Stephen Chambers Blog

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

Happy thanksgiving.

Where Have You Been?

2008-11-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

So it's that time in the semester when things are starting to get busier. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post on here, but if anything important comes up, I'll be sure to let you know.

Election Update

2008-11-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm following along on television and the internet, but if you check Intrade, you'll notice a lot of movement, both in individual states and in the national race: in which McCain is now down below 3%.

Election Day

2008-11-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

As you've probably noticed, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time blogging on here about the 2008 Presidential election. Now that it's finally upon us, I'm going to have a busy day of doing other things, before I watch the results tonight, with the rest of you. The New York Times has a piece about things to watch for in the evening election coverage. Networks won't call states until after the polls close, which starts to happen in a meaningful way between 7:00 - 8:30 EST. If Obama is having trouble in some of those initial polls, and/or if networks seem hesitant to call important states, it could portend a much tighter race than the polling data suggests.

All of that said, I think it's worth paying close attention to the Senate races. There are a number of pretty close, incredibly important Senate races, including in Minnesota, Georgia, and even potentially in my home state of Kentucky, where the Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly only up by 5 points in polls that have a margin of error of almost 4 points. If people like McConnell start losing their seats, this will be much bigger for the Dems than even conventional wisdom has it. And I think that's possible.

My money is on a real rout. I think states like Georgia, which many are now giving to the GOP, will be close. Unless people are a lot more racist that they're letting on, this is going to be something to see.

Go get your "I Voted" sticker; I'm wearing one right now.

Down in the Markets

2008-11-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

Enough with polls for the moment, the numbers on intrade have jumped around a lot in the past few hours. Obama is now at a projected 91.7% chance of being elected President, whereas McCain is down to 9.8%. Florida and Ohio are both up big-time for Obama on the futures prediction market.

The Story of the Crowd, Part III

2008-11-03T07:41:00.001-08:00

For what it's worth, today Paul Krugman agreed with my assessment of the future of the Republican party, arguing that it will become more, not less, extreme. If you've been following this blog, you know that I predicted this several months ago, and now that a big Obama victory has become mainstream thinking (as I also predicted, back when the polls were even), thinkers are turning to the future.

He's so far ahead in the polls, we don't even need to vote, right?

Don't Vote

2008-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

Take 2:

(And for the record, here's take 1):

Watch The Skies

2008-10-28T12:39:00.001-07:00

So it has now become conventional wisdom that Barack Obama has a commanding lead in most polls, and that John McCain is in serious trouble. As a democrat, this worries me. It worries me because much of Obama's lead is predicated on voter turn-out, and voter turn-out can be notoriously low in key places if there is a general sentiment that a candidate is so far ahead in the polls he no longer needs any votes.

The other danger can be weather. Poor weather, i.e. rain or snow generally dissuades exactly the kind of first time voters, who may decide next Tuesday that Barack Obama can win without them.

So here's where I'm looking, if we assume that much of Obama's support in many of these highly contested states will be in urban areas, (granted, it's a week away, and 7-day forecasts can be unreliable):

The weather forecasts for next Tuesday, election day:

PA:
Philadelphia: Sunny, 60/44
Pittsburgh: Partly Cloudy, 61/46
OH:
Cincinnati: Partly Cloudy, 67/47
Cleveland: Mostly Sunny, 60/47
Columbus: Partly Cloudy, 64/48
FL:
Miami: Scattered Showers, 80/74
Tampa: Scattered Showers, 82/63

There are, of course, many more cities and states that will matter than this next Tuesday, but I'm essentially working from the standpoint that John McCain cannot reasonably win this election without Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania in particular is a real stretch for him, and he knows it. That's precisely why he's been spending so much time campaigning there recently. The electoral math simply works in Obama's favor at this point.

If major storms come up, and/or if there is a major cold-front in some of these places, I think that could have a significant impact on the election, but so far (knock on wood) so good.

The Number 60

2008-10-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

So they spent $150K on Sarah Palin's wardrobe, so the highest paid member of McCain's campaign is Sarah Palin's stylist, who had $24K in the space of two weeks in October while McCain is now attempting to run on a pseudo-populist platform: what more do you want? At least they're as blatant with the hypocrisy as the current administration.

