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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Obama appears to be winning the battle for public opinion over the US government shutdown
New polling for the Wall Street Journal/NBC suggests that the Republican party rather than President Obama is paying a political price for the government shutdown. By 53% to 31% the sample put the blame on the party.
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Bet Obama wishes he could call a snap election right now.
It's more justifiable in the US where, for instance, Kansas is very different to New York - and the differences are greater than, say, between Yorkshire and Somerset or Manchester and Glasgow.
Thankfully none of the UK parties would be so anti-democratic as to seek to have their MPs elected by smaller constituencies, out of date registers and thereby effectively deprive many of their fellow citizens of a meaningful vote. Even Labour would not go that far, let alone those paragons of constitutional virtue, the Lib Dems. Would they?
Oh.
What is much, much more serious is the way that this dispute is becoming increasingly rolled up with the borrowing caps and the risk of default within the next week. Like other well known human characteristics once you have defaulted you cannot return to your original state. At the moment, and for the last 50 years, US Treasuries have been at least the equivalent of cash everywhere in the world and generally regarded as better than the local cash. Losing that would be catastrophic and not just for the US. It would be like a huge contraction in the money supply of the planet.
So far the markets have largely ignored this absurd posturing on the basis that once again the polys will grow up in time. If they don't the reaction will be severe. May be another good reason to move on those Royal Mail shares pdq.
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Cost-of-Living-Report-Labour-List.pdf
Which story is more salient?
When the Lib Dems break their word and support the UK equivalent of the GOP, the Labour gerrymanders, there is nothing Cameron can do about it. Hopefully it will be different after 2015.
I suppose the answer to your question is yes. In Dundee West the seat is really a fight between the SNP and Labour. Even as a Unionist I can't bring myself to vote for Labour, particularly for a candidate who thought he should vote against gay marriage. In England. When it was none of his business. So my vote will be wasted. C'est la vie.
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/o1vf78gaye/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-Issues(2)-250913.pdf
I think we will come 3rd the next time. Scottish Liberalism currently makes Scottish tories look vibrant. Hence my extravagent "surge" comments yesterday.
What will be the next stage? Later this month, unless the American politicians really screw up, we should see some seriously good news on the economy and hopefully good news on employment as well. The recovery of the tories seemed to me to lag but follow the increase in economic confidence. If that continues to rise can the tories start to hitch a ride again?
Tried listening to the end of P1 on the radio, but it seems it was only on 5Live Sports Extra. Anyway, it's up on the iPlayer, and P2 will be soon.
P3, qualifying and the race are all on TV as well, which is nice, particularly as Suzuka's a rather good circuit.
In repose Balls’s expression has a disturbing aspect. He looks like a retired slaughterman deriving sexual gratification from a training video. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/10/pmqs-sketch-ed-balls-leaves-them-wanting-more/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pmqs-sketch-ed-balls-leaves-them-wanting-more
F1 test driver Maria De Villota has been found dead in a hotel room in Seville. She had been hoping to get back into driving after losing an eye in a test crash at Duxford last year.
RIP.
Worth noting that if half UKIP's voters went Tory (which is surely a maximum assumption) YouGov would still have Labour ahead. For once the conferences do seem to have changed the weather a bit - probably partly because the energy companies seem determined to shout "Yes, we're price-gougers!" at the moment, so Miliband struck lucky in making it the central theme. I don't actually think that most people are convinced that a price freeze would transform their situation - it's more that Miliband has again shown he's more in touch about something they see as a problem, whereas the Tories were majoring on stuff that isn't especially salient at present, such as the perceived need to give a bung to some married people.
Or is he all hot air like Burnhams legal threats ?
YouGov Av shares:
Oct-to-date/Sep/Aug
Con: 33.3 / 33.0 / 32.8
Lab: 39.0 / 38.4 / 38.6
LibD: 9.6 / 9.5 / 9.8
UKIP: 11.1 / 12.0 / 12.0
Lab Lead: 5.7 / 5.4 / 5.8
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24487701
Labour led by Ed Miliband: 24
Con led by David Cameron: 35
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pmqstq2ke0/YouGov_Times_Results_131009.pdf
Polly's latest article closed for comments. A classic of the genre.
She's definitely losing it.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/11/baby-p-hamzah-khan-tory-vandalism-gove
What I don't understand though is whether she does this in all seriousness or whether, like SeanT, she is havin' a larf a bit with her readers and success isn't defined as the overthrow of capitalism but as a high number of "shares".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10370306/UK-fracking-ambitions-threatened-by-EU-warning-over-methane-emissions.html
Anyway both parties can spin this as they want, perhaps some posties may consider voting Lib Dem or Tory now ?
Labour can say it's been sold off on the cheap
People sense this and that's why they don't think Miliband's promises will give them cheaper energy.
But what Miliband has tapped into, deliberately or not, is the resentment against the powerful. In this case the business branch of the powerful.
