One of the bright spots in today's gloomy reporting is the following:
"Shares of Bank of China dropped 6.4 percent in Hong Kong after the South China Morning Post newspaper reported that the bank is expected to announce a "significant writedown" in U.S. subprime mortgage securities, citing unidentified sources. In Shanghai, the bank's stock declined 4.1 percent."
At times, I have been depressed at the spectacle of Americans rampantly running through their cash while savvy foreigners wait to pick up the pieces. It's nice to note that Asians haven't become entirely successful in their U.S. investments. They sure weren't in the 1990's, when Japanese invested huge sums in U.S. projects that went bust. Now it's the Chinese, trying to switch some of their cash from staid government debt into higher reward vehicles and getting screwed.
So this is how capitalism recycles cash. They sell us everything from shoes to lampshades and we sell them bad investments. Maybe this will work if they're really slow on the uptake.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Asia Wakes Up and the Party's Over
Bad news from the Asian stock markets this morning (afternoon over there). They apparently are even less impressed with Bush's economic stimulus plan than Americans. It has occurred to them that the years of growing their economies at the expense of American manufacturing (China) or services (India) are coming to an end. All America can think of to do is pump more cash into the pockets of American consumers, so they can buy more things from foreigners with no intention of ever repaying them.
The big economic crashes occur when previous crashes recede far enough into the past that too many people are willing to belief convenient untruths. Such as the notion that it's possible to prosper by pushing pieces of paper around that say that everyone is richer without having produced anything of value.
Or that Keynes only applies during recessions. The other side of Keynes was his assertion that during prosperity, governments should run surpluses to offset their deficits during recessions. That, unfortunately, is politically unpopular, so we get stimulus during recessions and then, under Bush, stimulus during the good times as well. The real deficit, including the off-budget expenses for Iraq and Afghanistan and stealing from Social Security, has been running around half a trillion. During a recession, receipts fall, regular expenses for the economic safety net rise, and to this we are adding $145 billion in stimulus costs. Perhaps a trillion in one year?
Here in Oregon, the checks have been mailed out to refund our "overpayments" during the preceding and unexpectedly prosperous biennium. We dodged one bullet when the PERS recalculation of pension investments was made (I think) on December 31, just before the meltdown got really ugly, but sooner or later we'll be confronted, as we were five or six years ago, with annual state revenue forecasts going south. Our tiny "rainy day fund" is going to last about a year and then we'll be back where we were, cutting class days and getting unwanted attention from Doonesbury. It doesn't say a lot for the collective intelligence of Oregonians.
The big economic crashes occur when previous crashes recede far enough into the past that too many people are willing to belief convenient untruths. Such as the notion that it's possible to prosper by pushing pieces of paper around that say that everyone is richer without having produced anything of value.
Or that Keynes only applies during recessions. The other side of Keynes was his assertion that during prosperity, governments should run surpluses to offset their deficits during recessions. That, unfortunately, is politically unpopular, so we get stimulus during recessions and then, under Bush, stimulus during the good times as well. The real deficit, including the off-budget expenses for Iraq and Afghanistan and stealing from Social Security, has been running around half a trillion. During a recession, receipts fall, regular expenses for the economic safety net rise, and to this we are adding $145 billion in stimulus costs. Perhaps a trillion in one year?
Here in Oregon, the checks have been mailed out to refund our "overpayments" during the preceding and unexpectedly prosperous biennium. We dodged one bullet when the PERS recalculation of pension investments was made (I think) on December 31, just before the meltdown got really ugly, but sooner or later we'll be confronted, as we were five or six years ago, with annual state revenue forecasts going south. Our tiny "rainy day fund" is going to last about a year and then we'll be back where we were, cutting class days and getting unwanted attention from Doonesbury. It doesn't say a lot for the collective intelligence of Oregonians.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
A Reality Check for Kenya
In the 2.5 weeks of unrest in Kenya, the death toll is now reported to be 612. According to the CIA Factbook for Kenya, the population is 37 million. The birth rate is 39 per thousand annually, so 1.4 million a year or 4,000 per day. Infant mortality is 57 per thousand, so 228.