Yesterday, there was a big shift on Intrade in Georgia: they now have McCain up 65 to 35 (this is in percentage terms of the likelihood of a win and doesn't represent aggregate polling).

Intrade now has Obama at 375 electoral votes and McCain at 163, whereas the the aggregate polling data on the Princeton Election Consortium has Obama at 363 to McCain's 175.

I think the Deep South is in play, despite what you've probably heard.

Oh, and what about the economy? Credit markets haven't gotten much better, earnings are down, and global stock prices continue to fall--in some place pretty dramatically. We're all still in a lot of trouble. I think we should all be watching the Senate races even closer than we are already. Whatever your party affiliation, if you want to give money, the places you can make the most difference are in those tight Senate races in places like Georgia and Minnesota. Getting 60 Senate seats could be crucial for the Dems if they want to pass real health care reforms and shake things up in the ways the public will be expecting. So while the Presidency is certainly important, the number 60 in the Senate is a close second.

Ferrell y Fey

2008-10-24T04:35:00.001-07:00

I know, I know: a whole week goes by without a real blog. What can I say, no rest for the weary.

Who Endorsed Whom For The What Now?

2008-10-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell just endorsed Barack Obama for President.

"I Got My Middle Name From Somebody Who Never Thought I'd Be Running For President"

2008-10-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hilarious.

Scamming Scantrons

2008-10-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

How would you like to be paid $300 to retake the SAT, with the promise that if you do well enough (improve your score by 50 points or more), you will be paid an additional $1,000/year?

Well sure, you say, why not? After all, high schoolers are taking the SAT eight times or something these days--why not pay them to take it, rather than the other way around?

Here's the rub: the SAT financial incentive plan I just mentioned is part of a college program for entering freshmen. Yes, Baylor University is paying their freshman $300 (in bookstore credit) to retake the SAT. Then, if the students improve their scores, they get scholarship money. If that sounds crooked, it is. It's the natural extension of the ratings craze amongst universities; here, the SAT is blatantly being used as nothing more than a tool to boost the school's number score in U.S. News and World Report.

Float Like A Butterfly...

2008-10-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

I would just like to add that Barack Obama is the Muhammad Ali of Presidential debates.

Everything Sure Wrapped Up Nicely...

2008-10-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

(And much earlier than usual.)

I want to say congratulations, first of all, to Paul Krugman, at the New York Times, who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. He's also a Professor at Princeton. I've been following Prof. Krugman's work for a long time (and his blog is linked down there, on the right), so this is something that's been richly deserved, I think. Among other things, he's one of the people out there who has a knack for predicting general macro-economic trends. Like our current crisis.

But wait, you say. the DOW jumped 11% today; after a weekend of schmoozing amongst world leaders, we finally have worldwide bail-out plans that make a kind of sense (based on the model that's been proposed by Gordon Brown of the UK). Things have turned the corner. It's all good now. Problem solved.

Well. The credit markets were closed in the U.S. today for the same reason my University was closed (though I still held office hours): Columbus Day.

Ups and downs are what we should expect in the near to mid-turn. And I mean big ups and downs.

If we take history as a guide, the market will go up for awhile, and then it will come back down. "You sure talk like an econ-o-mist with all those fancy 'ups' and 'downs'. Speak English will you!"

We are experiencing the financial correction of unfettered speculation. Very simply, too much money that was on paper didn't exist; that's the bubble. What happens after you toss even more money into it? Now, don't get me wrong, I think they've basically got the right idea. Part of the problem here is that they (the U.S. and the E.U.) are betting the bank (literally) on the idea that the inter-connectedness of the financial markets trumps all. It doesn't. What they can do now is delay the 'correction' by propping things up by moving money around in the short term in the hopes that the liquidity pumps enough confidence back into the markets to keep the engine running. Part of the trouble with trying to predict where this is going is that they're behaving slightly differently than the folks in charge back in 1929. The effects of a lot of this is going to be to undermine various currencies (including the U.S. dollar) and to make the situation even more vulnerable to the effects of 'externalities'.

