On the eve of Election 2010, most pollsters and pundits are predicting a decisive defeat for Democrats with most claiming this is a referendum of the Obama administration. But, what, exactly does this vote mean for the economy and U.S. middle class?
Reading the tea leaves, pun intended, one must wonder how the media can be so disconnected with what is really going on in America.
What are people so pissed about? Is it bi-partisanship, Obamacare, the Stimulus, taxes? Is it elected officials are not liberal, moderate, conservative, work across the aisle enough?
All of that is wrong.
As a site which has daily written about the United States economy, I can definitely say it's about jobs.
Wall Street got a bail out and bonuses, Americans got laid off and made poor. Special interests and even China got Stimulus, Americans got more jobs offshore outsourced and foreclosed upon. High frequency traders made billions, regular Americans lost their meager retirement.
Now there is pressure for Obama to shed himself of his advisers.
Among the complaints: Mr. Obama conveyed an incoherent message that didn't express what Democrats would do over the next two years if they retain power; he focused more on his own image than helping Democratic candidates; and the White House picked the wrong battle when it attacked Republicans for using "outside" money to pay for campaigns, an issue disconnected from voters' real-world anxieties.
Messaging, image, message? Wrong again Democrats, it's about jobs.
Democrats, YOU BLEW IT! That's the bottom line. You voted for Wall Street, not Main Street and even worse we didn't get real financial reform. You did nothing about stopping the offshore outsourcing of jobs, instead tried to pass immigration reform for that all important Hispanic vote. Where's that Hispanic vote now and don't you think Americans of Hispanic ethnicity need jobs just as much as rest of America if not more so?
What's wrong? Elected representatives don't listen to the people is what's wrong. How many of you wrote your representatives and if lucky, received a letter where that representative just told you what they were going to do and then a bunch of lies back, completely ignoring what you wanted?
Does anyone believe this election means people want their jobs offshore outsourced? Hell no. Does anyone believe this election people do not want affordable health care? Hell no again. Does anyone believe this election people do not want jobs? That's the biggest hell no of them all.
People wanted Stimulus but effective Stimulus, not spending to special interests for special favors sake. They wanted those Wall Street crooks in jail, not given bonuses. They wanted health care reform that lowered costs, not give the private health care sector more carte blanche.
I believe this is a protest vote. No one expects Republicans to do anything right, more people are hoping at least they can stop the wrong.
We'll be here doing the same thing next election cycle, throwing the bums out. Why? Because the American people are not represented and both parties will not act in the national interest, in the middle class interest.
Both parties will tell you they are, but in fact, uh, not so much. They can message, spin, pontificate and even put pundit du jour on a pedestal, you'll still see a similar swing next cycle. Until Americans see paychecks, their paychecks rise, their retirement secure, their neighbors doing well, the only thing that will remain the same is voting out the incumbents.
Republicans be warned, vote for another executive pay package, give one more dime to the super rich, pass bills that lose one more job and 2012 will be your turn.
Comments
Consider this an open political rant thread
I'm sure most economics readers are out voting or out even helping campaigns today. But consider this the election 2010 open thread rant. Who did you vote for? Did you skip out? Why? Did you split your ballot, write in, vote 3rd party?
Myself, I have a write in ballot and the good news is voting on propositions and local government. But I have yet to fill out the federal races yet and I had better make a decision? Why? Because they all SUCK. I will vote for open borders, more bringing in foreign workers to displace Americans and special interests on one, on the other I will vote for more bad trade deals, tax cuts for the super rich and more decimation of the poor, down trodden.
Not a damn true Populist Progressive of the lot. So, what do you do in that circumstance? Well, you might look to see who brings home the jobs bacon to your district. Jobs bacon is hard to get these days and it's jobs bacon we need.
I might blind fold myself and do a put the tail on the donkey. I just don't know, there isn't a single candidate where I am who is not bought and paid for by special interests, sane economic policy, focus on the American worker be damned.
Alan Grayson lost
This is really bad. Grayson was outspoken on the bail out, tried like hell and succeeding on getting a partial audit the Fed, tried very hard to get in some good amendments and often was blocked by Democratic leadership, is losing his election badly.
