Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Something to be said for continuity.

Often the thing to do when faced with challenges is just keep doing what you're doing -- that is, if you're doing your best. 

Hope and change sound good, but keep on doing the work that needs to be done.

I've found continuity to be a valuable asset to my business.  Same business hours for decades, same location, same basic strategies.  Not to say I don't change, but I do make changes in a measured,  thought out way.

The stock market is having a tempter tantrum, and I pay about as much attention to that as I would a 3 year old being denied ice cream.

I was impressed last night by how little Obama's support has changed, despite four years of being ragged on by talk radio and a cable news channel.  Sure, it was a little less, but that's not surprising considering.  The basic support was there.

Got to mention Nate Silver.

You know that when you're partisan, you can be in danger of falling into a virtual reality.  I try to avoid the bubble, forcing myself to read mainstream and even slightly right leaning news outlets.  So my clinging to FiveThirtyEight had the potential of being nothing but a security blanket.

Except that he appears to have been almost 100% right in his predictions.

As Colbert said about it:  "Statistics have a well known liberal bias."

I think that Obama is a centrist.  Personally, I think he should stare down the Republicans and say, "Go ahead, go off the cliff.  I'm going to let the tax measures lapse, otherwise, and there isn't a thing you can do about it."

He won't do that, of course.  He'll try to find a compromise.

I'm not hopeful.

Sure, we might have had more movement if Romney was elected.

Bottomline, it would've been movement in the wrong direction.


9 comments:

Duncan McGeary said...

Yeah, yeah, the "definition of insanity is to keep doing what you're doing."

Tell me about it.

Leitmotiv said...

Yeah if Florida goes for Obama, and it looks like it will, then that gives Nate Silver of the 538 blog 100% accuracy for the Presidential election.

If everyone was a reader of that blog, no one would have been surprised yesterday. I mean, Silver had Obama winning 90.9% of the time!

Anonymous said...

Keep in mind Silver's model is not the only important piece, polls critical. Silver obvious winner, but pollsters in general should be proud. The big winner in this entire election season is Big Data.

Duncan, wanna hire a consultant for the store?

Duncan McGeary said...

Ha. I'm Little Data.

Anonymous said...

"I think that Obama is a centrist"

Sometimes you really crack me up .........

B_D

Duncan McGeary said...

If you're looking from the center, he pretty clearly is.

Looking from where you are, probably not.

H. Bruce Miller said...

BD, from where you stand you can't even SEE the center.

I think the Republican Party in general has the same problem. It's convinced itself it represents "the real America," but that kind of "real America" doesn't exist anymore. Clearly, most of the national electorate does not have its panties in a wad over Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, immigrants, PBS, "socialism" or any of the other bugbears that so terrify and outrage the Republican base. The Republican Party is fighting a rear-guard battle against not just the 21st Century, but the 20th. And that's a battle it's bound to lose. Increasingly, the GOP is becoming the GOWMP -- the Grumpy Old White Man Party. There's no future in that.

Anonymous said...

HBM nailed it.

Anonymous said...

Here's the rub...

BD wants nothing more to return to the bubble days where houses were being built on government subsidies. The housing bubble would never have inflated the way it did without the government giving away taxpayer dollars. That sort of socialism is OK with folks like BD.

To say that Obama is not a centrist is to not be paying attention.

Gotta call it like ya see it...