So this "crisis" is killing as many people in a week as there are babies dying in their mothers' arms from natural causes every day. It's a lot sexier to show violence in the media, but it's a minor problem for a country like Kenya.
The real problem is the mathematical fact that you cannot go on growing at the rate they have without eventually imploding from lack of food. Kenya has gone from 6.4 million in 1950 at rates that are dropping slightly as percentages but not in absolute terms. There isn't going to be any place left to grow enough food. They will overfarm until yields start to fall. There will be mass starvation. When? Who knows, but it will make the current dustup look like a Sunday School picnic.
So this "crisis" is killing as many people in a week as there are babies dying in their mothers' arms from natural causes every day. It's a lot sexier to show violence in the media, but it's a minor problem for a country like Kenya.
The real problem is the mathematical fact that you cannot go on growing at the rate they have without eventually imploding from lack of food. Kenya has gone from 6.4 million in 1950 at rates that are dropping slightly as percentages but not in absolute terms. There isn't going to be any place left to grow enough food. They will overfarm until yields start to fall. There will be mass starvation. When? Who knows, but it will make the current dustup look like a Sunday School picnic.
Oregon will matter to the Republicans at least
Unless John Edwards can start showing better results, the Democrats may have decided their nomination by May when Oregon has its primary. But with Romney's win in Michigan, the Republicans have set themselves on course for a convention showdown in Minneapolis. Romney, in his native state, spending hugely and getting no real participation from Giuliani, "won" with 39% of the vote.
Giuliani's swan dive has probably been too severe for him to reverse, and the new polls from South Carolina and Florida suggest that he can't hold the line in Florida, which was crucial to his strategy. But get this. McCain is leading in Florida with 22% of Republican support.
We are getting not yet getting any contests in which all candidates are both viable to local voters and committed in terms of money and organization. We've had Romney vs Huckabee in Iowa, Romney vs McCain in New Hampshire and Michigan. Next we'll have McCain versus Huckabee in South Carolina. Florida will have everyone's attention and somebody may get 100% of the delegates available (not all delegates because the RNC has penalized the state for its early timing) for a quarter of the popular vote.
This actually raises another question about Democracy in America. Those states that have winner-take-all formulas will disproportionately award the winners there compared with states like California that will disperse the results through the state. Since Giuliani is well positioned in several of these, he may get to Minneapolis with a large enough bloc to prevent any other candidate winning on the first ballot, but one which he will not be able to build on because of low national poll numbers.
Bringing us back to Oregon. In May, the modest number of delegates available will look a lot more compelling. I wouldn't want to predict a winner, and it may not matter, because the important point is that the second choices of the delegates will not be visible on the ballot and after the first round, that's what will matter.
I think there's only one news organization in Oregon large enough to investigate and report on this, and that's the Oregonian in Portland. I hope they take this issue on and tell us about the real people who will be running for delegates.
Giuliani's swan dive has probably been too severe for him to reverse, and the new polls from South Carolina and Florida suggest that he can't hold the line in Florida, which was crucial to his strategy. But get this. McCain is leading in Florida with 22% of Republican support.
We are getting not yet getting any contests in which all candidates are both viable to local voters and committed in terms of money and organization. We've had Romney vs Huckabee in Iowa, Romney vs McCain in New Hampshire and Michigan. Next we'll have McCain versus Huckabee in South Carolina. Florida will have everyone's attention and somebody may get 100% of the delegates available (not all delegates because the RNC has penalized the state for its early timing) for a quarter of the popular vote.
This actually raises another question about Democracy in America. Those states that have winner-take-all formulas will disproportionately award the winners there compared with states like California that will disperse the results through the state. Since Giuliani is well positioned in several of these, he may get to Minneapolis with a large enough bloc to prevent any other candidate winning on the first ballot, but one which he will not be able to build on because of low national poll numbers.
