the only one. capital rich companies are also well-positioned to be in the financial services industry.

             2. Where does the money come from though? Let’s start there. Your argument seems to say that business will hire when their customers have more money. Where do they get the money if they don’t have jobs?*removed the word entire.

          2. Government can put more money in people’s hands by funding public works programs

             1. where will it get that money from?

             2. Print it

             3. that might work if it were legal, but under the current system, government will need to *borrow* the money (and pay a fee for doing so).

             4. Print more

             5. that’s basically what they’re doing but it doesn’t work because you always have to pay it back with interest. so all you do is keep printing more, creating more debt at the same time, and send prices higher in the process.

             6. Then growth happens and dear money is repaid with cheap money

             7. this is what governments plan is so we’ll get to find out if it works. historically it has sent the cost of living up while government project money goes to big corporations that paid for the candidate to get in office.

             8. I guess you weren’t around in the 70s. Stagflation ain’t pretty. Neither are 20% interest rates. It decimates the well-being of anyone on fixed income or living from their savings, especially seniors. So much for social welfare. Inflation is just another kind of theft — stealing from the savings of those who can least afford it.My kids think money grows on trees too, and that if you want more, all you have to do is ask for it. Responsible adults know otherwise.

       2. it’s a short endgame here if there isn’t anyone left to buy the things that are being made cheaply someplace else

          1. That’s my point exactly.

             1. Keynes’ 1933 Letter to RooseveltIn 1933, John Maynard Keynes wrote an open letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging the new president to borrow money to be spent on public works programs.[1]“Thus as the prime mover in the first stage of the technique of recovery I lay overwhelming emphasis on the increase of national purchasing power resulting from governmental expenditure which is financed by Loans and not by taxing present incomes. Nothing else counts in comparison with this. In a boom inflation can be caused by allowing unlimited credit to support the excited enthusiasm of business speculators. But in a slump governmental Loan expenditure is the only sure means of securing quickly a rising output at rising prices. That is why a war has always caused intense industrial activity. In the past orthodox finance has regarded a war as the only legitimate excuse for creating employment by governmental expenditure. You, Mr President, having cast off such fetters, are free to engage in the interests of peace and prosperity the technique which hitherto has only been allowed to serve the purposes of war and destruction.

             2. Yes, yes, and yes. Reagan played from this very same playbook, it’s not party specific, it’s just good business.

             3. Most of it was military buildupI’d like to see it put into education infrastructure and science this time

             4. YES PLEASE!

             5. .Reagan incurred $50-100 Billion deficits and a very small percentage of GDP while Obama is incurring $1.5 Trillion deficits which are approaching 10% of a faltering GDP.These are huge differences..

             6. Ummm about that percentage. —- In addition, the public debt rose from 26% GDP in 1980 to 41% GDP by 1988. — http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

             7. .Public debt and annual deficits — different things..

             8. Sorta, one is the accumulation of the other. Simple observation but close enough.

             9. Which was still historically average (Nixon had the lowest debt as percentage of GDP), and Reagan faced the worst recession since the Depression — worse in real terms when he took office that what Obama faced. But, Obama is well past 100% of GDP, a figure only achieved once before in history at the end of the 2nd world war. The difference this time is it’s still going up, not down, with trillions in unfunded mandates and empty social security coffers, and a shrinking number of payers vs payees from the system (as baby boomers retire over the next 15 years, we will have the fewest working people ever supporting the largest ever cohort of retirees). And, the economy has nowhere to grow, unless our currency is slashed in value enabling us to bring manufacturing jobs back from China to support a middle class. The question is, with that kind of imbalance, how do you pay off a debt so large?

             10. Carter handed Reagan a gasoline shortage and NO wars. Bush handed Obama two wars and an economy entering a nuclear winter. Banks failing, the auto industry failing, the market crashing.You are right, these are huge differences. Quite frankly, I’m astounded that Obama was able to pull the country out of the dive that was handed to him. It came at cost, but we didn’t hit the pavement. This term needs to be about getting the cost under control.

             11. .But Obama’s policies — as an example energy — were dreadful.He forced oil up by 100% through inept energy and foreign policies.Keystone pipeline decision is a perfect example.One has to muse over what policies a second Obama administration is going to change. Otherwise we get the same outcomes.If you think Bush left Obama a mess, you should see what his current predecessor has left for his second term..

             12. I don’t think Obama’s energy policies were dreadful. That is an ‘old guard view’ and that view is what lost Romney the election. I think the population, especially the younger population, wants Obama to take risks and develop new sources of energy. How many start-ups succeed? Why do you expect Obama to not have failures? Solyndra failed but the auto industry was a success. I’m glad to see the government taking risks in new technologies. Unlike the GOP, I’m glad the government is supporting SpaceX and Tesla. That is the future!I do agree that the Keystone decision was the wrong decision, but give Obama credit for understanding what he needed to do to get elected. Watch what happens with Keystone now.

             13. .Look at the economy in Odessa, Midland, Abilene, Lubbock, Amarillo — incredibly low unemployment, why? Oil Patch.Obama should have allowed drilling on every SF of land and filled the Natl Energy Reserve, if nothing else.High gasoline prices are the biggest phantom tax — a real tax — on the entire economy. Funny thing is that government is the biggest beneficiary — through its tax structure — of a vigorous oil industry.The big low hanging fruit — even now — is nuclear power — clean, huge job creator, cheap and provides good long term jobs.Energy should truly be “all of the above”.Alternative energy — look at Boone Pickens fling with wiind — just doesn’t work.The funding structure for the DOE programs were nuts — building factories to build prototypes? Prototypes first and then contract out the manufacturing. The chip industry is the exemplar on this approach..

             14. We agree on some things. Wind is not going to work. It’s a scar on the landscape and it just doesn’t produce enough energy.The future is nuclear (1st) and solar (2nd). A solid nuclear infrastructure provides power to all the electric car charging stations we’re going to need. It’s a no-brainer. We can lead this industry.Solar, not today’s solar, is the ultimate solution. Our planet is bombarded with unmeasurable amounts of energy every day that we will some day be able to capture.We should not drill on every sf of land if we don’t need to. Why destroy the parks? Our energy independence is not that meaningful if our key markets are still dependent on energy from the Middle East. BTW, I’m sure you’re aware that Obama approved more drilling on public lands than GWB?I’m very happy that Obama supported SpaceX and Tesla. These are new industries that we will lead and dominate.

             15. .One of the beauties of nuclear is that it can often simply replace an existing coal plant and thus there is no grid or other infrastructure cost.As to the parks — horizontal drilling at 360 degrees every 6 degrees is the answer. Less intrusive than a cell phone tower.As to drilling, you have to be careful as it relates to acreage, wells and production. Remember you are talking public lands.Obama is way, way below both GWB and Clinton on acres leased for drilling. Not even close.He is close on wells but many of those wells are on Bush tenure leases. Whose policies fairly get the credit if it was leased under Bush and drilled under Obama. I say Bush.Production is spotty at best but Obama is not opening the spigot.The Obama administration is not a big supporter of leasing, drilling and production though some of the numbers can get a bit confusing.BTW, that BP well in the Gulf is arguably the best well ever hit in the history of US drilling…

             16. .Of course, it was WWII which actually ended the Great Depression when 13MM men went to war and the women took up the jobs vacated and ramped up production incredibly.In the last month of the war, we were making 50K planes a month..

             17. that’s incorrect. that’s the broken window school of economics.

             18. .You will have to educate me further, Obi. I am familiar with the broken window fallacy but it does not really apply here…

             19. Many point to WW2 as ending the Depression. It didn’t. http://mises.org/daily/5069

             20. One of the reasons the depression didn’t end until after the war in 1946.

       3. i am with you. as i said, i think we can get those jobs back now that the cost of living in detroit, gary indiana, buffalo, and many other parts of the industrialized midwest are no more than many parts of the recently developed world

          1. We could if the government decided to work together towards making it happen. I don’t have much hope of that though.

          2. .Unfortunately, folks really want to live in Greenville and Charleston, SC. Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, NC. And Austin, Ft Worth, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston..

             1. then get the overseas jobs to come there instead!

             2. if it weren’t for the cold, I would love to live in detroit. All my friends in michigan are talking about how detroit is changing.

       4. Now here is where I am with you. Why is it that if I outsource a job I get to pay $15/hr but if I hire a person here I pay $40/hr$5/hr for FICA/Medicare/FUTA/SUTA.$2/hr for Health Insurance$2/hr retirementLets not worry about the difference in pay. I’ll grant that for productivity/cost of not having things overseas.So that $9/hr is a cost that the US government doesn’t have to pay. I’d take the current corporate/individual tax rates if I could get a straight credit for that $9/hr.For the record, I have never outsourced a single job, have had on average 50 employees per year for 20 years. Look me up.But when I hear that I am not responsible for the success of my companies, when I have spent years not taking salary building them, when I am told I don’t pay my fair share if they are successful.I feel like taking my toys, renouncing my citizenship, and screwing off on a beach somewhere to see what the administration thinks then. I have watched two people from my cohort do it.

          1. The ‘you didn’t build that’ comment was taken out of context/misspoken. It’s generally accepted that the rule of law and the infrastructure of the US contributes to the success of businesses here. Places where law is a bit less guaranteed and infrastructure is shoddy increase the cost of business and subsequently the profits decline.The current tax rates though are only guidance does anyone actually pay them other than people who can’t afford to hire professionals to ensure they don’t? Romney paid less in taxes as a percentage than I did. That’s bullshit. I’d be for lower tax rates with 0 deductions rather than this system of high rates with massive deductions that effectively reduce the rate to 0.I think that anyone creating jobs here should get a tax credit per employee, that should be the only tax deduction allowed for businesses. I’m not against removing the accounting tricks of capitalizing infrastructure and such but a straight out tax deduction should only be made to companies that hire american workers and should be on a per employee basis. Should it cover your full $9, I don’t know, but I’m all for covering a big part.

             1. You make a comment you own it. Akin said he was taken out of context/mispoken. Bullshit. If it came out of your mouth I shudder to think what is really in your head. He lost all financial support from the republican senate campaign as a consequence: http://www.usatoday.com/sto… He didn’t lose PAC support which is crap, but that is law.Like all things its the middle that gets screwed. Just your definition of middle. If you are super rich, you are 100% correct.Same for corporations. GE has 800 tax lawyers. If you’re just an entrepreneur it really doesn’t make sense to setup a overseas shell corporation to hide your IP assets. Doesn’t make sense and you are going to be the one they come after. I am getting a “random audit” of my 401k plan right now where I pay all expenses and contribute a company match whether you contribute or not. Almost makes me want to shitcan the plan out of spite, but that only hurts my employees.

             2. You make a comment you own it. Akin said he was taken out of context/misspoke. Yeah right, if that comes out of your mouth, I shudder to know what’s really in your mind. BTW: the republican senate committee stripped him of all money but not the PACs (that’s a whole separate problem) http://www.usatoday.com/sto… Romney did not come down hard enough.Like all things its those in the middle that get squeezed. Yes if you are super rich you pay to have some good shelters. If you are just an entrepreneur it doesn’t make sense to put all of your IP in a foreign shell company and hide the income. You don’t have 800 tax attorney’s like GE.Instead you get a “random audit” of your 401k plan where you pay all expenses and have a guaranteed employer match regardless of contribution. You deal with a person that wants to see all paper signup forms when it is an electronic plan administered by Paychex. All of those extra government employees have to keep busy somewhere.

    6. when you say “canceling the debt”, how do you mean? looking at the math, it seems like it will be a decades long process to pare it down, no?

    7. In the immortal words of Chief Wiggum, “this is going to get worse before it gets better.”http://www.youtube.com/watc…

    8. If you have an infection in your leg, you have three treatment options:1. Ignore it and hope that your body is healthy enough to fight it.2. Use antibiotics to help the body fight the infection.3. Chop the leg off to protect the rest of the body.Used wisely, antibiotics are the best bet and will save the leg. However, if over-used, antibiotics become ineffective and the body is put at even greater risk from the infection.I think of debt as antibiotics for the economy. It smoothes out dips in the economy without drastic consequences for the middle and lower classes. However, if over used, debt loses its effectiveness and becomes part of the problem.Paul Ryan’s view was that we should just chop off the leg (why not, it won’t affect him). Obama’s view has been that we should use debt to fend off an economic catastrophe. So far, we’ve seen slow but steady recovery so Obama may be right, BUT we’re right at the point where debt is in danger of becoming an ‘ineffective economic antibiotic’, so it’s time to wean ourselves off of it as fast as we can.

