Summations Only

Well, I think that's a mistake. I could be wrong, anything could happen, but Obama's held a pretty significant lead in most polls for months, now. Romney's just not getting any traction with anybody, and the economy keeps improving (albiet slowly.)

And obviously, engineers with PhD's are highly representative of the American electorate. I think you need to talk yourself off that ledge. Firstly, Romney is only the presumptive nominee, and this Bain thing that's coming out today - that Romney is either lying now about his involvement with Bain, or committed a number of felonies in his SEC filings from back then - may simply knock him out of the running. Secondly, the trend of the popularity of the ACA is that it's been getting more popular, not less.Thirdly - I don't think you can win any money betting against Obama. Remember what happened to Jack Ryan? Remember how nobody thought he could beat McCain, or defend himself in a primary against Hillary? Remember when everybody wrote off health care reform when Ted Kennedy died? Maybe you're right and it's a long shot this November, but Obama wins long shots. I think you write him off at your own peril.

So the incumbent did better than it looked like he was going to in the polls (although within the statistical margin of error.) And that's supposed to make me feel worse about Obama, the incumbent, going into 2012? I don't follow. He's a buffoon. Even Republicans can't line up behind him. You brought up health care, but how are people going to blame Obama for the American Care Act and then line up to vote for the guy who enacted the exact same thing as governor? He's the single worst person to try to capitalize on what you think Obama's weakness is.I'm not saying we should be blase about this, but I think Obama's on top of this stuff.

What? I just did that and it's the first result, from the LA Times.Here's why it's a winner - there's no explanation of these filing discrepancies that makes Romney look good. Either he committed felony perjury and lied to the SEC, or he collected $100,000 every year to do no work for Bain Capital Inc. Perhaps you recall his remarks to the NAACP decrying those who sat around wanting "free stuff."It's not a complicated issue - people understand what it means to own a business - and Obama is hammering him with it. And it's working, according to the polls: the number of people who won't vote for Romney is increasing.I'm not saying Bain is his Kryptonite, but it's hard not to see the parallel here with the "Swift Boat" attacks against Kerry - take what your opponent says is his greatest strength and make it an albatross around his neck. Of course, the difference here is that Obama's Bain attacks are 100% accurate.

Nobody said it was the only reason, but I can't see how you can argue that it doesn't contribute. Evidence shows that McCain had the national equivalent of a "home-state advantage" just by being white. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/...-are-we-ask-googleThe birther stuff? The "taking America back"? That's racism.

But cutting taxes when you can borrow money at a negative interest rate is really smart. Why impoverish your population when there's money to be had for free?The more I learn about it, the more I think that the moral case for taxation really is best avoided, since it leads you in all the wrong directions. The practical case for taxation makes sense because the government spends money. The diminishing marginal utility of money is a bulletproof justification for progressive tax rates that disproportionately target the well-off. Since what you tax, you also discourage, it makes sense to have consumption taxes on things we have public policy reasons to desire that people consume less of.Expenditures, I think, should reflect some moral reasoning. War is an expenditure and it should either be justified or avoided. But it doesn't matter how you pay for expenditures except that you pay for them in the way that causes the least harm. When negative interest rates are available to the government, government borrowing is how the government should pay for its expenditures. Whether that's during a time of war or a time of peace is completely irrelevant.

Yes, a negative interest rate. Did you have a question?

It's a loan where the interest rate is a negative number instead of a positive one.I don't see how my meaning is particularly unclear. You'll have to ask a more specific question, I guess.

Why didn't you say so in the first place? Negative real.Honestly, Jon, the things you do are just so goddamned stupid sometimes. Why not stop assuming that we can all read your mind?

No, but they won't just believe anything at all. I think you need to stop and explain why you think that Romney has an apparently unlimited ability to control the thoughts of the American voter but Obama doesn't. You talked to some highly educated idiots; why do you think that Romney or anybody else will be able to convince Americans that this is the case? Because they'll say it over and over? In the meantime, people are starting to notice the upsides of the ACA as they come online.Obama will say over and over that Romney is a potential felon who perjured himself in filings to the SEC, and therefore represents everything wrong with Wall Street, which now has a lower approval rating than Congress.I mean, certainly Romney will attack Obama. Obama will attack Romney. Why are you so certain that they'll believe Romney and not Obama, when the reverse seems to be true? Come on. You're just being stupid. Look, Bain is on the front page of half a dozen of today's national newspapers: The Seattle Times, The Plain Dealer, the grey lady, the strib, the Boston Globe, WaPo, maybe even your local paper (I don't know where you live.) Like, click one of those at random.

