Bloody hell, soon American Politics will be relegated to the same list as the old firm and the Kent/South East London debate as subjects which should never be mentioned !
Is it true Romney is a Rangers season ticket holder? He certainly not a catholic.
Also I hears that his parents gave him that name as they they were living on Romney Marshes at the time. Add that to his slagging of the London Olympics and you can see where he is in the London/Kent debate.
such gloating by the moral majority its enough to make me loose all faith in humanity.
Just out of curiosity, what is it about the Republican Party that inspires your faith in humanity so much GH? Personally I struggle to find anything inspiring about a bunch of right wing religious crackpots who are interested solely in imposing their ridiculous religious views on the entire world and lining their own pockets in the process.
Holy shit. Anyone just see the lunatics interviewed in The Florida piece on Newsnight? One stupid bitch saying they have to become a 'righteous nation' - whilst sporting a badge that supports israel's oppression of an entire religion; the next muppet shown was displaying a 'no to communism' banner. You couldn't make these cunts up.
But the house republicans are not being obstructionist just for the sake of it. They are keeping their election campaign promises to those who elected them. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Obama's failure to get anything done is mostly due to him not being capable of bringing the two sides together, that's his job. He hasn't even PROPOSED a budget in the last three years. If he had, there'd be a starting place for negotiation. Lots of loud criticism of the republicans on here, mostly from an ill-informed abrasive and obnoxious lefty who professes to make frequent visits here. I've lived here for the last forty years, I have my own business and have to deal with the federal, state, county and city bureaucracies on a daily basis. This election was about domestic policy, and the economy, Obama doing a great job of continuing to blame Bush. It wasn't about Iran or starting new wars. It was about domestic programs that are not funded, and as long as people are on the receiving end of those programs they will continue to vote the Democrats in. One day very soon the funds will all be gone, then people will regret the result of this election disaster.
Laughable. I take it I am the "ill-informed abrasive and obnoxious lefty" you are referring to? The complete lack of self-awareness in your post almost exactly mirrors that of the party you so faithfully follow and is the exact reason you got battered at the election.
Still, at least you're taking your monumentally embarrassing defeat with the good grace that I expected you to.
I have no idea what 'business' you run, but I really hope its not one that requires an IQ above that of a retarded tortoise.
We analyse materials failure, there might be a little I.Q. required there, don't you think? Incidentally, why DO you have to be so abusive to those who don't share your point of view?
Oh dear, looks like that dreadful "Communist" "Socialist" "Radical" "Extremist" Barack Obama just won a second term, including victories in those well known left-wing hotbeds of Virginia, Iowa, Ohio and Florida.
Yep, no doubt about it, this bloke is a real left wing nutter.
Oh dear, looks like that dreadful "Communist" "Socialist" "Radical" "Extremist" Barack Obama just won a second term, including victories in those well known left-wing hotbeds of Virginia, Iowa, Ohio and Florida.
Yep, no doubt about it, this bloke is a real left wing nutter.
I'm so glad that you now see it as it really is ;0)
It is now that the hard work starts, as I posted before on this thread that the American government has a 12% differential between its income and its spending by % of GDP, Greece has an 11.7% differential. Total US debt has passed $16 trillion, that's $53,378 per capita (in Greece it is $39,384 per capita) and that is federal, it excludes state deficits. The American people rightly or wrongly have just voted into office a President that believes the way to solve these problems is to carry on spending and borrowing. Depending on who you listen to that is either going to work or it is going to go very horribly wrong. Anyone reading the thread will know already which camp I'm in but, I am trying to leave that aside for the first part (you’ll be the judge of that success or failure).
