Economic Austerity

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Paul Krugman released a post on his blog about how austerity does not work because spending helps keep jobs, rather, than using a laissez-faire approach that leads to massive unemployment during recessions. Krugman appeals to a National Institute of Economic and Social Research think tank who claims that:

Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression. Four years into the Depression, British G.D.P. had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground.

State of the Union, South Carolina, and Poll Numbers

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A few things happened over the weekend, as during the week, such as Gingrich's win in South Carolina; the State of the Union Address; and the recent poll numbers--from various data gathering agencies--neatly put together in Nate Silver's blog. It's appropriate to explain why I cite Silver frequently and that's because he tends to gather data collected from several agencies that conduct polls, compiles the polls into one set, and makes statistical predictions on outcomes be it baseball, politics, etc. Alhough, Silver does point out that there is inherent statistical errors in his model, he makes educated predictions that are sometimes accurate. Therefore, my posts are written with an objective attempt and should not be assumed as 'liberal' because I'm citing someone who works for a news agency that is slightly liberal (The New York Times).

Poll's Numbers and Tonight's Debate

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Here's another report from Nate Silver's blog wherein he finds that Gingrich and Romney are at a tie for votes in South Carolina. Throughout the post, Silver points out that the last few days in the South Carolina primary made Perry and Huntsman drop out of the race, made candidates attack Romney's history with Bain, and changed the results of Iowa's Caucus--favoring Santorum, thus, affecting the dynamics of the G.O.P. Race. It is for this reason that Silver claims that his prediction for the race is unstable, yet, he still claims that there is Gingrich momentum.

Today's debate (on CNN) should change the playing field in the GOP race, especially, because Silver has both Gingrich and Romney at a tie for South Carolina's primary. Perhaps, after Saturday's debate, Jeff Smith will have a "new president" as an inspiration for a new book.

Updates on the Conservative Vote

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The NYTimes released an article that states the conservative vote is divided in half--where Gingrich and Santorum have a quarter each and Romney has about half to himself. The concern for conservatives is that they haven't chosen a candidate to coalesce around. In fact, one voter supporting Santorum states that, "The question is whether either one alone can get enough votes to win, or whether Romney wins by default." There is clearly, then, anti-Romneyism in South Carolina for several reasons (among them being Bain).

Paul Krugman Criticizes Romney

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The economist Paul Krugman in his op-ed on the New York Times argues that the last president who was a business person was Herbert Hoover, though, Krugman does point out--to a lesser extent--that former President George W. Bush was also a business person. What is more interesting is the economic downturn that both Hoover and Bush faced during their presidency. Just as compelling is that both presidents ended up rated as the worst presidents; so, although, Hoover and Bush were business people the economy ended badly for later presidents.

The highlight in Krugman's argument is that running an economy is different than running a business because in his words, "Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits." The reason for this is in another of Krugman's op-ed where he states that as a nation the United States owes money to itself, therefore, does not need to pay itself. In fact, Krugman points out that the U.S. hasn't finished paying itself money the country owes itself from World War II. The economist ends his op-ed with statement that embraces taxes because "Britain, in particular, has had debt exceeding 100 percent of G.D.P. for 81 of the last 170 years" and taxes helped offset the Brittish deficit.

Update on Romney's Poll Numbers

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Here's another update from Nate Silver's blog. At the moment Romney is leading the group at 28.9%, with Gingrich at 24.0%, and Ron Paul at 19.1%. It's safe to say that Romney's poll number is up from what it was yesterday.

Here's a link to a video by the PAC supporting Gingrich. The video is a documentary style ad that is attacking Romney's time with Bain. The Washington Post gives the video four pinocchios and PolitiFact is looking into the veracity of the video. At then end of the article there's a video showing the ads used against Romney by Ted Kennedy in a bid for a senate seat in Massachusetts.

Some of the rhetoric behind the Gingrich-PAC ads is that Romney's claim that he created 100k jobs is ungrounded as FactCheck, Politifact, and FactChecker claim.

Update on Romney's Poll Numbers

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According to Nate Silver, Romney seems to be losing some voters in South Carolina. This might be, in part, due to the attacks on Romney by his opponents. The attacks are on how Romney likes firing people, yet more chilling is Gingrich's new ad that lists Romney's doings with Bain and the state of Massachusetts.

Looking at Silver's graph Romney is on a downward trail, meaning, Romney will keep losing supporters according to the model. Although, Silver does warn that his model is premature; so, therefore, his polling model requires more data points to give a reasonable 'guess' on whether Romney will take South Carolina.

Seeing as how Silver gives a momentum booster in his analysis, I'll give a qualitative reading on how Gingrich is faring because according to Gingrich himself he "...is well liked in the South." There is one aspect haunting Gingrich and it is that historically President's come from the pool of "150," those being senators (100 Senators) and governors (50). Men from the pool of the "150" that have historically been nominated to become President. One of the few anomalies was Gerald Ford (from the House of Representatives) who became President when Nixon step down. Thus, by historical precedence Santorum could win, however, it seems like Ron Paul is getting support from independents--which may give him the nomination.

To see whether Romney can beat Obama one can look to California where recently Meg Whitman lost the race to Jerry Brown. Perhaps, the race for the governor's seat in California is a useful presage of what will come in November because California politics showed that people don't want someone from the private sector such as Whitman, who is now the President and CEO of Hewlett Packard.

New Hampshire Results

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Once again, Nate Silver did a great job at predicting who was going to win the primary in New Hampshire, although, Silver couldn't predict whether Gingrich or Santorum would finish in 4th or 5th place. In fact, the race for 4th place was close enough to call it a tie.

What I found surprising is that Romney's numbers didn't go down as much given his performance during the debates over the weekend because his opponents were talking across him almost ignoring him. One example is when Romney was mute during the debate was when Santorum and Paul were raging over who is more conservative when looking at each other's record in congress. 

Upon reading news blogs (CNN, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post) I found out that people were claiming that Romney won the debate when in fact he wasn't participating in the debate. Judging from the amount of screen time on the candidates Paul and Santorum were assumed by yours truly to win/gain some momentum from the debate, and seeing the results from the NYTimes; my assertion that Paul performed well is correct, but incorrect when looking at Santorum.