Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Personal Finance, Economics and Investing

A popular topic in the blogosphere, given new life after comments by Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, is the relative success of the United States vs. the states that make up the European Union. The European Union is a loose confederation of 27 countries in Europe, ranging from Spain to Estonia. Krugman goes so far to suggest that “[y]ou should always bear in mind that when the question is which to believe — official economic statistics or your own lying eyes — the eyes have it.”

Inspired by Ironman’s Political Calculations post on Many Eyes and a visualization on that site, I decided to try to visualize the 2010 Senate election in Massachusetts. Using the tools at the site and data from the Boston Globe, I present four visualizations (by town): the voter turnout decrease in 2010 from the 2008 Presidential elections, the Republican margin of victory by town in 2008 and 2010, and the Republican vote swing from 2008 to 2010.

The results are counted, and it’s an upset in Massachusetts. Republican Scott Brown because the first Republican elected in a Massachusetts Senate seat since 1972. He defeated the state Attorney General, Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, 52% to 47% (the remaining 1% went to Independent candidate Joseph Kennedy). A whopping 2,249,026 votes were cast out of a registered voter base of 4,220,488 for a very high (53.3%) special election turnout in the light snow.

We’re a week closer to a potential upset in the special Massachusetts senate race (scheduled for voting tomorrow). The last 4 polling companies that have weighed in (according to Real Clear Politics data) come in at +10, +5, +10 and +3 Brown, and were all conducted since 1/14. These polls generally estimate a larger than normal turnout for a special election; only two candidates are on the ballot and there aren’t any initiatives to vote on. They also suggest slightly positive ratings for President Obama among likely voters, although potentially under 50 percent.

From the twilight zone department: various polls put Scott Brown, Republican challenger for the special election for Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat in Massachusetts, within striking distance of the Democratic favorite, Martha Coakley. Public Policy Polling yesterday released a poll suggesting a statistical dead heat in the race, while Rasmussen released poll results on January 4th showing Coakley with a 50% – 41% edge. The Boston Globe, however, counters with a poll showing likely voters leaning 53% to 36% towards Coakley – more in line with historical results in Massachusetts.

Is Journalism, as suggested by the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson, dying a slow death? Or is Mr. Gerson simply being melodramatic? The issue boils down to how you define journalism. If journalism- in the mold of the traditional magazine and newspaper journalism- is dying, is that the end of news? Tough questions, for sure, but what is the goal of media? To train journalists?

What’s wrong with taxing individuals making over $200,000 and couples making over $250,000? Nothing, if you are honest about what is really going on. The health care plan in the senate would mean new taxes for ‘rich’ folks in these tax brackets. Worse still? It doesn’t account for inflation in this calculation. What follows is a calculated tax which, like the Alternative Minimum Tax, will slowly creep into the middle class as inflation starts to show up again.

So, here we are: Thursday, October 29, 2009, nearing the end of a large recession. We appear to be in the midst of a jobless recovery- unemployment shows no signs of abatement, and is poised to cross 10% soon. Naturally, after something bad happens, it’s natural to try to blame something. A common scapegoat for the financial crisis is the venerable Big Bank CEO. Were these CEOs were so greedy that they leveraged the entire economy into the Great Recession? Allow me to speak in their defense, then you can go back to protesting against them.

A classic quote on government regulation by the Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman.

Now up… a timely report from the Tax Foundation on corporate tax rates in select world economies. This year has seen quite a few corporate tax rates cuts in countries such as Canada and Sweden. The United States remains stubbornly high on the list of countries with the most oppressive tax regimes. In fact, the United States is number two. The only country with higher taxes is Japan, who recently gave us a new meaning to the phrase “lost decade”.