Because of the legislative situation regarding government debt ceilings in the US, Obama will have to either cut the debt accumulation, raise taxes or a combination thereof. In addition the temporary tax cuts that were put in place as the crisis broke both by George W bush and Barack Obama himself are coming to an end, the so called fiscal cliff must be scaled within the next nine weeks (some commentators have suggested an extension to that timescale maybe possible). The cliff amounts to 5% of GDP, which is a large addition to the tax burden at a time of low growth, some predictions for growth are 4% but that is on the optimistic side. Economics tells us that businesses do not pay taxes people do, businesses simply pass the additional costs along. If corporate profits are hit this is passed on to the share holders through lower dividends, which will in turn affect the amount of money invested in businesses, or they pass the costs onto the consumers, which affects the ability of the company to sell its products and increases inflation.
Ben Bernanke, Obama’s central banker, has increased the money supply several times, as has the UK central bank. We used to printing money to do this now it is done electronically and called ‘Quantitative Easing’ basically the Government buys debt, freeing up the capital within institutions to lend again. Either way it is inflationary and will work its way through to higher prices in the long run. Anyone familiar with Austrian Business cycle theory will also know that it has a strong influence in the boom bust cycles that characterise our economic model.
That is not the only view however, the Keynesian view (from John Maynard Keynes) is that in recession the standard model of economics does not work (the market is broken) and therefore requires stimulus to regenerate natural levels of economic activity or at least to hasten its recovery (Link). Keynes would be the first to admit that these methods do not provide methods only provide for the very short term. You might be surprised to learn that I actually agree with that assessment, with caveats however. Time as far as I know (physicists may disagree) only in one direction such that what you do in the short term affects the medium and long term situations and when a government is in debt that acts as a break on growth countering the expansive intervention.
On the one hand we have the left wing expanding the supply of money to inflate demand and on the right we have policies that contract demand and correct fiscal imbalance. There is a third way however, one that has so far not been tried in the west. China has used bank capital adequacy ratios to control the supply of capital for the past twenty years (seemingly to good effect), this process has to start on the crest or upward curve of the business cycle, as demand rises beyond production capacity businesses use capital injections to increase capacity. As capital injection accelerates it becomes inflationary, it is at this point that adequacy ratios are raised pulling back lending and monetary expansion averting inflationary expansion and providing a store of real capital. When the demand curve has peaked and starts its downward trajectory capital adequacy ratios are relaxed thus providing a non inflationary capital injection.
What the Keynesian model does is use inflationary tactics to soften the landing in an unbalanced economy, it reduces the spending power of individuals by lowering the value of their currency but at the same time it slows the recovery. What the Austrian school proposes corrects the supply side economy without the inflationary policy, this deepens the initial impact of the correction but speeds the transition to the upward curve. Which of these is best depends on your point of view however neither are pain free as explained in the ‘free lunch’ link.
Obama has instigated spending on infrastructure projects as did Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930’s with the new deal. This provides additional employment for workers preventing hardship and lessening welfare payments it also provides longer term benefits in efficiency. Immediately a jump in GDP is produced as the state provided capital expenditure projects come online, unemployment lessens as jobs are created. On the negative side the government borrowing has an affect of the supply side monetary requirements making private borrowing more expensive and servicing the government debt provides a long term lag on competitiveness and again inflation.
The borrowing requirements of the US government are enormous and thus far fully taken up but, as the requirements rise, so do the risks to repayments, hence the rating given to the paper issued (US-Govies) falls. Already there are whispers of an over rating of US government debt, should that turn into a confidence crisis as we saw in Greece recently then the US will have few options available. That is when the shit will most definitely hit the baseball bat.
China holds 2.4 trillion in dollar assets at this time and they are by far the largest buyers of American federal debt. That puts them in a uniquely strong position with regard to trade negotiations and the setting of currency levels. Any economic plan that is enacted will require their approval (tacit or implicit) because they are the ones financing ongoing capital requirements. For far too long the west have allowed China to keep its currency too low, that has had a corrosive effect on the industrialised centres of Europe and America but, because they hold so much foreign currency any realignment will mean that they take a loss on those assets. They are therefore unlikely to want a run on US debt but, they are equally unlikely to allow the required currency realignment.