Miliband isn't on the side of the people against statist power and people know that but being on their side against business power is seen as being better than nothing.
Where Cameron goes wrong is that he doesn't seem to stand up for the people against either statist power or business power. On the contrary he's seen as being on the side of the powerful.
We saw another example of this with Royal Mail shares - private investors get 30% while business investors get 70%. So it looks like the government have given the wealth gain all those private investors were expecting to the 'bankers' or dubious foreign financial institutions. So 'people like me' will make a gain of maybe a couple of hundred pounds while 'people like them' will make millions.
Compare with the Thatcher privatisations which, in popular memory at least, were aimed much more at the people.
Likewise the Thatcher government is remembered for being on the side of the people with council house sales, union reform etc.
The Cameroons don't give that impression. Instead they seem interested in 'people like them' rather than 'people like me'. Indeed they seem to be 'people like them' themselves and constantly looking to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of 'people like me'.
And - for the record - I don't blame Labour politicians for the deaths. The parents were first and foremost responsible
Could be a good line for Mili to go on in PMQs
The price of fuel is the most popular lead story for the papers but I can't see it on the BBC site. Clear evidence of the BBC's right wing bias. Pb will be outraged, I'm sure.
I mean she can't actually mean it all can she?
RBS ?
BBC ?
NHS ?
Should rake in billions..
http://thepollshavenowclosed.blogspot.com/2013/10/glasgow-govan-council-by-election_11.html?spref=tw
perhaps SeanT actually is Polly in a terrifying Norman Bates style fashion
The Left have been devoid of ideas since the 70s and they know it.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2453431/More-10-000-tenants-purchased-properties-Right-Buy-scheme-year.html#ixzz2hOk4jyWE
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That said, they did have a map of the world on the table in front of them which they were colouring in red and blue....
So the big bad investors, ie the pension funds, got 70% of the issue. And made money on it.
If that isn't a policy to benefit the many rather than the few then god knows what is.
Our resident leftites should ponder or, if necessary, find out just what a large financial institution is and see that this has been, in effect, a capital transfer from the government to peoples' pensions.
Everyone who asked for up to £10,000 is getting £750.
People who asked for more than £10,000 are getting nothing.
Labours share of the vote in England in the GE.
This seems to be analogous to the situation in the UK, where Labour voters in Tory seats are rarer than Tory voters in Labour seats, and so Labour can win on seats while losing on votes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24484148
Coming soon - Lessons will be learnt...
There's a credible argument that the main impacts of defined-contribution fund-backed pensions are a) to generate otherwise unneeded activity, and therefore income, in the financial sector (disproportionately enriching already rich parts of society)* and b) giving political cover to policies primarily designed to advantage and enrich large corporations, even though a relatively small benefit goes to our favourite OHWFs.
Sorry this isn't backed up by stats; I'll try and dig some out later.
*the Australian financial sector boom following the introduction of compulsory superannuation contributions is a good case study for this
The visuals aren't good here Charles, it looks like the Cameroons have given more money to their 'rich banker friends' and dubious foreigners.
I spent years working with Mad Dog who is running this IPO. He'll be looking for the optimal shareholder structure, with long-term hold strategies. SWFs are more willling to commit to that than the UK long-onlys.
On the door of the Guardian's office in the Commons press corridor pic.twitter.com/vQOpT5nGXI https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWRra1nCIAA_TL-.jpg:small
@GuidoFawkes: This explains how Royal Mail privatisation pricing worked and wasn't really too cheap on balance http://t.co/r73B8ku1hp
Fundamentally the "big institutional investors" everyone complains about are the private sector's pension funds.
I am slightly surprised they didn't increase the range: I could have seen them pricing it at, say, 350p. But I guess that is difficult to do with a substantial retail offering (and I haven't seen the book, so don't know where the price tension was)
The Great Leader back in the 40s, with price controls and collectivisation supported even by the Mesheviks.
The sun will shine on the revolution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24489068
Institutional investors are not individuals. They manage money on behalf of individuals. It's like, for instance, giving £10m to a trade union to help with worker education and claiming that is nothing to do with helping workers, it's just helping out the government's mates.
So why did the relevant ministers, Vince Cable and Michael Fallon, sell at the top of the indicated range, rather than breaking through that threshold?
They had what they regard as non-partisan advice, from the investment bank Lazards - which was not involved in actually placing the shares, and therefore had no vested interest, in theory - that 330p was a fair price.
And that advice was apparently underwritten by the government's own internal counsellor on these issues, the UK Shareholder Executive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24489068
The details will fade from the memory.
Labour is trying to establish the tag line "the government gave money to their mates"
The Coalition is trying to establish the tag line "it was a successful privatisation. Great for everyone"
The reality, as always, is somewhere in between. My guess is that it will have very little impact on anything come 2015.