Bringing us back to Oregon. In May, the modest number of delegates available will look a lot more compelling. I wouldn't want to predict a winner, and it may not matter, because the important point is that the second choices of the delegates will not be visible on the ballot and after the first round, that's what will matter.
I think there's only one news organization in Oregon large enough to investigate and report on this, and that's the Oregonian in Portland. I hope they take this issue on and tell us about the real people who will be running for delegates.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
America's Financial Chickens Coming Home to Roost
There are moments in bubbles that afterwards everyone wonders why they weren't challenged at the time. From the Tulip Craze to 1929 to the dot.com bubble (remember Pets.Com?), there are strange happenings that seems crazy in retrospect. At this time, the bubble may turn out to be America's economic pre-eminence in the world, and we may wonder in ten years why we thought it wouldn't turn out badly.
For years, we have been shifting our manufacturing overseas, while continuing to import huge quantities of petroleum. The trade deficit should be enough to scare anyone, but the savants of Wall Street assure us that it's just an innocent sidelight to globalization, which clearly benefits the U.S. along with everyone else.
So while China and India build factories, we build bigger and bigger houses. And when they become so large and expensive that we cannot logically afford them, we get creative about mortgages. The only way that anyone could believe that this would work in the long term is by subscribing to the greater fool theory that there will always be someone ready to buy the house for enough money to justify the financing. Mathematically, it couldn't happen forever.
So rather predictably, the subprime (euphemism for junk) mortgage market has gone south and the banks need fresh capital to cover their enormous losses. Bringing us back to the first point. The sovereign funds, for which you should substitute "foreign governments," are coming to the rescue, having enormous reserves of U.S. dollars due to the trade deficit. These are the IOU's with which we've been maintaining our collective lifestyle and they are coming due. When China wanted to buy an American oil company, we were able to balk. We didn't need them. Now, we need foreign capital to keep our big financial institutions healthy and they are never going to be as American again.
It's not going to stop. The trade deficit rose again in November. Not a single presidential candidate of either party will tell the American people that they need an extra dollar or two of taxes on the price of gasoline to save the country (and perhaps Social Security) from ruin. In ten years, we'll wonder why.
For years, we have been shifting our manufacturing overseas, while continuing to import huge quantities of petroleum. The trade deficit should be enough to scare anyone, but the savants of Wall Street assure us that it's just an innocent sidelight to globalization, which clearly benefits the U.S. along with everyone else.
So while China and India build factories, we build bigger and bigger houses. And when they become so large and expensive that we cannot logically afford them, we get creative about mortgages. The only way that anyone could believe that this would work in the long term is by subscribing to the greater fool theory that there will always be someone ready to buy the house for enough money to justify the financing. Mathematically, it couldn't happen forever.
So rather predictably, the subprime (euphemism for junk) mortgage market has gone south and the banks need fresh capital to cover their enormous losses. Bringing us back to the first point. The sovereign funds, for which you should substitute "foreign governments," are coming to the rescue, having enormous reserves of U.S. dollars due to the trade deficit. These are the IOU's with which we've been maintaining our collective lifestyle and they are coming due. When China wanted to buy an American oil company, we were able to balk. We didn't need them. Now, we need foreign capital to keep our big financial institutions healthy and they are never going to be as American again.