And I'm trying to talk you down from the ledge. Affluent white people are an increasingly diminished fraction of the electorate. Obama's advantage last time was that one party was serious about addressing real problems and the other party was manifestly unserious. That hasn't changed at all. Now that it's coming out that Romney isn't just the affable android everybody thought he was but an actual crook, that's even more the case. Romney is going to shoot himself in the foot because, time after time, Obama is there to hand them the gun.He's the single most effective politician in our lifetimes, Taz. This is Romney's third bid for President, and he was only able to move to the front of the pack after Cain, Perry, Santorum, and Gingrich had had their moment in the sun. The guy's just a flat-out loser. He's another Bob Dole.Obama is at least 7 points ahead of Romney in national polls and he hasn't even started campaigning yet.

All of it. The whole thing.Conservatives like you are misrepresenting both the terms and effect of the Community Reinvestment Act. (That's the name of the law you're referring to, the one that encouraged banks and lenders to make mortgages available to minority borrowers in the inner city.)Firstly the terms of the CRA don't require any bank to make loans at any terms unjustified by the borrower's credit; they simply say that if a minority borrower with a certain credit history comes in, you have to give them the same loan terms you would give a white person with the same credit history. That's because it wasn't uncommon for banks to charge an extra 2-3% interest on a loan originated to a black family compared to what a white family would get - or to simply deny the loan altogether, a practice called "redlining." Surely you'd agree that it really is racist, and really is a problem, for banks to tell a trustworthy black family they can't own their own home simply because they're black. Or maybe it's just that conservatives don't believe that there's any such thing as a "trustworthy black family."Secondly, loans originated under the CRA program had a higher repayment rate than the average mortgage given to the same level of credit, contrary to the conservative myth that the CRA was about giving good loans to bad bets. CRA-regulated banks weren't contributors to the subprime loan crisis because CRA loans were not subprime loans.Thirdly, in 2009 Paul Krugman noted that even 55% of commercial real estate mortgages - mortgages held by businesses for retail properties, real estate investment, and so on - were underwater, ample evidence that the issue had nothing to do with loans originated under the CRA (the CRA, obviously, has nothing to do with loans made to businesses.) A further analysis of the subprime mortgage boom and subsequent failure of the asset derivates proved that it was a primarily suburban/exurban phenomenon - precisely the opposite of the urban, inner-city homes whose mortgages the CRA encouraged.So, yeah. Conservatives made the entire thing up because they were desperate both to save the notion of "deregulation" from this incredible proof that deregulation harms industry and to find a way to blame this on their favorite scapegoats - the Clintons and poor minorities. Basically racist from the top down, I would say.

But that's inaccurate. Loans given under the CRA program weren't given "regardless of ability to pay." CRA participants had to meet the same lending requirements as white people.All the CRA did was prevent a bank from taking deposits in an area that they wouldn't offer mortgages in, because it's fundamentally unfair to enter a community, accept deposits from minorities, and then turn around and only loan those deposits to affluent whites.Now, it's true that loans were given regardless of ability to pay, by banks, and that this is the cause of the 2008 recession; but the government didn't force banks to do that. The government tried to stop banks from doing that but the regulators who voiced those objections were replaced by industry plants. Banks wanted to offer loans regardless of the borrower's ability to pay because it didn't matter to the banks - they were going to be immediately paid back in full when they turned around and sold the loan to someone else. The government tried to stop that process. They're not the ones that caused it. That's a conservative myth.

It's the ears, right? "And lo, he shall come with big head-handles that look like he got double-slapped at a Cinnabon."

Well, they are, Jazzns. It's on your tax return, even - you can elect to have $3 go to the party of your choice for their campaigns. It doesn't come out of your tax refund, it comes out of the government's tax revenue.Public funding of political campaigns is already happening. What do you propose that is actually different than what we have?