As regards unnecessary activity, don't blame the pension funds for investing on behalf of their clients. They aren't paid to earn libor.
The UK is a property-owning, not share-owning democracy (retail investors can and frequently do buy and sell shares on the high street in much of Europe).
Now we have hundreds of thousands of new shareholders (many of whom I appreciate will sell early) but it is no bad thing to bring some understanding of such investments to such people.
Who knows, they might next go out and buy a FTSE tracker.
(Once you mention politically motivated advantage for large corporations my eyes glaze over slightly I'm afraid.)
Accepting the principle that everything is ultimately owned by individuals (though SWFs, foundations and family offices do kind of undermine that) then your premise is basically true, but you need to look at the benefit distribution amongst those individuals. As one example, only 5.4m people contributed to personal pensions last year and many of them contributed less than £2k (this is including employer contributions); you can bet that those below retirement age who aren't contributing to pensions are very rarely investing in any other type of collective. So in this case, it could well be that gifting value to institutional investors gives a huge benefit to the government's mates and a pretty small or nil benefit to many others.
This is the key problem** in both countries. When these electoral systems were devised the personal mandate of the Representative/MP was far more important than it is today, when the vast majority of people vote on party lines. Voting has changed, but the electoral system has been left behind.
I wouldn't advocate moving to the other extreme of PR on a party list system, but the advantage of STV in multi-member constituencies is that it combines a personal and a party mandate, and I think it also reduces the sensitivity of the results to where the boundaries are drawn.
** The key problem with the FPTP electoral systems for the lower house in both countries. How far down your list of key problems for the country overall it lies is less certain.
If you use the equation institutional investors = private pension holders and subsitute it always when you use that term and then lose the whole "government's mates" thing, you have provided a good analysis of where we are.
As was pointed out earlier, 150,000 RM employees are now shareholders and although as @tim pointed out it is free money so they would wouldn't they, they are also now part-owners. The govt has created a John Lewis with the RM and every employee might think..the better the company does the better I do creating an us and them rather than us vs them environment.
Bravo George!
(ps. and the mechanisms of pricing a new issue I think have been set out quite clearly such that it is not as straightforward as we would all like)
http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Online_VI_11-10-2013_BPC.pdf
As regards the large corporations point - I'm not sure what your personal political affiliation is, but if it's Blue or Yellow, it would be worth taking seriously: small vs big is going to be the political battle of the next decade, as Farage cottoned on to a way back and Ed is starting to move towards with his power populism. It's a live issue, and if we have a statistical recovery that somehow enriches the shareholding few at the expense of the working (or unemployed) many's living standards, it will become significant very quickly.
OA/Public/Private:
Con: 34 / 24 / 36
Lab: 39 / 47 / 37
LibD: 12 / 11 / 14
UKIP: 8 / 7 / 7
In the sense that any shares bought into the portfolio of public sector pension portfolios are effectively still government assets (whether technically on or off balance sheet) then at least it's not a gratuitous transfer to private sector, so that's something...
But why didnt his nominees vote for him/her? Or are 10 nominees not needed in Scotland?
Large vs small 1% vs 99%. I get it.
Thing is, look at where we are - over the past five years the way of life that people had become used to has disappeared.
And in such circumstances it is natural to look around for someone to blame. But it's not really anyone's fault. Your call them "large institutions" as though they were some independent thinking beasts with their own agendas. Large institutions I appreciate can become dislocated (cf. Enron, etc) but in the main they are trying to do best for their customers and their owners and these latter can be an individual or millions of people by proxy via pension and investment funds.
Reality means people have to adjust to the new circumstances which include competition from emerging economies and a less tolerant economic environment but it is a painful process and I have no great confidence that the adjustment will be possible hence I suppose I am more "cautious" on the economic and social outlook for the next 10-20 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10369566/Look-David-Cameron-when-capitalisms-done-properly-its-wildly-popular.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-24488665
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4bf5ea22-3191-11e3-a16d-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk#axzz2hOwzSlJ9
"Five years ago since the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent the UK into a painful and protracted economic tailspin, there are signs everywhere that the recovery is gaining momentum.
This past week alone, the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for economic growth in the UK to double what it set only six months ago; the number of mortgage approvals rose to a five-and-a-half year high in August and is set to rise even further following the government’s controversial Help-to-Buy scheme.
Unquestionably, after several years of complaints by City grandees that they are in the doldrums, the feelgood factor is trickling through to the Square Mile.
“The world has changed dramatically in the past six weeks in the City. People who were sacking late July are now hiring,” says Douglas McWilliams, executive chairman of the Centre for Economic and Business Research.
“All the key elements – the M&A shops are working long hours, a tsunami of initial public offerings, huge numbers of securitisations – have a long tail of activity in the markets,” Mr McWilliams said. “The City is a very highly geared institution and when things take off, they take off at an amazing rate.” "
We could all be underestimating what's coming next in London.