It's not going to stop. The trade deficit rose again in November. Not a single presidential candidate of either party will tell the American people that they need an extra dollar or two of taxes on the price of gasoline to save the country (and perhaps Social Security) from ruin. In ten years, we'll wonder why.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Lancet versus Iraq/WHO
The NE Journal of Medicine's article showing results from a joint study by the health ministry of Iraq and the World Health Organization, includes the following:
Mortality from nonviolent causes was significantly higher per 1000 person-years in the post-invasion period (4.92; 95% CI, 4.49 to 5.41) than in the pre-invasion period (3.07; 95% CI, 2.61 to 3.63)
A great deal is being made of the difference between the reported deaths by violence in the two studies. However, note that the Iraq/WHO study concludes that there has been a roughly 60% increase in the non-violent mortality rate. The Lancet article reported a rather small rise. If you compare total "excess deaths," and figure that the extra 1.85 deaths per thousand in a population of 27 million comes to essentially 150,000, you have the new study showing 300,000 excess deaths in three years, compared with the Lancet's 655,000. Lancet calculated a wide confidence range and, when you add the error range of Iraq/WHO, they probably overlap.
A couple of interesting points. If Iraq/WHO is to be believed, their respondents provided evidence of 100,000 more non-violent deaths than did those of the Lancet study. The participation of the ministry of health, which among other things forbade its morgues from revealing the number of bodies they were receiving, is a little suspect. It wouldn't be surprising that their employees would return from the field and report more deaths as non-violent. It also wouldn't surprise me if a few deaths were "lost," although I have no evidence for that.
Second, suppose that it was Lancet in 2006 that had reported 151,000 excess violent deaths and 300,000 excess total deaths. What would have been the response from the Right? Ridicule, of course. Now they have numbers that are more palatable than Lancet's and they embrace them, without mentioning that the new numbers are wildly worse than the estimates made by either President Bush or Iraq Body Count. A reasonable summary would say that by now, in early 2008, some half million to one million more Iraqis have died than if we had not invaded in 2003.
In closing, however, I can't say that I personally lose sleep over Iraqis dying. The CIA World Fact Book on Iraq gives a 2007 estimate of 2.6% annual population growth. In the midst of this war, the average Iraqi woman is giving birth to four babies. Evidently, procreation remains the Iraqi national pastime, and without our assistance in elevating their death rate, they would even sooner reach the saturation point of their land and experience a mass die off. With our help, that day of reckoning has been slightly postponed.
I still don't think it's worth a trillion dollars.
Mortality from nonviolent causes was significantly higher per 1000 person-years in the post-invasion period (4.92; 95% CI, 4.49 to 5.41) than in the pre-invasion period (3.07; 95% CI, 2.61 to 3.63)
A great deal is being made of the difference between the reported deaths by violence in the two studies. However, note that the Iraq/WHO study concludes that there has been a roughly 60% increase in the non-violent mortality rate. The Lancet article reported a rather small rise. If you compare total "excess deaths," and figure that the extra 1.85 deaths per thousand in a population of 27 million comes to essentially 150,000, you have the new study showing 300,000 excess deaths in three years, compared with the Lancet's 655,000. Lancet calculated a wide confidence range and, when you add the error range of Iraq/WHO, they probably overlap.
A couple of interesting points. If Iraq/WHO is to be believed, their respondents provided evidence of 100,000 more non-violent deaths than did those of the Lancet study. The participation of the ministry of health, which among other things forbade its morgues from revealing the number of bodies they were receiving, is a little suspect. It wouldn't be surprising that their employees would return from the field and report more deaths as non-violent. It also wouldn't surprise me if a few deaths were "lost," although I have no evidence for that.
Second, suppose that it was Lancet in 2006 that had reported 151,000 excess violent deaths and 300,000 excess total deaths. What would have been the response from the Right? Ridicule, of course. Now they have numbers that are more palatable than Lancet's and they embrace them, without mentioning that the new numbers are wildly worse than the estimates made by either President Bush or Iraq Body Count. A reasonable summary would say that by now, in early 2008, some half million to one million more Iraqis have died than if we had not invaded in 2003.
In closing, however, I can't say that I personally lose sleep over Iraqis dying. The CIA World Fact Book on Iraq gives a 2007 estimate of 2.6% annual population growth. In the midst of this war, the average Iraqi woman is giving birth to four babies. Evidently, procreation remains the Iraqi national pastime, and without our assistance in elevating their death rate, they would even sooner reach the saturation point of their land and experience a mass die off. With our help, that day of reckoning has been slightly postponed.