Should the worst happen (it is by no means certain that it will) we are poor position to cope with the impact of it. Our banking system is on its knees and capital is scarce, growth has disappeared and the full inflationary effects of our quantitative easing and borrowing are yet to be felt. Our historic system of raising capital (Gilts) has yet to be tested in this crisis because it has been seen as a safe haven thus far. This has, according to some, created a fixed income asset class bubble. If our ability to raise capital through this system is put into jeopardy then we will truly have no paddles with which to steer ourselves out of shit creek. As I say above I am still trying to remain objective but clearly I have an understanding of the way economics work that point my thoughts in a particular direction. I can already hear Ormiston shouting “utter bollox” at me (if he bothers to read it) but you surely cannot deny that the above provides risks for our future prosperity.
Henry, I follow American politics extremely closely and have done so for years, I have many friends and work associates in the US from both parties and the conclusions they draw are quite simple.
In short, the Republicans are in an extraordinary bubble where they are no longer even able to process reality, this is the party that has lost the popular vote in the Presidential election in five of the last six elections 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012 - and they still claim America as a 'conservative' country.
They only won the popular vote in 2004 because the country was in the middle of two wars and was still recovering from the trauma of 9/11 - and were facing a very poor candidate in John Kerry.
Any sane person - this includes the likes of Sen. Lindsay Graham from NC and even GWB himself can see this problem as plain as dogs balls but the Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party types refuse to see the writing on the wall.
In 1988 Bush senior won 60% of the white vote - that netted him 400 Electoral College votes and a landslide win over Dukakis, in 2012 Romney also won 60% of the white vote and barely broke 200 Electoral College votes becaus white folks aren't running the show any more.
White voters made up 90% of the electorate back in 1988 but only 71% in 2012 - we now have a very different electorate.
Look at the data; Blacks made up 13% of the 2012 electorate and Obama won their support 97-3, Latinos (more on these later) made up 10% of the electorare and Obama won them 71-29, Asians made up 4% of the electorate and Obama won them 75-25.
Look at those numbers again: of the 29% of the electorate that comes from non-white backgrounds Obama won 85% of their support - this means that the Democrats have about 25% of the total vote in the bag before the whistle blows, that is an amazing number which is only going to solidify because of the fast growing influence Latinos are having on the electorate.
Every month another 50,000 Latinos reach voting age, so every election cycle (remembering that Latinos register to vote in huge numbers) you are looking at 2.4 million new Latino voters entering the cycle every election.
Remembering that the Democrats are winning U-30's voters by 70-30 and Latino voters 71-29 that means that if we accept 80% of those 2.4 million show up at the polls then they are going to break 1.4 million to 0.6 million for Democrats over Republicans, that is a huge deficit to make up.
The critical issue here is immigration, the Republicans are totally in hock to the the Tea Party on this issue, as far as they are concerned every one of the 13 million 'undocumented' (illegal) Latinos living in the country should be deported back to their country of origin, or 'self deported' as Romney said.
The desire for this comes from the poor, unskilled, working-class base of the Tea Party which sees the immigrants taking local jobs and resources from them and they hate them for it and kill off any attempt by mainstream Republicans to even talk about any form of 'amnesty' towards these undocumented Latinos.
Every serious person knows that you simply cannot deport 13 million people, that's not going to happen but here's the problem, the ignorant morons in the Tea Party won't accept that and there are a lot of easy votes to be had by pandering to them, so they get pandered to.
You have to remember that these 13 million Latinos have set roots in the US, they have homes, jobs and families - you must factor in the fact that if two undocumented Latinos have a child (and millions have) then that child is born in America and is an American citizen and has the right to stay in the US.
That means that when the Republicans talk about deporting 13 million undocumented Latinos that they are talking about deporting the grandfathers, grandmothers, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of REGISTERED US VOTERS. I have yet to have it explained to me how this is a remotely sensible election strategy.
This is why the Latinos register to vote and show up to vote in such huge numbers, they are literally voting for their stake in the country.
The funniest thing of all? The Latino vote is growing so strongly that they will likely hit 20% of the total electorate by 2028 - double what they are now! What does that mean?