       1. It lost that power even before Bush went on a spending rampage. Debt is the problem today, and there isn’t any easy cure.

          1. Debt is only one problem today, and I agree that the cure won’t be easy. We could turn off debt tomorrow, and the country would collapse. So would the economies of the rest of the world. People who chant that debt is the issue without offering any thoughts on how to wean ourselves off it are just noise.

             1. If I had charged 7x my annual income on my credit card, and was continuing to spend 50% more than I earned with no end in sight, well let’s just say that couldn’t have happened, because the bank would have cut up my credit card 6 or 7 years ago.It is absolutely realistic to put our budget in balance tomorrow, and not just realistic, necessary. Because if we’re unable to do that, then we’re unable to stop increasing the debt which means we’re incapable of paying it off. The longer it takes to do it, the harder it will be to stop sucking on the teat.If the bank took away your credit card, you’d have to figure out a coping strategy right away. We’re too addicted to it, and too afraid of the pain of withdrawal, but it has to come soon, or the patient will overdose and die. Just like Greece.What’s my solution — well, I think you’ve read it elsewhere. First, cut spending aggressively to get in balance on the current budget. I’m pretty sure that increased taxes are off the table until that happens. You first have to establish trust that we’re serious about a solution, and not simply sticking it to the taxpayer, or you will find more gridlock as far as the eye can see.Then we need to look at ourselves honestly and ask how long are we going to take to pay off the mortgage, and start paying it down the way you or I would pay down our house. Increase taxes by the mortgage payment. And, tax everyone who has means at least something — we can’t have half the population carrying the load, because that is simply unfair and burdensome, and encourages cheating.I’d leave income taxes alone and use a consumption tax to do this — it automatically distributes the load and puts the bigger share on those who can afford to spend more. But, we have to share the load, or there will be no general support for such an idea. If/when times improve and we have a windfall, apply it to the principle, and resist the temptation to increase spending. After all that’s done, we can discuss new things, putting something in the social security lockbox, etc.It’s gotta be simple like this. If we mess around with complex formulae, or make it appear grossly unfair, or make it like the tax code, or make it something no one including the politicians can understand, we’ll never get to the needed compromises.

12. Dropping the differences and coming together in a time of need … that is the need of the entire world now.P.S. wow .. a post on my request… feels good.

    1. now cash in 🙂

    2. congrats man

    3. I saw you and others chime in last night but was so emotionally exhausted that I didn’t have the heart to get back in the fray.But was hoping Fred would take the bait. He didn’t disappoint — great takeaways.See, even though you clock in during the night shift at AVC, Fred still listens. :)And so do I.

       1. I was expecting the comment thread will talk more about … what is ahead going forward … but felt like reading a post mortem report of the election and the past elections and more negative future narratives …I personally feel things are not going to be as slow as the past 4-years and next 4 will be better.

          1. I hope you are right. My friend Amy who is an investor summed up the election results by saying “you’d better put some money away.” She may have said this regardless of outcome.

13. how do you feel about Sergey Brin comment: http://techcrunch.com/2012/…

    1. Indie films are a trend, why not Indie Politicians? In CT, Linda MacMahon ran as both a Republican and an Independent…(lost)…weird party affiliation structure.

    2. Interesting

14. Data suggests that for each boom and bust cycle the time from recession to recovery is ever lengthening. It is now longer than the four year election cycle.The voter wants to believe that their vote leads to change. The economy hasn’t changed from one election to the next. The political class is seen to have no solution to economic recession. The voter still want to believe that their vote leads to change. The voter shifts to thinking more about other issues, issues where change is perceived to be eminently possible. The politician blind to this shift loses. I believe that prolonged economic recession in the network society is death to the right.

15. ” It is not OK to include legitimate and rape in the same phrase and it never will be.” You just did exactly that, ironically, though I agree with the sentiment.

    1. I see your point

       1. I think people should be able to speak their mind without there being “third rails” of speech that they can get pilloried for.

          1. You have the freedom to say anything, but not freedom from the consequences. If you make dumb remarks while purporting to “represent” others, you will be pilloried.

             1. Ha! We agree on something!

             2. Probably lots of things actually. 🙂

16. Popular vote of 50% to 48% is still a nation divided.

17. It is the socially conservative wing of the republican party that is focused on women’s rights. I don’t think it is fair to say the entire republican party has waged war on women. You tell me what someone who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal is?

    1. Me

    2. Me too. But I’d say I’m socially liberal first, followed by fiscally conservative.

18. I hope we can see the end of the foolish, vitriolic anti-Obama crap and get on with improving this country.Stop the drone attacks. End the afghan war. Stand up to China on trade and currency ( a union demand for 15 years, but thanks MItt for bringing it up).Hell, half the bridges in PA need to be repaired or replaced. Let’s get that done please.And corporate America, please take some of the highly unproductive cash reserves sitting there doing nothing and either pay dividends or invest it in our communities and/or startups.I’m reaching across the aisle to brother JLM with a few of my favorite one liners, all from, well,me.<snark>Well, now that we have a moderate Republican in the White House, I’m hoping Congress can come together and actually get some work done, starting with the Jobs Act.I enjoyed watching Fox News last night for the first…no, wait. Second time.The White House is owned by Wall Street; the parties just rent it.The difference between Big Bird and Mitt Romney is that Big Bird will have a job in January.</snark>

19. .In any contest lost, a gentleman takes his lumps and awards the winners their unabridged moment of triumph. While biting their tongue, if necessary.There is much to be learned by this election but to touch upon some of it tarnishes the sheen of President Obama’s moment of triumph. I will not do that.As a gentlemen, I say CONGRATULATIONS to the victors and not much more.Any reasonable person hopes that the outcomes for our country are ultimately good regardless whose head rests in the White House. We are in a very difficult and challenging instant in time for our Nation and the world.Good luck, Godspeed and congratulations.Further, I sayeth not on this fine day..

    1. Nicely put, JLM.My father taught me very little other than (sometimes) ‘discretion is the better part of valour’ …

    2. Very gracious

    3. and we can all learn from your post and your poise. you sir are a class act.

    4. “a gentleman takes his lumps and awards the winners their unabridged moment of triumph.”Did you catch Romney’s concession speech last nigth? Spectacular. I thought it was the most genuine heartfelt and proper handling of the loss that I could ever imagine. Had he spoken that way during the campaign who knows what would have happened.

       1. written at the last minute too. So much better than McCain, and crowd behaved well this time…

       2. That same sentiment was expressed about McCain in ’08. It’s easy to be magnanimous in defeat, much harder to be a good winner. Perhaps the discarding of handlers and pr people and speaking points has something to do with it. i.e. he was genuine and dignified.

    5. very meschlike 🙂

    6. Well said.

20. On CNBC this morning the CEO of Aetna said he was planning on a contraction of GDP of 1.7% in the first quarter of 2013. He is meeting with his board in two weeks to begin planning layoffs if we go over the fiscal cliff. I am very afraid that a lot of businesses will go Galt, and hit the brakes in the next few weeks.

    1. “There are two novels that can transform a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.” – Raj Patel, “The Value of Nothing”The chance that Bertolini takes his $11 million dollar/annum compensation (up 20% last year of course) and goes “Galt” is about 0.

       1. what about Judy Blume’s “Forever”? that book got me interested in girls

       2. Please point me to CEO’s who are planning to expand their businesses. I personally know three small businesses (<100 employees) who are planning layoffs directly as a result of this election.

          1. my dad?

       3. LOL! @orsonarbor:disqus Damn, that quote made my day. Bravo!

    2. Here’s the thing, businesses will layoff workers if demand decreases, not based on who gets elected. This is fear mongering.

21. I agree with most of these thoughts, if not all of the tone. But, there is no change coming. We voted for status quo, and no message was sent to either side. The republicans believe they are doing what’s best for the country, just as much as the democrats do — why would you expect either side to change their posture?You are most definitely right about Christie/Obama. The republicans need someone like Christie at the helm to win again. Actually, both parties need people like him who are bridge builders and doers. I don’t see a leader like him suffering fools who want to talk about legitimate rape, etc., and that fringe element needs to be gotten under control and/or completely exorcised.

    1. Christie can connect with average folk. someone like him would be awesome for the Republican party.

       1. @fredwilson:disqus If the Republican party were like Christie and were to jettison their regressive social positions I could seriously consider voting (R). But not until.

          1. I’m game. What are these “regressive social positions” you seem inclined to ascribe to the whole of a political party?

             1. Michael Slonecker I was referring to political positions motivated by religious beliefs not shared by moderates or those who don’t share their specific faith. I could elaborate, but do I really need to?

             2. I do not advocate extremist positions as a general rule, but there does in my view a degree of arrogance on the part of those who oftentimes refer to them as “wing nuts”. Abortion? Villify them at your leisure, but at least bear in mind that some of the bases upon which their views are founded exhibit a degree of intellectually honesty because they contain limiting principles that are oftentimes missing entirely from the positions advocated by opponents. School choice, and even if it means some measure of tax funding for those whose educational needs are better served outside of the public school system? I care about people being given a solid education, and I could generally care less where it takes place. The goal is to educate, and not to enable public school unions to preserve their status at the expense of parents and students. SSM? Yes, let’s blow right past sincere beliefs firmly grounded in the First Amendment and state constitutions. My apology for a long comment that touches upon only a few social issues, but to even suggest that such positions advocated by some persons associated with the GOP are “bad, bad, bad” is lacking in merit. There are always two perfectly reasonable sides to any story, and to denigrate one without giving the other fair and impartial consideration is simply wrong.

             3. @facebook-1247876839:disqus I’m sorry but I cannot respect those who view their interpretation of their religion as absolute and without potential for compromise and who disrespect others who have alternate views. Frankly I fear these people because their positions of faith often trump their ability to reason when the two conflict. The irony of faith-based positions is they are by-definition based on interpretation, and interpretations of faith have historically has a nasty habit of supporting the biases of the individual and/or their group.Regarding education, nothing I said had anything to do with education, not sure why you choose to include it in your reply to me.Regarding if those policies are “bad, bad, bad” I didn’t say they were or were not; what I (effectively) wrote was simply that I cannot support a party whose platform embraces those policies. So I was not stating right nor wrong, only my preference. I assume I’m allowed to do that?

             4. I mentioned some other possible “issues” only because the term you used was plural, and I could only guess what some of them might be because you elected to comment on a “group”, and not specific “issues”. I express no opinion, for example, on abortion (my views are mine and strictly person), but I refuse to denigrate the opinions of others where I believe they exhibit intellectual honesty. Using the Sebelius case as an example, the commerce clause argument was rejected as lacking a defined, limiting principle. The vast majority of those who identify themselves as “Pro-Life” do proffer a limiting principle as to when they consider “life” having begun. You may disagree with it, but at least it does have merit in that it is a specific, defineable event. This is in contrast to many of those on the political aisle who speak of an unqualified “right” that is unbounded and articulates no identifying and limiting principle other than “I can do what I want when I want.” If you can identify a limiting principle in this then you are a far better lawyer than me.

             5. Michael Slonecker I get this feeling you take issue that I have a strong opinion on regarding social conservatives. I was stating my opinion, but you seem to want to challenge my right to have a given opinion; why?I chose not to elaborate because I’m trying more to emulate Fred and not get sucked into long debates that likely will have zero effect and will distract me from actually getting work done. It seems the best way to do that is never to comment here, but I digress…Regarding abortion, my experience with the pro-lifers I’ve spoken to face-to-face, the ones I’ve had honest dialog with, is they won’t compromise on any abortion; even the morning after pill outrages them. I’ve never heard a pro-lifer say anything other than “Life begins at conception.” That’s not a limiting principle. Show me a pro-life website that say anything else and I’ll be amazed and relieved. I’m curious where you live, a blue state or red state? I (unfortunately for me) live in a red state so I’m awash with social conservatives.Another regressive social position is “defense of marriage”; to openly campaign for laws that decrease equality is both anti-American and just morally repulsive to me.I could list other topics but those two alone are more than enough. Point of note, when I vote I vote on these issues, in descending order of important1.) Against social conservative issues2.) Against aggressive military policies3.) Against big money special interests4.) For universal justice and respect for life and dignity5.) For enlightened policies (e.g. infrastructure, enabling startups)6.) General economic considerationsNote how the first 3 are “against” and how those are also the 3 main planks of the current Republican party? See why I can’t vote Republican?Here is my very favorite XKCD (favorite in a sad way): http://xkcd.com/154/

       2. He speaks plainly, I admire that. I worry about the things that he doesn’t speak publicly about.http://www.motherjones.com/… Liberal source but it’s an audio recording of the guy, not much bias there to be had.