I still don't think it's worth a trillion dollars.
New Iraqi Death Report Roughly Confirms Lancet
I haven't had time to research everything, but one thing stands out in the reporting of the new Iraq/WHO study of deaths since the invasion. The number of people now dying who would not have been dying without the invasion is in the hundreds of thousands, probably in the half million to million range. This is roughly what Lancet said more than a year ago, extrapolated for another eighteen months. It is wildly higher than either what the Bush administration said at the time or Iraq Body Count calculated.
It is also evident that people report statistics, where precision is extremely important, with very loose language. Contrary to the headline in the above-linked article, 151,000 is not the toll. It's where the toll stood, according to this report, through June 2006. We're in January 2008, and the last two years have been very violent. It doesn't even claim to be "all deaths as a result" but just "violent deaths as a result."
The difference between Iraq/WHO and Lancet is not as great as has been reported. Lancet looked primarily at excess mortality and concluded that it was almost entirely due to violence. Iraq/WHO says that it was a lot less violence but that there was 60% or more increase in non-violent deaths. On the back of an envelope, I get a gross number for them that is within the error range for Lancet. The disagreement seems to be primarily why people die.
This will require more analysis and I'll have another post later.
It is also evident that people report statistics, where precision is extremely important, with very loose language. Contrary to the headline in the above-linked article, 151,000 is not the toll. It's where the toll stood, according to this report, through June 2006. We're in January 2008, and the last two years have been very violent. It doesn't even claim to be "all deaths as a result" but just "violent deaths as a result."
The difference between Iraq/WHO and Lancet is not as great as has been reported. Lancet looked primarily at excess mortality and concluded that it was almost entirely due to violence. Iraq/WHO says that it was a lot less violence but that there was 60% or more increase in non-violent deaths. On the back of an envelope, I get a gross number for them that is within the error range for Lancet. The disagreement seems to be primarily why people die.
This will require more analysis and I'll have another post later.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
The Surge is Working! Whatever that means.
John McCain seems extremely proud of his position on Iraq. In particular, he is hoping to capitalize on the "success" of the surge. He describes this as saving American lives, which is the most important thing that any policy change in Iraq could achieve.
This seems a little odd, because the greatest number of lives could be saved if we simply packed everyone into military transports and got them out. We presumably have a mission and in warfare, achieving the mission is generally more important than minimizing casualties. Perhaps the problem is that no one can enunciate a mission anymore, at least one that is plausible enough not to provoke snickers.
My personal crystal ball for Iraq is very cloudy right now, but I'm getting ready for one of my outbursts of relative optimism. In the past, I've soon regretted them, but the law of averages says that sooner or later, I'll be right.
My relative optimism is based on the fact that at $100/barrel, there's enough wealth in Iraq's oil reserves to make every corrupt politician in the country rich. Not every Iraqi, but every politician ("corrupt" is redundant). And it may sooner or later occur to them, as a class, that the only obstacle to being rich is being dead, and some accommodation should be reached. I view the Sunni rejection of al-Qaeda as being in this vein. The jihadists don't want compromise, and we may have passed the point where the Sunnis view their alliance with them as productive, even as a counterbalance to the Shiites and Americans.
From this understanding there might emerge an Iraq comparable to Saudi Arabia. Wealthy enough to make the guys at the top stinking rich and keep the guys at the bottom from starving. Except for a different combination of politicians, not that much different from where we started. There weren't any WMDs and at the outset, there weren't any terrorists. There also was no democracy and few human rights.
But right now, my optimistic view is that we'll end up, a trillion dollars poorer, with the status quo ante. If McCain seriously has a more attractive outcome in mind, I'd like to hear him. If not, it's not a really strong position from which to run for President.