Simple, the Democrats currently have two stone-cold certainties in their Electoral College bag, California (55 EVS) and New York (29 EVS) - these form the bedrock of any Presidential victory.
The Republicans? Their base is in the south and Texas (which has 38 EVS), here's where it gets interesting. The Latino vote is growing fastest in Texas and many people are saying that by the 2020 election that Texas will go from being rock-solid Republican to a swing-state and by 2028 it will be firmly in the Democratic column.
Think about that for a second, Romney just struggled to break 200 EVS WITH Texas in his column, if that state turns blue then the Democrats have 122 EVS in the bag - nearly halfway to the 270 you need to win - before they even start campaigning.
Those are the numbers facing the Republicans - the same ones they refuse to see.
Also I hears that his parents gave him that name as they they were living on Romney Marshes at the time. Add that to his slagging of the London Olympics and you can see where he is in the London/Kent debate.
No one runs the Olympics quite like sh@t Mitt according to him.:)) He spewed it out often enough!!
....have a think about those numbers. Do you really want to be the party of old, white America when you know that in about five elections time whites will be the minority in the electorate?
Not a really smart idea, but then again the GOP is currently being run by not very smart people.
Some amazing stats there OA if accurate. Incredible shift.
They are accurate, the figures I quoted are from a number of different articles, the Daily Mail has their own figures which tally roughly with those above....
....have a think about those numbers. Do you really want to be the party of old, white America when you know that in about five elections time whites will be the minority in the electorate?
Not a really smart idea, but then again the GOP is currently being run by not very smart people.
The GOP sold their soul to the Bible Belt bashers since they go out and vote in large numbers. However like the rest of the world most Americans are becoming more and more moderate. The gamble is starting to not come off. Mitt was the best they could do, and he couldn't beat a mediocre president who, in any other time, didn't deserve a second term.
Nice work OA . You are clearly a heavily indoctrinataed Democrat with a deep distrust of the GOP. As u are probably aware by now that I support neither and believe both to be the political wing of the elite and their banking and corporate economic and inevitable social domination. The job of the media is to condition the masses ,left or right on social issues , some of which you have demostrated good knowledge on. but when it comes to the major issues , bailouts and foreign policy , there isnt a playing card between the two, as for me this is the real goal, power and domination. The media treat the major issues as " God bless America, the savior of democracy" etc. No left or right on those issues .
The GOP sold their soul to the Bible Belt bashers since they go out and vote in large numbers. However like the rest of the world most Americans are becoming more and more moderate. The gamble is starting to not come off. Mitt was the best they could do, and he couldn't beat a mediocre president who, in any other time, didn't deserve a second term.
That's not quite true, the Evangelicals are still out there but they are not a decisive force in the GOP, they have nothing like the power they had in 2000-2004. The numbers show that Evangelicals have gone from the 80-20 GOP split in those elections to closer to 60-40 now.
In fact, many people in the Evangelical movement are realising that it was a huge mistake for them to sell their souls to the GOP because it actually restricted their ability to grow their own business - the religion business.
The real problem is the Tea Party, the grass-root, know-nothing extremists who are hounding good, decent, reasonable conservatives like Senators Bob Bennett and Richard Lugar out of the party.
To hold your spot in the Senate or Congress in the US system you need to go through a 'Primary', which is a popular electoral vote by party members - this does not happen in the UK or Australia, there the MP gets chosen by a much smaller cadre of party officials.
This is the critical issue, the Tea Party people basically have every GOP Senator/Congressman on notice, "If you vote against what we want we'll force you out in a primary," - and they have done it many, many times.
Therefore, every GOP member of Congress is shit scared of doing anything bi-partisan or shifting an inch from their far-right song-sheets in case they get 'primaried' by the Tea Party.
