Political Equinox

I don’t often agree completely with the Republican National Committee. They are extremely partisan, which I cannot fault them for because that is the purpose of the committee. However, despite my support for Barack Obama in the election in just a few days, I realize the importance of the RNC’s recent campaign against electing 60 Democrats into the Senate. They have hit the nail on the head in regard to not electing 60 Democrats to the Senate, a House Majority, and a Democratic President.

For those that don’t know, 60 Democrats would mean the Republicans would no longer have the ability to block votes by refusing to end debate (of course, the flip side is true as well). Giving one party …

Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, healthcare, obama, president, republican

Since it’s inception in 1804, the Twelfth Amendment has governed every presidential election since, but the clause regarding ties in the electoral college has been used just once. In 1824, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay all ran for the highest office in the land. Not a single candidate received a majority of the electoral votes.

The process was riddled with corruption and resulted in John Quincy Adams claiming the highest office in the land, leaving the leading candidate Andrew Jackson shortchanged. Jackson had expected the House to vote for him given that he had won a plurality of the electoral vote, but after some bargaining between Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, Adams was elected.

It’s …

Tags: 270 electoral votes, andrew jackson, Barack Obama, candidate, Congress, constituents, constitutional duty, electors, Henry Clay, house of representatives, IRS, john quincy adams, majority vote, obama, popular vote, president, presidential election, republican, strategy, tution, twelfth amendment, voting

Professor Charles Franklin from the University of Wisconsin lectured at Indiana University on Tuesday, September 30. Franklin is the Co-Director of Pollster.com, a website that tracks presidential polling and aggregates data from a variety of polling sources.

Franklin states two criteria for effective display of data on Pollster. First, the data must be “put in perspective.” You can’t spin the data attempting to turn it into som

ething that it doesn’t say. Second, there should be “No cherry picking.” Franklin emphasized that you cannot select certain polls to include in your aggregation to bias results in one direction. If you do this then you’ve eliminated the entire worth of the …

Tags: America, Barack Obama, candidate, economy, IRS, John McCain, money, obama, president, web

Last Thursday evening I had the honor of witnessing an intriguing lecture by St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard who received his PhD is Economics from Indiana University.

Bullard spoke specifically on the topic of the recent financial crisis focusing on systemic risk, which he defined as “the possibility that the failure of one firm will lead to the failure of other firms.” However, Bullard said the difficulty lies in defining when there is adequate systemic risk to call for government intervention.

Three Pillars of Systemic Risk

Interconnectedness – Recent examples of systemic risk has focused on investment banks interconnecting themselves with complex financial instruments. For example’s sake, suppose Bank A purchases an option from Bank B to hedge risk, if …

Tags: economy, fannie mae, fannie mae and freddie mac, federal reserve bank, financial, government intervention, interconnectedness, investment banks, james bullard, mortgage backed securities, president, systemic risk, tution

The results are in and people are claiming Joe Biden held his own and Sarah Palin didn’t disappoint. I must agree, even though I’ll have to give Biden the nod as the overall debate winner, Governor Palin came close.

However, don’t take that as an endorsement of the potential Vice President, as Palin benefited from the poor debate format. The moderator moved the candidates quickly from subject to subject almost as if attempting to cover the entire range of issues in a single debate.

This was wasteful of the American people’s time. Why not focus on the economy, the war, and healthcare. Giving ample time to each subject instead of skipping from question to question. Instead we addressed very little on each …

Tags: America, candidate, economy, healthcare, joe biden, mccain campaign, president