22. great post fred.I agree with most everything there.I am frankly happy its over however. While yesterday was a great american day – touring around the polling stations seeing huge lines – people care – its a proud day to show the world.but i am happy its over because i found the process nauseating in the extreme. and i’ve commented on why that is – i want to see the abolishion of our current campaign financing framework, and a complete reset on the predatory influences that lobbyists have on this system of government. Its an absolute cancer and it needs to be addressed.great post. thanks.

    1. me too

23. As a non-American, I’ll say this to the Americans.You, the Americans won.What needs to be done and will be done is in YOUR hands. It doesn’t rest on Obama, Romney, Republicans or Democrats to get things done. Look at Bloomberg who is neither Republican nor Democrat and what he has done. Look at Fred Wilson who invests his capital (and others) in the most capitalistic ways to create new wealth. Look at the entrepreneurs and start-ups who really don’t give a damn or aren’t affected by whether the wind blows Democrats or Republicans.Not even foreign policy changes much between Democrats and Republics. Yes, there is some gymnastics and debates, but even a Republican was going to end the war in Iraq.So, pick yourselves up and get on with it. There are no winners and losers in the US I know. Everybody is a winner. Your country is an inspiration for the world, so do lower the rate of internal bickering, and get on with it.

    1. Motivational, eh?Thanks.

       1. I’m not sure why someone down-voted it.

          1. Haters gonna hate

          2. Romney did it.

    2. I suspect the down votes may consider the sentiment a little preachy coming from an outsider, telling Americans “they won”, when more than half of us don’t feel that way. Nothing has changed, but we blew $6B on the exercise. Think of the difference that money would make helping NJ get back on its feet, or fixing our broken schools, or almost anything except endless hours of negative tv commercials.

       1. I understand, but it was well intentioned. I agree about the excessive spending on the exercise of course. The campaign process must be reformed hopefully.

          1. Smoothing the waters in a family feud although commendable is hard and dangerous work :-0

             1. Good point. Sometimes an outsider sees things others don’t.

24. As a hispanic I thank you for this post Fred, It brings great pride to me to read these words here on AVC.

    1. they are simply the facts as i see them

25. “It is not OK to include legitimate and rape in the same phrase and it never will be.”Hearing this kind of thing blew my mind. So backwards.”Our deficits are killing us and our economy.”Cutting spending can be good as it creates pressure. If there is smart money that knows how to efficiently get where it will be efficiently used then the overall progress is positive and success; You will discover and learn of gaps in infrastructure, organization, and anywhere where inefficient use of money was applied as a bandaid and where innovation in the area is needed to come up with creative and long-term solution.The next 10 years will be great for innovation and starting to improve people’s lives if money flows where it needs. The 10 years following that should allow for a global shift toward massive quality of life improvements. There will still be much learning to do, and awareness and teaching to be done for all societies to benefit from the solutions that the leading edge of innovation is creating.I have no idea if the current Canadian leadership is aware of this direction or if they are designing things to facilitate all of this. I can hope they do, but most think short-term, when in fact what needs to be done in the next 5-10 years can be merely laying foundation and groundwork.

26. “We can bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. We can bring service jobs back to the US. We can build on the entrepreneurial spirit of our country and we can compete on a global scale if we just put our heads down and work at it. And it would be best to do that together” -Creating jobs or value is not a zero-sum game why are we talking about bringing jobs “back”? the jobs have not gone anywhere they are all here in our heads, I thought AVC is about Job Creators and not Job Seekers Fred. I don’t believe for once that the jobs that have been created in other parts of the world has destroyed jobs in the US or for that matter any other country. This is politician speak.

    1. c’mon. the call centers and back offices in India could easily be in places like Detroit, Buffalo, and Gary Indiana. and i think US companies would benefit by servicing US customers with US customer service folks who are on the same time zone and understand the culture better

       1. YES. Not just the culture, but the mismatch of accents and bad connections when you’re linked to the Phillipines or god knows where is atrocious. And, it’s criminal that things like federally-subsidized student loans are serviced in India, paid for with taxpayer money! How much more effective than $1 trillion in stimulus funding would it be to bring those jobs back to places like Detroit.

       2. I don’t disagree that those jobs could be in Detroit or Buffalo or Indiana, but things happen over a time frame. When the jobs were shipped to India, I was working for Ernst & Young in Houston. I remember very distinctly EY´s leadership sent one of our colleagues back to India in 1998 to go build a team in India to supplement the team in the US. It was always suppose to be a supplement and not a replacement of the jobs in the US. Of course, everything can be taken to the extreme and we try to optimize on the edges and loose the reason why we started on the journey in the first place just like Debt. I think there is a balance, one of the best and biggest export of the US is Entrepreneurship… do you know who are the people who take the call center and back office jobs in India? the very young well educated college graduates… do you know why they take that job? to learn the culture of the US so they can one day come to the US and start a company and create more jobs IN THE US. Do you know who are their role models? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. You should take a trip to India and meet these folks then you will understand the power of what has transpired from the Call Centers and Back Office jobs that have been shipped to India. While I was in EY, we did a study on whether this move to ship work to India reduced our employee count but it did not, actually it freed up time for the young consultants in the US to go and get more business and trained them to be better managers because they were managing cross cultural teams. It was not easy but boy it was fun. Those young consultants included myself. I find it difficult to absorb what you have written above, here you were talking about Tolerance and Prosperity (http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201… and Immigration Reform (http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201… but now you are flipping around and saying that the US should be more closed and keep the jobs in the US. This is a contradiction in my books. I don’t believe for once Call Centers and Back Office efforts have taken jobs away, there is a structural change in the job market in the US… how do we solve that? that is a good question and that is what President Obama and the Entrepreneurial community need to solve. Are the call centers and back offices in India run poorly? maybe, so are many companies in the US. do the employees in the call centers and back offices don’t understand the culture of the US or incomprehensible when we talk to them? surely, but have you been in Harlem lately? try talking to a kid whose pants are almost falling off his hips and tell me he speaks proper english and you can understand him. We need to be more tolerant than that. When I said this is politician speak what I meant is that we are trying to fix the hard problems with easy solutions which never works. This transformation in the US in my books is a good thing. The same way I believe the financial crisis was a good thing for Iceland, it fundamentally transformed the structure of the job market in the country and it freed up so many people who were in shackles of the banks including myself. It is liberating, I am delighted to see so many Startup Communities cropping up in all those regions where the old jobs have left including detroit, you have recommended the book written by Brad Feld and I think all those regions need to create their own startup communities and solve tough problems. Not take the easy route of protectionism and closed economy…

          1. yes they do

             1. I guess we should just agree to disagree

27. our friend, fakegrimlock, said it very well: TODAY EVERYONE WAKE UP TO AMERICA WHERE BE DIFFERENT NOT JUST OK. BE DIFFERENT WON.angry, old, white men is not a winning constituency.the obama victory trended younger, female and diverse. that is this country’s future.now we need a growing economy: investment in alternative energy, investment in science, investment in education, investment in infrastructureausterity and cuts are false idols: they only drive the spiral down fastermiddle class wages for the vast majority of the population is what makes an economy go.

    1. Neither is a divisive, nonsensical characterization of those who disagree with you as “angry, old white men” a winning formula. The Romney loss also had large constituencies of younger, female, and “diverse” (whatever that means) people. Dividing people by sex, race and age is the definition of discrimination, isn’t it?Before we “invest” in anything, we first need to cut to a balanced budget which includes the long, arduous process of debt retirement. You can’t reallocate resources that you don’t have.

       1. we disagree on austerity — i see austerity as pushing a faltering economy hard into flatout depressionas to demographics, it’s math and exit pollinghttp://www.slate.com/articl…Obama has a deficit of 23 percentage points, trailing Republican Mitt Romney 60 percent to 37 percent among whites, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national tracking poll. That presents a significant hurdle for the president—and suggests that he will need to achieve even larger margins of victory among women and minorities, two important parts of the Democratic base, to win reelection.That’s not polarized. Polarization would mean that various races were mutually pulling apart, toward their favored candidates. “Minorities” is not a race (nor, you may have noticed, is “women”). Minorities and women are the people standing still, while white men run away from them.

          1. My point is exactly what you are doing above. The “scientific” slicing and dicing of demographics and pitting interests against each other is inherently divisive. We need to spend more time discerning what is right, than what will appeal to women, or what will appeal to blacks and hispanics, or what will appeal to people between 18-29, or even to angry old white men. For starters, none of those artificial demographic categories shares a brain and has 100% agreement on any set of issues. If we focused on what was right, none of this would matter, and you wouldn’t have idiotic soundbites like “legitimate rape” being uttered. What is “right” should appeal to everyone, in the long run.btw, I didn’t say “austerity”. That is your coloring of what I said. There is an enormous amount of waste in our spending that is easily cut, and unfortunately, a hangover from decades of overspending and waste that has to be paid for. You can’t keep kicking the can down the road — my kids have already been sentenced to pay for this for the rest of their lives, and they will get no benefit from it. How moral is that? When we have first put things in balance, and that balance includes starting to pay off the mortgage, then I’ll be willing to talk about “investments”. Until then, you have nothing to invest. Simple math. Your credit card has been cancelled due to being overspent by 10x its limit.Perhaps the bigger question is why did 93% of the black voters support Obama, despite that category of people being among the biggest losers of the past 4 years economically. No doubt it’s politically incorrect to suggest that voting against your interest, on the basis of color, is inherently a racist act.In any case, I reject out of hand putting me in any bucket and trying to discern why I would vote or who I’d support based on that bucket. I don’t think that way, whether it’s a product I’m buying, a candidate I’m selecting, or a decision I’m making. I think about the “job to be done”, and choose accordingly. I think that’s why so many of us were disgusted with our choices.

             1. here’s how i would put it after looking at the demographicsobama’s voters: the futureromney’s voters: the past

             2. and that kind of thinking will win you a lot of future support. not.

28. re christie:Alan ‏@GammaCounterGov Chris Christie slams Romney staffers who are talking trash about his loyalty to the GOP. (via @adampasick) – http://bit.ly/PDFNNz

29. An excellent summary.

30. Perhaps the ‘Super PACs’ of the future will behave more like private equity groups — in the spirit of the auto bailout — instead of being coffers for campaign ads. If we continue to see that the Auto Bailout result was ‘a strategic investment in rust belt Electoral Votes,’ perhaps there are other campaign-funded, smart/strategic investments that will buoy industries in pursuit of favorable election results.So instead of IRR, PACs will be measured on ERR (the ‘Electoral Rate of Return’).And having typed the above, I have no idea what perverse incentives will manifest from such a trend, but let’s hope it’s more constructive than negative TV ads.

    1. scary idea. really.

31. My favorite image of the entire campaign is the one of Gov Chris Christie and the President touring the ravaged Jersey shore together. That was dropping our differences and coming together in a time of need. We must have more of that in America. And after last night, I hope and pray that we will.That’s more a symbol of Christie doing what is in Christies best interest than it is coming together. Obama of course had nothing to loose by doing his part in the tour. It’s not like there was any benefit to him withholding support. And it’s not as if it takes him any effort at all to do what he did to help the state. What was he supposed to do? Refuse to stand by Christie and snub him? He got extra brownie points. Let’s see now what happens in NJ going forward.Also “all band together for a common cause”. The storm was a black swan event. There are things that people do when bad things happen that they wouldn’t or couldn’t do otherwise under ordinary circumstances. And they are given a pass. (Like murder in self defense or sleeping naked next to another man if it involves staying alive when you are lost in the wilderness). Or stopping smoking when diagnosed with lung cancer.

