Economic consultants predict a Bush victory

[Onlooker]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brucebartlett/bb20040803.shtml

...

"Eevery political/economic forecaster who has looked at has concluded that Bush will win easily in November. Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis consulting firm, predicts that Bush will get 61.9 percent of the two-party vote, Yale economist Ray Fair predicts that Bush will get 58.7 percent, and the giant economic forecasting firm Global Insight predicts 56 percent. Economy.com is predicting that Bush will get 54 percent of the vote and gain 373 electoral votes."

****

I know townhall is conservative, and I presume a large number of economists want Bush to win because their clients are in the top 2% in terms of wealth. At the same time, I wondering if anyone here has a more critical understanding of these frightening predictions.

[FrankBooth]

1. 61.9% of the vote?

These guys are on crack.

[LittleApple81]

2. I think it works like this "If you say it often enough, it will be true."

And why didn't they predict all the corporate failures and the crimes committed? Do you think they are a "tiny bit" biased and criminal in not analyzing situations as they see them?

[democratreformed]

18. This is my theory

They think if they say it often enough, we won't be so surprised by the outcome. They think they might prevent a mutiny. It scares me.

[iconoclastic cat]

3. What a load of crap!

I want to know who is in charge of those companies, and how big a check they got from ShrubCo.

[madrchsod]

4. townhall-

you said it all...you can get an equal amount saying kerry is going to do the same thing..remember these people do not live in reality

[Bandit]

Are these the same guys that are saying Deficits Don't Matter?

:shrug: I have learned through experience that Republicans really don't know very much about economics.

[SaveElmer]

5. They use economic models

To predict election outcomes...based on previous elections and the economic conditions that were prevelent at the time. They are making assumptions about how content people are with thir own lives to indicate how they will vote. In my opinion this is not valid in this election.

[aquart]

10. They think Americans are contented?????

Do they also believe we're having an economic recovery?

[displacedtexan]

6. Bruce is a ReaganPoppyGeorgeWNazi! Check out his bio...

Bruce Bartlett - Senior Fellow
National Center for Policy Analysis


* NCPA Senior Fellow Bruce Bartlett is a prolific author, having published more than 900 articles in national publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, as well as many prominent magazines such as Fortune.

* His twice-weekly column on economic policy is published in The Washington Times and Detroit News and is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

* In 1996 one of his columns inspired Bob Dole's 15-percent tax reduction plan.

* He has also written for important academic journals and published four books, including Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action, published in 1981.

* Before joining the NCPA, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, where he served from September 1988 to January 1993.

* In 1987 and 1988 Bartlett was a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Policy Development at the White House.

* From 1985 through 1987 he was a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

* In 1981, Bartlett joined the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress as Deputy Director, becoming Executive Director in 1983.

* Between 1979 and 1980 he worked for Senator Roger Jepsen of Iowa, where he was his chief legislative assistant.

* In 1977 he joined the staff of Congressman Jack Kemp of New York as a special assistant and staff economist, during which time he helped draft the famous Kemp-Roth tax bill.

* In 1976 he served as a legislative assistant on the staff of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.

[Boredtodeath]

7. They've been shown the Diebold algorithim

And know exactly how much the program will scam from the votes.

[tridim]

8. Maybe these guys know something about BBV

that we don't. Then again, maybe they're just being Freeperish. The Freepers are all predicting a * landslide too.

[swag]

9. Ray Fair's model hasn't been updated in a while

The Fair model tries to predict the election outcome based on "good" economic news for the incumbent vs. "bad" news. Fair has ample disclaimers on his site. Many economists like to build models in attempts to predict future events based on what has happened in the past. But of course they leave off the standard mutual fund prospectus disclaimer about "past performance does not predict future results," etc.

Wharton School's Jeremy J. Siegel ("Stocks for the Long Run") has said many times very recently that he believes the Iraq war will be a bigger factor than the economy in the coming election and that (even though Siegel does not support Kerry) he believes Kerry will win.

[West Coast Democrat]

11. Campaignline Political Odds Currently Predicts...

a 50.5% chance of a Bush win. That's not too solid, and it keeps on sliding every month.

http://www.campaignline.com/oddsmaker/index.cfm?navid=12

[Downtown Hound]

12. Ah, yeah okay, whatever

We all know just how well economist's predictions come true.

[swag]

13. Oh, well I see Ray Fair finally updated his model on 07/31

Here is an interesting long-winded disclaimer by him:

http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/vote2004/med0704.htm

"Given the current prediction of the equation that Bush will get over 57 percent of the two-party vote, does this mean that a Bush victory is a sure thing? The answer is no. First, the prediction is based on a particular set of economic forecasts (the current forecasts from my economic model), and if the economy does not do as well as this set says, the vote prediction for Bush will go down. Second, even if the equation is correctly specified, it makes on average an error of about 2.4 percentage points each election (called the "standard error"). Third, the equation may be misspecified. This is where the pitfalls come in.

