Transterrestrial Musings

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If you're really sure that the Democratic front-runners can't win the election, then you can make a lot of money on Intrade. You can sell a Clinton+Obama basket for 49 cents on the dollar.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 02:44 PM

If it's Hillary, you are probably right.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at August 16, 2007 03:01 PM

So, you think that Obama or Edwards could win?

I (obviously) don't.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 16, 2007 03:04 PM

I think Obama, Edwards, Biden, Richardson could all win; the country seems more than ready for a change. And if it is Obama you might be pleasantly surprised at what you get.

The only one who will likely lose is Hillary and of course the Democratic base will likely nominate her in their idiocy. So you should drink to that. Heavily.

In any case I think that someone who has such high negatives such as Hillary should not be President.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at August 16, 2007 03:22 PM

Okay Rand, deal. Let's cancel the elections, cause you say so. ;-)

By the way, who is your preferred GOP candidate?

Posted by Bill White at August 16, 2007 03:29 PM

I think Obama, Edwards, Biden, Richardson could all win; the country seems more than ready for a change.

Change is available without voting for any of the Democrat candidates. In case you haven't noticed, Bush is not running again.

Okay Rand, deal. Let's cancel the elections, cause you say so.

I didn't say so.

I have no favorite, but I think that Thompson has been writing good things.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 16, 2007 04:02 PM

That depends entirely on who the GOP nominates. Not that it's likely, but (purely as an example) if Ron Paul won the GOP ticket, pretty much any top Dem could win in a land slide.

What you're really saying is that the GOP has such a strong bench that it doesn't matter who wins the GOP primaries - any one of them can take the center. I'm not sure that's true; although I like Thompson too.

Posted by Brock at August 16, 2007 04:13 PM

I don't think there are any really strong candidates from either party right now.

And I think this protracted three-year campaign season isn't going to produce a strong candidate.

Posted by Phil Fraering at August 16, 2007 04:36 PM

I'm not sure who exactly is supposed to be in this "strong bench", but you can buy the entire Republican bench for 40 cents on the dollar on Intrade. That's 9 cents cheaper than just Clinton and Obama.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 04:39 PM

They have a remarkably inexperienced bench and/or very high negative ratings.

I think Gore still plans to step in at some point but his global warming bandwagon is dying around him (reversal of Nasa data recently for example) and if that dies he looks the fool.

Who else is there waiting in the wings with name recognition and neither foot in his mouth? I'm drawing a blank.

Maybe its time for that Warren Beatty run.

Posted by rjschwarz at August 16, 2007 04:40 PM

Actually, I'd like to see Gore step in just so that the political attacks on AGW to get him would scuttle crap faster. I think that David Boren, if he were a bit younger, or Sam Nunn or Zell Miller would all have a chance. I think Lieberman would have had a chance if he hadn't been chucked over the side.

Posted by Jeff Medcalf at August 16, 2007 04:54 PM

Obama is just a younger version of the public Bill Clinton, a Philosophizer-in-Chief, the leading candidate to play the President in a 15-part ABC special presentation, perched gracefully on the edge of the Oval Office desk like an ebon heron, pensively addressing a skull named Yorick. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. I don't think he could be elected unless everyone over the age of 40 were disenfranchised.

Clinton, now...Rand, I think you need to gird yourself. With the digg.com boomer-offspring crowd ready to vote for the first time, and her iron self-control -- she has yet to make a single mistake, unlike every other candidate out there -- she could pull it off. All that's needed is a bit too much Big Apple ego from Guiliani or some dismissive patrician CEO-to-lineworker contempt from Romney (I don't think Thompson has the discipline to earn the nomination, let alone run a long general campaign), and she's in like Flint.

I agree with Glenn Reynolds that she'd probably do just fine in foreign policy. She'll have no problem screwing the nutroots over on Iraq etc., inasmuch as she owes them exactly squat.

But just watch the socialized medicine juggernaut come a-barrelin' down the pike at you, like garbage truck full of loaded Pampers with the brake lines cut.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 16, 2007 05:17 PM

Of course Hillary! can win.

Name the states that Kerry won that she loses. I don't think there is one.

All she has to do is poach Ohio...and with all the R corruption that's going to be tough to do!

Posted by George at August 16, 2007 06:14 PM

"Of course Hillary! can win.