    1. true

32. “we need to legalize those who have been working hard and acting like good citizens in this country for years.”One of the reason that is the case though is because of the fear of getting kicked out.That’s a powerful motivator to stay out of trouble and follow the straight and narrow. I’m not saying that applies to everyone. But it certainly is different to be on “double secret probation” then it is to be an ordinary citizen with only ordinary fears of the legal system.As an example look only to the behavior of any person who is licensed and the chances that they are willing to take with losing their license (doctor, lawyer, realtor, psychologist etc.). The “stick” on those people that keeps them in line 99% of the time is the fact that if they go out of line, or test limits, they can and do loose their license or they are disciplined. As an ICANN registrar there are things we can’t do that a reseller of domains can simply because they don’t have something to loose. ICANN accreditation.I’m in no way implying (once again) that there are not hard working immigrants (my father was one) in this country that will continue to be honest and hard working once given citizenship.Illegal immigrants are also a source of low cost labor in this country. And we all benefit from this cheap labor. When I was growing up we mowed lawns to make money. Today in the suburbs where I am (and I believe this is true elsewhere) all you see is mexican work crews who are paid under the table for their work. This is not a commentary on whether this is right or wrong, just observation of what I believe is one of the many reasons that this country isn’t rushing to give citizenship to all illegal immigrants. And of course who can forget “nanny gate”.

33. Seriously, I am depressed and am thinking of taking the next 4 years off. I am not sure if I can take another term of entrepreneur-bashing and skyrocketing capital gains taxes.

    1. who is bashing entrepreneurs? Obama has been very supportive of entrepreneurs in his words and actions.

34. Fred, I love your post and the optimism but facts are facts. First off, the US is and will be a 3rd world country. The past mistakes of incarceration policies esp. towards drug usage helped greatly. How many of those people can vote yet get employed? This leads to an impoverished part of society that will most likely NEVER pick themselves up and become productive.The US has never been more divided than it has under Obama. The hatred and lies being tossed by the TeaParty are pure out bigotry. I don’t think Obama won and much as Romney lost. National support for the republic party is plain simply dead. They have to STOP catering to religious zealots and special interest groups esp. war mongers.As far as the debt is concerned, yes I would agree there are huge problems that are GOING to be an ongoing concern but NOT right now. The available $$ have become a commodity worldwide used to speculate, period. Because of the low/negative returns of the stock market, investors have gravitated towards all other areas looking for positive gains. This has caused massive bubbles in some areas, i.e. fixed commodities, energy, hard assets, and now real estate but only real estate in prime “A” and “B” areas of a major metropolitan cities.Plain simply the US is a mess. The rest of the free world is a mess. The on-going problem is and has been debt. We have not dealt with Europe, Aus. and Canada are on the verge of financial collapse as well.I would argue that the country is ‘coming’ out of the recession. It never left. There have been signs, but in the end, the unemployment rate has never decreased only disappeared with fabricated numbers. I think it’s become necessary to NOT believe what the gov’t tell us. As a generation before me USED to say, “question everything and believe nothing”..or was that agent spalder or jerry garcia?

35. I have this one niggling question in the back of my mind.As been discussed by pundits everywhere, Obama definitely holds a rising youth vote. It is the same group that we also tend to fetishize as entrepreneurs/make the claim that they are highly entrepreneurial . Said same group also tends to poll liberal (nearly socialist).What does this mean about the future of the way business will be done in this country?

    1. the word “socialist” gets thrown around a lot in the US. I saw some ridiculous Romney ad that had some guy from the old country worrying that the socialists were coming. OMG. pulease. Canada is so far left of the US and while there are some things that drive me INSANE up here (business under 3 years old getting Capital) it’s hardly a Bolshevik state and i would take my health care and safe public education over paying lower taxes any day of the week.

36. Sure, the demographics has changed, but the Republican party has changed too over the years. I remember in the even during the Clinton years, the Indian American community was mostly Republican. Even today we are fiscally conservative, but the Republican party has strayed away from the middle on social issues. We are definitely not in the “Romney 47%”, but I would be surprised if 80% of Indian Americans did not vote for Obama.

37. I think the vote was awesome, it proved the internet. It proved that while money can win an election against an apathetic populace, attention can overcome money with an interested citizenry. Make no mistake, I’m not saying that Obama didn’t have a lot of money to spend, I’m saying that he didn’t win because of it outright. He won because he used it to get his people, which were EVERYONE even, to a lesser extent, old white people(I say that with love old white people), to go out and vote.But secondary to that, the voter suppression tactics by the GOP caught the ATTENTION of lots of people who feared the shenanigans of the elections in ’00 and ’04. They were determined to not be disenfranchised again. So they waited. They stood. They leaned. They sat. For hours upon hours they endured to make sure their vote would be counted and those votes were the difference between an Obama victory and a Romney victory. America showed a will that hasn’t been seen since the days of sit-ins and protests and that was incredible to watch.Obama won because he appealed to the entire country while the GOP appealed to old white people who, along with the GOP, haven’t realized that they are now the minority. This election symbolizes hope more than any other because it signals that the entire country, man, woman, black, white, hispanic, gay and straight, young and old can make a difference. Though it won’t stop it, there is no more legitimate room for voter apathy. You can’t make the argument that your vote won’t count. Every vote counted. Bundled up and counted together the will of the rainbow people of America overcame the will of a relatively homogeneous group of people. And that’s how I define progress.

    1. Sorry, I wasn’t aware that 49% of the population were a homogeneous group of old white guys. Is this what gracious winning looks like — a name-calling, nana-nana booboo to those who disagree? Nice way to get started on “unifying”.Obama no more appeals to the whole country than Romney did, btw. They both attracted exactly half the vote

       1. Did you not notice that part where I say “(I say that with love old white people)”. I’m not name calling, just look at the demographic data. Obama carried 93% of blacks, 70% of hispanics, 67% of single women, and 60% of voters under 30. That’s a huge cross-section of people, about the only demographic he didn’t pull a majority in is old white people (or should I say elderly caucasian voters?) and evangelical christians. The fact that Romney garnered almost 50% of the votes is a testament to how big those voting blocks not the diversity of those who voted for him.Here’s a link so you can see for yourself. I’ve seen the same info on NBC this morning and various other places. Feel free to do your own research though. http://blog.seattlepi.com/s…

          1. Yes, I noticed it. Your words don’t jibe with their embedded message. The point is, there is no homogenous group on either side. And the sides are exactly equal, but for a few votes. Are you suggesting that all blacks, gays, women and young people that voted for Obama agree on everything? I didn’t think so.As I’ve said elsewhere, demographics is not a way to dissect the electorate (or most things). It’s insulting to all. It’s about the “job to be done”, not my age, race, sex or sexual orientation, income level, place of residence, how many people live in my house, whether I have a dog, or any other irrelevant attribute.The one group which most shares a common motivation is blacks (although even there, it isn’t fair to say they all voted for the same reason), with 93% supporting Obama. Sadly, there is only one conclusion you can reach about that support if you look only at demographics.

             1. You can cherry pick whatever to suit your worldview but in the end it just makes you wrong. What I’m suggesting is what I said, those voting blocks voted overwhelmingly for Obama and the stats show that very clearly. Romney had ONE group of people that he carried, that makes the demographic makeup of his electorate HOMOGENEOUS.Motivations aren’t represented in anything I said, just the demographic breakdown. Adding variables or criticizing the truth doesn’t invalidate it. Instead of trying to deny the obvious, think about what it means and try to figure out how to change it if you don’t like it.

             2. We are all one people. But we are also all individuals. That was the message of the 1960s, civil rights, equal pay, etc. I refuse to be put in any demographic bucket, and so should you, unless you don’t think for yourself, and simply agree with everyone who looks like you. Your analysis betrays a simplistic view of motivations and what it takes to win.The easy way is to defeat the other guy on negatives (true or not). For that, it makes a ton of sense to polarize people into demographic groups and pit them against each other. The hard way is to win on positives, and creation of a plan to solve our big problems (which belong to all of us). To inspire based on vision, values, and outcomes. Unfortunately, there was none of that from either party this year, so in my estimation, this election was largely about voting against the other guy, rather than for anything in particular.My world view is that this kind of demographic analysis is highly divisive. That’s not cherry-picking. It’s the truth, and it’s also obvious. If you don’t believe so, ask how you’d feel if I said something like “Authors as a group aren’t analytic enough to truly understand the mechanics of behavior. As a consequence, they often miss the point, and group people by demographic characteristics, rather than the underlying reasons they do things. As such, their opinions should not be trusted.” I have now ascribed a negative to you, and offered a plausible explanation based on some arbitrary grouping which has no connection to your motivation. That is the definition of prejudice and discrimination.

             3. Look, you can put lipstick on a pig…in the end what I’m saying and quoting are facts. By their very definition they are true. I don’t know what else there is to say about it. You can hate that it’s true but they are true. Hating it doesn’t change it. Learning from it does. The GOP needs to learn from this election and realize that they can’t just target their accustomed base and win national elections. They have to move back towards the center of the country from the far right. Instead of coming to that conclusion they would rather get pissed that electorate demographics show where they are weak and can be construed by some to paint them as exclusionary of non-white voters. Not my fault.

             4. @mlloyd:disqus “They have to move back towards the center of the country from the far right.” Correct. It boils down to that. But unfortunately for us all is centrists are not as reliable voters as extremists.

             5. “But unfortunately for us all is centrists are not as reliable voters as extremists.” I said a similar thing to a friend yesterday. I’ve never heard an extremist come up with a reason not to vote, I heard so many excuses from supposedly intelligent people yesterday that it made me curse. The extremists are dependable which is why the GOP has focused on them but they aren’t enough to carry the election if turnout is high. That’s the lesson they need to learn but won’t because Obama taught them the same lesson in 08.

             6. @mlloyd:disqus You and I are in sync on that one my friend. 🙂

             7. This would be as poor a conclusion as none at all. There is never going to be one party that represents all views. Right now we have two that represent almost no one. Parties need to have principles as their raison d’etre, but then they need to look at what matters to people and offer solutions to those problems, not cater to demographics.

             8. math

38. I congratulate the president on winning re-election. For better or worse, his team fought hard.The Democrats are better at campaigning. Better at electoral math and generally better politicians. It’s what they do and love.At the same time, I feel strongly that many people got duped yesterday.Mitt Romney isn’t an evil vulture capitalist. He’s not waging war on women. But the Obama campaign managed to pull the wool over many voters’ eyes.He’s a moderate who would have been in the trenches alongside Democrats & Republicans to get sound fiscal legislation passed.His plan to close loop holes, limit deductions and get the budget in order was legit.The country missed a golden opportunity for innovative financial reform & a real unifying moment.I lost faith last night. It was a very disheartening result.

    1. Well said, Matt.

       1. Thanks – I was admittedly heavy-hearted as I wrote that this AM.

    2. What I found scary were the sheer amount of people engaging in doublethink: Romney was too liberal to conservatives, and painted as a hard core conservative among liberals, and few people noticed the dichotomy.Still, in the end, you either brand yourself, or you let someone else brand you. Romney got branded.

       1. Right on both counts. There were even Democratic voters last night speculating that this loss would prompt Republicans to “move to the middle” — as if they hadn’t done that already by nominating the former governor of the most liberal state in the US.Also, a couple of folks on Obama’s campaign, when asked what the difference in this cycle was, pointed out their effort to “negatively define” Romney over the summer (i.e., their attack ads) in swing states and Romney’s lack of response to them.

          1. The sad thing for Romney is that after winning the party nomination he made the fatal mistake of not standing by the power of his own core convictions and pushing back against the extremists in his own party.

             1. That’s a good summation.

             2. Can you list his core convictions?

       2. He got branded.Obama’s campaign worked it.I think they are entirely wrong, if not deceitful.But they won.

    3. Then shame on Mitt Romney for allowing that to happen…I would posit that he was party to this wool being pulled over everyone’s eyes by veering up down and all round on some major issues where his previous legislative track record said one thing and his Republican primary stance said another. But that was the bet he made, and it backfired in trying to win the nomination of his party. I think Bloomberg made a good point when he alluded to the fact that he would have likely support the Romney of ’08, and years before. The Republicans need to go back to the drawing board. If they retrench and go “santorum conservative” thinking that is the reason why they lost, I think they will find that everyone supporting that stance in the room is likely an angry white dude…and they should realize in that moment that the demographics have changed, and they need to change accordingly. This is not meant to me a partisan rant, it is a political strategy rant. Romney lost because he stood for something…??? sort of…He wrote the famous headline that Detroit should go bankrupt. Could not make up the rustbelt gap because in the end I truly think he has trouble relating to working class folks. And his 47% comment I think still lingered over the latino voters in Florida.The Repubs need a non-evangelical staunch fiscal conservative who is cool with gay marriage and has really solid private sector chops; preferably latino. Done. A picture of them sincerely shaking hands on a bipartisan effort instead of getting all angry with Boehner, McConnell, etc would help. They should have won this thing in a walkover given the perceived (real or otherwise) failings of the current presidency.

