Election Aftermath - Campaign Spending Could have Given Every Person $19 and Pot Wins!

shrinkmanThe spending was obscene. The campaign was an astounding 18 months of drum beats and cable noise over an electoral map where most states are not competitive for both parties. The Center for Responsible Politics estimates this election cost $6 billion. The current population in the United States is 314,722,316. That's $19 per every man, woman and child residing in the United States.

After all is said and done by the popular vote the country split down the middle with President Obama picking up about 3.5 million more than Romney. We offer some select results.

 

Banksters Beware

Elizabeth Warren has won a Massachusetts Senate seat. She has promised to reinstate Glass-Steagall, the dismantled law which separates commercial banking from investment banking and securities holdings. She has also promised to work for breaking up the big banks. Ending too big to fail is still needed, so we have an excellent warrior on financial reform and consumer protections.

 

Pot Won

Colorado just legalized pot, so did the state of Washington. Massachusetts just approved Medical Marijuana. Arkansas on the other hand, rejected Medical marijuana and Montana placed extreme restrictions on Medical pot. Oregon, the liberal hippie land of farmers didn't. They rejected legalization of marijuana which is surprising. Oregon already has Medical marijuana.

The cash crop potential of pot is huge and the non-buzz giving Hemp also is a massive cash crop since it grows where other crops can't and has many uses, including industrial ones.

 

Michigan Unions Lose

Michigan has proposal 2, a ballot measure to put in the state constitution the right to collective bargain. It failed.

 

The House

The Republicans picked up some seats, so expect the only legislation to pass are ones desired by corporate America and special interest groups.

 

Women

Women increased their percentages in the Senate to 20%. Wow, it's 2012 and we're at 20% representation for over 50% of the population. Women voted for Obama by 55% to Romney's 43%.

 

Identity Politics

Identity politics won, which is frightening. On the other hand, neither party has policies to really help the U.S. middle class. Hispanics voted for Obama by 75% women and 63% men. Blacks came out and voted over 90% Obama. Whites voted for Obama by 39%.

Gay people won in that some states passed same sex marriage, quite a different result from just 8 years ago.

 

Wall Street Won

Stocks have made out like bandits under Obama, unlike workers. Marketwatch outlines the Wall Street love affair with an Obama second term.

The administration and the Federal Reserve run by his appointed chairman, Ben Bernanke, have systematically stuffed big banks’ pockets with cash in an unending rescue effort, slashed interest rates to the lowest levels of the past 300 years, diverted senior citizens’ savings to revive the moribund residential construction industry and showered drug makers and insurers with fresh sources of revenue from his health care overhaul.

Little wonder then that Wall Street cannot bear the idea of parting ways with the Obama administration, and thus in the past two months has thrown a tantrum to protest the surprising advancement of challenger Mitt Romney in the polls.

 

What to Expect

We have the fiscal cliff coming upon us and already it is expected for President Obama to cut social security benefits and Medicare under the guise of a compromise. In other words, expect draconian austerity measures forced on the American people under the excuse to deal with the deficit, fiscal cliff and bi-partisanship.

Zerohedge gives no compromise a 55% chance, which means a recession guaranteed as well as the stock market doesn't have a recession priced in currently. Naked Capitalism has a good overview on the politics on the agenda to cut social safety nets.

One of the most important reasons that more Americans support the Democratic Party than the Republican Party is that the Democratic Party is viewed as the Party that created and guards the safety net. The elements of the safety net are the crown jewels of Democratic Party policy successes.

Only a Democrat can make it politically safe for Republicans who hate the safety net to unravel it (a process that would occur over a number of years) by legitimizing the claim that the safety net must be cut. Obama may not intend to unravel the safety net. He may have been convinced by Wall Street that it is necessary to begin to unravel the safety net in order to save it. But the result would be to declare open season on the safety net by legitimizing the false Republican memes that the safety net is unsustainable and harms the nation.

Expect comprehensive immigration reform. The monolithic Latino vote for Obama is being spun that we must given citizenship to those here illegally. Comprehensive immigration reform,means bad news for the U.S. worker for corporations want massive amounts of foreign guest worker Visas and increased labor supply generally. All else being static, increased immigration represses wages, enables worker displacement and worker substitution. Economics, labor markets and needs be damned, we have a one issue pony, drummed up by various special interest groups, parroted by the media.

Jobs, infrastructure, reforming trade are off the table. Expect more bad trade deals, in particular the TPP, more offshore outsourcing, more Corporate welfare, even higher executive pay and further wage erosion. We can also look forward to the same weak labor market with more and more Americans slipping into poverty. Expect health care costs to rise and employers limiting hours to part-time to avoid having to provide health insurance.

Not a pretty picture, but that's what happens when both parties are controlled by corporate and special interests and elections spend $6 billion dollars, track and profile you, continually campaign where the real problems of the nation be damned.

Meta: 

Comments

Women

Women gave Obama 19% more votes than Romney. Obama better not put social security and medicare on the table or Uncle Joe will talk with him plus Aunt Hillary and Mother Pelosi.

women vote

Considering some of the vitriol coming from various GOP races I can understand that and probably a plus coming out of the election is maybe, finally, these Pro lifers will realize women don't want them trying to control them....

