Werthless wrote:

FTN wrote:Well, I oversimplified, but I wasn't wrong. Not every stock pays a dividend, especially growth stocks.

Well, I assumed you were talking about investing in indices, since you mentioned the returns of the S&P 500 (a stock index with dividend paying stocks). There are dividends there, and if you bought stock over the last 10 years (and didnt plump it down 100% in Pets.com), then you haven't lost money. I don't have the total return at my fingertips.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/24/magazin ... 2008102816

Random excerpt, which reveals that 10year returns as of mid-October were -11% without dividends, +5% with dividends. That does not include dollar cost averaging (buying in both the peaks and valleys), which would have helped you do better than 5%. This just demonstrates that investors will have much higher returns than simply looking at P1 and P2.

VoxOrion wrote:The comparison between "spreading the wealth" of the oil owned by Alaskans and "spreading the wealth" of income I earned that is not owned by anyone but myself is a smoke screen.

then you should smoke some of it - it'll clear your mind

Interesting stuff from electoral-vote.com.

This is the map from four years ago today: Oct. 29, 2004, when the aggregate polling had Bush with 281 EVs. What I found striking about this is that so many of the "Barely Bush" or "Barely Kerry" results from that date turned out to be wrong a few days later: Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Ohio all went the other way than was projected by this site four days before the vote. They were all close, of course, but they flipped. In fact, the only "Barely" states that went the way the site projected were Florida, West Virginia, and New Hampshire.

Maybe more relevant to this year's election, though, is the fact that all the states electoral-vote.com characterized as "Weak Bush" or "Weak Kerry" four days before wound up staying in those columns. And only New Mexico, where the site gave Bush a six-point lead on Oct. 29 and he wound up winning by a fraction of a point, was even all that close.

So today, electoral-vote has Obama ahead by "Strong" or "Weak" margins in states with 311 electoral votes, plus 53 more where he's "Barely" leading. His "Weak Lead" states are Ohio (7 points), Virginia (7 points), Colorado (7 points), and Nevada (6 points). If he wins any of the first three, he crosses 270.

If you buy the general consensus that Obama has the better ground game, it's very hard to see how this comes out against him in the end.

(And yeah, to an extent the point of this whole exercise is to reassure myself, as well as to put off going to switch the laundry.)

What one does when one is losing in the last week of an election.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuS342L22QI[/youtube]

OMFG. Brutal to watch.

I'm very worried that McCain will win. We know that Democrats are historically oversampled in polling, and while most of you won't agree (or might want to argue about it), I think the media reached it's tipping point this time around as far as advocating a preferred candidate. Even if a hundred different independent counts came out on McCain's side after the fact, no one would accept the result after being told for 10 months that Obama would win.

Luckily, most of that stuff is popular vote based, and Obama appears to have solid control of the electoral college.

VoxOrion wrote:I'm very worried that McCain will win. We know that Democrats are historically oversampled in polling, and while most of you won't agree (or might want to argue about it), I think the media reached it's tipping point this time around as far as advocating a preferred candidate. Even if a hundred different independent counts came out on McCain's side after the fact, no one would accept the result after being told for 10 months that Obama would win.

Luckily, most of that stuff is popular vote based, and Obama appears to have solid control of the electoral college.

Do not let your heart be troubled. We're getting our asses kicked.

jerseyhoya wrote:What one does when one is losing in the last week of an election.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuS342L22QI[/youtube]

OMFG. Brutal to watch.

"What did Hagen promise in return?"

It's a good question. Normally I'd be inclined to answer something like "pledging the souls of your children to Satan." But if Hagen's sinister secret supporters are "godless," then presumably they also reject all the other parts of the story: the devil, souls, etc. So, really, I have no idea.

(The bleat of "There is no God!" at the end of the ad was a great touch, but would have been even funnier if they'd used the line reading of the school photographer from my all-time favorite Simpsons episode--whose faith was destroyed by Lisa trying to smile through her braces that predated stainless steel, so she couldn't get them wet.)

Still, though, this doesn't quite reach the level of silliness of that minister at a McCain rally a few weeks back, whose invocation basically amounted to, "God, You are gonna look like a real wimp if McCain doesn't win, since the other gods, like 'Hindu,' are working on Obama's behalf."

Ah, Christianism... after scaring me so much for so many years, I truly do appreciate the laffs.

jerseyhoya wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:I'm very worried that McCain will win. We know that Democrats are historically oversampled in polling, and while most of you won't agree (or might want to argue about it), I think the media reached it's tipping point this time around as far as advocating a preferred candidate. Even if a hundred different independent counts came out on McCain's side after the fact, no one would accept the result after being told for 10 months that Obama would win.

Luckily, most of that stuff is popular vote based, and Obama appears to have solid control of the electoral college.

Do not let your heart be troubled. We're getting our asses kicked.

I'll admit I'm a bit worried. I check the daily national poll at DailyKos every day (which I consider a pro-Obama outlier, but I don't actually know its methodology) and McCain has done one-point better each day for three successive days. Today it's Obama 50, McCain 44. That's a good place to be at this point in a campaign - but my gut tells me that if Obama's national popular vote falls below 50% in most of the polls, he's going to lose in a squeaker.

Needless to say, I really hope I'm wrong about that.

I sense some of my more liberal friends may be disappointed when they realize Obama will govern as more of a center-left president.

Need not worry Vox, Obama has it in the bag.

