[ Posted Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 – 17:09 UTC ]
The stock market is now officially in bear market territory. Thus endeth the longest bull market in history, which lasted for the 11 years from just after the Great Recession's end until now. For those unfamiliar with the terms, the "bear market" designation is defined as: "losing 20 percent from the market's peak." Less than a month ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 29,500. Today it closed right around 23,500 -- a loss of roughly 6,000 points. And we may not have hit bottom, although with the current volatility it's tough to tell.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 15:39 UTC ]
Nobody, it seems, has come up with a name for today's round of primaries that is catchy enough so that everyone starts universally using it. Some call it Mini Tuesday, some call it Super Tuesday II, but no matter what you call it, the time has come once again to toss our darts at the wall in an effort to try to predict the outcome of the six races being run today in the 2020 Democratic primary race.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, March 6th, 2020 – 18:09 UTC ]
The stock market is crashing daily, a pandemic is sweeping America, a tornado in Tennessee just killed two dozen people, so of course First Lady Melania Trump decided to reassure the public with a message designed to calm people in these perilous times. The message? Don't worry, everyone -- the construction of the new White House tennis pavilion was still on track. No, seriously -- you just can't make this stuff up. She even donned a hard hat (in order to look fabulous) while making this tone-deaf announcement.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, March 4th, 2020 – 17:57 UTC ]
The 2020 Democratic presidential nominating contest is ending as it began. If you look at the polling over the entire course of the race so far, Joe Biden led almost from beginning to end. Up until the voting actually started, Biden was the clear favorite to win the nomination. Indeed, there really was only one other candidate -- out of a total field of 29, mind you -- that showed the strength to even be competitive with the former vice president, and that was Bernie Sanders. Bernie held onto second place in the polling pretty consistently, and this remained almost unchanged from beginning to end. Only one other candidate ever even rose into the ranks Bernie and Joe occupied, but while Elizabeth Warren enjoyed a big spike upwards (briefly snatching first place away from Biden), it almost immediately fell back to where she was really only challenging Sanders for second place. For all the media swooning over this candidate or that (this week it's Beto... no, no, it's Mayor Pete... wait, Kamala's looking pretty good!... hey, how about Amy's debate performance?), none of them ever saw their poll ratings live up to the lavish attention bestowed upon them by the media. The entire race, from even before Biden announced right up until the Iowa caucuses, was really one between only Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Which is where we now find ourselves, once again.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020 – 14:49 UTC ]
Welcome back again for our continuing series where we attempt to pick the winners of all the 2020 Democratic primary contests. This is really the second part of a two-part article, as yesterday I discussed at length the shifting nature of the contest after three of the moderate candidates dropped out (Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar). Today we're going to forego the "big picture" analysis altogether and just dive right in to the state-by-state predictions.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, March 2nd, 2020 – 18:21 UTC ]
A week ago, I wrote an article about what I considered the most important upcoming factor in the Democratic presidential race, which was who would drop out and when would they do it. That question is now at least partially answered, as the third candidate since South Carolina voted has just officially exited the race. This leaves four major candidates (and Tulsi Gabbard) still in the race. But how the loss of Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar will affect Super Tuesday is really anyone's guess at this point -- which makes predicting the outcomes a lot harder.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, February 28th, 2020 – 17:55 UTC ]
File this one under: "If I doesn't laugh, I thinks I'm gonna cry!"
President Donald Trump, that noted stable genius, apparently has the answer to the coronavirus. Here's how an article in today's Washington Post began:
Trump administration officials are holding preliminary conversations about economic responses to the coronavirus, as the stock market fell sharply again on Friday amid international fears about the outbreak, according to five people with knowledge of the planning.
Among the options being considered are pursuing a targeted tax cut package, these people said.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, February 27th, 2020 – 17:25 UTC ]
Since my election forecast dominated last Friday's column, I've decided to post my picks for South Carolina early this week, to free up the format for tomorrow. Also, I sincerely doubt that one more day of polling is going to change my mind about any of these picks, so I feel it's pretty safe to put them out there a day early.
South Carolina will be the final of the first four states to vote, and Super Tuesday will follow almost immediately thereafter. Which brings up a technical note. Up until now, due to the breadth of the field, I've been posting my picks for the top five slots. But by now, I think that fourth- and fifth-place finishes are going to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, so I'm only going to pick the top three for South Carolina, and then only try to pick the winner of each state from Super Tuesday forward. Squabbling about who came in second versus third is going to become all but meaningless as we move deeper into the primary calendar, mostly because people will be much more focused on the total delegate count.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, February 25th, 2020 – 22:08 UTC ]
Welcome back again to another of our post-debate snap-reactions columns. Tonight was the tenth in the continuing series of Democratic presidential debates, moderated this time by CBS. When they woke up and remembered to, I should say, because at several extended times during the night I thought the moderators had completely left the room for a coffee break. It certainly seemed that way, since the candidates just engaged in a free-for-all shouting match where it was impossible to hear what any one of them had to say. This wasn't an isolated incident, it happened over and over again. And the moderators either were too timid to even try to, you know, moderate the discussion, or they were just flat-out incapable of doing so. Or, as I said, perhaps they had all ducked out for a few moments in the hallway.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, February 24th, 2020 – 18:18 UTC ]
Bernie Sanders emerged from the Nevada caucuses as the man to beat in the Democratic presidential nomination race. He is now the lone frontrunner, having outpaced Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden by significant margins. In fact, he is now positioned to become almost unstoppable, should he do well in South Carolina and, more importantly, on Super Tuesday. The question for those who would stop Bernie is now a very stark one, because it basically boils down to which candidates will quit, and how soon they'll bow out.
Read Complete Article »