There also was in Ohio. A "trade representative for Bush" just won the Senate seat. What is wrong with Ohio when they have suffered so badly from just those type of trade agreements.
This is what I've noticed, the politicians who actually fought hard for some same policies were attacked, badly, by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others and it looks like yet again, $$ buys elections.
Any surprises?
Rob;
>>there isn't a single candidate where I am who is not bought and paid for by special interests,
>>sane economic policy, focus on the American worker be damned.
Gee now there's a shocker. ALL politicians are bought and paid for. Until a viable alternative is created we the people are well and truly screwed
true, but it's not like the GOP will improve the economy
Not leadership from everything I've seen, so this is pretty shocking. I think Grayson ran a real bad campaign with some insulting ad, so that might explain him, which is a bummer because he fought like hell on financial reform.
Russ Feingold just lost and lost big. I don't know what that is, on the war he was outspoken but I don't know his voting record.
It seems some Democrats who voted against TARP, fairly reasonable are getting picked off as well.
Harry Reid still there
Of all the corporate type Democrats I wanted to see go, there he stays while ind. Democrats in the Senate lost! There is no justice, Harry Reid is a huge reason we did not get real financial reform as just one example. I know his opponent was a crazy lady, but hell, I would have voted a potted plant in myself to get rid of Reid.
This election is insane. When the unemployment rate is 10.1% in 2012, I wonder what next would happen.
It gets worse...
...Russ Feingold was defeated in Wisconsin. He has voted against every one of these anti-American pro-corporate trade deals, and the voters get rid of him of all people. I was thinking in the recent past if we could only build on Senators like this, and now he is gone. I am more pessimistic about this country's future than I have ever been in my life.
Regards,
What happened in Wisconsin?
Right, it doesn't seem this election was about actual votes, voting record. There were many Dems who voted against the Wall Street bail outs who got tossed while GOP who voted for the bail outs won.
It's a mess but as usual, the people lost. I think I can still blame Democrats for not voting in some real reforms that gave an opening to this tsunami.
But what now Brown Cow? I think the U.S. just took 20 steps backwards into the Bush era and policies.
Obama needed to come in like an FDR...
...and do immediate and tangible things to help working and middle class people in a large way. That would have meant upsetting the corporate powers that be, and large financial contributors to his campaign, he decided to help financial institutions rather than the people which in the end resulted in a political catastrophe.
Regards,
first vote out of the box
was to release the rest of the TARP funds. Refused to fire Geithner, hired Larry Summers, put Daine Farrell, queen of offshore outsourcing on the executive team, put a host of Indians, with connections to offshore outsourcing, in the I.T. positions....
Yup. This site, which had/has some hard core lefties who work on campaigns, the criticism started immediately and this site also has a lot of political conservatives on it, same thing.
But I tried to warn during the primaries that Hillary, of all people, was de facto more Progressive in policy positions than Obama, shocking but true....
Now with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the mix, these huge corporate money trees pouring negative, false ads into campaigns, it's even more important to look at votes, legislation, advisers, policy and make a clear connection to what does what and what is a false claim, trying to get some sane economic policy.
As an example, I can tell you there is a joining of forces on confronting China's currency manipulation and the trade deficit, that's conservatives, Progressives agreeing on the same issue.
That said, GOP leadership is worse than Democratic leadership in that they want to enable even more bad trade deals and will enable more offshore outsourcing.
So, in spite of the Populist rancor and I'll call it Populist when you have people of all political flavors agreeing on an issue and action to take, it's once again....
the bought and paid fors of government who will not act.
Same is true on bail outs. We had some strong conservatives talking nationalization in effect, along with some strong Progressives, populists. Taking the Sweden approach, or at least the S&L crisis approach....yet because of Congressional leadership and two administrations, 1 GOP, 1 Dem, couldn't get that on the table.
So, I don't expect much to change here. It's corporate money that's at the root of all evil it appears.
BS
I have to call BS, on throw the incumbents out, Grassley/Vitter are still here, while Russ gets booted by a low-life prick! 100% Repugs are owned by corpa"rats" while about 70-80% of Democrats are. What a sorry day, bigotry still plays well here in the USA, be it gays, minorities, and the like. We must be getting dumber by the year. The only people that tried something to help, get tossed out and jerks get to stay, makes me want to puke, well the good thing is I deleted Mish's website from my list, I had enough of his crap! After all this, I still don't feel any better.