       1. Like I said, the Democrats are generally better at campaigning, electoral math, all that.You’re probably right on most counts here.Still, Romney isn’t the problem. He would have been a much better president than he was a candidate.It’s too bad.

    4. John McCain was a moderate too…until the Presidential election. Think about it. These guys know that they have to move far right to get the party’s base on-board. Unfortunately it often leaves them out of their depth and comfort zone. Romney spent the last 2 years trying to convince Republicans that he, as the ghost writer of Obamacare, was conservative enough to be their pick. Why would anyone think that guy is a moderate after he spent so much time and money trying to convince everyone otherwise. Until the debate anyway. The debate was genius on his part.

       1. word

       2. I felt like the first debate was the real Romney – the would-be president.He’s not a campaigner. Not a good one anyway.He would have been a great president.

    5. i didn’t say Mitt was waging a war on women. i said his party was. he is a good man in a bad party.

       1. Understood Fred.My comment was directed at the general notion the Obama campaign made that Romney was ‘waging the war’.

       2. Yes. Agree completely. The GOP need significant reinvention before the next election or Hillary (and Bill) will decimate them.

       3. Of course, the Republicans won white women by 16 points.

          1. But he lost women overall with Obama getting 55%

             1. Yup. So that points to something different than just “women”. He wasn’t going to win black women. So he needed to target a different group and make hay with them. The only one he got was white women. What’s really interesting is the narrow margin he actually lost by. In VA it was around 100k votes. In Ohio the same. Romney did a poor job of getting out the vote. 3M Republicans stayed home.

          2. aren’t women of color women? why the distinction?

             1. Sure, but there are different market segments. Women of color might have different issues that the white women segment. Actually, that’s how Obama was so successful. His social media team was able to tease out the market segments and motivate them on a granular level. Romney thought he was doing that but didn’t. Obama was criticized for speaking about small issues and it was really because of the data he was receiving from his social media team.

       4. So; Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Bob McDonnell and Jack Welch – all these guys are great men. All are Republicans. How many do you need to make a party? Stop generalizing and using rhetoric like waging a war on women it’s irresponsible. Let’s talk about the real problem of a two-arty system and a electoral college system that needs revision.

          1. they should fix their party and cleanse it of the nutjobs. it is hurting them. i agree with you that they are good people.

             1. Fred, the Dems have nutjobs too. But the Dems do a far better job of defining Republican nutjobs than Republicans do of defining Democratic ones. I have found Dems to be way more aggressive in taking away economic liberty from me, and Republicans personal liberty.

             2. The Dems do not have nutjobs on women’s issues that I know about

             3. Sure they do. How about late term abortions? Free birth control? TANSTAFL (there aint such thing as a free lunch)How about the equal pay fallacy (immigration and job choices account for almost all of the differences in gender pay)-and they do have nutjobs at the EPA and other regulatory agencies. Wait until the write Obamacare and Dodd-Frank regs. I agree, there are certainly Republican nut jobs-and most of them come to play on individual freedom. But the Dems assault on economic liberty is astounding-and that leads to less choice individually.

             4. Fair point. Somehow they mute them fairly well on the national stage

             5. They do, part of that is the media that fans the flames of the far right wing, and part of it is party structure. I am surprised at how many people I meet that are simply angry with Christians these days. They aren’t all bad.

    6. Romney had an authenticity problem. You might hate Obama’s message, but most people would think he’s saying what he believes.The GOP has a reality-denial / wishful thinking problem. If they don’t like poll math, or budget math, it doesn’t exist, tax cuts increase revenues, global warming doesn’t exist etc.They have candidates who connect because they are authentic, but are loony, like Ron Paul, and candidates who are decent people but have to kiss the ring of religious and economic nuts and eschew any form of compromise, and they end up looking like muppets toeing the line who don’t really believe what they say.Until the GOP deals with reality and puts up authentic candidates, it’s going to have a hard time.http://www.theatlantic.com/…

       1. I never said I hate anything. I just don’t agree with Obama on very much.I mentioned somewhere else in this thread that Romney would have been a much better president than he was a campaigner.That’s the tragedy for me.

          1. Yes! I agree. However, I don’t feel the same way about Ryan or the rest of the party.

          2. Romney could have been a uniter if he’d run as one. He invented Obamacare FFS. Hell, I’d have voted for him if he ran as an authentic unity candidate. A Massachusetts Republican is more left-wing than an Arkansas Democrat FFS. But once you kiss the ring of the tea party types and religious fundies who say Obama’s a socialist and a Kenyan anti-colonialist and a terrorist sympathizer who’s killing Navy SEALs and babies… the idea anyone is going to do a lot of compromising is not credible. He didn’t make a persuasive ideological case since his ideology shifted, and he didn’t make a good pragmatic case, he had fantasy plans that shifted (eg existing conditions) and only added up with magic asterisks so you couldn’t figure out who would be left holding the bag. Subject: [avc] Re: How Do You Take The Vote

          3. Romney could have run as a uniter. He invented Obamacare FFS. Hell, I’d have voted for him if he ran as an authentic unity candidate. A Massachusetts Republican is more left-wing than an Arkansas Democrat.But once you kiss the ring of the tea party types and religious fundies who say Obama’s a socialist and a Kenyan anti-colonialist and a terrorist sympathizer who’s killing Benghazi SEALs and babies… the idea anyone is going to do a lot of compromising is not very credible.Maybe Romney would have been an effective President, but I wasn’t persuaded. He didn’t make a persuasive ideological case since his ideology shifted, and he didn’t make a good pragmatic case, he had fantasy plans that shifted (eg existing conditions) and only added up with magic asterisks so you couldn’t figure out who would be left holding the bag.

    7. I too think Mitt Romney is a good guy, even if he changes his positions daily. His party is the problem. Those fruitcakes really do believe what they’re saying, even if they apologize for saying it.

39. Much has been written about the ungodly sums of money spent nationally by the Presidential candidates and PACs in this year’s election. Perhaps even more astonishing is the money spent by Linda McMahon, the Republican senatorial candidate from Connecticut. Mind you, I have no skin in this game as I’m not from Ct., but it illustrates how screwed up the system is and how myopic and ineffective candidates with gobs of money can be influencing the voting public.Here’s the “Tale of The Tape”:–McMahon, who along with hubby Vince founded the WWF, invested $91M+ of their own money in her two failed senatorial runs.–That sum equates to $32.74 for every adult 18+ in the state, or perhaps even more telling, $75 for each of the roughly 587K votes she received in this year’s election. –If you take the $91M+ she spent on the past two elections solely in the state of Ct. and project nationally (using Adults 18+ as a base) that equates to $7.4B–as in billions of dollars! Crazy stuff!So, how much more effective would McMahon’s campaign have been if she would have invested the same sum of money in in-state educational programs, medical research, housing for the poor, etc., instead of pursuing a strategy of opponent bashing without possessing a legitimate platform to run on?My hunch is she would have been elected, even if one views that as an alternate (and somewhat unfair) approach to campaign financing.

40. Obama has done the easy part; getting elected. Now comes the difficult part–governing. Part of being able to lead will be to persuade the opposition party to work with you. Like them or not, Reagan and Clinton were able to do so, Bush and Obama were not.As far as cutting the deficit goes, it won’t happen. With the scheduled 50%+ increase in capital gains rates kicking in 2013, you’ll see a rush of people selling off winners in the next six weeks, and raising revenue this year. But come next year and the next three, tax revenue will slide back and you won’t see anything less than trillion dollar annual deficits for the foreseeable future. I hope I’m wrong, but this is the wrong crowd to talk about cutting spending. When Big bird is sacrosanct, it’s not happening.You need to to increase revenues 25% above where they are now to get below a trillion dollar annual deficit. Letting the BushObama tax cuts expire as well as the temporary SSI payroll tax would get you 12-15% at best. That or 6-7% annual GPD growth. I hope I am wrong.A good tell will be the upcoming sequestration law. It is signed, and ready to kick in come 3 January. It will take an act of congress and POTUS signing off in order to kill it. Both sides will probably push for “kick the can” savings that take start in 2017 or later.

    1. what do you think of the grand bargain?

41. A few thoughts on your thoughts: – Agreed on the impact of demographics. 20 years ago, with an economy this weak, and a competent candidate like Romney, this would have been a landslide for the GOP. Not this time. – Disagreed on the alleged “war on women”. Mitt Romney is no misogynist, and it’s outrageous that he was characterized as one. When you wonder why more talented individuals don’t go into politics, remember how a good man was demonized this election cycle. Todd Akin is an idiot and deserved to lose. I don’t think he had much impact on the larger race. – Opening the borders to more mass, unskilled immigration, would be bad for most Americans, Hispanics included, as it would further swell the supply of labor at a time when we have record long term unemployment. It simply makes no economic sense right now. It does make political sense for Democrats, as they can win with a coalition of the rich and the poor. It doesn’t make political sense for Republicans, who are becoming the party of a shrinking middle class. – Agreed that we can bring back manufacturing jobs. But we need the right policies to do that, and Democrats have been on the wrong side of a number of those policy issues. For example, manufacturing requires inexpensive energy, which, at the moment, means fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, as well as nuclear. Democrats favor more expensive forms of energy, such as wind and solar. Manufacturing benefits from strong vocational education and tracking (common in Germany, for example). Democratic politicians continue to advocate a college-for-all model, that saddles young Americans with debt for degrees that aren’t in demand. – Agreed that Obama and Christie touring the devastation together was an encouraging symbol. But the actual response to Sandy hasn’t been encouraging. It’s discouraging that we still have people without power, and that there is now a black market for gas. – Sandy illustrates one of the downsides of having a press so closely aligned with the Democratic Party: the press isn’t as effective of a check on government in this situation. Had a Republican been President during Sandy, there would have been more criticism about the inability of FEMA to get generators on site, for example. In this context, a cynic could see a self-interested motive for Christie’s embrace of Obama (beyond ingratiating himself with his idol Bruce, that is): by aligning himself with Obama, Christie has shared the love of the press.Our democracy works better with a critical press. I hope we get that back, now that Obama’s last election is behind him.

    1. Well said.

    2. I don’t think that most people thought that Romney as a misogynist, but that he would be incapable of controlling the fundamentalist wing of his party that is anti-women. I think this is true on many issues, there was the concern that Romney could not keep the extremes of his party in check.

       1. YES!!!

    3. great comment Dave. and i agree with you about Mitt. he is not a misogynist. his party sadly contains way too many of them. he’s a good man in a bad party.

    4. Mitt should have withdrawn his support from Akin and the other guy and he didn’t. That sealed his fate with women, he supported people who arguably can be considered misogynists.And LOL at the GOP as the party of the middle class. Middle Class wealthy folks maybe. LOL

       1. Mitt won a larger share of the female vote than McCain did in ’08. Akin was responsible for Akin’s loss, not Mitt’s. His position on abortion wasn’t Mitt’s or the position of the GOP in general. The gender gap is small between the parties relative to the marriage gap: married women voted for Mitt 53-46; unmarried women voted for Obama by 67-31.LOL if you want at the GOP as the party of the middle class, but increasingly, that’s the case. You follow some wealthy individuals on Twitter, I’m sure — tech VCs and successful entrepreneurs, celebrities, etc. — who did you see more of them expressing support for, Obama or Romney?

42. the result shows polling to be a dirty technique used by the right and media to manipulate voters. it clearly failed, and polling should now be banned during campaigns. in France publishers go to jail if they publish poll results during a campaign. vive la republique!

43. Oh, one other comment. Re taxes:”But our country enjoyed a great economic run in the Clinton years and repealing the Bush tax cuts will simply take us back to the tax regime that was in place in those years.”Bear in mind, that no one on either side is advocating repealing all of the Bush tax cuts or letting them all expire. Both parties support making them permanent for all but the highest earners, even though about two thirds of the deficit impact of the cuts comes from the lower rates on everyone else.Also, under the Clinton rates, the super-wealthy would have a tax rate about half that of the upper middle class (since capital gains would be taxed at 20% and income at a top rate of 39.6%). There’s nothing equitable about that. There should be the same top rate for both capital gains and income, as there was under the ’86 tax reform.

    1. True, provided you think that both dividends and capital gains contribute equally to economic growth. If you think one spurs more growth than the other, that’s the one that ought to get taxed at a lower rate.

