Daily Archives: October 24, 2008

The Economy Looking Forward 1

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Follow this link to Charlie Rose’s interview with David Smick.

It sounds to me as if David Smick has some ideas on how this economic crisis differs from previous ones. He pays homage to those tactics that have helped us get out of previous economic crises.  More importantly, he proposes new solutions for our new problems.  He takes into account the growth in size of international private companies compared to the size of individual central banks and individual regulatory agencies from single countries.

I don’t think Charlie Rose grasped the significance of one of David Smick’s answers. Smick said that pumping in liquidity to Japanese banks during the lost economic decade in Japan did not encourage those banks to lend money. The interest rate on long term Japanese bonds made buying bonds a safer and more profitable enterprise than lending at short term rates that were near zero.  Yes, the profit incentive in the free market still works.

I particular like the title of Smick’s book The World Is Curved, Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy. Thomas Friedman deserves that dig at his book title The World is Flat.

Associated Press the Faux Noise of the Print Media 1

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Follow this link to the Associated Press article in which they attempt to further muddy the picture about their faulty poll methods.

If you cannot detect the application of Greenberg’s Law of the Media, I will clarify by including my letter to the editor of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Has the Associated Press no shame whatsoever?

On page 3 of today’s paper, you have a substantial article by the Associated Press that goes into great detail as to why polls may have large variations in results.

In this article they mention their own poll which had Obama’s lead at only 1 point.  This poll was a far outside the results of all other polls.

The article even mentions the use of weighting to “correct” raw results.

Nowhere in the article do they mention that their own weighting included weighting evangelical voters at twice the rate that they have voted in the past.

Now that they have been caught doctoring the polls, they have the gall to come out and try to obfuscate what they have done even  further.

Scott McClellan – Former Bush Aide Voting For Obama

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(CNN, 10-23-2008) — Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary who sharply criticized President Bush in his memoir last spring, told CNN Thursday he’s voting for Barack Obama.

“From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping,” McClellan told new CNN Host D.L. Hughley

McClellan, a onetime Bush loyalist whose scathing critique of the president sent shock waves across Washington last spring, has long hinted he was leaning toward the Illinois senator.

“It’s a message that is very similar to the one that Gov. Bush ran on in 2000,” McClellan said in May about Obama’s campaign.

McClellan isn’t the first member of Bush’s inner circle to express support for Obama. In 2007, former Bush strategist Matt Dowd also said he had become disillusioned with the president and said Obama was the only candidate that appealed to him.