Electoral Math

At this point, most of the answers are already known for the 2012 election.  

Obama will get at least 240 electoral votes and Romney at least 200 electoral votes.  They need 270 electoral votes to win.

Right now, it is pretty much impossible for Romney to win UNLESS he gets Florida (29 electoral votes)    But getting Florida is not enough to give Romney a win.   He also needs to get either Ohio (18) and any two state, or Virginia (13)  and three states (or Virginia and Ohio and one other state).

So once again, the nation's future may depend on Florida's votes. 

In addition to Florida, Ohio and Virginia, the other swing states are Nevada (6), Colorado (9), Iowa (6) and New Hampshire (4).   

Oh, the GOP wishes that Wisconsin (10), Michigan (16, Pennsylvanian (20) and New Mexico (5) were up for grabs.  But similarly, the DNC wishes that Arizona (11), Missouri (10), Indiana (11) and North Carolina (15) were up for grabs.   But those are all unlikely at this late date.   More importantly, anything big enough to move those states would also move Florida, Ohio and Virginia.    

 Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania went DNC for all three of the last presidential elections, and New Mexico only went GOP for Bush's second term.  Similarly, Arizona and Missouri went GOP for all three of the last elections, while Indiana and North Carolina did vote Obama, they usually went GOP.   Given current polls, those states are not going to move.  Indiana and North Carolina are regretting voting for Obama as much as New Mexico regrets voting for Bush.   

If I were the GOP, I would spend 30% of my cash in Florida.   Without that state, they get nothing.  Then about 15% in Virginia and 15% in Ohio.  Spend 5%  in each of Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire.  That leaves 10% total to be spent  shoring up the Arizona, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina, and New Mexico and the remaining 10% total in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.   Let the SuperPacs spend general money throughout the other states.

Most importantly, if the the GOP is smart they will get a Floridian as their VP.  Rubio is the best shot (I repeat, Rubio is the scariest men in the GOP - he could win in 2016).  Double whammy - Floridian and Hispanic.  Jeb Bush is another possibility.

The Democrats are a lot harder to predict.  They could just dump a crap load of cash into Florida - 50% of it.  Then problem is that money can backfire - or worse.  But I would spend 20% in each of the the three top states:  Florida, Ohio and Virginia.  Another 5% each in Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire.  Again, leaving 10% to shore up their Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, with another 10% to try for wild shots in Arizona, Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina.  Other states get only the Super Pac money.

Now, my own personal prediction is that if Obama wins, it is going to be another landslide.  He won't just get barely enough to win (Florida).  Instead he will get all the swings states (Florida, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada.  Over 330 electoral votes.  He might even get Indiana or North Carolina.  Why?  Because lots of states are on the 'tipping point'.   When you have multiple states on the edge, then little things will push most of them one way or the other.

But if Romney wins, it will be a closer call.  He will win with less than 300 electoral votes.  Most probably with Florida, Ohio, Virgina   If things turn a little bad, it could be just enough to push just the swing states.  It doesn't have to be big enough to push all the others.

Also note, it is just barely possible to get a tie.  For example, if Obama gets Colorado and Virginia, but loses every other swing state, then we get a tie.

Note, just because the states tie, doesn't mean the electoral college ties.  It is legal for the electors to vote 'the wrong way' in 24 states, including New Hampshire and Iowa.  In the other states, they are legally bound - BY STATE LAW to vote that way.  But in only two of the states do violations 'cancel the vote'.  In Washington Stae they only pay a $1000 fine.  In New Mexico, it's a fourth degree felony - he goes to jail, but his vote STANDS.

Assuming the electoral college is tied, that means the House elects the President (one vote per state, which makes it Republican by and the Senate elects the Vice President.  

But not all House representatives get a vote.  Each state gets a single vote.   The single vote is by majority of the representatives.  If a state is split 50/50 then they get no vote.  To win, you need a majority of the votes cast, not a majority of the possible votes cast.

We have 50 States and the nature of our country has several with few people.  The system of each state getting the same vote helps states with small populations at the expense of states with
large populations.  This means it will go Republican,  by a vote of about 35 to 13 (two tied states), using today's representatives.  I doubt it would change all that much after the election.  

All of which means, baring a major upset in many congressional races, the tie goes to Republicans.