Let me focus a bit on some possible pitfalls. Regression analysis assumes in the present context that the structure of voting behavior in the future will be like it has been in the past---as it has been estimated using the historical data back to 1916. One can never rule out a sudden shift of structure that makes this assumption wrong. For example, the Bush administration has made many large changes in foreign policy, social policy, and environmental policy, and it may be that these changes are so large that voters radically change their voting behavior. Perhaps voters now look much more at foreign, social, and environmental policies than they did in the past and less at how the economy is doing.

Another possible pitfall is that the equation is misspecified because it does not have a job growth variable in it, only an output growth variable. Historically output growth and job growth are so highly correlated that very similar estimates are obtained using either. They are too highly correlated for one to be able to estimate separate effects. If in 2004 output growth is fairly good, but job growth is not, this would lead the equation to be off if job growth is in fact more important in voters' minds than output growth.
. . .

If you experiment on the site with alternative vote predictions, you will see that no realistic economic values can bring the predicted vote share to even about 53 percent. (Remember that there is only one quarter, 2004:3, for which actual economic data are not available.) This means, given the standard error of 2.4, that if the equation is correctly specified, the probability that Bush loses is very small. The bottom line is that the equation has to be misspecified in order for Bush to lose. And this is where the pitfalls come in. Regression analysis can only take us so far; possible pitfalls are always lurking.

Finally, a point about me as a social scientist trying to explain behavior versus me as a citizen. As a social scientist I am trying to do the best I can explaining the percentage share of the two-party vote. In this capacity I don't care who wins or loses, but how close the equation comes to explaining the actual share. If the actual share is 51 percent and the equation predicts 49 percent, this is better than if the actual share is 57 percent and the equation predicts 53 percent. Also, I shouldn't let my political views affect my scientific work. This is an exercise in trying to explain behavior, not shape it. As a citizen, however, I obviously care who wins or loses.

. . .

[tlcandie]

14. I've been thinking and what we've all said is that IF Kerry doesn't win

there will be protests deluxe, etc. BUT I think it will be just the opposite unless there is some terra thing that puts martial law into place.

I think that Kerry will win but barely (thanks to BBV and such) which will make the freeptards and rethugs take to the streets and NOT PEACEFULLY or with quiet civil disobedience, but with outrage, anger, and harmful intentions. All the hate will bubble to the surface because it's there now just barely being subdued.

You think that Florida with the rethugs was something? Wait till it's thousands of them everywhere!!! It will NOT be a pretty picture. Think of that gal's picture here in DU amplified to thousands and pushed beyond all reasoning thinking they are losing their saviour!!!

I really think it will be a bad day for America n/m how it turns out. Let's just hope that the pictures that keep popping into my head don't come true!

[Old and In the Way]

17. I agree...that's why Kerry needs a huge mandate.

A 65-35 rout would make it clear where America's heart and mind is. I doubt it will be that large, but I can hope, can't I?

[TruthIsAll]

23. Old, be reasonable. No one ever got more than 61%.

Kerry will get 53-55%. That's a landslide. He will win by over 7 million votes.

[Old and In the Way]

24. Hey, I said "I can hope, can't I"?

:-)

[sangh0]

15. The Repuke strategy is to throw mud as a distraction

They will raise false issue after false issue in an attempt to get us to spend time defending unsupportable attacks, instead of focusing on getting OUR message across.

The way to victory in a campaign, is the same as in war - take the initiative. If we spend our time RESPONDING to every wacko, we will have no time to PROMOTE our ideas.

[Trekologer]

16. Who is making the predictions?

These are probablly the same economists who believe that supply-side ("trickele down") economic policies work, which they don't, large government defecit spending is good for the economy, which it isn't, and high government debt is not bad for the future, which it is.

[JHB]

20. The problem is they use "the Numbers"...

...which are easy to quantify (though may be innacurate or misleading: how much do YOU trust economic numbers coming from the Bushies?), and try to use them to model a context which ISN'T easily quantifiable.

A better question would be "how accurate are they", and the fact is, not very.

[Joanne98]

19. Oh those economists

We know how in touch with reality they are. We're living in the greastest economic boom in 20 years. yuk yuk. I can't believe these guys get PAID for hallucinating. Must be a nice job. :)

[TruthIsAll]

21. TOTAL UNMITIGATED BULLSHIT!

GOD, HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?

HOW MUCH ARE THEY GETTING PAID?

THEY ARE TRULY MAD.

http://www.mydd.com/outlook/president

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2153657

[fob]

22. their clients are in the top 2% in terms of wealth

This is what I don't get, under Clinton, these 2%ers paid a bit more and got exponentially more on their returns than the direct cuts of bush*y has put in their pockets. Why do they still cling to the fucked up way?

[zbdent]

25. Are any of these people the same ones who predicted

the Clinton Recession due to the budget act of 1993?

And said that Bush's tax cuts would turn the economic slowdown of 2001 into a thriving economy?