You can't out-think this. What they're doing is delaying the fall (maybe), and *potentially* mitigating some of the effects. This is good. But this is only valuable if we use the extra time to try to fix things and insulate the general population from the effects of a worldwide depression. That's where this is headed.

It's The End of The GOP As We Know It (and I feel fine)

2008-10-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

For everyone out there who has been saying, "You know, this Presidential election just doesn't have the appeal of previous fights. Where's the race baiting, where's the violence and constant guilt-by-association? After all, in 2000, Bush ran an aggressive campaign in South Carolina that said McCain was gay, had an illegitimate black child, and so on and so forth. COME ON." Well, here we go.

McCain is now officially accusing Barack Obama of being a terrorist. You knew it was only a matter of time. Now that both the prediction markets and polls show McCain losing badly in November, his campaign is using its limited resources to run in a vicious attack mode. This is like the final 'fight' instinct in a cornered animal, and it's going to do permanent damage to an already demoralized party. We are witnessing the end of the Republican party as we know it.

The problem is, we may also be witnessing the beginning of the GOP's new incarnation. The fact of the matter is that simple economics and demographics mean that McCain's 'new' strategy is probably going to hurt him as much or more than it will help him. It may mobilize a small portion of his far right base (all of those people who shout "Terrorist!" at McCain's rallies and who genuinely believe Obama's name to be an indictment of his patriotism). However, it will also mobilize and anger Obama's base and potentially broaden his appeal. The moment frightened racists in the majority start going for Obama publicly is also the moment all minorities and young people will move for Obama. If McCain wants to hurt his appeal among Hispanics, for instance, he just needs to follow his present course.

If John McCain were a 'maverick', he would shift his policies. He would say something like, "We need deregulation, except in cases of national crisis," etc. He would pick one issue and push hard in a counter-intuitive direction, such as arguing for universal health care. That's his only hope at this point. Attempting to re-polarize the electorate is only going to work for a small portion of the population, and it's not going to work in a lot of places that really matter. Like Florida.

What all of this means, is that the Republican party, as it is now constituted, is now effectively done. The economy is going to crush them, unless they change. And they can't. They don't have enough time. However, there is a much darker side to this. And that is: historically, times of economic calamity tend to cause lots of nasty side effects. The Great Depression wasn't just a period of frolicking broom-handle games in ash-pit back alleys; it was also a period of fierce anti-Semitism and isolationism. What we're seeing now in the McCain campaign may be a sign of things to come in the decade ahead.

Dire Warning, Take 2

2008-10-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Actually, scratch that: I think it will go lower. By the end of the 1929 crash (in the early 1930s), the market lost 89% of its value. I think they'll slow the fall and keep it from bottoming out quite that low, but somewhere in the 70%+ range isn't out of the realm of possibility.

How Low Can You Go?

2008-10-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Isn't it nice that we've learned the lessons of the Great Depression? The notion espoused by those notables at The New York Times that because the government is now frantically scrambling to restore confidence somehow the crisis of confidence in the financial systems--somehow the psychology of credit markets--won't run its course is just silly. Also, the idea that no one saw this coming is ridiculous. The Atlantic featured a cover article a few years ago with a view looking down from the window of a Wall Street building as someone prepared to jump.

The real question people should be asking is when will things bottom out, and then what do we do. Of course we should be trying to slow the fall and mitigate the effects, but at the end of the day credit is going to continue to tighten, and the markets are going to continue to fall. It is October, after all.

Well, the Dow has lost something like 13% of its value since its peak last year. If we use history as a guide, it wouldn't be unreasonable for it to fall 40% or even more. We have a ways to go.

My friends ...

2008-10-08T06:29:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't been keeping up my blogging over the last few days. In fairness, I've been busy. The highlight of last night's Presidential debate (other than the fact that Senator McCain can't open his mouth without saying 'my friends,' which is helpful for drinking games):

Ouch.

What Happens to Higher Education?