P.S.  It would be the New Congress that makes the vote, not the existing one.  That is, we vote in November for both President and Congress.  Come December they confirm a tie - after massive re-checking of votes in every swing state.  Then in the first week of January, the new congress meets and votes on who the President will be.   But that is unlikely to matter - it would take a massive Democrat uprising to change the situation in the House.  The GOP would win.

Lessons from Comic Books - both valid and invalid.

When I was a young child, I hated to read.  My father, a brilliant psychiatrist, knew that comic books encouraged reading, and introduced me to them (in direct refutation of that idiot's Wertham's false hypothesis).

As my father knew would happen, by introducing me to comics, he created a voracious reader.   I began with comics, then, as my reading skills improved, I moved on to books.

From my long experience with comics, I noticed two distinct trends in them.  One is an accurate reflection of the world, the other is false.

The most common weakness for a villain to have is arrogance.  The most obvious situation is assuming that of course your trap is inescapable, so you can leave the good guys alone.  But it happens all the time.

The most common weakness for a hero is to be excessively good.   Superman is famous for it.  They refuse to kill the bad guy, let alone risk killing the victims.  They will let the bad guy escape just because he threatens to kill someone else.   Oh, they usually catch the bad guys in the end, but only after he has gained some kind of advantage by threatening to kill a victim.


One of these ideas is true.  The other is blatantly false.

Take a second to think about it.  Done yet?


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spoiler alert
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Villains are arrogant.  Read/listen to anything a North Korean 'leader' has ever wrote/said.   But the good guys are not soft hippies that refuse to kill.

In the real world, the good guys are just as strong, just as violent as the bad guys.  The Navy Seals didn't hunt down Bin Laden and ask him to please come with them - they shot him dead without even asking him to surrender.

They did this under a liberal president and he congratulated them for doing a good job.

But at first they lied about it.  They tried to claim Bin Laden had a weapon.  Why?  Because they believed the comic book 'goody two shoes weakness' and were scared they would get in trouble with the liberal President if they just killed the terrorist.  They were wrong.

The good guys are not weak.  We don't refuse to kill.   We do it, and we do it well.  With no less compunction than the bad guys.

The difference is not what we do but why we do it.

And that my friends is all the difference in the world.   It is not what you do that distinguishes you from the bad guys but why you do it.   Why changes who you do it to.  Why changes when you do it.

It's why the fictional character Dexter Morgan is the protagonist  instead of having everyone root for him to be captured.  Despite having occasionally killed an innocent man or two, most of the time he is trying to kill the bad guys because they are bad guys.

The truth is that in the real world, the good guys are more like Dexter Morgan than Super Man.

Cops, soldiers, and yes, politicians, are not weak willed wimps.  Not the conservatives and not the Liberals.

Capitalism and chronic tough jobs to fill.

I am a capitalist.  No if's, and's or buts.

Under capitalism, there should never be a prolonged period where a single job type is hard to fill.  Let's call this type of situation an "under-filled' job.   When this happens for an extended period of time (more than 4 years) in a capitalistic society, three things should occur.

1. Salaries (including benefits) should go up, attracting more people.  Right away this delays retirement, and causes people with similar jobs to shift into the under-filled jobs.  At worst, after four years, newly trained people should start to show up at a greater rate, as more people choose to study those skills because of the greater pay rates.
2. The job should be come more specialized with extra support.  That is, if you are a nurse, then suddenly you get an administrative assistant to fill out the paperwork.   Think of is outsourcing from the high skill to low skilled.  Note, this has limits, particularly at the high end.
3. People move to under-filled areas.

 Recently the Manpower Group, released a survey of the hardest jobs to fill.

They also let you look back over the past seven years.  An interesting trend results.  Sales Representative is the only job that was present for all seven years.  They get paid per a percentage of sales.  The nature of their pay means that it doesn't make sense to pay them more.   But it does mean their jobs should be subdivided.  I.E.  Each Sales Representative should get more sales assistants.   This could both make their jobs easier to do, and also act as training for more sales representatives.

The fact that this hasn't happened demonstrates two things:  A) The market is not perfect, it takes time to change the structure.  B)  In particular, their are inefficiencies in sales that need to be addressed.  This is an opportunity for some bright eyed kid who comes up with a better way to sell things.