Name the states that Kerry won that she loses. I don't think there is one."

That simplistic calculus might work if she were running against Bush. She is not.

I strongly suspect the day after election 08 will be remarkibly close to the map on the day after election night 88 than most people might think.

Thompson will take Pensylvania and Ohio along with Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The best Hillary can hope for is California.

I only pray she does not melt before she cinches the primary. I believe ths so strongly, I am considering switching registration to vote for her if Fred has my state locked up.

Posted by Mike Puckett at August 16, 2007 07:09 PM

Actually, Rudy Giuliani is George W. Bush.

Just without the legendary Bush 43 thoughtfulness and introspection.

Posted by Bill White at August 16, 2007 07:21 PM

No, just a lock on Pensylvania and a proable upset in Hillary's home state of NY.

Bill, surely you cannot be so slef-delsuional to think that Rudy is not a far more effective public speaker than Bush was.

The sad fact is the Democrats lost twice to a weak candidate. And the ones you are set to nominate are not one micron stronger. The Republicans have at least a couple of strong candidates thate are proable to get the nomination. How much hope does Bill Richards have?

Posted by Mike Puckett at August 16, 2007 07:34 PM

a probable upset in Hillary's home state of NY.

Yeah, sure, just look at what happened when they faced each other the last time. There's nothing like serial polygamy to endear you to the voters.

Although I personally don't care about that. The important issue is that a vote for any Republican other than Ron Paul is a vote to deepen defeat in Iraq and further imperil Afghanistan. A vote for any Democrat is a vote to cut our losses in Iraq and restore victory in Afghanistan.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 07:59 PM

A vote for any Democrat is a vote to cut our losses in Iraq

Losses? You speak as if it's the sands of Iwo Jima we're talking about. As if it's the Argonne in 1918 and our army is the Kaiser's half-dead, worn-out scarecrows eating their own shoeleather while 10-year-old girls back home trudge barefoot to the munitions factory for their 14-hour-shift.

Have you suffered any big-time "losses" in Iraq? Taxes go up 500%? Can't buy new tires? Eight-month waiting list to have a tooth filled? Mom have two gold stars in her window?

Or are you Feeling Someone Else's Pain, in true Sensitive New-Age Democrat style, even though (if you'd actually listen to them) the guys on the actual firing line have nothing but contempt for your concern?

Apparently Hillary Clinton is more of a man than half her fellow Wussocrats.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 16, 2007 08:17 PM

Have you suffered any big-time "losses" in Iraq? Taxes go up 500%?

Not taxes, because the Iraq war has been waged entirely with borrowed money. Howevever, partly because of the war and partly because of other bad policies, the US dollar is down 25% in Euros and down 33% in Canadian dollars. And interest rates are up. Like the dollar, American political influence has also been devalued, particularly because of the Iraq war.

Can't buy new tires?

This is not about me personally, this is about the national interest. Actually there are a lot of people losing their mort gages right now who really can't buy new tires, I'm just not one of them.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 08:41 PM

Do you really think anyone in Afghanistan is going to start trusting you once you've thrown the Iraqis under the bus and shown that the country's word is worth nothing?

Despite all the democrat posturing about how we should consider alternate moral or cultural viewpoints... they always seem to come around to proposing actions that our current or potential allies in the semi-feudal societies of SW Asia will view as being either incredibly retarded, incredibly evil, incredibly craven, or some combination of the three.

The Hildebeest had her chance to _start_ to prove that she was what she said she was, "just as tough as the Republicans on terror, but smarter," when Uribe came to Washington, and then she and the rest of the Democrat Party leadership refused to meet him.

Meet the new liberal, same as the old liberal.

Posted by Phil Fraering at August 16, 2007 09:00 PM

"Losses? You speak as if it's the sands of Iwo Jima we're talking about."

I, for one, am perfectly willing to see another four or five thousand American soldiers get killed in Iraq (and another 15,000 wounded) if that's what it takes. Anybody want to see my bid and raise it?

Posted by John Lewis at August 16, 2007 09:08 PM

Do you really think anyone in Afghanistan is going to start trusting you once you've thrown the Iraqis under the bus and shown that the country's word is worth nothing?