This seems a little odd, because the greatest number of lives could be saved if we simply packed everyone into military transports and got them out. We presumably have a mission and in warfare, achieving the mission is generally more important than minimizing casualties. Perhaps the problem is that no one can enunciate a mission anymore, at least one that is plausible enough not to provoke snickers.
My personal crystal ball for Iraq is very cloudy right now, but I'm getting ready for one of my outbursts of relative optimism. In the past, I've soon regretted them, but the law of averages says that sooner or later, I'll be right.
My relative optimism is based on the fact that at $100/barrel, there's enough wealth in Iraq's oil reserves to make every corrupt politician in the country rich. Not every Iraqi, but every politician ("corrupt" is redundant). And it may sooner or later occur to them, as a class, that the only obstacle to being rich is being dead, and some accommodation should be reached. I view the Sunni rejection of al-Qaeda as being in this vein. The jihadists don't want compromise, and we may have passed the point where the Sunnis view their alliance with them as productive, even as a counterbalance to the Shiites and Americans.
From this understanding there might emerge an Iraq comparable to Saudi Arabia. Wealthy enough to make the guys at the top stinking rich and keep the guys at the bottom from starving. Except for a different combination of politicians, not that much different from where we started. There weren't any WMDs and at the outset, there weren't any terrorists. There also was no democracy and few human rights.
But right now, my optimistic view is that we'll end up, a trillion dollars poorer, with the status quo ante. If McCain seriously has a more attractive outcome in mind, I'd like to hear him. If not, it's not a really strong position from which to run for President.
Mike Huckabee? -- Think George W. Bush
You don't need a really long memory to recognize the pattern. A guy who has served as the governor of a Southern state, talks with this homey Southern accent, talks about being a compassionate conservative (although in 2008 that particular phrase has fallen out of favor). And knows absolutely diddly about world affairs. And doubts evolution.
Only the names have been changed. Huckabee feels good. He is a much more polished speaker than W. and is about as successful at self-deprecation as I can remember any politician being. I would not write him off simply because the big-money Establishment must be deeply unhappy at the thought of a Southern baptist hick leading the Republican ticket. It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon from the 1930s, showing a couple of society dames speaking to each other while a wild-eyed man is haranguing a crowd from a soap box in the background. One of them says, "I never knew people like that could be Republican!"
But Republican he is and the nomination is not inconceivable. Unlikely, because I think W. may have chilled the prospect for Southern evangelical governors for a while, but not inconceivable. We should keep a wary eye open. Just remember how long it took for W. to decide that the best man for veep would be Dick Cheney. The convention wasn't even over before he had sold himself to the Dark Side.
Only the names have been changed. Huckabee feels good. He is a much more polished speaker than W. and is about as successful at self-deprecation as I can remember any politician being. I would not write him off simply because the big-money Establishment must be deeply unhappy at the thought of a Southern baptist hick leading the Republican ticket. It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon from the 1930s, showing a couple of society dames speaking to each other while a wild-eyed man is haranguing a crowd from a soap box in the background. One of them says, "I never knew people like that could be Republican!"
But Republican he is and the nomination is not inconceivable. Unlikely, because I think W. may have chilled the prospect for Southern evangelical governors for a while, but not inconceivable. We should keep a wary eye open. Just remember how long it took for W. to decide that the best man for veep would be Dick Cheney. The convention wasn't even over before he had sold himself to the Dark Side.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Off to Minneapolis
I'm not sure about the Democrats. With only two true credible candidates at this time, and John Edwards hoping to be a compromise, there is a decent chance that one of them will start pulling away. Caveat: In a couple hundred years, the Democrats have never nominated a woman or a non-white. Racism and sexism may not be fashionable, but they are real and the barrier for either Clinton or Obama may be quite high.
However, it's looking like a cat fight on the Republican side. The latest national poll shows McCain leading with 22% support. That's among Republicans, who represent about a third of the vote, with the others being Democrats or Independents. So the top Republican today is favored by perhaps 10% of the voters, throwing in a few indies and no Democrats to speak of.