I do think the "Pro Life" movement just took a huge hit, which is another group which throws a monkey wrench into the political landscape.

But I also think the Obama campaign machine used this to snow the actual economic and labor statistics.

The Obama campaign started in early on women and just railed the GOP about their positions towards women generally. It's not like the Obama campaign didn't have quite a bit of material to work with to bombast the women vote either.

Women have really lost financially and job wise. I put up articles to this effect and to his credit Romney tried to bring this out in the second debate, yet the Obama machine used "binders" to bury the economic statistics, which are bleak, especially during Obama's term.

So, I hope women start really raising hell about economics and finance for they are really getting shafted on a host of fronts.

Dow down 313 pts, but don't think it's Obama here

There are some stocks, in particular anything to do with coal, oil that would crash for an Obama win.

But the correction probably has much more to do with the fiscal cliff and the potential for capital gains to be raised.

Obama has been very good to Wall street generally so don't expect that portion of the agenda to change beyond taxes.

It's static, not worth paying attention to daily movements

Overnight hours post-win, futures were down, then up, then things moved down during the day. Talking heads on Bloomberg overnight were talking about what this win meant for Democrats and GOP 4 YEARS FROM NOW. Yes, these people can't predict what the weather will be tomorrow for their $500,000 - $1 billion, but 4 years from now, let's all listen in. Of course these overpaid blowhards came up with "I think it will depend on the economy" and they all nodded in agreement like Zeus laid it down for us mortals. Yawn, "Hey, emperor, you're naked, now STFU." Ignore daily blips up, down, all around. HFT plays a huge part, and so on. Blackrock was Obama's top donor and Dimon's personal moneylaundering/Corzine theft recipient piggybank of JP Morgan donated as well (hedging bets, they gave to Mitt as well), so Wall Street is fine. Forget the "fiscal cliff" stuff (which Fox and the rest of the media already started in on not 10 minutes post-election). Watch geopolitical events. That's what will drive the world in the next 6 months on. EU will implode as Germany simply can't support the entire EU by itself (especially when in a recession which always "shocks" experts in politics and financial offices), Israel lashes out against Iran, Sudan, Egypt to protect itself, Egypt allows flood of militants that threaten Israel and Suez Canal while still getting US money through an IMF loan of $4 billion + soon to be approved, oil will skyrocket (ignore the recent dips, just remember how badly/quickly fuel shortages occur in Sandy's wake, now expand that globally), China political transition, Japan vs. China, China vs. other nations in South China Sea and East China Sea, and so many other items of interest/concern. Now where do I collect my paycheck for $10 million + like the people that constantly drone on TV but get crap wrong endlessly. No, no $ for me? Damn, I could have used it. And then of course let's not forget the US media seems to ignore the complete economic collapse of major US cities and suburbs outside their studios in NYC, DC, and LA. How's Detroit? How's crime? Schools? Health? If they had balls, they'd visit a different city between NYC and LA for 52 straight weeks, spend an entire week there, and dig deep, looking at crime, education, health, jobs/outsourcing, etc in 2012 (it ain't good). And that will start any day now . . . And when some lazy producer happens upon this note and does a series as I described, I want my piece of his Emmy for "insightful coverage" and a seat next to my choice of actresses at the Emmys.

greece needs more bail out

Surprise and there were some other things. Wall Street expected an Obama win, but the focus did switch on the fiscal cliff. I've written on the fiscal cliff and it's real, disposable income will contract and government spending will strongly decline very rapidly.

If only 100s of billions weren't spent on corrupt Karzai, damn

I wonder, do people at FinCEN or OFAC ever check Karzai and his associates' bank accounts (declared and, well, "undeclared") because a reasonable person might think massive loot has been taken from US taxpayers and sent to Afghanistan and then wound up in his accounts and the accounts of family and friends and cronies. Treasury folks, earn those SES and GS-15 salaries. Don't worry, residents of upscale CT, when the Taliban takes over within 2 years, you'll see Karzai being driven around in CT. in a nice Benz, courtesy of all of us. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan apparently have real costs that we have to pay for, even if they are off the official books under Bush II. Again, ain't partisan, just reality. The bill comes due and we're stuck with it. Yippee. No jobs, big bills, and we borrow money from people taking our jobs to pay the bill while no money can be spent on the ever-desperate middle class American. Madness? Sure, but our reality too.
As far as Europe, just freaking end the Euro already. Let the big banksters and ex-Goldman Sachs central banking cartel take the hit, it will save a physical war. PIIGS will suffer and in all likelihood turn to Nazi parties (as has already happened) if this goes on for too much longer. People are lighting themselves on fire, a la monks in South Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s. It's going to get bad, very very bad.

Dinner with George Clooney

So, while various analysts pick through the campaign bones, check out this fact, where campaigners put out emails offering a "chance to win dinner with George Clooney, seemingly skirting around the campaign finance laws?

Ok, forget claims of "agenda", these guys were simply cross marketing micro targeting individuals using the latest technologies to do so.