Have a nice day!
Gary,
PS do like the site!
RE: BS
Yeah, I gotta agree, although Grassley has a lot of Populist type votes and believe this or not, he has been very active in sticking up for U.S. tech labor, so I wouldn't put him in the 100% GOP bought and paid fors as you think.
But Feingold, yet not Harry Reid? What? I think the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had a lot to do with this.
Vitter as far as I know hasn't met a corporate lobbyist he didn't like but I'm not as familiar with his voting record.
The Answer to Rich Santori's Rant
Early in 2009 on CNBC, Rich Santori did a rant on the floor of the Exchange posing the question why Santori should pay off the bills of neighbors unable to pay second mortgages on houses with more bathrooms than the rest of us.
Last night was a prelude to that answer. More comes when all of us will be asked to make sacrifices in benefits to maintain the excessive compensation of the TARP banksters, shielded by Obama's "I am the only thing between you and those folks out there with torches and pitchforks." It looks as though getting in the way of rough justice was the biggest mistake of this Century so far:
it's all about Klassen Kampf from now on. The bigger mistake of Obama and his bankster friends came from destroying jobs through the criminality of labor arbitrage and corrupt wealth transfer. Twenty Eight percent of the voters identify as Independent, and a majority of that 28 percent voted Republican.
On the same question of Plutocrat Party demand for sacrifices by the toiling masses to pay the banksters, the French gave a firm 'NON' last week. Fuel delivery was blockaded, gas stations were out of fuel, trains were halted, and three and a half million filled the streets.
Santori's Rant will be answered by the generation of his children. Those kids will clean the toilets in the same extra bathrooms of their Chinese landlords. Over 100 Chinese Warships with thousands of Marines now on maneuvers in the South China Sea say so.
Burton Leed
Compared to the French...
...we look like sheep being led to the slaughter!!!
Regards,
interactive demographis breakdown link, Hispanic vote pondering
The Wall Street Journal has some interactive graphics on the demographics breakdown of the vote. Frankly I need to see these by state and district, county.
That said, nationally a whopping 68% of Republicans voted on illegal immigration. It was only 8% of the voting reason. 62% voted on the economy with GOP getting 53% of that vote. So, the premise of this political populist rant piece, it's about jobs, is correct.
That said, 8% voting on illegal immigration and the GOP getting an 18% margin, is enough to swing a lot of elections.
Hispanics nationally voted 66% for Democrats, 32% for GOP. Unfortunately "other" races are plopped those numbers.
59% of white people voted for the Republicans.
I was wondering that last night. Is "amnesty" aka "pathway to citizenship" not only saving Democratic seats on a "blind vote" scale in CA, OR, NV, yet in other states, declaring one is for "amnesty" or "pathway to citizenship" the kiss of death?
Heath Schuler, NC-11 (D) kept his seat and he introduced legislation that is "punish employers for hiring illegals" in the House.
But in NV, crazy lady made illegal immigration an issue and the Hispanic vote appears to have saved corrupt Reid's ass.
In CA, they all are for "pathway to citizenship", so who knows, but it sure seems at least in Nevada, it made a difference.
I'm sure getting to the truth of this one will be tough, but ya all Feingold was an "amnesty" vote, because in terms of bail outs and spending and foreclosures and Wall Street, he was one of the better Senators...
So, I'm wondering if we have a split, i.e. if you are "against pathway to citizenship" in CA, you are doomed, yet if you are for it in say Wisconsin you are doomed.
The on the economy, Dems only lost by a 3% breakdown and considering the Wall Street bail outs, the lack of reform, the bonuses and then "Stimulus" that didn't go into direct hire jobs, the lack of lending to small business and all of the other Democrat screw ups....
I'd say if Democrats actually started making sure proposals would work and rutted out their corporate labor arbitrage, special interest friends, they could come back.
That's one of the worst things, Stimulus spending has been vilified when the "Stimulus" was not true Keynesian. An entire approach to helping the economy in a downturn, a major tool, has been vilified because the Democrats did not create a true Keynesian stimulus in the first place.