2008-10-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that the economic shake-up is already effecting higher education. Boston University, for example--along with a number of other large institutions--have begun to limit or freeze hiring. Among those that are still hiring, more institutions are pushing for adjunct faculty and phasing out tenured positions. It's worth noting though, as the article suggests, that those few schools with giant endowments, etc. will likely clean-up if the situation gets worse, and that the economic problems could lead to greater enrollment in colleges, as jobs become scarce.

So the idea is that Harvard will poach qualified faculty from poorer institutions, which will be employing poorly paid adjunct faculty (who have no job security) to cover a larger pool of incoming students that will increasingly be composed of those in the upper classes. That's the direction it's headed.

What this means for those in graduate school (like me) is that jobs will potentially be scarce and won't pay well. All of that said, if the economy really starts to tank, the take-away may well be that higher education will look an awful lot like the rest of the country, which only makes sense given the corporatization of our university systems. This is an area in which I think Barack Obama could, and will, do a lot of good. I think he, unlike the GOP, recognizes the importance of maintaining American supremacy in higher education. As many of our other industries have been eclipsed by the rest of the world, the universities in the United States remain the place to 'do business'. That has to continue.

Did McCain Just Have A Stroke?

2008-10-03T04:11:00.001-07:00

I'll leave the VP debate analysis for a time when I have more energy. Take a look at this, though:

Did McCain suffer a small stroke on-stage?

Tooting My Own Horn

2008-10-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

On July 19, 2008, I wrote in this blog:

'A few years ago, I suggested that the U.S. housing market would drag down the entire economy, and that our national and personal debt--combined with the larger, global trends in markets--might well set-up a Perfect Storm in which someone staring at graphs and charts murmurs ominously, "It's...happening!"'

(I wrote in 2005 on the website [now defunct] radicalcenter.com that I expected the economy to collapse by the year 2010.)

On August 29, 2008, I wrote:

"I still there may be a 50/50 chance of a major stock market collapse in the next two months."

I've also been saying for awhile to anyone who will listen that I don't think the upcoming Presidential election is going to be close: I think it'll likely be a rout. I predict that Obama will win somewhere on the order of 40 states.

The online futures market Intrade, which has a spooky history of predicting the likelihood of events, is now estimating that Barack Obama will win 353 electoral votes to John McCain's 185.

To put all of this in perspective, though, I didn't think Obama or McCain would be the nominees. I thought it would be John Edwards vs. Jeb Bush. We do not live in that alternate universe, and, after revelations of Edwards's extra-marital affairs came to light, I suspect those distant alternate peoples are wishing they had nominated Obama.

Honorable Mention

2008-09-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

I've just learned that my short story, "Pennsylvania Dragon" (which is available on my website), received an honorable mention in the 2008 Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. The editor, Ellen Datlow, mentioned that it was one of the better darker pieces of the year. It is dark, though it isn't actually included in the anthology--which is good for you because you can read it for free. Though you shouldn't if you're under a certain age. Like I said, it's a bit dark.

Sell! Sell!

2008-09-29T14:49:00.001-07:00

Yes, the House of Representatives rejected today's $700 billion bailout, and the Dow Jones fell almost 7%. For the record, it's worth pointing out that Nasdaq was down more than 9% and the S&P 500 was down just under 9%. That should give you some idea of where the Asian markets will be headed in a few hours. My feeling is this: the bail-out wasn't a great idea, but it wasn't horrible. As far as ideas go in rotten situations, it could have been much worse. It was a gamble, but, because this is an election year, Congress balked. The bail-out had very little approval from 'main street,' largely because most people are struggling to pay their bills and aren't big on the idea of shelling out money to 'bail-out' Wall Street. Of course, it's bigger and more complicated than that, but the package was meant to be a compromise that included enough pieces Republicans would like that it wouldn't get vetoed, while bringing in enough Dem support to get it passed. That didn't happen.

95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted against the bill, which now has the benefit of making both the White House and the Congressional leadership (and John McCain, who had been praised on the Right-Wing circuit for his 'leadership' in crafting a compromise) look inept, at best.

We aren't in 'uncharted territory'; we're heading down. Everything old is new again.

Polls and the Polling Pollsters Who Poll Them

2008-09-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

This website, which is being run by the Princeton Election Consortium, has some of the best statistical analysis based on current polling I have seen. Take a look.