That's a good description of what we are already doing in Iraq. The conception of "victory" in Iraq is solipsistic; it has nothing to do with the actual welfare of Iraqis. It will be unpalatable to scale back our promises by hundreds of miles so that, as you say, our word is worth something again. But it has to be done for Afghans in particular to trust us again.

It would also help to accept Iraqi refugees, instead of the callous position that they should go back to express faith in American "help". There are already two million of them and the US has accepted a grand total of about 900.

It would also help to accept that the Iraq war is a shotgun marriage between the US and Iran. That's unpalatable too, but it has to be done. None other than Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, just said that Iran is a friend in the region.

You can spout off all you want about considering or not considering alternate cultural viewpoints. The truth is that the war backers are the ones beholden to an unbending America-as-savior liberation theology. That side is the side that doesn't listen to Afghans or Iraqis, except to hand-picked ones.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 09:40 PM

Howevever, partly because of the war and partly because of other bad policies, the US dollar is down 25% in Euros and down 33% in Canadian dollars....

Yeah, right. You sound like one of those odd people who think if you whistle and it starts to rain, then you've learned how to make rain. Just because B happens after A doesn't mean A caused B.

And remind me to care about the pain of a weak dollar anyway. Except...oops! Turns out I export my product, so a weak dollar is great news for me. Oh well. Apparently you didn't realize that a "weak" dollar is just another way to say American goods have become more competitive on the world market. Guess that word "weak" threw you for a loop, huh? That can happen when you reason according to how a sentence sounds, rather than what it means.

Actually there are a lot of people losing their morgages right now

And that would be because of the war, right? As opposed to the fact that they borrowed way more then they could afford in the subprime market, 'cause they figured the real estate bubble would go on forever and they could flip the house before the balloon payment was due?

Gee why don't you blame the Peru earthquake on the war while you're at it? I mean, the "surge" started in April and, boom, 4 months later an earthquake. Coincidence? Ha!

I, for one, am perfectly willing to see another four or five thousand American soldiers get killed in Iraq

Those serving neither need nor care about your permission, aristocrat. They mostly just want you to STFU and let 'em get the job done.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 16, 2007 09:49 PM

If you think that by wilfully sacrificing someone suddenly your word will become more credible than you're kind of proving my point about being either stupid or evil.

Posted by Phil Fraering at August 16, 2007 09:52 PM

I mean, trust me, I live in the South, I know a lot more about primitive feudal cultures than the rest of you.

Posted by Phil Fraering at August 16, 2007 10:16 PM

If you think that by wilfully sacrificing someone suddenly your word will become more credible

The doctor who admits that his patient has incurable cancer and suspends futile treatment earns more credibility than the doctor who stays in denial and perpetually schedules more surgery. Especially if that doctor was self-appointed in the first place.

If you have ever been in that situation, you would understand that some patients want to be left alone with their problems. And that does go for the majority of Iraqis, notwithstanding the selected few who confirm the faith of the war boosters.

Afghanistan is of course the first patient of the same doctor. The Afghans do not want the US to go away. However, they are disgusted at the botched operation on the other patient, including that for more money has been spent on it than on the unfinished work in Afghanistan.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 10:16 PM

Apparently you didn't realize that a "weak" dollar is just another way to say American goods have become more competitive on the world market.

You're mixing cause and effect with a characterization like this. If the dollars loses value, that is a response to the country spending beyond its means. It's not only a response, but also a deterrent. It does make American goods more competitive than they were before, but it's a partial cure to a disease, not a business windfall for the country as a whole. All things being equal, a country is wealthier when its currency is worth more.

The way you put it, it's like saying that if someone cancels your credit cards, it's good news because it is a "another way to say" that you have more incentive to work hard and make money.

So how has America spent beyond its means lately? The Iraq war is one of several ways --- as discussed, the war is fought on credit.

They borrowed way more then they could afford in the subprime market,

They borrowed what they thought that they could afford. But credit has tightened a lot faster than they expected because, in various ways, America has been spending beyond its means. Certainly these home buyers are also to blame; like the Iraq war, they are also deficit spenders.

If you want to blame these hundreds of thousands of borrowers for losing their mort gages, then you aren't 100% wrong. But you aren't 100% right either. They do vote and they may not want to hear that their problems are just tough love.