Nice work OA . You are clearly a heavily indoctrinataed Democrat with a deep distrust of the GOP. As u are probably aware by now that I support neither and believe both to be the political wing of the elite and their banking and corporate economic and inevitable social domination. The job of the media is to condition the masses ,left or right on social issues , some of which you have demostrated good knowledge on. but when it comes to the major issues , bailouts and foreign policy , there isnt a playing card between the two, as for me this is the real goal, power and domination. The media treat the major issues as " God bless America, the savior of democracy" etc. No left or right on those issues .
Not sure about "heavily indoctrinated Democrat" but you are right about my strong distrust of the present generation of Republicans.
The bigger questions of bailout and foreign policy issues would take too long to go over here, on the latter point any American President is hamstrung in what they can do with regard to foreign policy.
For example, you have seen the huge blowback Obama has copped from AIPAC for pushing Netanyahu to stop the settlements on the West Bank, there is only so far that you can push on certain issues though.
Similarly, even if a President wants to scale back on defence spending - probably the biggest foreign policy issue there is - then this is an extremely fraught issue, you are talking about tens of thousands of jobs, many of them in swing states like VA, your choices are limited by political realities.
Baran Paulo, Ormiston... Fascinating stuff and more angles on a complex situation that has no impact on our lives but everything for the kids to deal with...every western democracy has the issue of healthcare and pensions to deal with...Secondly $ reserve currency status not guaranteed forever so the US have to sort their deficit eventually...
lets see what they do with their fiscal cliff challenge looming this Christmas ? Fascinating insight into the T party and I will pay attention more to this...I expect they will muddle through somehow just like the eurozone ... there is clearly a need for new ideas to pull up the US and western democracies after 2008 crash - I share some of the cynicism about politicians but still believe in the Keynsian theories re. government focus on growth and jobs - perhaps worth studying some economics and the real reasons / outcomes of 2008 crash.
On the one hand it's complex but on the other it's quite simple free markets need freedom AND regulation at the same time. And they need intelligent, creative decent people to come up with solutions. By the way I don't buy the US vs Greece comparison - Any country can be in any amount of debt as long as they can service the interest and increase production so that the debt looks smaller in the future... Greece has had 6 years of recession with -5% whereas the US has good and bad years... as long as markets believe and the US system bumps along no-one will pull the plug
On the one hand it's complex but on the other it's quite simple free markets need freedom AND regulation at the same time. And they need intelligent, creative decent people to come up with solutions. By the way I don't buy the US vs Greece comparison - Any country can be in any amount of debt as long as they can service the interest and increase production so that the debt looks smaller in the future... Greece has had 6 years of recession with -5% whereas the US has good and bad years... as long as markets believe and the US system bumps along no-one will pull the plug
It depends on what you do with the debt, we financed the industrial revolution with debt but we never used it to finance a welfare state (or in the Greek case, tax evasion). The comparison was merely to illustrate the depth and scale not as a comparison of the economies which are obviously far different.
Hang on a sec Loco - is this the Republicans or Democrats you're talking about?
I was attempting to explain both economic strattegies, to compare and critique them. My personal views on economics would fall to the right but I doubt they would fit into any party over there or here. I would not for instance ever even consider the removal of our NHS (or indeed introducing private finance or practice to it), it is however a socialist policy, as is social housing and the ownership of the means of production. It is a pesermistic post (perhaps overly so), hence the reference to Marvin (of hitchhikers guide fame). It was intended to explains the risks that our economies face rather than a predict our future.
Comments
- made me laugh that did.
Also I hears that his parents gave him that name as they they were living on Romney Marshes at the time. Add that to his slagging of the London Olympics and you can see where he is in the London/Kent debate.
Incidentally, why DO you have to be so abusive to those who don't share your point of view?
Because of the legislative situation regarding government debt ceilings in the US, Obama will have to either cut the debt accumulation, raise taxes or a combination thereof. In addition the temporary tax cuts that were put in place as the crisis broke both by George W bush and Barack Obama himself are coming to an end, the so called fiscal cliff must be scaled within the next nine weeks (some commentators have suggested an extension to that timescale maybe possible). The cliff amounts to 5% of GDP, which is a large addition to the tax burden at a time of low growth, some predictions for growth are 4% but that is on the optimistic side. Economics tells us that businesses do not pay taxes people do, businesses simply pass the additional costs along. If corporate profits are hit this is passed on to the share holders through lower dividends, which will in turn affect the amount of money invested in businesses, or they pass the costs onto the consumers, which affects the ability of the company to sell its products and increases inflation.