BuddyGroom wrote:I'll admit I'm a bit worried. I check the daily national poll at DailyKos every day (which I consider a pro-Obama outlier, but I don't actually know its methodology) and McCain has done one-point better each day for three successive days. Today it's Obama 50, McCain 44. That's a good place to be at this point in a campaign - but my gut tells me that if Obama's national popular vote falls below 50% in most of the polls, he's going to lose in a squeaker.

Needless to say, I really hope I'm wrong about that.

Individual state polls, at this point, much more telling than national trackers.

Bakestar wrote:

BuddyGroom wrote:I'll admit I'm a bit worried. I check the daily national poll at DailyKos every day (which I consider a pro-Obama outlier, but I don't actually know its methodology) and McCain has done one-point better each day for three successive days. Today it's Obama 50, McCain 44. That's a good place to be at this point in a campaign - but my gut tells me that if Obama's national popular vote falls below 50% in most of the polls, he's going to lose in a squeaker.

Needless to say, I really hope I'm wrong about that.

Individual state polls, at this point, much more telling than national trackers.

See, I don't agree with this. National polls are done more frequently, generally have larger samples. All these people are voters somewhere. If the race is tied nationally on election day, and we're lagging in key state polls, I'd feel better than if we were losing nationally, but tied in key state polls.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Bakestar wrote:

BuddyGroom wrote:I'll admit I'm a bit worried. I check the daily national poll at DailyKos every day (which I consider a pro-Obama outlier, but I don't actually know its methodology) and McCain has done one-point better each day for three successive days. Today it's Obama 50, McCain 44. That's a good place to be at this point in a campaign - but my gut tells me that if Obama's national popular vote falls below 50% in most of the polls, he's going to lose in a squeaker.

Needless to say, I really hope I'm wrong about that.

Individual state polls, at this point, much more telling than national trackers.

See, I don't agree with this. National polls are done more frequently, generally have larger samples. All these people are voters somewhere. If the race is tied nationally on election day, and we're lagging in key state polls, I'd feel better than if we were losing nationally, but tied in key state polls.

I get the logic, but doesn't this kind of presuppose that the population is essentially the same in every state?

As a specific example: if Obama is running four points ahead of his national average in Virginia, is that likely a fluke because of the smaller sample (and at this point we're looking at "polls of polls" anyway, so the small samples in any individual poll presumably don't matter quite as much), or a reflection of the fact that he's running strong among African-Americans, the suburban NoVA voters, etc?

McCain seems to be gaining a bit in the national trackers, and maybe in places like Florida, but at this point I don't see it as close enough to start really worrying. Some of that is the cushion, some of it is the early voting Obama already has banked, some of it is the demographics of the key states.

the election always tightens before election day, it's one of those truisms that everyone seems to forget

The Red Tornado wrote:the election always tightens before election day, it's one of those truisms that everyone seems to forget

Except when it doesn't.

well, yeah

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

Bakestar wrote:

BuddyGroom wrote:I'll admit I'm a bit worried. I check the daily national poll at DailyKos every day (which I consider a pro-Obama outlier, but I don't actually know its methodology) and McCain has done one-point better each day for three successive days. Today it's Obama 50, McCain 44. That's a good place to be at this point in a campaign - but my gut tells me that if Obama's national popular vote falls below 50% in most of the polls, he's going to lose in a squeaker.

Needless to say, I really hope I'm wrong about that.

Individual state polls, at this point, much more telling than national trackers.

See, I don't agree with this. National polls are done more frequently, generally have larger samples. All these people are voters somewhere. If the race is tied nationally on election day, and we're lagging in key state polls, I'd feel better than if we were losing nationally, but tied in key state polls.

I get the logic, but doesn't this kind of presuppose that the population is essentially the same in every state?

As a specific example: if Obama is running four points ahead of his national average in Virginia, is that likely a fluke because of the smaller sample (and at this point we're looking at "polls of polls" anyway, so the small samples in any individual poll presumably don't matter quite as much), or a reflection of the fact that he's running strong among African-Americans, the suburban NoVA voters, etc?

McCain seems to be gaining a bit in the national trackers, and maybe in places like Florida, but at this point I don't see it as close enough to start really worrying. Some of that is the cushion, some of it is the early voting Obama already has banked, some of it is the demographics of the key states.

Nationally, it is really, really hard to win the electoral college without being very close to winning the popular vote. Maybe McCain loses Virginia, but picks up PA or Wisconsin or something. I mean, he's not running way ahead in any region of the country, and I don't think there's any reason to believe that if he was to close the gap, it would be a regional thing.

Now, for the last week or so I've pretty much given up all hope, and part of the reason is with early voting, it's even harder to catch up.

The Red Tornado wrote:well, yeah

I mean, Reagan blew Carter out of the water late in 1980. There were polls showing him losing as late as a week before the election, and he ended up winning by almost 10% and held Carter to only 49 electoral votes.

btw, is "Early Voting" mostly a legitimizing euphemism for voting by absentee ballot, or have lots of states introduced separate early voting mechanisms? I know Oregon has vote-by-mail (and has had this for awhile), and that Florida and North Carolina have some kind of new structured early voting apparatus, but what else is there?

Bakestar wrote:btw, is "Early Voting" mostly a legitimizing euphemism for voting by absentee ballot, or have lots of states introduced separate early voting mechanisms? I know Oregon has vote-by-mail (and has had this for awhile), and that Florida and North Carolina have some kind of new structured early voting apparatus, but what else is there?

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/elect/absentearly.htm

More states allow it than in the past (up to 31 now), the parties are making a greater push to get voters to vote early, and it is becoming more talked about in the press. I don't know where to find the numbers of early voting this year vs. early voting say 16 years ago, but I think that it has become a much more commonly used practice.