Next, were the three jobs that were under filled in six of the past seven years:  Engineers, Drivers, and Machinists.  Driver stands out as the least skilled job and lowest salary.  The problem is it is fairly easy to do but no one wants to keep the job.  It's a harsh job and they don't pay people enough to do it.  Literally.  That's why they need drivers.  But the various driver-less robot controlled car technology may very well make that job vanish in the next 10 years, otherwise I would be telling everyone to start paying their drivers more money.

Engineers and Machinists require much more skill.  It isn't that hard to raise their salary and frankly, I see no reason not to.  Not everyone can do these highly skilled jobs and f you can't hire one, that just means you are not paying them enough.  Raise their salaries.  Similar story for accounting and Technicians.

But Teachers, Nurses, IT Staff and Management positions were all under-filled in 4 out of the past 7 years.   Teachers have an issue with bad planning on school.  Really, do we really need to have all the kids take vacation at the same time?   Yeah, people like summers off - so do Computer Programers, but our boss isn't moronic enough to shut down the business for 3 months in a year.   Stagger the schedules, give some kids off summers, others winters, other spring, others fall.   Make it a condition of getting into the "elite magnet" schools that they have start in May, rather than September.  Teaching itself is a tough job - you need to expect high turnover in troubled schools - and pay people MORE to teach there.  


Nurses don't get paid enough.  Quite simple, people think of them as 'less' than doctors, and so refuse to pay them as much as doctors.  Forget that crap.  A good nurse is worth more than a bad doctor.

As for IT and management, they both suffer have a strange problem.  It's not about being trained, but about experience.  Worse, often the experience desired don't exist.   The worse cases are people asking for 10 years of experience for a field that was invented 9 years ago.  But even if it was invented 11 years ago, very few people got involved in the first year.   Frankly, when you ask for more than 2 years experience for technology that is under six years old, you are being unreasonable.  You should be training from within your company for that kind of job.   Otherwise, you have to pay a HUGE premium to hire away the only guy with the experience you want from the job he has and likes.   Similar issues occur with management, although not as obvious.  Everyone wants the top management jobs, but they have crappy standards for hiring - they want people with a proven track record - those people have jobs and want a lot of money.  Hire from within and train to fill the job for half the price.

But my main point is that capitalism is not a quick answer.  It takes three times as long to wait for the invisible hand of the market to fix something as is reasonable.  Mainly because it takes takes people as much time to notice a problem is real as it would to fix it, then that same amount of time again to convince people to fix the problem.

Capitalism does eventually fix things - but it takes way too long to do it.  It's why we need government to help things out.

What could government do? Not much for Sales Reps.  But we could offer special discounts for people getting engineering degrees and more X-Prizes for driver-less cars.  We can

Just War?

In a black and white world, with no shades of gray, every single war would be a "Just War".

Either the attacker was justified in attacking the target because they were  a viscous, evil, nazi/slave owner/raping/ etc.  monstrous country, - or the defender is justified in defending themselves against the viscous, evil, monstrous invader.  Either way, one side is in the right, making it a just war.

But the real world has shades of gray (not to mention glorious colors).  As such, you have situations where one side does some vicious things that are not quite as worth invading.  That, pretend for a second that a country's evilness could be measured to a tiny level.  At 10, they are evil, and invading them is just, at 0.00, they are saints, and defending them is just.   At 10 or  0, the answer is obvious.  Even at 9  or  1 , it is obvious.  Around 8 or 2, and a tiny bit of doubt creeps in, but the the war is just.  But at 5, neither side has a just war, nor at 6 or 4.   You could make an argument about 7 or 3 either way.


Most people recognize that World Word II was a just war.   Germany and Japan, did some horrible things.   Let's ignore Japan, and do some re-writing.   (Germany was a clear 10, on evilness, while Japan was closer to an 8.5.)

What if Germany did everything except invade other countries?  They still rounded up people and sent them to concentration camps, but did not invade Austria, Poland, France, etc.  Would that be enough to justify invading them?  There are several countries like that today. They probably would be around 7 or an 8 then.

What if they invade other countries, but didn't do the concentration camp?  Well, it's hard to do that as your occupied people revolt.   But let's say you managed to do that.  It might be possible if you picked your war carefully - like say Turkey invading Syria.  That would make them a  clear 8.  