90% of Black people voted Democrat
Another demographic and why they voted Democrat if this was a referendum on jobs is a good question, for 90% of Black people voted Democrat. Black have been hit the worst, just across the board on jobs, on foreclosures, on economic destitution, I mean it's something like double white people by the numbers. So, when talking about race demographics, it's a "block vote" regardless. Gez, talk about taking a major voting block, based on race, for granted. As a minority block, these guys aren't getting anything done for them economically.
Krugman wrote a good article the other day...
...regarding the myths of the stimulus. It was nothing we didn't know here, but it makes you wonder how this message cannot get out to the people.
Regards,
Krugman link?
You know when you see something like that, I sure cannot get to anything, if you are of a mind to turn it into a blog post or Instapopulist, or at least link into a comment to bring other's attention to it, that's useful.
I haven't read it but Krugman never seemed to amplify the fact that it did not have Hire America and Buy American, plus the funds were not distributed directly to people, i.e. it has to be "bottom up" distribution, i.e. income, through government sponsored employment to really work. In other words, infrastructure jobs, similar to the Great Depression GG Bridge, Hoover Damn, the CCC, WPA, where you get investment, plus income, directly into the pockets at the bottom.
Instead the money went "top down", into unemployment insurance, which actually has a reasonable multiplier on it for Stimulus, but it bought goods overseas, literally contracts were awarded to private companies, who in turn offshore outsourced or bought money overseas, or even brought in/used foreign guest workers, illegal labor and the list goes on and on...
so, in other words, the money was not forced to stay in the Domestic economy it was supposed to Stimulate and a lot was wasted by the "profits" of this top down distribution instead of a government sponsored "bottom up".
Here is the link...
...http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkr...
It was written a few weeks ago, it didn't seem that long to me.
Regards,
as one who looks at the daily economic reports
and it would be so nice if you all looked at them also, esp. in case I make an error! but this looks right to me, what Krugman is saying, including government shrinking. That's really true on State and Local, they are slashing and burning due to deficits.
That said, he's not coming out and defending Keynesian and saying, hey, this thing was not architected correctly here, you needed very specific parameters and directed spending as I mentioned earlier.
Wouldn't it be nice if people started reading the sites which go into the details and are accurate or try to be instead of this sound byte stream which dominates?
Recent WTO Case
The victory by the AFL-CIO and Manufacturing coalition seemed to allow a buy-American theme. As you recall, the dump of Chinese steel pipe and solar panels was held to be illegal and because the funds were stimulus funds, buy-American is ok. See the Manufacure This link on the page to the right.
There is broad and growing bipartisan support for buy-American. Times they are a changin'.
Burton Leed
you realize "tea party"
claims that the economy will recover by "free market principles", so I would claim they are going to try to pass more bad trade deals, more labor arbitrage and so on, claiming that's "free market".
Yet to be seen but from the rhetoric at least looks bad on trade. Hopefully Public Citizen or the AFL-CIO or someone will rate the newly elected on their real positions.
I mean Good God, getting into elected office on some nice sounding sound bytes...oh great!
I'll tell you what happened in Wisconsin and Ohio
Simple enough the BASE STAYED HOME. We are tired of being insulted and taken for granted that we'll always vote democratic, even if they are the lesser of two evils.
Evil though is still evil, we worked our asses off in 06 and again in 08 to get a democratic majority who would straighten out the mess we were in.
In 06 the first thing pelosi did was take impeachment off the table, then, they didn't even go after the low hanging fruit on the criminal tree.
In 08 people worked their ass off to get that Benedict obama elected.
The first thing he did was kiss corporate ass and tell us to chill.
Since then they have taken the side of their corporate masters against the good of the people.
So, we said fuck it dance with your new buddies and stayed home.
Now there is going to be much pain and suffering, but it's time to build a real grassroots movement.
One that has the interest of the people first, with jobs, healthcare, education, infra structure, financial reform etc etc etc as the main plank in a new agenda.
It's time for Main street to matter more than Wall street.
Well, frankly that's why this site exists!
The idea here is to be economics 24/7, with objective analysis and believe me, even many Academic research papers, Good God, if you can read the math you can see the spin in them! are clearly written to justify some preconceived conclusion.