The irrelevance of Iowa is shown by the fact that the top two -- Huckabee and Romney -- are third and fourth in the national polls. The irrelevance of New Hampshire is similar, with the Giuliani and Huckabee being effectively no-shows. Then there's South Carolina, where McCain will fight it out with Huckabee. Eventually, Giuliani will emerge to win the Big States, he hopes. Romney will take Utah and Idaho. Ron Paul will get a delegate somewhere.
It all adds up to too much chaos. In the last half century of American history, there has been no brokered convention. I predict that Republicans will break that tradition in Minneapolis next September. I'd lay a 50:50 bet. Takers?
However, it's looking like a cat fight on the Republican side. The latest national poll shows McCain leading with 22% support. That's among Republicans, who represent about a third of the vote, with the others being Democrats or Independents. So the top Republican today is favored by perhaps 10% of the voters, throwing in a few indies and no Democrats to speak of.
The irrelevance of Iowa is shown by the fact that the top two -- Huckabee and Romney -- are third and fourth in the national polls. The irrelevance of New Hampshire is similar, with the Giuliani and Huckabee being effectively no-shows. Then there's South Carolina, where McCain will fight it out with Huckabee. Eventually, Giuliani will emerge to win the Big States, he hopes. Romney will take Utah and Idaho. Ron Paul will get a delegate somewhere.
It all adds up to too much chaos. In the last half century of American history, there has been no brokered convention. I predict that Republicans will break that tradition in Minneapolis next September. I'd lay a 50:50 bet. Takers?
Friday, January 04, 2008
Iowa to New Hampshire, Most Irrelevant to Second
I have an aunt, a retired school teacher, who once told me that at the end of junior high school, all students should be thrown out, the gates locked, and only those who climbed over the wall to get back in should be taught. Maybe we should do the same with presidential elections. Only those people who will put up with something equivalent to the Iowa Caucuses should have their votes counted.
However, this isn't the case, so the results from the Iowa caucuses are irrelevant. They show the impact of very expensive campaigns in a small, unrepresentative state where only the most dedicated show up at all. If someone were to announce next November that a candidate who was ahead after .3% of the vote was tallied from some outlying corner of the country and most of the polls were still open, was "winning big," we'd all laugh. But the equivalent happens in Iowa in January and pundits are busy reading the tea leaves.
On to New Hampshire. There, the turnout will be a large percentage of a smaller state, equally unrepresentative. If Obama carries NH, they'll all be talking about his momentum, with far less than a percent of the voters heard from cumulatively.
We talk about Hillary being third, but the difference between her and Edwards must be in the range of 2000 votes. Next November, it will top a hundred million. This is absolutely nothing but statistical noise. The difference between her and Obama is hardly anything more. I just wish someone would say, "But let's wait for a state that matters, like California or New York." But that wouldn't be news, I guess.
However, this isn't the case, so the results from the Iowa caucuses are irrelevant. They show the impact of very expensive campaigns in a small, unrepresentative state where only the most dedicated show up at all. If someone were to announce next November that a candidate who was ahead after .3% of the vote was tallied from some outlying corner of the country and most of the polls were still open, was "winning big," we'd all laugh. But the equivalent happens in Iowa in January and pundits are busy reading the tea leaves.
On to New Hampshire. There, the turnout will be a large percentage of a smaller state, equally unrepresentative. If Obama carries NH, they'll all be talking about his momentum, with far less than a percent of the voters heard from cumulatively.
We talk about Hillary being third, but the difference between her and Edwards must be in the range of 2000 votes. Next November, it will top a hundred million. This is absolutely nothing but statistical noise. The difference between her and Obama is hardly anything more. I just wish someone would say, "But let's wait for a state that matters, like California or New York." But that wouldn't be news, I guess.
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