“No such thing as a free lunch” Milton Freedman explains the above.
Ben Bernanke, Obama’s central banker, has increased the money supply several times, as has the UK central bank. We used to printing money to do this now it is done electronically and called ‘Quantitative Easing’ basically the Government buys debt, freeing up the capital within institutions to lend again. Either way it is inflationary and will work its way through to higher prices in the long run. Anyone familiar with Austrian Business cycle theory will also know that it has a strong influence in the boom bust cycles that characterise our economic model.
Explanation of Austrian Business Cycle simplified
Explanation of Austrian Business Cycle Full (but long)
That is not the only view however, the Keynesian view (from John Maynard Keynes) is that in recession the standard model of economics does not work (the market is broken) and therefore requires stimulus to regenerate natural levels of economic activity or at least to hasten its recovery (Link). Keynes would be the first to admit that these methods do not provide methods only provide for the very short term. You might be surprised to learn that I actually agree with that assessment, with caveats however. Time as far as I know (physicists may disagree) only in one direction such that what you do in the short term affects the medium and long term situations and when a government is in debt that acts as a break on growth countering the expansive intervention.
Explanation of Keynesian model
On the one hand we have the left wing expanding the supply of money to inflate demand and on the right we have policies that contract demand and correct fiscal imbalance. There is a third way however, one that has so far not been tried in the west. China has used bank capital adequacy ratios to control the supply of capital for the past twenty years (seemingly to good effect), this process has to start on the crest or upward curve of the business cycle, as demand rises beyond production capacity businesses use capital injections to increase capacity. As capital injection accelerates it becomes inflationary, it is at this point that adequacy ratios are raised pulling back lending and monetary expansion averting inflationary expansion and providing a store of real capital. When the demand curve has peaked and starts its downward trajectory capital adequacy ratios are relaxed thus providing a non inflationary capital injection.
What the Keynesian model does is use inflationary tactics to soften the landing in an unbalanced economy, it reduces the spending power of individuals by lowering the value of their currency but at the same time it slows the recovery. What the Austrian school proposes corrects the supply side economy without the inflationary policy, this deepens the initial impact of the correction but speeds the transition to the upward curve. Which of these is best depends on your point of view however neither are pain free as explained in the ‘free lunch’ link.
Obama has instigated spending on infrastructure projects as did Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930’s with the new deal. This provides additional employment for workers preventing hardship and lessening welfare payments it also provides longer term benefits in efficiency. Immediately a jump in GDP is produced as the state provided capital expenditure projects come online, unemployment lessens as jobs are created. On the negative side the government borrowing has an affect of the supply side monetary requirements making private borrowing more expensive and servicing the government debt provides a long term lag on competitiveness and again inflation.
The borrowing requirements of the US government are enormous and thus far fully taken up but, as the requirements rise, so do the risks to repayments, hence the rating given to the paper issued (US-Govies) falls. Already there are whispers of an over rating of US government debt, should that turn into a confidence crisis as we saw in Greece recently then the US will have few options available. That is when the shit will most definitely hit the baseball bat.
China holds 2.4 trillion in dollar assets at this time and they are by far the largest buyers of American federal debt. That puts them in a uniquely strong position with regard to trade negotiations and the setting of currency levels. Any economic plan that is enacted will require their approval (tacit or implicit) because they are the ones financing ongoing capital requirements. For far too long the west have allowed China to keep its currency too low, that has had a corrosive effect on the industrialised centres of Europe and America but, because they hold so much foreign currency any realignment will mean that they take a loss on those assets. They are therefore unlikely to want a run on US debt but, they are equally unlikely to allow the required currency realignment.