The truth is rarely black and white, it is a world of grey.   Therein lies the problem.  When your country does something evil, but not as bad as war, then invading it is not just, but neither is defending it.

Worse, when dealing with shades of gray, by definition there is no clear line demarcating anything.  You can't say "They measure 7.4 the evil scale, so it isn't just to invade, but if they hit 8 , it suddenly becomes just."

It is a gradual thing.  Which means there are not only "Just Wars", there are also "mostly Just Wars", and "kind of Just Wars", as well as "Not Just War."

In my personal experience, the current conditions in North Korea have pretty well demonstrated that the Korean War was a just war.   Their government continues to act in arbitrary and monstrous manners - recently they killed 30 dissident officials and pretended they died in car accidents source,

But , the state of Vietnam right now means the Vietnam War was NOT a just war - on either side.  Since 1986, Vietnam has slowly abandoned communism and moved towards a socialist oriented market economy. But it is till a fairly dictatorial country - albeit a relatively benevolent dictatorship - and has avoided the insanity that still grips North Korea.   As such, their government, although not democratic is demonstrably only a bit evil.  Which means neither their attack nor defending against them was truly a Just War.

But part of the issue is we could only really tell both of those things through the benefit of hindsight.  It was NOT obvious back in 1950's that North Korea was far more evil than North Vietnam.  They looked, talked and acted quite a lot alike, at least to outsiders.  They both embraced communism, they both embraced one party dictatorships, they both were supported by China and the USSR.


It is very hard to judge the minds of men - to see if they are reasonable or unreasonable, particularly when fools continue to think that they can get more by claiming to be unreasonable.  When people think they can get more by being unreasonable, they are shocked, and appalled to learn that your opponent refuses to give them anything at all.  (i.e. GOP congressional gridlock).  In the case of war, they are shocked and appalled that you dared to invade them simply because they said they were going to conquer you.  That was the rhetoric of communism back in the 50's and 60's.

Which brings us to the next question - what if the country portrays themselves as an 8, but is actually just a 7?  Would attacking them be a just war?  They are still a 7 on the scale of evil.  The country that attacks thought they were taking on an 8.  This is at heart what the US did during the second Iraq War.  Iraq said they had more weapons of mass destruction but they didn't.  

This situation is not new, countries have been lying about their intentions and capabilities for millenia.

But it is also a core reason why we have 'unjust wars'.    It is too hard to judge exactly how evil people are.

NYC's Big Gulp Ban

Bloomberg wants to ban all 'sugary' drinks larger than 16 oz at events (sports, movies, etc.)

First of all, they could still sell you 32 oz, but they have to sell it in two cops.

Secondly, note that this is a LOCAL law, not a federal law.   Like most abusive laws, this is a local/state law.   It is the STATES that create these crappy laws, not the Federal government.

Why does he want to do this inane law?  Drinkable calories are far more likely to make your fat.  But he has forgotten a basic fact:  IT IS LEGAL TO BE FAT.

More importantly, the proper way to discourage people from doing something is not to put in abusive manipulative laws designed to make it harder to do.  Instead you tax it.   That's what we do with cigarettes and alcohol.   So just slam a 50 cents  tax on the sale of more than 16 oz of soda at 'events'.   This does several things.

First, it stops the abusive "you get twice the soda for a quarter more" stupidity that movies use.  That bullshit was actually just a way to excuse charging you only a quarter less for half the soda.  Which the movies would change to "a free second soda of the same type for just a quarter more"

Second, it works just as well a discouragement as the annoying 'buy two sodas' technique. 

Third, it actually RAISES money for the city, something it always needs.

Banking Regulation Done Right!

There is an article of faith among conservatives that banking can't be regulated.   They theorize that no matter what laws you pass, there will always be some smart, unethical genius that will find a loophole.

But this is wrong.  Fundamentally wrong.  Their logic depends upon assuming regulation is "negative regulation".  That is, the regulations tell you what you can't do.  "No buying junk mortgages",  "No betting on horses", etc.   Then of course,  lobbyists and congress put in lots of exceptions.   Then these exceptions get abused or someone finds something new (or convinces people it is new) and abuse begins again.