So, the idea here is for regular people with the ability to self-educate, read, start looking at this from an objective, statistics base.
On the political front, I sure debated my vote. I'm so sick of Democrats doing political favors for special interest groups and Wall Street, multinational corporations when from the statistics, it will CLEARLY hurt the U.S. worker middle class and in many cases, the entire economy as a whole....
But I think that's the corruption issue. Big money buys votes.
But on Feingold, I think we had better look at the demographic breakdown, for he wasn't so corrupt in many votes and I'm thinking about the financial reform fight...
I mean Grayson, maybe he ran a crappy campaign but he tried like hell to get better financial reform, so he gets rewarded with a big fat boot...
So to me, as usual, the American public just is not well educated on anything $$ related....they still vote by "ads" and sound bytes instead of what policy does what, who is bought and paid for, who is out to screw what workers....
It's still the superfluous divide.
I can tell you all sorts of political flavors are on this site and I think that's awesome because when you have 80% of people knowing policy x needs to pass, yet you can't get it passed, that's where the people might have a chance to raise hell.
Feingold and Grayson
Were unfortunate casualties of the hell with them movement. Reid only survived because his opponent scared the hell out of people.
Feingold and Grayson would make excellent leaders of a new movement.
Feingold illegal immigration
Wow, he was pounded on illegal immigration. details here.
So, goes more to my theory, if you are not for "pathway to citizenship/amnesty" in CA, NV, OR, you're going to lose but if you are for "amnesty/pathway to citizenship" in other parts of the country, you are going to lose.
I'm not surprised by this, bummer you cannot get sane policy based on real market needs, case by case....but of course not, esp. if this means winning an election or losing. Except the divide to continue.
Watch us here in CA...
....I'm hopeful of only one thing and, no it ain't Preznint ClueLess growin' a spine, it's that Jerry with some of our newly passed props on the budget can get CA moving again. Believe me we are ready. Watch for my upcoming teasers on my new novel, 'The Bear Flag Republic Returns'.
'When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.'
GOP already off the mark
They are claiming America wants "smaller government", uh, no GOP, we want jobs.
Trade, Immigration and Tea
NumbersUSA did a lot of work before and after the election on Immigration and was kind to those favoring less immigration. Tea Partiers signed on to lower immigration. Most of the Libertarian wing ot TP opposes bilateral trade deals for both ideological and constitutional grounds. KFTA messes with the Article I definition of contracts as well as investments.
There is also that discussion about how bilateral trade is not free trade because the other 3rd parties are excluded, sovereignty is destroyed.
I want to see how any TP can support KFTA. The short answer is that they are politicians and thats how they slither and they will do almost anything, principles be damned. TP promised to vote down the Debt Ceiling increase in January. This will never happen, again they are politicians.
Burton Leed
interesting
Harry Reid pushed the "Dream Act" which gives illegals instate tuition plus a "pathway to citizenship". I wonder how many Democratic seats lost due to Harry Reid trying to save his seat with that move and let's see the vote breakdown. It's also very interesting that the states with the worst employment, but who continually cater to illegal immigrants stayed blue. There is something seriously wrong with these numbers generally but I won't "wade in" on this topic unless I can verify and be sure of the numbers. I cannot think of a topic with more B.S. in it, including Academic "research" B.S. than this one. But I sure noticed something on the "red wave", so I believe NumbersUSA, despite being a reduce immigration lobbying organization, might be onto something.
On trade, hmmmm, well, there are a lot of conservatives, but classified as "paleo-conservative" like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts types, who want those trade agreements canceled something done. That said, the TP sounds like they never read an economic report in their lives from what I've seen, but the press just focused on the crazies, probably another reason Feingold lost and much more corrupt Senator Reid won...they never focused in on Feingold's situation.
The press.
So, does that mean the TP loves the WTO and anything that isn't just between two countries?
Melissa Bean - A silver lining!
Melissa Bean is down 553 votes. She is the ultimate corrupt Democrat so getting her finally out would be great news for American workers!
She was the trader vote on a trade agreement in 2006 that was analyzed to cost even more American jobs. Tons of votes along those lines.