Should the worst happen (it is by no means certain that it will) we are poor position to cope with the impact of it. Our banking system is on its knees and capital is scarce, growth has disappeared and the full inflationary effects of our quantitative easing and borrowing are yet to be felt. Our historic system of raising capital (Gilts) has yet to be tested in this crisis because it has been seen as a safe haven thus far. This has, according to some, created a fixed income asset class bubble. If our ability to raise capital through this system is put into jeopardy then we will truly have no paddles with which to steer ourselves out of shit creek. As I say above I am still trying to remain objective but clearly I have an understanding of the way economics work that point my thoughts in a particular direction. I can already hear Ormiston shouting “utter bollox” at me (if he bothers to read it) but you surely cannot deny that the above provides risks for our future prosperity.
http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/the-gop-delusion-how-conservatives-were-mugged-by-reality/
― Friedrich A. von Hayek
In short, the Republicans are in an extraordinary bubble where they are no longer even able to process reality, this is the party that has lost the popular vote in the Presidential election in five of the last six elections 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012 - and they still claim America as a 'conservative' country.
They only won the popular vote in 2004 because the country was in the middle of two wars and was still recovering from the trauma of 9/11 - and were facing a very poor candidate in John Kerry.
Any sane person - this includes the likes of Sen. Lindsay Graham from NC and even GWB himself can see this problem as plain as dogs balls but the Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party types refuse to see the writing on the wall.
In 1988 Bush senior won 60% of the white vote - that netted him 400 Electoral College votes and a landslide win over Dukakis, in 2012 Romney also won 60% of the white vote and barely broke 200 Electoral College votes becaus white folks aren't running the show any more.
White voters made up 90% of the electorate back in 1988 but only 71% in 2012 - we now have a very different electorate.
Look at the data; Blacks made up 13% of the 2012 electorate and Obama won their support 97-3, Latinos (more on these later) made up 10% of the electorare and Obama won them 71-29, Asians made up 4% of the electorate and Obama won them 75-25.
Look at those numbers again: of the 29% of the electorate that comes from non-white backgrounds Obama won 85% of their support - this means that the Democrats have about 25% of the total vote in the bag before the whistle blows, that is an amazing number which is only going to solidify because of the fast growing influence Latinos are having on the electorate.
Every month another 50,000 Latinos reach voting age, so every election cycle (remembering that Latinos register to vote in huge numbers) you are looking at 2.4 million new Latino voters entering the cycle every election.
Remembering that the Democrats are winning U-30's voters by 70-30 and Latino voters 71-29 that means that if we accept 80% of those 2.4 million show up at the polls then they are going to break 1.4 million to 0.6 million for Democrats over Republicans, that is a huge deficit to make up.
The critical issue here is immigration, the Republicans are totally in hock to the the Tea Party on this issue, as far as they are concerned every one of the 13 million 'undocumented' (illegal) Latinos living in the country should be deported back to their country of origin, or 'self deported' as Romney said.
The desire for this comes from the poor, unskilled, working-class base of the Tea Party which sees the immigrants taking local jobs and resources from them and they hate them for it and kill off any attempt by mainstream Republicans to even talk about any form of 'amnesty' towards these undocumented Latinos.
Every serious person knows that you simply cannot deport 13 million people, that's not going to happen but here's the problem, the ignorant morons in the Tea Party won't accept that and there are a lot of easy votes to be had by pandering to them, so they get pandered to.
You have to remember that these 13 million Latinos have set roots in the US, they have homes, jobs and families - you must factor in the fact that if two undocumented Latinos have a child (and millions have) then that child is born in America and is an American citizen and has the right to stay in the US.
That means that when the Republicans talk about deporting 13 million undocumented Latinos that they are talking about deporting the grandfathers, grandmothers, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of REGISTERED US VOTERS. I have yet to have it explained to me how this is a remotely sensible election strategy.
This is why the Latinos register to vote and show up to vote in such huge numbers, they are literally voting for their stake in the country.