44. interesting data suggests that people with means want to offer a place on the ladder to those beneath them, instead of chopping the bottom steps offhttp://felixsalmon.tumblr.c…How America’s richest counties voted: There are six counties in the US with a median income of more than $100,000. Here’s the list. And here’s how they voted:Loudoun County, Virginia: Obama 51.6%, Romney 47.2%Falls Church, Virginia: Obama 69.1%, Romney 29.6%Fairfax, Virginia: Obama 57.3%, Romney 41.1%Los Alamos, New Mexico: Obama 48.7%, Romney 45.0%Howard, Maryland: Obama 59.5%, Romney 38.3%Hunterdon, New Jersey: Obama 40.0%, Romney 58.9%

    1. Except there isn’t much of a ladder anymore, and Democrats aren’t really offering one. The Democratic party is more of a coalition between the rich and the poor, not a ladder between them.Also, it’s worth noting that 5 of those 6 counties (except Hunterdon, which is old money) benefit disproportionately from larger government spending, and Democrats are the party of that.

       1. a bigger ladder would be better

    2. education leads to higher incomes and a more progressive mind

       1. this — so much thiswestchester county taxes itself to provide some of the best public schools in the country; so do north shore suburbs around chicago. those voters choose to invest in their communities, in their kids and in the future.

45. Given that my business these days is specializing much more on deep analytics and big data, I found myself here with our SF-based, math-focused team crunching all kinds of numbers re the statistics, for fun. It could have been horse racing or sports.But forgetting math, a bunch of interesting thoughts came up re predicting the outcome early:You could tell Florida and Ohio were going to go to Obama because the outstanding counties (Miami-Dade and Cuyahoga) were historically democrat.Plus urban counties tend to have the late voting turn-ins because the polls are more crowded and numerous. And most every US big city is very blue (Houston is the only red 1 I can think of). So the later the election calls, the more they tend to be democrat.

    1. I suspected that, but never did the analysis to validate it. Makes sense…

46. I think we need a modern Lincoln…

47. @fredwilson:disqus Great post. I was too was very happy with the outcome, not just for POTUS but for most of the other race. Most of the aggressive social warriors lost, the war on drugs got the first chink in its armor, several states improved their support for equality, the Senate got a new member who doesn’t fit prior year litmus tests, a few obstructionists got ousted and replace with reasonable thinkers and the Supreme Court will get progressives to balance the conservative ideologues appointed during the Bush era. All in all this election gives me more hope for the USA than I’ve had since just before Bush was elected in 2000.BTW, here’s a great description of Obama’s accomplishments in office: http://www.huffingtonpost.c… and here’s a chart showing growth of government during both the more recent Republican administration and Obama’s regarding public and private sector jobs: http://www.businessinsider….

48. I don’t think I would take money from a firm whose partners (at least one of the partners) didn’t understand the basic principles of economics.

    1. Ah, come on. Fred and his partners understand the economics of tech start-ups well enough to have become one of the most successful venture capital firms in the country. We can differ on politics without getting ridiculous.

    2. can you explain them to me then?

    3. I thought yesterday many of the VC’s in US of America stood in queue to vote for the president … sorry … I did not know they were standing at your door step for funding :-).

49. What’s amazing is that this summary is spot-on (as a high-level takeaway) and better than most professionally political analyses.

50. Not well. But thanks for asking.

    1. well played!

51. My personal takeaway from this election: more people voted for Nobody than voted for Obama or for Romney. Hopefully this is a sign that people recognize that solutions will never come from government acting through statist force, rather they will come from individuals acting in mutual agreement in a free market setting.

    1. yeah, the turnout was a lot lower than 2008. about 10 million less i think.

52. I voted for Romney, believing that he would actually be better suited to convince a stuck-in-the-mud house of reps that they needed to bend a bit more. But, after reading this eloquent, well-thought out and inspirational post, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I did vote for the wrong guy. I hope so – because I truly feel that the only thing holding us back as a nation is our inability to address our deficits. I really do feel that we are again that sleeping giant that has the potential to accomplish truly great things. Great post, Fred. I’m a big fan and these types of ideas are the reason why. Thanks.

    1. i agree Lou. we have to stop this reckless spending and borrowing thing now!

53. Interesting debate via kidmercury .There is going to be a lot of things happening over the next few months- claims of mandate and all that. Power play time.If I may suggest, stop making the debate center on history. Bickering over who had a balanced budget, who didn’t, let’s have world government (@ShanaC:disqus remember ladies are not treated so well elsewhere) and so on does not cure anything. It is November of 2012 like it or not.If the members of government were forced to do the job explaining moves on real money in, money out we would start to achieve confidence. We need to grow ourselves out of the mess. This will not happen when both parties do the fear mongering without real figures leading citizens to be scared. That on top of businesses being unsure of what is coming (frozen money) and so on.It is time to call their hand. Unfortunately, we do not have any media outlets that can handle this.

    1. @davewbaldwin:disqus “Unfortunately, we do not have any media outlets that can handle this.”We have ACN! http://www.hbo.com/the-news…Unfortunately though, they are on an ~18 month delay… 🙂

       1. Ha! Very good.

54. I wasn’t going to weigh in so I waited until this will be buried but “war on women” really? war? Pro-life? Stupid policy on birth control? Have some wingnuts? (that is not a one party issue) but war? I might agree if they opposed basic rights, or had a policy of aborting female children….but war?

    1. When you got people who have the support of the establishment saying things like a child of rape is God’s will and actually using the phrase ‘legitimate rape’ then it’s not really all that far of a leap to get to war on women.

       1. Really?? Did Romney endorse that?? Really??? Read my comments you can see what I think about Private Equity Guys….so I think Obama is responsible for the stupid Black Panthers thing in Philly??? Is that how stupid we have become?

          1. Romney did not say that, but it reflects a common theme in the party that supports him. If Republicans gained control of both houses and the presidency, do you really think they would stick with the status quo?

             1. If you won the primary and won’t step down there is nothing you can do. That is the process. Delaware elected a Democratic county commissioner that should have still be in jail. I know the party didn’t like it but he won the primary.Most people like me think the comments were not only breathtakingly stupid, but even worse if that can come out of your mouth, what can be in your head?I don’t think all Chicago Democrats are like Blagojevich, but by your calculations that must be so, that is the root of our problem right now.

55. .While you can debate the whys and wherefores about policy forever, the turnout numbers do not lie. Politics trumps policy.Axelrod turned out the under 30s far in excess of anyone’s expectations — 5.3MM+ more under 30s voted for Obama than Romney.All the pundits decrying a 2008 turnout model were just wrong not because it was not possible but because Axelrod had his way.Romney did not turn as many votes as McCain — enthusiasm gap anyone — by 3MM. The enthusiasm gap was all baloney.It is not hard to see that under 30s are not enthused about voting for a rich white guy.Couple that with a masterful job on the Hispanic vote and you have a band of strength that could not be overcome.I attribute that to Axelrod and nobody else. While Rove gets a lot of credit for being Bush’s brain, there is no question that Axelrod could teach that course.The faux Dream Act Executive Order and the appearances on MTV and Pimp w the Limp and Pit Bull don’t look so shallow just now.The old folks faded and the young folks turned out for Obama. Axelrod did this.The great irony of this is that Obama completely failed to deal w immigration in his first year as promised and has saddled the under 30s with a crushing debt..

    1. Axelrod is an effective manager, but that’s all he is. There may be some under-30s who didn’t want to vote for a ‘rich white guy’, but I don’t think that’s the main point. I think Republicans need to wake up and realize that the god/guns/war/anti-gay/anti-immigration platform is obsolete.Look at these charts:http://cs702.wordpress.com/…If the Republican party wants to stay relevant and competitive, it’s time for a wake-up call. Time to catch up with the times and let go of the past. We’re a melting pot again so the GOP won’t get elected if its policies persecute the minorities. Women and gays are ‘out of the binders’. ;)Hillary (and Bill) Clinton is coming in 2016. The GOP only has four years to prepare for that perfect storm. I hope they’re successful because I’m a conservative without a party and have been for a long time.I may not be 100% right, but the GOP just lost an election. It isn’t the time to rationalize, it’s the time to open minds and learn.

56. 2012:Barack Obama: 60,004,933Mitt Romney: 57,335,5002012 Obama vote totals vs. Obama 2008: -9.4 million2012 Mitt Romney vote totals vs. McCain 2008: -2.5 million2008:Barack Obama: 69,456,897John McCain: 59,934,8142004:G.W. Bush: 62,040,610John Kerry: 59,028,444W gets 62MM votes in 2004. McCain gets 60MM in 2008. Mitt gets 57.3MM in 2012.Kerry gets 59MM in 2004. Obama gets 69.5MM in 2008. Obama gets 60MM in 2012.The election was winnable by Romney if he could have gotten McCain’s 2008 vote total.A total of approximately 129.5MM votes in 2008 and only 117.3MM in 2012.This election was eminently winnable if the Republicans could have delivered the McCain totals.This is the science of political science.This was a tactical victory, a technical victory, a victory of execution and will.It was not a victory of enthusiasm. It was not a victory of ideology. It was a mechanical victory.The Republicans need to weigh and measure their effort. Nonsense that they were too conservative — this was a very liberal Republican from Massachusetts for goodness sake.No, the Republicans did not turn out their forces in numbers equal to McCain – Palin.Rubio? Sure, next time.Take heart Republicans, this is just blocking and tackling — at which you were weak but can get very much better..

    1. This post make a similar point about the drop in turnout and also drills down a little deeper into the exit numbers, pointing out that some of the conventional wisdom about the election is wrong. E.g., that the GOP actually broadened its appeal among different demographics this time (albeit, not enough to win — see paragraph 3)).

       1. .I was very surprised to learn that Pres Obama received 10% less support than in 2008. The Republicans had their opening and failed to capitalize upon it.There was no Republican enthusiasm advantage..

          1. I think the Republicans should get rid of Fox News’ bias. It has not served them well.

          2. Republican turnout was suppressed by people like me who have voted republican in the past, but cannot vote for the current anti-thinking, anti science, take statements out of context, socially conservative republican party.

       2. Also @JLM:disqus http://email-sg.xydo.com/wf… shows how it comes down to data. The Obama team played the media, based on answering the same ol’ tired questions not showing your hand.

          1. Obama’s team definitely out-executed. The GOP also didn’t win a large enough percentage of the demographic represented in that photo of his data team.

             1. That’s why I wrote the reply about finding way to force Washington’s hand in doing what they’re doing. It probably came off as a hurridly written rant.The media conspiracy is hogwash for the media is simply ignorant and lazy (Apple/Tree), so they will ask the predictable questions having nothing to do with what is happening and envy will continue (all persuasions).Oh well, I guess we see the cast of characters change in the Executive plus annoyances via Reid as they place under radar some foriegn details…….

57. Respectfully Fred, your passage about the Bush Tax cuts is selective with the facts and misleading. First of all, the “Bush” Tax cuts sunset in 2010, but President Obama and a House and Senate controlled by Democrats passed a two year extension to the tax rates that are known as the Bush Tax cuts. If you hold President Bush accountable (as is implied by referring to them as Bush Tax cuts and the need to repeal) for the lack of revenue, you must not be selective in application and hold President Obama accountable as well. Second, there is no need to repeal these tax rates because they expire at the end of the year. Last, if you admit deficits are the problem, what’s the justification for repealing $4.5 trillion in spending cuts? Not sure the logic comes full circle.

58. Fred – great post. Agree with all of your points. Now the real issue becomes will the House continue obstructionist politics or get to work on the compromises necessary to deal with the big issues (?) – starts with reduced Defense spending, smart tax and entitlement reforms, comprehensive and long-term deficit reduction, and remembering that investment in Education and Healthcare is an investment in our long-term competitiveness. My part will be to add jobs here in the US.