Posted by at August 16, 2007 10:38 PM

If the dollars loses value, that is a response to the country spending beyond its means and blah blah blah

Dude, you are so purely making this up as you go along. You clearly know fock all about macroeconomics and, alas, it turns out the latter is not the kind of stuff you can just puzzle out on the spur of the moment based on vague analogies and mother wit.

'Scuse me, I've got to go watch some paint dry.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 16, 2007 10:53 PM

Comparing the war in Iraq to a hospital patient is stupid. Besides, if the Dems win the election, then the 'doctor' will be socialized medicine and NOTHING will happen in Iraq for an undetermined amount of time.

The interest rate bubble in mort*ages burst, after many years of robust growth when we thought it would blow up before. That burst has nothing to do with the administration, it has to do with lenders trying to make a buck and overextending. Except for that bump in the road, the economy is still currently strong, especially after the long awaited correction in the market brought on by the bubble bursting. There's a ton of good opportunites at excellent prices in the market right now, yet 'anon' would have us hoist the white flag and surrender. Its a shame that our economy is so good, since if were as bad as 'anon' says, he wouldn't be able to buy the PC he posts his hate with.

Posted by Mac at August 17, 2007 06:01 AM

If the Dems win the election, then the 'doctor' will be socialized medicine and NOTHING will happen in Iraq for an undetermined amount of time.

That's an unfounded inference, because in practice the American medical system is 50% more expensive, as a fraction of GDP, than it is in other wealthy nations.

http://ocde.p4.siteinternet.com/publications/doifiles/012006061T02.xls

Regardless of whether you like the coverage that you would get from single-payer health care, you should expect it make more money to be available for wars, not less.

That burst has nothing to do with the administration

How far the economy will fall from overspending in the housing sector depends on how much the nation has been overspending in general. The federal government is the worst overspender of all, and the Iraq war is one of its main excesses.

Posted by at August 17, 2007 08:25 AM

If I were a Dem, I'd want Lieberman. War policy realist, doesn't made BDS his chief message.

Lieberman vs. Romney - now that would be inneresting...

Posted by Alan K. Henderson at August 17, 2007 09:14 AM

How far the economy will fall from overspending in the housing sector depends on how much the nation has been overspending in general.

Of course, since the govt is buying all the houses, right? Sheesh

Posted by Mac at August 17, 2007 10:15 AM

Of course, since the govt is buying all the houses, right?

No, the issue is that in order to prevent a financial collapse of the home lending market, the federal government needs to provide credit from other sources. As in fact it already has --- if you saw the news headlines today, the Fed lowered interest rates by a half percent. But America does not have unlimited credit available for all things. If the government just releases more and more credit, it will eventually reduce the national currency to shinplasters. It's because we've been wallowing in credit that the dollar has fallen so much compared to the euro.

So it does not help anything that Bush has put a half-trillion dollars of credit directly into the Iraq war. Moreover that the Iraq war has in it at least another half-trillion dollars of liabilities, moreover that the Iraq war has helped drive up the price of oil. You talk as if money for wars just grows on trees, as long as you don't pay for them with taxes. It doesn't; the money has to come from somewhere.

Posted by at August 17, 2007 10:52 AM

No, the issue is that in order to prevent a financial collapse of the home lending market, the federal government needs to provide credit from other sources.

Oh, so the market gets a correction and the government is supposed to bail us out again. Lefties and the "Throw money at it" fix.

So it does not help anything that Bush has put a half-trillion dollars of credit directly into the Iraq war.

Yeah, since all that money went to the war (to build houses?)it causes a housing industry crash due to credit problems. Banks of course have no fault at all in their lending practices. Your attribution of the credit crash to war money is not correct. With the lending rate so low recently, due to the rate cuts by Greenspan, the housing industry showed new growth because people could afford to buy. When rates increased, everyone was warned what was coming, but banks continued to lend and lend. Bubble bursts, housing industry is in a short free fall, market gets a much needed correction....yet, its the government's fault. Oy Vey.

Posted by Mac at August 17, 2007 12:32 PM

I'll believe that the Dems are concerned about the deficit when they propose spending cuts (outside the military).

As long as the Dem "solution" to every problem involves "raise taxes", it's accurate to conclude that raising taxes is one of their goals and isn't simply a means to some ends.

Posted by Andy Freeman at August 17, 2007 05:27 PM

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