How disgusting, Obama wins by offering a hot single celebrity to a micro targeted demographic of over 40 white single women? Give me a break, I hope women are offended.

back of the napkin on Ohio Black vote

Most know I'm a numbers person. I noticed something funky with Ohio, their population statistics versus registered voters. Then, I thought about this 90% vote of Blacks and 71% vote of Hispanics and thought, that's really odd, Hispanics are a very diverse group in the U.S., hard to believe these percentage breakdowns.

So, I just dig out a few figures from the Ohio SoS and the Census and did some rough calculations.

Ohio, black voter turnout as percentage of total vote: 15% from exit poll. 90% voted for Obama.

Total vote: 5,276,481

2,584,620 Romney

2,691,861 Obama

15% of total vote is 791,472

90% for Obama = 712,324

=================

From the Census

Ohio pop in 2011 11,544,951

Pop growth Ohio 0.1% implies 2012 = 11,660,401

2011 under age of 18 23.3% = 2,716,873

Ohio population > 18 = 8,943,528

Black 12.4% of total pop. = 1,445,890

Black < 18 = 336,893 => Black people over the age of 18 in Ohio:
1,108,997

In Ohio, you cannot vote while in prison and the prison population was 49,846, October 1st 2011. 52% of people in prison are black (which is outrageous). Let's low ball the percentage of blacks over the age of 18 in prison to be 21,000. That reduces the black population who can vote to 1,087,997

90% for Obama gives a maximum pool of 979,198 black population.

712,324/979,198 is 72.8%.

That means of population, not the actual tally of registered voters, 72.8% of them would have had to show up to the polls.

This seems really odd for registered voters as a percentage of the voting age population is usually 70% and of registered voters who actually vote in Presidential elections is about 60%.

Getting 73% of a population group to vote for you seems hmmmm....

From the Census, we have voting population, registrations and actually voted breakdowns.

In 2008 the black vote nationally of the black population was 60.8.

So, I go looking to see if there is anybody else noticing this and found 1 nonpartisan group, media trackers siting in September voter registrations exceeding 100% of the county population.

But the above is the actual vote from the exit polls.

Ohio voter turn out online

SoS, Ohio. 68.02% overall, yet counties where there is a large black voter percentage are lower. This is far by me in terms of analysis, but let's hope all of those who pounced on 2000, 2004 looking for anomalies will do the same thing for 2012. Seems a little unfair to prove Bush stole an election yet not even look at these figures. I'm not saying anyone stole anything here, but noticed the above strangeness.

The media and pols start talking about 2016 on day of election

It's sickening, really sickening. It's obvious the media and politicians have no interest in policies, actual governing, or any insight whatsoever that will actually involve thought and making our lives better. It's all about the perpetual horseraces, raising money, personalities, and getting ratings through vapid coverage. 2016? These people will cover the House races and then we can get 24/7 coverage of who's in the primaries in a year or two, then 24/7 election. It's ironic, as global and domestic events and issues become far more complex and demand greater analysis after incredible amounts of fact gathering, the media and politicians choose to ignore everything but elections, dumb everything down, and just talk about money, personalities, the artificial issue of the day you didn't know existed/mattered (e.g., are airplane carriers biased against obese people? are steroids a major concern in Little League baseball? is some unknown teacher, preacher, professor, hot dog vendor, etc. evil incarnate because he said xyz?) or "hot celeb" of the day, and the same 3-5 issues over and over again. I guess this serves the puppetmasters and the overpaid, unthinking teleprompter readers that are incapable of anything else.

electoral map, districting

I saw that, pretty disgusting and politics these days are nothing but marketing, public relations with the media spewing mostly noise and a gerrymandered Congressional district map and an electoral college which gives most people no real say.

We're been writing about the fiscal cliff for sometime and magically, all at once, the media talks about it, but now. It should have been a major campaign issue.

I love the choice of 1 of 2 bankster-preselected = "choice" BS

I'm a huge fan of media and others telling us that somehow we all "chose" this or that based on a preselected choice of 1 of 2 candidates.
Banksters + corporate CEOs + political establishment + media: Hey, Joe, would you like tacos or burritos? Look at that, Joe loves tacos and hates burritos, but he loves Mexican food of any kind.
Joe: Actually, I'd prefer hamburgers or sushi or some Chinese food.
Response: Hey, Joe, STFU, we choose tacos or burritos, you love Mexican food, that's all you get.
Joe: That sucks. Can I not eat?
Response: Sure Joe, but don't you love America? Love it or leave it. Now choose!

Yeah, I'm not seeing my choice in the billionaire-funded choice between Obama and Romney. Gosh, it's a choice between "Socialism" (according to Fox) and "Capitalism" (according to Fox) or "Anti-banksterism" (according to MSNBC) and "Banksterism" (according to MSNBC). Now, I've read quite a bit, and I see big $ winning this election no matter what. Obama had 4 years to fight banksters, and I have yet to see Dimon and Blankfein et al being led away in handcuffs for international fraud and money laundering and bribery. Murdoch lurks still despite FCPA and RICO. And on. Romney was just the choice of 2012 for the same crew after they felt Obama didn't give them as much as they demanded (hard to believe, but apparently their greed still isn't satiated). Whatever.