59. “The Latino vote in Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada has changed those states from red to blue and maybe permanently.” I cannot speak to the last three states, but this is a terrible overstatement with respect to Florida.”President’s bailout of the auto industry in 2009 was a huge bet that paid off bigtime yesterday.” A initiative that began during the Bush administration, so laying all the credit at Obama’s feet is not altogether accurate. Of course, there were the behind the scenes negotiations (arm twisting, if you will) that bypassed the normal course of events under existing bankruptcy law. A politically active group of unsecured creditors (guess which…) moved to the head of the line, secured creditors moved to #2, and other classes of unsecured creditors were placed at #3. Sadly, some of those in the third spot were reported to be accident victims due compensation under final judgements issued by civil courts. I hate to be caustic, but this was political pandering at its worst. It is also worth mentioning that by bypassing the ordinary rules associated with restructuring, the auto making beneficiaries of the bailout were left with crushing union debt, a burden that does not bode well for the future.”The House is in full control of the Republicans and the Tea Party. They will continue the obstructionist politics that have been the dominant theme in Washington for the past four years.” Seriously, the Repubs are obstructionist? Negotiations are a two way street with give and take on the most important issues for each party to the negotiations. In short, it takes two to create an obstruction in politics. Where was the bipartisanship when the PPACA was moving through the House and Senate using parlimentary tricks?”[R]epealing the Bush tax cuts…”? As already noted, the 111th Congress could have done so but did not, which at the time held every one of the political cards.Re “HIspanics” (sometimes referred to as “Latinos”), “Their signature issue is immigration reform.” Hardly, but it certainly makes a terrific soundbite.Of course it is possible to bring “manufacturing jobs back to the US”. However, “possible” and “will” are not synonyms and entirely dependent upon consumer willingness to “Buy American”. I can think of very few industries, should this happen, that would have any significant effect on US employment opportunities. As we all realize, consumers are in the driver’s seat about this issue since they vote with their wallets, and their wallets scour for lower prices. Consumer electronics? Only under a Utopian ideal? Apparel? That horse long ago left for other pastures, as is only too evident walking around NYC’s garment district. Of course, a myriad of other examples abound.While I well understand what underlies the above article, it in my opinon seems much more like a “talking piece” that an objective analysis. I do agree that control of the deficit and spending are keys to future economic growth, but there is nothing I can identify in the administration’s approach that demonstrates or suggests its commitment to much needed reform.

    1. The 111th Congress also faced a much shakier economy. Just because something makes sense at one time does not mean it makes sense at another.

       1. The 110th Congress could have done the same, but it too did not.

60. Hi Americans Yesterday was something to Observe as the Democrats went nuts trying to intimidate Voters and if you call that a Democratic process then we now live in a new era of Political understanding. I have been around a long time all the way back to my first vote Kennedy I have seen a lot of different things happen in the Good old USA Voting era. One change I totally disagree with is how Latino’s choose to express their new found freedom They come from a long line of if you shout long enough and make enough threats people will change how they Vote. This is not Democracy at all yes the US is a melting pot of people but they need to understand that there are rules that have to be obeyed during Voting time and if this is not nipped in the Bud right now we will see our country turn into the same kind of country that they came from… Yes they have right to Vote and go to Rallies and yell and shout for their Candidates but when one goes to Vote that is a private thing not to be interrupted by some hot headed individual screaming both in English and Spanish that if you do not Vote For their candidate there will be repercussions . This is not Democracy this is what Latino’s only know and till they are taught the correct way to present their self’s while Voting things will only get worse and I mean worse just like what happens in the countries they came from. Just look at the history from their countries and see how they act. It is time for our Government to teach them how to respect the Voting Process or this will be worse in 2016. So what does it take to get the new comers to allow freedom of ones views without being threatened with bodily harm for not seeing things their way. How do we get the Message to where it needs to go as the Media does not want to address this at all as it would interfere with getting sensational footage for prime time showing a raging woman screaming at the top of her lung. See the Media has a huge responsibility in reporting the truth not as what is fed them by the Democrats or Republicans their job is to inform the truth not a smidgen of the truth but the closest to the Truth as possible. That sure does not happen a lot lately as the Media only see $$$$$$ and fat Christmas Bonus and then there is how the Two parties act during a campaign some like to play DIRTY and they know who they are and some who Like to say as close to Accurate as Possible and they know who they are. This has become a huge Pissing contest in which one side slurs the candidate and throws as much mud as they can and yes it will stick even though it is not the whole truth and we Americans by into it hook line and sinker. Elections are to be about fixing Washington which is so broken and greedy that HONEST candidates have a hard time fitting in the DIRTY PIT. This is America the land of the Free….. where if one loves to have a job one can find it but it seems that Washington has forgotten all the Promise to fix thing as now it is getting worse. As to the Economy we are not getting better here is a prime EXAMPLE our news station reported that 2300 new jobs had been added to the state and was a sign that thing were turning around. In the next segment they announced that 5500 jobs had been lost in the building industry Now that is the kind of Math that must be taught in school now days. Humm not gaining would be my guess and if that is what is called moving FORWARD wow are we in big trouble. IF the now Senate and Congress cannot fix this mess this next year then we will see things that we could not even fathom happening. Four years will not cut it that is the bottom line… I wish the media would write about things that really matter.

61. I’ve been reflecting how similar the two-party system is at it’s core across most countries who practice it. The topics change, but it seems to me to crudely boil down to:Right/conservative – longing for the world of yesterday, and trying to preserve itLeft/liberal – longing for a new way, and looking for a changeThe world is always changing, whether we like it or not. But when change happens too fast for society to catch up and come to terms with it, conservatives are elected and help slow things down, letting people catch their breath and make sense of it. And when they slow things down too much, liberals get elected once again and push forward.This is awfully simplistic, I realize, but probably reflects longer term currents.The results of this election seem to me to be a reflection of the changing demographics of this country – immigrants as voters and an issue, women rights, same-sex couples. We have changed, our values have changed.The two party system’s sole value in my view is the cushioning pendulum effect between the progressive and the reactionary. At its core, the system fails to offer a meaningful choice as it bundles topics arbitrarily and inconsistently (why can’t a republican have conservative fiscal values and liberal human values? or vice versa?). In my view, it serves more to represent when either (i) people want change, or (ii) when they need a break to catch up.Today, we voted fort more change. I am ready. To me, that is good.

62. I’m glad you’re not gloating or gushing as so many are today, but writing thoughtful material.You’re absolutely right about Hispanics. My daughter is one of the few white Eurasians in her school, it’s mainly Hispanics and blacks, many new immigrants. She has been studying Spanish since grade school. We need to legalize people who are working, yes. The problem I see, however, is that immigration isn’t always about working, it’s about answering the magnetizing call of welfare. And that would be fine at first, as many deserve to come for all kinds of legal reasons. But we do need a better plan than the current “bilingual” education which can often turn out to be “separate and not equal.”However, there are the problems of dysfunction and poverty and despair that plague immigrant communities and that falls hardest on kids. One of the gravest sights I see constantly is the kids of immigrants who came to this country in the last two decades turning into drug addicts. Russians, Latin Americans, Chinese. Their parents suffered and starved to come here and work 16 hour days, and the kids turn into addicts. It’s frightening. The drug legalization culture sponsored by Soros is of course part of this problem but it’s also the schools, who prefer to let kids smoke dope as a crowd management tool and then look the other way as they in fact do graduate to harder drugs.So there are difficulties, but the youth Hispanic population is the biggest phenomenon in politics and the economy and culture these days. Occupy Wall Street had a lot of Hispanic participants, and leftist thinkers from Latin America directly involved, for example. Hispanics are no longer in the cliche of the conservative Catholic family and business oriented type. They are not religious, they are rapidly progressing urban professionals and they buy tons of gadgets, statistically more than other groups even. It’s small wonder that Best Buy now has Spanish language signs in big type everywhere throughout the store. Not accepting the Hispanic population now is merely bad for business and people simply have to adjust. I was forced to adjust the first time I went to one of my kid’s schools and they had no forms in English. Fortunately my kids helped me fill out the form, and then we looked up the word for “chicken pox” on line. The election worker the other day spoke Spanish and couldn’t figure out my name, looking for it under the letters “Ph,” and never hearing of such an Irish name. And so it goes, one immigrant group displaces another, that’s how it is in America.Now as for the “war on women,” come now, Fred. This was always a fiction. There was never any war. Women were always able to get birth control and safe abortions even in Mississippi. There, the evil Todd Akin got only 39% of the vote. It was a landslide for McKaskill, who is more conservative than the progs on Twitter like but who is a solid Democrat who will fight for women’s rights. So it really is fake. Look at all the women elected! Even the socialist Native American Elizabeth Warren! The “war on women” nonsense distracts from what should be more genuine issues like jobs and education.You’re an engineer and a tekkie, right? So think, please. Stop yourself in your tracks and ask yourself whether any single women you know in your life is somehow prevented anywhere, by any cleric or politician, from getting birth control or an abortion. So get over this nonsense.

    1. FTR. The state that was hung with Akin problem is MO.

    2. i know women who have been prevented by clerics from getting birth control….

       1. Could you cite an actual example of that, ShanaC? It’s really as fake as the day is long. There are 60 PPs in Texas, and something like 80,000 abortions a year. Links, please. Oh, you claim this is personal information that you can’t divulge? Well, I don’t believe you. I have friends who weep that they had abortions instead of babies. I don’t know anyone, even in strict Catholic families and communities, who hasn’t been able to get an abortion or get contraceptives. It’s just not real.

          1. Talk to Pearlperry Reich – https://www.facebook.com/pe… she’s been on the record at Chulent about birth control in chassic communities as one of the factors that make them into cults.Also: The Duggars. Like who tried to have 20 kids: http://crushable.com/entert… Even though at kid 19 they were told not to try again….They’re quiverfull: http://www.thedailybeast.co…

             1. Shana, I thought you were going to give me examples of clerics who *wielded state power and political influence* to bar a town or state from having birth control clinics or birth control in the stores. But what you’re giving me is a) an example of a religious community where the clerics have a hold over people but don’t have official state power — they are non-state actors and b) an example of some born-against who had a lot of kids — which is a form of addiction — and who get a lot of media attention. That doesn’t translate into any imperative on women in that town or state.In other words, you took some cases from the private sector that are troubling. But what is the solution? To have New York State come in and tell the Hassidic community or the Catholic community to change their practices? That would be horrible. Or to have the police arrest the Duggars, or ban media from covering them? That would be horrible. I don’t understand what remedy you’d advise here. The problem right now isn’t clerical power in the US; the problem is secular socialist power in the Obama Administration — and the HHS mandate that would make the Jesuits buy Sandra Fluker her birth control. If Obama told the Food & Drug Administration to force all Jewish institutions to have ham sandwiches in their cafeteria or be denied state aid, or to stay open on Saturdays and be de-registered, I’d feel the same way.

             2. New Square votes en Bloc – http://forward.com/articles…And the reason for this: Because you could be subject to arson and other forms of abuse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…One of the things that Citizens United opened up was the fact that yes, your church donation plate can now go into political ads via funneling those donations into 501c4. And I don’t think that is fair to me, or even the person donating to that church.I also think you are being naive about the power of nonstate actors on the state. Even though it is illegal to say who to vote for by a preacher, if someone says “only vote for pro life candidates” and you risk being shunned in your small town if you don’t, where you run your local business and depend on local customers, what do you think happens?And yes, I think the state should come in and tell the Hassific Community, the evangelical Protestant community, and evangelical catholic community to shut up about certain things. I think yes, the state of Arkansaw should, for example, take their kids away if they don’t start complying to common core when it comes to evolution standards if the duggars don’t change their home school education plans. You’re denying your kids a fair education and the state will alter have to pick up that cost. Even the most libertarian state can and should act as in loco parentis for children so they have the opportunity to behave freely later on. We do it with Christian Scientists and their children all the time. (blood transfusion)I think the state should not allow pell grants to go to any seminary institutions. And while charitable goods that churches do should be tax deductible, I don’t think religious activities should be. They’re a lifestyle choice that don’t concern the state. Why is it any different than the state’s relationship with you going to the theater instead.And I think bloomberg is doing the right thing by forcing the chassidic community to waive certain liability rights for metziah b’peh. For the record, the reason this is so contentious is ultra-orthodox communities are already suspicious enough of healthcare that they don’t effectively immunize within the community, so you get outbreaks of whooping cough. The rabbinate in areas of NY have threatened to tell their communities to not report things like whooping cough if the waivers go ahead. (check links like this http://failedmessiah.typepa… )And what is wrong if the Jesuits buy the birth control that Sandra Fluke is partially paying for by buying into the Georgetown insurance pool?. I’m not making the priests buy it for themselves.(also, Obama does force certain things on Jewish institutions eg: my high school can’t deny admission to someone because they are not jewish because they take state funding and we get regents diplomas And I am fine with this fact. If you don’t want to deal with HHS mandate, don’t take the tax benefits of covering people in the first place.)