But we don't have to do 'negative regulations'.  Instead put in place a system of positive regulation.  That is tell banks what they are allowed to do rather than what they can't do.  Anything not on the approved list can't be done by the bank - but bank owned subsidiaries can do (as long as their are legal protections that prevent the bank from being fiscally responsible for the subsidiaries' debts.)  If someone truly invents something new it is by law automatically prohibited. 

This will practically (not perfectly), end all banking crisis. Here is what the bank would be allowed to do - and no more:

1. Accept money and securities  that others own  -paying interest or other reasonable considerations in exchange for the right to loan it out (see #3 below).
2. The bank itself may own, purchase or accept as collateral property: debt, stock or other securities approved by the SEC for sale that do not under any circumstance require the owner to provide additional monetary support (not even stock options). 
3. It can loan out anything it owns or a customer owns (and has given permission to loan out in rule 1) to other customers.
4. Act as Agent (not broker-dealer) and accept fees for assisting customers.  The bank has a legal fiduciary obligation to give the best possible advice to said customers.   They act as agent, NEVER as dealer (i.e. own something and sell it to their clients).
5. In order to sell anything they own, they must hire an Agent.   This agent can not use the bank's property (intellectual or physical) for advertising purposes.  No mailings to the bank's customers, no brochures on the bank property, etc.  No 'advantage' at all to the bank's customers.  The bank is not in the business of selling things to their clients, as this presents a conflict of interest, so it must hire other people to do so.
6. Own subsidiaries that have limited liability (protecting the bank), that are not subject to any of the above rules.

They would be legally forbidden from engaging in any truly risky behavior.  If they want to do other things, they can, but only through  a subsidiary that specifically limited liability.  That is, if the subsidiary goes bankrupt, the bank would not have to cover it's losses.


If the bank tries to violate these laws, any contracts they made that violated them is declared null and void.   The people that signed those contracts would be subject to prison terms of no less than 2 years in jail, prevented from ever working for a bank again, and the contract is null and void. The court should do it's best to undo the trade but under no circumstances does the bank owe more money.


This system has multiple advantages.  First, it protects the banks from stupid risks.  They can't take on unlimited risks, only their subsidiaries can.   This prevents those risks from bankrupting the banks.

Second, it lets the banks invest their money in risky things - but only through owned subsidiaries.  They can pump any money that is not needed for their banking operations into the subsidiaries and do the funky investments there, as opposed to risking their customer's money.

They All Look Alike To Me.

There is a well known phenomena called "out group homogeneity effect".  Basically it means you can't tell the difference (homogeneity = look the same) between two members of another race (out group), even though members of that group can easily tell the difference.

This phenomena happens because the real differences within any group is relatively small, compared to those outside the group.  That is WHY they are a group.   Chinese people do look a lot more like each other then they look like Swedish people.

But the human mind is flexible - we need to be able to distinguish between people we know.  So if we are surrounded by Chinese people as a young child, we learn to distinguish them.  The same skill can be learned later as an adult, but it takes a lot more work.

In effect, it is not strange that they all look alike, but it is strange that you can tell the difference between your own group.  It is a specialized skill you learned as a child.  You see, it's NOT an outgroup homogeneity insensitivity.  In reality it is an INGROUP difference sensitivity.

We become hypersensitive to differences within our group.   This is something innately human.   It is how we learned to tell the difference between poisonous food and very similar non-poisonous food.

Now for the political ramifications.   It doesn't just apply to faces.   It also applies to politics.   We become hypersensitive to relatively minor differences and think they are big.

President Obama is practically identical to Mitt Romney on most issues. As per Political Compass, Ron Paul is the only substantially different presidential candidate.   We all know Ron Paul is "out there", but that just means that Barack Obama is NOT out there.

It's not just about about presidential candidates, it's about basic politics.  ObamaCare is based on RomneyCare.  You don't do that when you have real differences in politics.    The Democrats and the GOP are basically very similar groups, with relatively slight differences.

Both sides tend to exaggerate what differences exist.  They need to do that to generate support.

But we can easily recognize that they are all pretty much the same, with minor differences.

Note, minor differences DO matter.   There is a huge difference between spending no money on Planned Parenthood and spending a reasonable amount.  But the real difference is whether we arrest and send women/doctors to jail over abortion - and neither party will let that happen again.