The funniest thing of all? The Latino vote is growing so strongly that they will likely hit 20% of the total electorate by 2028 - double what they are now! What does that mean?
Simple, the Democrats currently have two stone-cold certainties in their Electoral College bag, California (55 EVS) and New York (29 EVS) - these form the bedrock of any Presidential victory.
The Republicans? Their base is in the south and Texas (which has 38 EVS), here's where it gets interesting. The Latino vote is growing fastest in Texas and many people are saying that by the 2020 election that Texas will go from being rock-solid Republican to a swing-state and by 2028 it will be firmly in the Democratic column.
Think about that for a second, Romney just struggled to break 200 EVS WITH Texas in his column, if that state turns blue then the Democrats have 122 EVS in the bag - nearly halfway to the 270 you need to win - before they even start campaigning.
Those are the numbers facing the Republicans - the same ones they refuse to see.
Also I hears that his parents gave him that name as they they were living on Romney Marshes at the time. Add that to his slagging of the London Olympics and you can see where he is in the London/Kent debate.
No one runs the Olympics quite like sh@t Mitt according to him.:)) He spewed it out often enough!!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76431.html
....have a think about those numbers. Do you really want to be the party of old, white America when you know that in about five elections time whites will be the minority in the electorate?
Not a really smart idea, but then again the GOP is currently being run by not very smart people.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229225/Presidential-election-2012-Record-number-Hispanic-voters-head-polls.html
.....but perhaps the most worrying trend for Republicans is already established....
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76431.html
....have a think about those numbers. Do you really want to be the party of old, white America when you know that in about five elections time whites will be the minority in the electorate?
Not a really smart idea, but then again the GOP is currently being run by not very smart people.
In fact, many people in the Evangelical movement are realising that it was a huge mistake for them to sell their souls to the GOP because it actually restricted their ability to grow their own business - the religion business.
The real problem is the Tea Party, the grass-root, know-nothing extremists who are hounding good, decent, reasonable conservatives like Senators Bob Bennett and Richard Lugar out of the party.
To hold your spot in the Senate or Congress in the US system you need to go through a 'Primary', which is a popular electoral vote by party members - this does not happen in the UK or Australia, there the MP gets chosen by a much smaller cadre of party officials.
This is the critical issue, the Tea Party people basically have every GOP Senator/Congressman on notice, "If you vote against what we want we'll force you out in a primary," - and they have done it many, many times.
Therefore, every GOP member of Congress is shit scared of doing anything bi-partisan or shifting an inch from their far-right song-sheets in case they get 'primaried' by the Tea Party.
The bigger questions of bailout and foreign policy issues would take too long to go over here, on the latter point any American President is hamstrung in what they can do with regard to foreign policy.
For example, you have seen the huge blowback Obama has copped from AIPAC for pushing Netanyahu to stop the settlements on the West Bank, there is only so far that you can push on certain issues though.
Similarly, even if a President wants to scale back on defence spending - probably the biggest foreign policy issue there is - then this is an extremely fraught issue, you are talking about tens of thousands of jobs, many of them in swing states like VA, your choices are limited by political realities.
lets see what they do with their fiscal cliff challenge looming this Christmas ? Fascinating insight into the T party and I will pay attention more to this...I expect they will muddle through somehow just like the eurozone ... there is clearly a need for new ideas to pull up the US and western democracies after 2008 crash - I share some of the cynicism about politicians but still believe in the Keynsian theories re. government focus on growth and jobs - perhaps worth studying some economics and the real reasons / outcomes of 2008 crash.
On the one hand it's complex but on the other it's quite simple free markets need freedom AND regulation at the same time. And they need intelligent, creative decent people to come up with solutions. By the way I don't buy the US vs Greece comparison - Any country can be in any amount of debt as long as they can service the interest and increase production so that the debt looks smaller in the future... Greece has had 6 years of recession with -5% whereas the US has good and bad years... as long as markets believe and the US system bumps along no-one will pull the plug