             3. Shana, here’s why what you’re saying does not matter one whit. Not one whit. You’re invocation of New Square is an outlier, for one. And your invocation of donations going to PACs is irrelevant. Example. I donate to my Catholic Church. The Catholic Church preaches against abortion and birth control; perhaps some wealthy Catholic businessmen donate to pro-life candidates. So what? The reality is you have access to birth control and abortion and so does every women in this state and even in Texas and Missouri. The atmospherics does not change the ground reality. The repeated fake invocation of the atmospherics is illegitimate in political campaigning and we see it now in spades with Obama — despite the hysterical “war on women” narrative readied and bandied about by the left, white women voted in huge numbers for Obama as did women of colour all across the board AND HE WON. DUH. So it’s silly to keep pretending that there is a war on women when there is no war, and Obama won.You’ve gone off on another topic of immunizations — I won’t “go there”. It’s not just the Hassidic communities that do this; perfectly educated yuppie middle class who are health obsessives also do it and don’t vaccinate their children either.Sandra Fluke can get insurance from the Jesuits if she insists on keeping her job with them for everything she needs in health care EXCEPT contraception. For that, she will spend $9 a month at Wal-mart, order online, or go to Planned Parenthood if her college job salary reaaaaly means that she can’t afford it. Truly, that is the solution for Ms. Fluke.You progs always knee-jerk with the response on this that is so predictable — “Don’t want to do the secular state’s bidding?Then don’t take federal funding”. In other words, you imagine that it is “okay” to have the federal government PUNISH people for their beliefs — and you still think the First Amendment is intact?!BTW, that result is exactly why people oppose ObamaCare — it’s coercive socialism that begins to intrude on the individual’s rights.Ok, right back at you. Don’t want the unpaid low-cost service of 12 percent of America’s Catholic hospitals at all? Want them all taken out of the health care system? Then take back your federal funding.You can see how stupid that is — and you can see by the figure of 12 percent that there are ALWAYS other choices than Catholic hospitals if, God forbid, you find yourself in the middle of the night needing a partial-birth abortion.In fact, it would be discrimination for the state not to give federal funding to the Catholic Church, but give it to other churches or religious institutions, merely because they have a teaching on abortion and contraception. Indeed, that WOULD be the end of separation of church and state. If the state gets to cherry pick belief systems of what it funds, then it is not abiding by the notion of separation, the First Amendment, and non-descrimination.The exemption of Catholic institutions from this mandate is not the bureaucratic or moral or political horror that anyone imagines, even the American Spectator authors. The reality is that various exemptions are going to have to go out for various things — or else we will feel the hot breath of the coercive state on our necks.Sandra Fluke at the end of the day doesn’t have to work for a Catholic institution — that’s the problem with all those demanding accommodation of her needs in this fashion. But I’m not for making her lose her job or for harming those poor Hispanic cleaning ladies that have three children and the mean priests are making her have another — who are always invoked in these debates. These women have Planned Parenthood, also federally funded, to go to. So let them. Planned Parenthood can be funded to accommodate the shortfall that would not be spent out of their altered insurance policy.I’m all for the individual Catholic being free to go outside of their church’s teachings and going to Planned Parenthood if they as an individual wish to violate the church’s teachings. That IS what freedom of belief IS. What I’m not for doing is COERCING religious believers into performing the state’s duties except voluntarily.Catholic hospitals voluntarily offer their services to the public on a nonprofit basis. And their federal funding is a recognition of the state’s role in assisting the third sector. It’s not a free and independent third sector if the state gets to dictate terms — as the Russian government does, for example, in funding nonprofits, which is why its list of funded nonprofits is so vegetarian.

63. Fred – I regularly look forward to insightful and balanced blogs from you; so it was especially disappointing to read this post. The irresponsible use of a grand generalization that “republicans are waging a war” on women shocked me. That is hate-mongering rhetoric that usually comes from ignorant and unenlightened party liners pushing a social agenda, as most stereo types and generalizations are.Mitt Roney at the peak of his tenure as Governor had 50%women in his cabinet, President Obama topped out at 32%. There are at least seven Democratic governors who have no women in their cabinet. Who is at war against the glass ceiling and getting women to equality in the work place if you compare those numbers? Your own industry has an abysmal 11% women working in it and your own firm has a bunch of old white males that all could be Mitt Roney working for it. Data and evidence speaks a lot louder than rhetoric.You would likely be very dismissive of any entreprenuer who said “The VC must stop the catagorical stripping of rights from entrepreneuers and theft of their hard work and IP to fuel the greed and insatiable lust for more money” – wouldn’t you? Same generalization and use of negative rhetoric.Whether one believes that stopping a beating heart constitues murder is a very personal moral issue that goes across party lines, I know many more women who are anti-abortion than men yet would they be waging a war on themselves for being pro-life?I hope in the future you are more thoughtful of Republicans who have done so much for Women’s rights like Romney, Jack Welch, Ronald Reagan and Scott Brown (who was our Republican Senator with a record of supporting many of the women’s social issues from abortion to gay rights) who have done more to help women rise up to equal footing. There are so many Republicans that have done so much for women that it is hypocritical and irresponsible to write a blog calling republicans names and yet not doing anything about it in your own firm.Put your money where your mouth is and hire some women partners and help the 11% VC industry stop pushing down the glass ceiling on so many talented women!

    1. first of all, there aren’t many women who are qualified or who want to be partners in a VC firm. we are losing a super talented young woman this week because she just isn’t interested in being a VC. i am doing a lot to help change these things which i suspect you aren’t aware of. but i am deeply offended by your assertion that i don’t care about this issue. it is always easy to spew venom at someone who doesn’t agree with your political views. you’ve just done that to me and it is deeply upsetting to me given the amount of time, energy, and money i am spending on this issue of women in entrepreneurship, tech, and VC right now.now on to the GOP and women. all you need to do is to look at Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock to understand what I am talking about. any party that supports folks like that with money and other forms of support, for the role of Senator of all things!, is suspect in my mind and many others. stop doing that and i will stop talking about it.

       1. women supported the president over romney by 55% to 44%they don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowinghttp://www.latimes.com/news…

       2. Fred – you should be as offended as Romney should be at your comment – and guys like Scott Brown, Bob McDonnell, and arguably the best CEO of all time – Jack Welch and every fiscally conservative member of the Republican party should be. All those men have data of pushing successful agendas for women, yet you put them in the bucket of a group of men “waging war on women”. I can’t know what you are doing to change the face of your firm from five rich white guys, other than what you show to the public. The same holds true for politics yet in your blog, and in the press people pretend to know an individual’s attitudes despite evidence to the contrary.I’m glad you are offended by my comments, because it lends credibility to your claim that you are doing something to change your organization. Perhaps it will help you understand why people would be deeply offended by your comments because they affiliate more with the Republican party. Your generalization lables them part of a group waging war on women and that is unfair.My point wasn’t to offend you, it was to push you to reflect on how your generalization might have offended others and was entirely unfair.

64. The Grumpy Economist has the money quote on election results. If you live in Chicago, you know first hand that he is right. Chicago has resided in the White House for four years, and will get four more.”Advice? If you run a business, get a lot of lawyers and lobbysists. He who writes the regulations will make a lot of money. He who does not will lose. Make sure you make the right political contributions and don’t say anything critical of those in power. You will need a discretionary waiver of something, and these rules are so huge and so vague, the regulators can do what they want with you. Don’t be the one to get “crucified” (EPA). We live in the crony-capitalist system that Luigi Zingales describes so well. Live with it. Political freedom requireseconomic freedom, taught us Milton Friedman. You don’t have the latter, don’t expect the former.”

    1. grumpy is right

       1. I don’t think he is incorrect. Read some books on Mayor Daley 1!. Heh.

65. Stick to writing checks, for now. As a democrat you don’t even understand the monetary or fiscal policies of your own party, but you should. I highly recommend getting a start by reading Warren Mosler and if you want to go deeper, read Don Patinkin.A balanced budget is a republican meme. As far as the other issues you raise, they have nothing to do with term 2. Obama is an incumbent, the market is up and money is flowing from the US Treasury, via debts bought by the Federal Reserve (QE), to support the entire global economy…beginning with the US economy.Romney was a joke of a candidate to run because a truly rich man doesn’t get elected POTUS regardless of party, race or sex.Support a lower LT capital gains tax, reducing employer payroll tax and balance with higher income tax over $250k income and reducing mortgage interest deduction over the median home price. Screw with LT capital gains and Americans will discover what capital flight is about. That package will create a very strong economy and ATTRACT capital to the US.

    1. stick to leaving comments without an attitude pleasewe don’t insult each other around hereinsulting me because you don’t like my politics might feel good to you but it doesn’t feel good to me

       1. I am responding under my legal name, so I am not trolling here and it’s not right to silence someone when you disagree. For starters, I am here because I appreciate a lot of the other issues you raise and your perspective on them.That being said, you have a large audience of people that you influence through AVC. At 579 comments on this thread, you probably have 5-10x that passing through without comment on a daily basis.On matters pertaining to the framework of social organization – government -we are subject to, everyone has a duty to represent their personal interests and educate their peers. People think voting is the end-game, but it’s really just a small formality compared to the burden of properly informing your peers and voting with your consumption dollars and time allocation.Like my trading background taught me, sitting on my hands is an alternative to buying or selling. In the case of the binary options the US electoral process channels voters into, I exercised my third right to pass on both candidates and make an effort to attack arguments instead of candidates.There is no reconciling the views of the Obama administration and the actions they have taken if you believe in a balanced budget. At the same time, a voter cannot reconcile the views of Romney and the actions he took as Governor of Massachusetts.I strongly advise diving into Warren Mosler’s material and understanding the global financial system and its mechanics. The abstraction of value is what drives international trade which drives capital flows which drives capital formation, jobs and ultimately tax receipts to support the total social structure.The entire social structure glued together by the dollar and its status as the undisputed reserve currency in the form of US treasury debts. To not supply adequate US treasuries to our international trading partners is to deprive them of currency they require to function.It is perverse, but I didn’t structure it this way.I would be more than happy to discuss any of this off comments if you would prefer. Otherwise, I can also agree to disagree having been allowed to say my peace.Thanks!Daniel

          1. that’s all fine. just don’t start a comment with “stick to writing checks” we all care a lot about and think about more than our day jobsto suggest that i shouldn’t do that is an insult to me and i took it personally

             1. No reason to be so sensitive. There has been no physical or financial injury directed or incurred toward anyone.Nature is anything but sensitive to being wrong and as Sandy has demonstrated, egos, intentions and regrets don’t count for much in the real world. What a horrible disaster, but one has to wonder how much damage and disruption there would be if the NFI Act of 1968 had never been passed to encourage ocean-front construction.http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…I wouldn’t be investing in tech flotilla’s off the coast of San Francisco if you don’t get government insurance! Nature breaks everything that isn’t natural. Government is man-made too.http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

             2. @danmcreavy:disqus Your opening sentence of your first comment was ad-homenim and insulting. The remainder of your first comment and both your replies were reasoned and appropriate for the conversation. Had you omitted your first sentence my experience is that Fred would have welcomed you with open-arms. As is, you introduced yourself by metaphorically spitting in Fred’s face so you shouldn’t be surprised that Fred responded with an admonition.

             3. Fair enough, I will soften my handshake. :)Best,Dan

             4. i am sensitive. and this is my blog. and this community is a sensitive one to me and each other. if you want to leave comments here, i would appreciate you following the cultural norms around here.

    2. Barbs aside(i’ll take your intro as a momentary lapse of reason) I found this Mosler resource for anyone interested. http://moslereconomics.com/…. Can u offer any other links or direction to his works?

       1. Thank you!

          1. My pleasure mon amie.

       2. Disclaimer – I have no relation to Warren – commercial or friendship. We’ve never even interacted online much less in real life.That’s the site operated by Warren and his family, so I’d start there. He is active in the comments and you can go directly to him with questions. There is a youtube video linked from one of his recent posts where he was speaker at Columbia University I believe. That would be give you a quick survey. If you want to go deep after Mosler, I would recommend reading through Don Patinkin’s published papers that go into quantifying the concepts. Bernanke’s papers are all available too.Let me know if you have specific questions and I will answer or direct you to a source as I can.The first question to answer for yourself:What is money?

          1. Much obliged.

66. I’d agree with you if it weren’t for the facts: 2/3rds of the country did not want it passed, if Scott Brown from MASS wasn’t elected specifically to stop it, and if it wasn’t passed on Christmas Eve without even reading it!!!. Come on now… that was pure partisan push-through.

67. yup

68. @druce:disqus Yes, imagine if a group of tech companies were to form a coalition to do this. Imagine the good will it would muster on the part of the American electorate especially if, like open-source, the process was open so anyone who wants could study the security.

69. I made a LOT of money in the run-up to Y2K. Miss those days.